genius

Uni kept her a little too busy. She was still undecided as far as what she would specialize in so her courses were more than a little varied. “I wouldn’t mind a day or relaxing. You can catch me up on everything you’ve done since Hogwarts. It’s been way too long since us Lions have hung out.”

“Everything I’ve done since Hogwarts isn’t much.” She grumbled before perking up. “I mean unless you count the research I’ve been doing.” Her research was tiring and often deprived her of her sleep but it was something she was really interested in. “To be honest, Ares has been elusive. Niles is sometimes too much to handle you’ve been at Uni and Harriet has been MIA. She’s my best friend and I’ve gotten a sporadic text at best.”

“I wouldn’t dream of thinking so,” He assured, clearing his throat lest he laugh instead. “I won’t tell anyone else. Your studies are safe with me and I truly hope you learn a lot from them.” Tyler had a lot of questions about memories, things he’d wanted to know for a long time but some he wasn’t sure he wanted answers to. “That’ll be 1 Galleon, 2 Sickles, please.”

Reyna swung the drawstring back off her back to rummage through it. Of course all the magical money she had sunk to the bottom of her bag. “You’d let me know though if you know someone with a pensieve? If all fails, I might attempt to build one myself, but that’ll require understanding the charm work and spells attached to one.” Damn, she was gonna give her self a headache. “Can I add a pepperup potion as well as something for a headache?” She fished out the coins and went back in for more since apparently, her list was growing. “You know what the wizarding world needs? Coupons.”

Studying penieves. It did sound interesting, while there were plenty of things about his own life he’d rather forget, the idea of being able to peer into other people’s was fascinating. “No, I don’t have one.” He was sure that anyone who did wouldn’t just blurt it out to anyone that asked but regardless, he didn’t, if he did he’d no doubt he doing his own research on it. He turned back to the shelves and located the motion sickness potion a moment later, carefully pulling two vials from their place before he turned back to put them on the counter. “Testing magic that involves memory is… ambitious.” What he meant to say was risky but he didn’t want to sound patronising, he was fully aware that given the opportunity to study one he would go through with it regardless, he wouldn’t try and warn someone off from doing the same. “I hope you find one, I don’t believe it’ll be easy but that’s not to say it shouldn’t be pursued. If you do find a legitimate one and you ever want to talk about your research, it’s something I’d be interested in learning about.” More than he could put into words

She tried not to show her disappointment on her face, instead, she fiddled with her necklace and focused on the compliment. “Just because I’m a Gryffindor doesn’t mean I’m not ambitious. But I’m sure you understand that. If I find one you’ll definitely be the first. I’m surprised I even told you this much, you’ll never get me to shut up now that I’ve started.” She tapped along the counter again. “What do I own you for motion sickness potions?”

“Our story is straight-has been straight, it’s not like we’re doing anything scandalous. Or more scandalous than we were doing in school.” Niles smirked while he thumbed through some of the music. “Besides, Gil and I aren’t exclusive. I care for Gil and Gil cares about me, but we’re both free to see other people too.”

Reyna raised an eyebrow. “Oh, so if you’re both free to see other people, do you? Cause I gotta admit, I don’t see you with many people.”

Huh. Tyler didn’t quite understand how she didn’t know, surely if you were purchasing some form of medication you knew what for. “Playing Quidditch and apparition are quite different, riding a broom is truly a form of motion sickness as you’re constantly in motion but the queasy feeling following apparition isn’t strictly motion sickness and those symptoms should really pass with exposure but I could still give you something to manage the temporary symptoms.” As he spoke he turned around to the shelves behind the desk and began scanning them for the potion in question regardless- she’d asked so he’d get them. Then she mentioned a pensieve and he paused, turning back towards her with his brows raised. “Pensieve are not easy to come by, hardly something you could just stumble across, even if they did cause such motion sickness.”

Reyna sighed before laying her upper body onto the counter and burying her head in her arms with a groan. Everything fun had exciting had so many obstacles. She lifted her head and grumbled, “I want to learn more about them, I need to find one and mess around with it a bit. Test it and learn more about them. The amount of testing might make me sick and sure I might be skipping a step but at least it’s a step in some direction while I wait out some responses about pensieves. Do you have a pensieve?”

“Why do you say that?” He asked while casually leaning over, using his thumb to brush the smear of melting cream from her cheek, sucking the ice cream from his thumb before he continued, “You’re not wrong. Pick up any fashion magazine from the last 18 years and you’ll see it’s just the three of us at home.”

“If you think I’m spending my breaks reading fashion magazines you are sorely mistaken.” She said with a smirk. “But yes, I know you’re an only child. This only solidifies it for me. Do you know how hard it is to get kids to share anything? In my family, it was always a quick grab for what you wanted then my mom or dad would put a timer on and we’d get that item for whatever amount of time they decided and then we’d switch it up. You gotta be quick. Sure parents preach about sharing between multiple kids but my sharing is probably different than yours.” Being the only daughter in her family with three brothers for ten years her life left an impression on her. 

“It’s not a love shack. Gil and I live together, it saves money and if sometimes we end up sharing a bed or the shower-” He shrugged and turned to Reyna to look her in the eyes. Reyna had a tendency to try and read further into things, why not be extremely straight forward to cut that off at the knees. “Sleeping together means we save money on heating during the night and showers mean we’re saving on water.” Admitting he cared whether Gil made it home safe after class or making more food throughout the day for her or bringing whatever he could home didn’t mean he wouldn’t do that for anyone else he lived with. It wasn’t a love shack.

Reyna giggled into a record that she brought up to hide them. “Next time I see Gil, I’m gonna ask her. You two have your stories straight?”

“It’s quite good.” Meredith ordered their teas so hopefully they would be ready soon. “Yeah none of it makes sense. And it’s not like they were part of the attack or at least I can’t imagine they were. I believe he’s going to be physically okay. I can’t imagine the mental scars after something like that. I’m still baffled by it all. It just feels like the world is going further and further into chaos.”

“Nothing to do with being a woman, I’m not too fussy about who cleans me up, I’d certainly return the favour.” Isaac was far from fussy. When Reyna stole his ice cream- that he had offered only part of out of the pure goodness of his heart- Isaac shook his head, scoffing as he did so. “Real cute. Did no one teach you how to share growing up?”

Reyna raised an eyebrow even with a smear of ice cream on her cheek from when she turned her head back to Isaac at his ludicrous statement. “You must be an only child.”

“Do you mind if I enquire how the motion sickness came about?” When he was working, his brain tended to work a mile a minute, he was not even a 10th of the way through all the books available for him to read here but he was learning a lot and the more he learnt the more eager he was to put any knowledge he had to good use. Motion sickness was a tricky one, potions could generally lessen the sickness itself but Tyler was convinced that with the right combination of ingredients it could be prevented altogether. Smiling at the compliment, Tyler gave a grateful nod but added softly, “Thank you but I’m just doing my job.”

“You’re asking why I have motion sickness? Maybe I’ve always had motion sickness and hid it well while playing quidditch.” She said with a raised eyebrow and shook her head because that didn’t even make sense to her. “Or maybe, I’ve decided to get my apparition license and heard from friends that sometimes they’ve experienced motion sickness with it.” Honestly, maybe she should be honest trying to find information without knowing where to start looking for answers was hard. Who better to ask than the man who essentially lived in the library. “Or maybe, I’ve been looking for a Pensieve and information on them. If the little I know about them is true, it can be jarring.”

“Well if you like herbal then I recommend their hibiscus. I’m a fan of their earl grey personally.” Meredith always tried to stay up to date though her parents wished she hadn’t. They used to try to hide any prophets that had terrible news in them away from her but Mer just found different ways to get her hands on the news. “Some awful people attacked Jamie Heath but the prophet says they were probably planning to attack Thomas Siddall instead.”

Reyna typically enjoyed chai tea or earl grey but it was time to try something new. “Hibiscus sounds exotic, I think I’ll have that.” She put her menu back down and turn all of her attention to Meredith. “When? Last night? It was a full moon. They thought they could take down a werewolf on a full moon and then when they second-guessed themselves, they attacked his partner? That just doesn’t make sense. Is Jamie okay?”

“Good. I’m glad you’re being safe,” Gil smiled, swinging their hands between them and then pulling her in for a tight hug. Gil was an only child, but between muggle boarding school and Hogarts, she had always been surrounded by friends. Graduating was hard now that she didn’t wake up every day to Reyna’s sleep talking. “I missed having you around. Make sure you come visit your friends every once in a while.”

Reyna smiled while she was smothered with love from this hug. “I’d invite you over to my flat, you and Harriet but I don’t know how Orion would react. Or where Harriet’s off to this week.”

Isaac lived to flirt, to many people’s annoyance and to many mores delight. “We can’t all have our wits about us all the time.” Isaac shrugged, taking a moment to transfigure the unused napkin he had on hand into a second spoon, which he offered with a smile. “Shame, you could’ve helped clean me up.”

Reyna rolled her eyes. “Oh, what a shame. My life purpose as a woman is to clean up after men. Whatever am I supposed to do with no mess to clean up?” She teased and plucked the ice cream from his hands as well as the offered spoon. “Look at that, I found a new life purpose.” She said eyeing the ice cream before licking her lips exaggeratedly and hummed around a spoonful of ice cream.