Time Together

The end of the school year was drawing nearer and nearer each day that the sun rose and set. With their exams out of the way Bertie's classes had been a lot laid back, in fact they Professors had resorted to teaching them fun topics or spells as an end of year treat, plus no homework was a bonus. Yet despite the increased fun the Ravenclaw's were having in their learning Bertie was still yearning for something else, or someone else, to be more precise. Vivianna Varnes.

Another year had passed and their friendship had reached an all time high, the pair were like brother and sister, their bond forever chained with ropes of steel. Nothing could break the two apart. Sure if one of them turned to the dark arts perhaps the other would be disappointed but they'd accept it and forgive. That's what family did. They loved unconditionally.

The third year had been searching for Vivianna all day long. He'd missed her at breakfast earlier that Saturday morning and had no luck in finding her up in one of the towers, nor was she down in the potions lab or library. There was a chance that she could have been using the girls lavatory yet Bertie had even sent a fellow Ravenclaw third year from the girls dormitory in to check. No luck.

There were only two more places that Vivianna could be: the grounds or her common room. Bertie had never been to the Slytherin common room, he knew it was somewhere in the dungeons yet had never come across it - nor had any idea how to find it. The dungeons were usually damp and he always seemed to get lost within the labyrinth of stone walls and clustered cobwebs.

After strolling past the greenhouses and pacing over the sloping lawns the location of the redheaded fifth year was confusing Bertie even more. He'd expected to have found her up a tree - unless she'd ventured into the forbidden forest? Bertie had never been in there, the thought of the dark creatures it held kind of freaked him out and there was rumors that the largest wasp nest in the country was within the depths of the trees... Something Bertie didn't want to encounter.

Having no clue where she could be the Ravenclaw decided to walk by the lake and relax in the sunshine, perhaps dunk his feet in the refreshing water. Other students had come to settle themselves by the stoney edge of the lake. Older girls were sunbathing on the grass whilst boys splashed each other in the water, throwing everlasting water balloons at each other that, upon explosion, mended themselves allowing the boys to continue using them. Then there were a group of first year Hufflepuff's competing in a friendly game of who-can-skim-the-stone-the-furthest, which was all fun and games until one of them almost hit a swimmer on the head. A swimmer, to Bertie's delight, that he recognised. Miss Varnes was taking a dip.

(OOC: I hope you didn't mind me writing that Viv was already swimming? I just thought it'd be different as opposed to them bumping into each other as they have done before... If you want me to edit that's fine :-) )

Vivianna was swimming. She adored water. When it came down to it, swimming was certainly on her list of favorite things to do. It could be relaxing, or a workout, a distraction, or something to help her think. Really, submerging herself in water was basically something that Vivianna considered an enjoyable multi-purpose activity.

The teenager had been swimming for about a hour, and her arms were definitely starting to get tired. The witch refused to stop, berating herself instead. The redhead had always prided herself in being muscularly stronger than most females she knew. She was toned, and liked it that way. Judging by how tired she was, the fifth year was weaker than she'd been last summer. Vivianna promised herself that she'd climb or swim every day over the holidays in order to gain her strength back.

Telling herself that she could stop as soon as she reached a certain tree that the Slytherin often used as a marker, the tired witch swam on. She was about half way to the tree, when something flew through the air and landed uncomfortably close to her head. Eyes watching as the stone sunk towards the lake's floor, the teen lifted her head and began to tread water in order to stay afloat. Eyes quickly spotting a group of young students with rocks in hand, the girl's eyes narrowed. "Oi, watch where you throw those things!" she yelled towards the shore, displeasure obvious in her tone.

Vivianna was about to turn away again, when she spotted a figure not far from the idiots whom had almost cracked her head open. Instantly recognizing Bertie, the witch began to swim towards the Ravenclaw with renewed energy. Wading through the shallow waters close to the shore, secretly glad to be given a reason to rest her tired limbs, Vivianna smiled. "Hey Bertie," the wet teen panted.

It was the cool breeze as she full stepped out of the water that reminded the witch she was clad in only a swimsuit. It was a sleek black and sliver one-piece, something that wouldn't get in the way or slip when swimming. Lazily glancing over at where her clothes and bag rested, about 200 meters down the shore, Vivianna turned her head to look at Bertie. "You wouldn't happen to know the Summoning Charm, would you?" she asked, really not wanting to walk the eighth of a mile to her clothes.

((OOC: No problem, it was a good idea!  ))

'Hi Viv! I don't know why I didn't think of coming down here sooner?' Bertie replied, sharing his thoughts at how obvious it would be that Vivianna would be swimming on such a warm day. She loved to swim, as well as climbing and being, well, high up, the water was just as much a friend as the open air.

Withdrawing his wand he looked down stream to where Vivianna had glanced, indicating where her belongings were. Bertie loved charms, along with herbology it was his favourite subject. Usually students were to wait until the fourth year before learning a summoning charm but being the curious Ravenclaw that he was the boy had read up on summoning and brandishing charms already. Despite this he wasn't an expert and had only managed to perform the spell half a dozen times, probably more if he had practised rather than gleefully moving into the next spell.

'Umm.' He pondered, thinking back at the incantation. 'Accio' Bertie thought allowed, his wand held limply by his side unaware that it'd have want effect. The pebble rushed up from the ground, opposing gravity, to land in his hand. 'Well. I guess so.' Bertie chuckled as he turned the pebble over in his arm before tossing onto the ground again.

Focusing his attention he slowly aimed at the Slytherin's belongings. 'Accio!' He spoke clearly, constantly thinking about how he wanted them to fly towards him, with the flick of his wand the bag, clothes and wand soared across the air. It appeared that the Ravenclaw lost control slightly towards the end having the bag and clothes crash into him... He would have attempted to catch them but he wasn't the sporty type.

Quickly bending down, giggling slightly at the image of him just standing like a lemon as the belongings bounced into his body. 'Sorry about that.' He added scooping up Vivianna's wand and handing it to her.

"Thanks," Vivianna said, reaching out to collect her wand from Bertie. The teen couldn't help that she was giggling softly, the uncontrolled Accio had certainly been amusing. Not only had all of her things crashed into the Ravenclaw, but the look on his face had been priceless.

"That was pretty impressive actually," Vivianna informed the other teenager, "I couldn't even get things to budge until half way through fourth year." At the time, her failure had irritated the redhead to no end. The witch was usually decent at charms, but there were exceptions to every rule.

"How many exams do you have left?" the Slytherin asked curiously. It was almost the end of the school year, the students were scheduled to do one subject's exam a day. For Vivianna exam-time was especially stressful, since she was taking her OWL's. The girl wondered how Bertie was fairing, as even less-important exams could be challenging.

As she spoke, the student leant down and started to dig through her bag. Vivianna did feel a bit bad for not spending much time with her little brother, but the girl needed all the study-hours she could get if she wanted to pass her transfiguration OWL. Merlin, she loathed that subject.

Finally finding what she'd been searching for, the witch pulled out an ordinary-looking notepad. Straightening up, Vivianna offered it to Bertie with a beaming smile and a gleam in her eye.

Bertie chuckled along with Vivianna, pulling a face as he has handed her the clothes that she wanted. He loved that about their relationship, they could make fools of themselves, get embarrassed and simply laugh it off- granted they could have a bit of banter over it too, but the laughter was special.

'I just have divinations.' Bertie exclaimed, ruffling a hand through his messy locks. 'I don't really know what to expect though, I mean, it's kind of subjective what we read in tea leaves' He added. Certainly Bertie had enjoyed the subject, sometimes he was scientifically minded but he also preferred creativity and subjective subjects where things could be interpreted in different ways, for him divinations was that lesson. Granted the added load of work from picking up three new subjects this year had left him bogged further down when it had come to exam time but he'd been able to manage it. Small breaks of imagination was all he needed to plough through a heavy load of work without getting too tired.'How did the OWL's go?' The Ravenclaw asked politely in return.

A look of confusion and interest formed on his face, raising an eyebrow and biting a lip he took the notepad from Viv's hand. He turned it once, twice, thrice in his hand. It appeared as an ordinary notebook. True he loved to write and knew that Vivianna was aware of his passion for painting a picture with words, maybe this was just a gift to apologise for the fact all his work had been destroyed earlier in the month? A new device to record his creativity.

'Thank you.' Bertie smiled, looking up to the redhead assuming it was an ordinary parchment pad for his writing. 'Hopefully this one won't get burnt.' He added with a giggle. The whole incident in the clock tower had been horrific, embarrassing yes but horrific. The amount of emotion that had poured from him and here he was using it as the punch line, well, he could have a laugh with Vivianna after those sorts of things. That's how their relationship worked.

Throwing Bertie a small smile for being so darn helpful, Vivianna pulled on the black shorts that she'd been handed. The girl usually preferred leggings to shorts, but the female had known that there was no way she'd have been able to pull the tight fabric over damp legs. Yanking the loose white shirt over her head, the Slytherin scrunched her nose as the cloth immediately began to stick to the wet swim-gear. Knowing that there was little she could do about her newly see-through top, the student shrugged.

"I think they'll ask about what things mean. I remember some of my housemates complaining about having to know what one can expect from different planet alignments and stuff," Vivianna told the Ravenclaw semi-helpfully. The girl herself didn't take the subject, but that didn't mean she wouldn't tell Bertie as much as she knew.

"OWL's have gone fine so far. I might've messed up a bit in charms, but everything else was alright. I've got Transfig tomorrow though, and you know my answer's gonna change after that," Vivianna stated wryly. Her goal was to pass the despised subject, but the redhead wasn't stupid enough to count on it.

Vivianna laughed along with Bertie at his reaction to the notebook. "Naw, I'm gonna spell all of your stuff fire-retardant next year," the Slytherin informed her pseudo-brother humorously. "That's one half of a MagiChat," the redhead stated, jerking her chin towards the notebook, "I have the other one. It's for us to keep in contact this summer."

Bertie giggled at Vivianna's expression upon the fact that her top was sticking to the wet swimsuit underneath. At least it was a sunny day and would hopefully dry quickly. 'Ohh.' The Ravenclaw replied, well now he needn't worry about divinations, he had a good memory and could remember almost everything in Unfogging the Future.


'I am sure you'll be fine.' Bertie grinned encouragingly, although secretly glad it was Viv sitting the transfiguration OWL and not him, sure he would have to do it in two years but that was two years of not worrying about the dreading subject the two hated most. It wasn't that the he hated the idea of transfiguration, in fact he loved the practical - it allowed him to be visually creative in what he transfigured things into - but the theory was mind bobbling. 

Plonking himself on the pebbles he placed the MagiChat on a larger rock besides him whilst he took his socks and shoes off, allowing the cool water to tickle his toes. 'So how does this, umm, work?' He asked Vivianna, picking it up and examining it. Squinting because of the sun he raised a hand to his eyes, acting as a visor he looked up. 'I don't have an owl and, well, Snidget wont be up to the task of hauling it across the country.'

"Sure, fine," the Slytherin said sarcastically, adding a very un-Vivianna-like snort to emphasize her disbelief. "The day that I do fine in Transfig, is the day I bomb Potions, and I am absolutely certain that I got an O on that one. The potion that they had us brew was pathetic, I wouldn't even take the copy of the instructions they tried to give me," the witch stated dryly.

Perhaps that was a bit cocky of her, but the teen had spent half of the allotted time for the theory portion of the exam napping. It hadn't even taken an hour to complete. Reaching into the under layer of her hair to tug roughly on a blue-dyed strand, the girl let out a sigh. Just because she was worried about tomorrow didn't mean she needed to take it out on Bertie. It wasn't like he had done anything wrong.

Attempting to push all unpleasant thoughts out of her mind, Vivianna's eyes locked upon the notebook in Bertie's hands. Small smile returning to her face, the redhead figured she better explain. "I don't expect Snidget to try, although that would be quite the sight. I have a notebook like that as well, and the two are magically connected. If I write something in mine, it shows up in yours, and visa versa. It's so we can keep contact during the summer. They don't worry very well over extraordinarily long distances, but it caught my eye last time I was down in Diagon," Vivianna was pretty sure that Bertie would like it. She hoped.

Bertie couldn't help but grin and, chuckle again. It was difficult to wipe away the bright smirk on his face as Vivianna bluntly put that she was awesome at potions. He didn't think she sounded cocky, well she did, but Bertie was in awe, admiring her cool bluntness. It was rather humorous and it was only a shame the Ravenclaw couldn't have seen Viv insist on not accepting the instructions during the exam. The Slytherin could probably ace her NEWT potion.

A soft 'ohhhhh' escaped Bertie as Vivianna explained his present. This actually kind of made sense, in all honest it made perfect sense. 'So it's kind of like texting?' He asked, not thinking that his Slytherin sister may not be aware of the muggle phenomenon, then again she would probably have heard of it somewhere or another. 

His brown eyes locked onto Vivianna's excitedly. 'Do you have your quill in the bag?'

The left corner of the Slytherin's mouth quirked upwards slightly at the noise of realization that had been made by the Ravenclaw. He really was too adorable sometimes. "Texting, that's the thing where you can type words on a phone, right?" Vivianna asked quizzically. She was pretty sure that was correct, but the girl was no Muggle Studies student. She knew the bare basics, and what Bertie told her, but the girl got the unfamiliar words mixed up far more often than she would like.

Digging through her bag for her favorite self-inking quill, the teenager huffed when its location wasn't immediately apparent. "I doubt it'll work for the two weeks I'm in Greece, but other than that we'll be able to use it anytime," Vivianna felt inclined to add. Finally locating the quill, the redhead stood up to hand it over with an over-dramatic flourish.