#charlottemaddock

Danny stood up as quickly as he could at the sound of footsteps down the hall. He was just waking from his nap, so he hadn’t gotten around to annoying the fuck out of the cops with his singing for a few hours. The anti-magic barrier was only a good idea until you couldn’t silencio someone in the holding cell. Even then, Danny knew his rights.

“Hey—HEY!” Danny called out to the figure walking by. He wasn’t sure if she were walking in his direction, but any attention was probably better than no attention. “What the fuck is going on?”

Julian hadn’t been conscious for very long and he found that very strange. It had been about ten – or eleven – days since Roxanne’s birthday. That was how he reconciled it in his head; he never said he was attacked ten or eleven days ago even though it felt like it happened recently. Sometimes it didn’t feel like it happened at all, and maybe his imagination was playing tricks on him. It wouldn’t be the first time.

That entire day had been strange. Even though he was fine under the care of the Hospital Wing, he was still (though very kindly) escorted to St. Mungo’s, where he would be watched for anymore magical behavior. He still didn’t understand all that happened. But his presence had been requested at the Ministry of Magic, which typically never really happened either.

There was too much happening that didn’t normally happen. One of them was seeing his former student where she was… supposed to be? Julian narrowed his eyes and adjusted the sling that carried his left arm. “Ah, Charlotte…”

It wasn’t the time for dry humor, but he tried to go for it anyway because that just seemed like the lame professor thing to do. Because that’s what he was, right? He didn’t try to be anything else – or he shouldn’t try to be anything else. He gave a rather awkward smile – one that tried to be relieved that maybe there was something totally normal about this. “… I didn’t think that I’d be present for the day you had to stand trial for arson. I’m surprised that you even showed up to your court summons.”

The gillyweed was wearing off, but Danny had always been a strong enough swimmer that he could hold out for another minute as his artificial gills shrunk and his fins had retracted back into limbs. He broke the surface of the lake, sealing water into the sack that hung on his shoulders as he backstroked to the shore.

Lake water was disgusting; it was too still and too calm, two traits already that proved that Danny was an unwelcome guest. Very few had bothered to explore the deepest parts of these lakes, but the only kind of flora that Danny knew was worth collecting was there. The Pacific had scarier creatures, but there wasn’t one who wasn’t willing to bargain.

The rocky shore was a little easier to clean off than fine sand, but it wasn’t a good place to relax. He glanced along the shoreline of the lake as he dug into his bagpack for his wand to brush off the debris his wet skin had picked up. Pacific Princess had said that there were ruins all over Scotland, but Danny himself hadn’t bothered to go looking. Right now, making the galleons was more important, but he was painfully aware of the gray Pegasus feather on the front pocket of his bagpack.

“Charlotte, surprisingly. She’s forced me to think outside of the box and I suppose my teaching methods have improved. That being said, she did get an awful lot of detentions from what I recall and a fairly significant amount of points taken from her own house.”