the moon is on my side [ivy]

[Julian Delaire]

Julian ran a hand through his hair, his breath escaping in a frustrated sigh as his gaze traveled down the row of books in front of him, unable to find the specific one he needed for Ancient Runes. He'd been in the bookstore for hours, and okay, admittedly, he'd spent several of those hours reading through the newest edition of Hogwarts: A History, purely because he already owned five prior editions and he knew his mother would roll her eyes if he brought home yet another one, so he'd had to finish reading that here, and then maybe two or three hours had disappeared entirely and he still had yet to find that book he needed.

"This should not be this hard," he complained to the air, absently stepping forward as he trailed his free hand across the spines of the books, wondering where the hell the employees were. It was getting a little late, as it was steadily darkening outside and he could see stars start to appear, but he knew the shops stayed open till well into the night, and there definitely ought to have been someone on shift to help him, despite the fact that he was in an obscure back section on the second floor. He was a paying customer, sort of, he thought indignantly. And he needed help.

Lost in his musings on why a stupid little book on ancient runes was so hard to find, he didn't even notice the girl walking in his pathway, her face obscured by the book she was reading, and the next thing he knew, he'd walked right into her and they were both on the ground.

Fantastic, Julian thought with a groan, bracing his palms on the carpet on either side of the girl's face to avoid crushing her under his weight and praying he didn't get rug burn or something, this was just what he needed to top off his failed search for a dumb textbook. Glancing down at her, partly in concern and partly in annoyance, he found himself looking into a vaguely familiar face, one of a girl who looked around his age -- had he seen her before? She might have been in his year; he was near certain he'd seen her around Hogwarts before, and he didn't really pay attention to students who weren't either his yearmates or his housemates.

"Sorry," he mumbled, still holding himself up by his hands as he looked down at her, not moving as he tried to place a name to her face, which, incidentally, happened to be a really pretty face, even though she wasn't smiling. "Are you all right?"

[Ivy Laughlin]

It was getting late, Ivy knew this, but she wanted to reach the end of the chapter of the Transfiguration theory book she was reading so she could gauge whether or not she actually wanted to buy it. The lights inside Flourish and Blott's were piercingly bright compared to the darkening sky outside as she paced back and forward, trying to read as quickly as she possibly could. It wasn't the first time this had happened: she found herself in here doing the same thing a couple of times a week, so much so that the staff had come to know her as that weird dark haired girl who won't stop buying books about spell theory. There was something about the book shop at this time that she liked – it was often too crowded during the day but now, as evening crept up, it was empty.

She hadn't planned on anything out of the ordinary occurring today as she spent half an hour browsing at the back of the book shop but she'd always found that the strangest things happened when you were just minding your own business. She wasn't even aware that there was anybody else in the shop when suddenly as she was about to take a step forward and turn the last page of the chapter (finally, she thought with a sigh of relief), something barged into her and knocked her flat onto her back.

The air from her lungs came out in a huge, dramatic whoosh as she felt herself collide with the carpeted floor. "What the—" she began in a loud, no-nonsense voice as her eyebrows drew together dangerously before she noticed who it was that had so rudely crashed into her.

It was the boy from her year, the only one she'd never spoken to before. Jonathon or Julian or some name like that. The one that socialised even less than she did. She stared at him for a long moment, feeling his breath against her cheek, and then it dawned on her that he was a lot more attractive than she remembered. Maybe it was the hair or the cheekbones or who knows what but she found herself almost admiring him as he spoke to her.

"I'd be alright if you got off of me," she groaned in response, pushing him up and attempting to straighten herself out as well as she could while still half lying down. Being bumped into wasn't something she appreciated, even if the person in question was remarkably attractive. "Don't you look where you're going? Honestly."

[Julian Delaire]

Julian frowned a little, still trying to puzzle out her name, but his memory was blank. She was pretty, with soft dark curls and hazelly-brown eyes, and he was maybe eighty percent sure he'd definitely seen her before, but he honestly paid so little attention to his classmates, he couldn't place her name. She also seemed rather unamused with him at the moment, though that was hardly a shocker, given that he was still lying on top of her.

Feeling his cheeks warm a little when he remembered that his body was currently pressed against hers and he had just been staring at her face, he almost stumbled in his haste to clamber off her. Exhaling to regain his composure, he rolled over to rest on his knees on the floor and offered her a hand to help her off the floor. "Well," he said, raising his eyebrows at her, "I'm not the one who was wandering around with my nose in a book, was I?"

He paused, tilting his head to survey her now that their faces weren't quite so close together. Was she in his year? She must have been... "Do I know you?" he found himself blurting out without really thinking about it, unable to help his curiosity now that he'd seen her and vaguely recognized her. "Are you in Slytherin, or something?"

[Ivy Laughlin]

The boy seemed stranger and stranger by the minute with the way he seemed to be examining her and why wasn't he moving. Really, it wasn't like she was asking too much of him or anything. Surely getting to his feet wasn't too strenuous an act to expect. Finally, though, after what seemed like lifetimes, he got off of her and she sighed in relief, taking his proffered hand and manoeuvring herself onto her knees to face him.

"Seriously?" Ivy shook her head disbelievingly. "You're blaming me for something that was your fault without even apologising?" Honestly, she thought to herself, manners really weren't difficult to come by. He had some nerve. Not many people spoke to her like that and she had to admit, she wasn't really used to it. 

She sighed audibly and fixed him with a scathing look. "Yeah, I'm in Slytherin. I'm also in your year. Have been for... what, five years now?" She didn't even attempt to reign back the sarcasm. "And you've never even noticed me." Fair enough, she could be unobservant to the point of rudeness. At least, however, she knew everyone in her year by face even though she may not speak to them. "Pretty impressive, I must say."

[Julian Delaire]

She clearly wasn't too happy with him, Julian noted as he backed himself to sit against the wall behind him. (Technically, they weren't supposed to clog the aisles, but since nobody seemed to be around, he didn't really care.) He didn't exactly pride himself on being nice or making people happy, unlike Caleb, so it didn't much matter to him that he was annoying her, but he kind of wanted to continue this conversation anyway, even though he normally wouldn't have, just because seeing her and not knowing her name was going to bug the hell out of him if he left now.

"Hey," he said, taking a moment to comprehend her words, "I did apologize. I'm not in the habit of apologizing twice for the same thing." Had she not heard him? No, that was ridiculous; his face had been right on top of her face when he said it. "But I'm not blaming you," he added, partly in an attempt to mollify her. "I just don't think I'm the only one who should have watched where they were going." Privately, he still thought wandering around with a book obscuring your vision might have put her more at fault than him for just studying the bookshelf next to him as he walked but he opted not to bring that up, as this wasn't a conversation he truly cared about.

Oh, she was glaring now. And being sarcastic. Julian stopped himself from rolling his eyes, only because he did feel a little bad that he hadn't noticed her. Not that much, though. He didn't really like noticing his housemates in the first place; they all kind of blended together in a crowd of pretentious smirks and pureblood brats. "Yeah, sorry, I don't bother to memorize the names of all my classmates," he shot back. He might have continued, but a name was starting to tug at the edges of his memory. He tilted his head, considering, then burst out - "Wait. Is your last name Laughlin?" 

Now that he had combed through most of his memories of the last five years, he was starting to remember her, at least a little, at least in the classes they shared, like Transfiguration, where she spoke more often than in any other class (which, still, wasn't as much as certain, more know-it-all classmates of theirs, but she definitely knew her stuff on Transfiguration theory), and Professor Powell would often praise a Miss Laughlin for her contributions to the discussion. Still, that didn't solve the mystery of her first name.

[Ivy Laughlin]

Ivy got to her feet and leaned back against the shelf behind her with just enough pressure so that it wouldn't topple. It was probably a sign that she spent too much time in here that she knew exactly how much she could allow herself to rest on the shelf without it wobbling behind her. And still the boy – by this point she was fairly certain that his name was Julian and not Jonathon or Joshua or any of the other names that had flitted briefly through her mind – was denying it being solely his fault. She crossed her arms. It was way too late in the day to deal with this.


"I was pretty stationary," she pointed out with a quick raise of her eyebrows. Pacing slowly back and forward as she read was staying fairly still in her mind anyway. "You're the one who should've been a bit more careful considering you were actually, y'know, moving. Glancing around corners really doesn't take too much effort and it does help avoid situations like these, astonishingly."


This boy's – Julian's, she mentally corrected herself; she might as well start using his name seeing as only moments before he was lying awkwardly on top of her – attitude might just have been even worse than hers. She had to admit, she was the tiniest bit impressed at his refusal to back down. It almost reminded her of herself.


"Yes," she responded, quietly amused at his outburst. It was clear that her surname was the only thing he could remember and for some reason she allowed a small smile to tug at the edges of her lips. "Congratulations. You're halfway there, Julian." (She really did hope that was his name, if not the effect she was going for would have been completely ruined.) "Memorising your classmate's names isn't such an awful thing to do, you realise? You're kind of stuck with us for the next two years. Might as well start somewhere, right?" There was a part of her that considered leaving him just to stand and guess her first name but she figured that, going by everything she had gathered about him over the last couple of minutes, she could be here a while. So, not once letting her smirk drop, she said, "My name is Ivy, genius."

[Julian Delaire]

Julian blinked at her, a little uncomprehending that he was still having this conversation. It was like discussing girls with Caleb; they were going around in circles and hadn't he already apologized? He might have been more annoyed if he wasn't actually reluctantly impressed with her stubborn insistence that it was all his fault. That, he was pretty used to, anyway, after years of being Caleb's best friend. But almost no one else ever bothered to actually get into arguments with him. Most people were a lot easier to intimidate than she was, apparently.

"Okay," he said finally, a touch of amusement in his voice, "I don't care enough to argue my point here. Though, can I ask what was so interesting about that book that you're so vehemently defending your right to stand around the aisles reading it and not get bumped into?" Despite the sarcastic lilt to his tone, he was honestly just a bit curious now that they were actually having the conversation, because, Transfiguration prodigy or not, what could possibly be so interesting about Transfiguration theory to her? It was one of the dullest subjects he'd ever had to learn, in his humble opinion.

He had to admit to being a bit taken aback that she actually knew his name. He actively avoided speaking to his classmates enough that he was pretty sure most of them honestly thought his name was just Mister Delaire, as the professors called him. Which suited him just fine, but clearly this girl had very thoroughly gotten under his radar. "If I was going to memorize your names, I would have done it five years ago," he informed her lightly. "Not much of a point anymore, I'd say." In all honesty, he thought he knew way too many names of his classmates than he needed to. Most of them weren't worth the effort. Still, he mused, this girl might just be one of the rare few that were worth the effort.

Ivy. The name clicked into place surprisingly well. He wouldn't have pegged her for such a floral-themed name, as she didn't seem girly enough for it, but it seemed to fit her more the longer he thought about it. "Nice name," he offered, still eyeing her thoughtfully. "So, Ivy," he said with a smirk of his own to match hers, "what are you doing here so late? I don't suppose you're looking for a textbook, too?"

[Ivy Laughlin]

The first thought that popped into Ivy's head as he expressed just how much he did not care was just, Same. Really, she couldn't even find words to detail exactly how much she didn't care what this (definitely not attractive in any way possible) boy had to say to her. Not one bit. It was only then that she realised her book was still lying on the floor where she had dropped it. She bent to pick it up, showing him the cover in the process. The Art of Conjuration was what it displayed in jagged black letters across the hard red of the cover.

"It's about the foundation of conjuration," she said a little loftily, as though that wasn't clear from the title. She couldn't help it, really. It was the only subject she was really, honest to God good at so she felt entitled to be a little haughty about it. "It contains a lot of the different laws about what you can and can't conjure. We'll be studying it at NEWT level, if you're doing Transfiguration this year. I figured I might as well get a head start on it seeing as how I'm pretty bored this summer." He didn't look a lot like the type who would read ahead over summer (and honestly, neither was she except in the case of this subject – there was a reason she wasn't placed in Ravenclaw) so she just shook her head and went on.

"It's never too late to start." Her voice was sickly sweet and it was the kind of patronising voice her mum had used far too many times when telling her to make friends. And, she supposed, she did have a bit of a funny way of making friends. Her mum certainly wasn't wrong about that.

"Thanks," she said sarcastically. And she knew it wasn't necessary and maybe he was just trying to be nice but she really couldn't help herself. "Can't claim credit, unfortunately. My parents picked it for me. I wasn't even consulted, if you can believe it." She dropped the smirk and decided to go for a serious answer this time. "I was just deciding whether to buy this book. I like to read a couple of chapters to see if it's worth my money." She shrugged. "And it's always easier to read at this time because there's no one – well, almost no one – here. What are you doing here?"

[Julian Delaire]

Julian raised an eyebrow at the cover of the book she was showing him. "Fancy," he acknowledged, shooting her a smirk. "You must be into all this Transfiguration stuff. I haven't yet decided if I'm taking it, but I probably will just because it provides a good base of knowledge for most jobs." He had gotten a good enough score on his OWLs to continue Transfiguration, but it was hardly his favorite subject. Still, he couldn't deny its practical uses.

He wanted to make a face at her patronizing tone of voice, but he stopped himself in time. "Maybe," he agreed, "if I cared about our classmates. As it stands, I really don't." Especially not if they were all this annoying to talk to, he mentally added with a degree of spite in his thoughts. At least she was pretty enough to warrant dealing with the annoyingness.

"Never would have guessed," he replied dryly to her quips about her parents picking her name. "You must offer them my congratulations on picking such a name," he muttered, half-grinning but stopping himself from going any further. "Well, the book looks interesting if you're into hard Transfiguration," he offered, mostly sincerely. "I was looking for an Ancient Runes textbook, but it has proved rather elusive. I might have to go track down one of the equally-elusive assistants to help me find it, actually."

[Ivy Laughlin]

“I am,” Ivy said somewhat proudly, flashing him a quick smile. “You should take it. It can be fun sometimes. Plus this year we get to conjure stuff which is pretty cool.” She gestured to the book she was holding and then asked,“What other subjects are you thinking of studying this year?” She wasn’t sure why she said it - small talk was never her forte and as it stood she was kind of awful at it.

She shrugged. “I don’t much care for them either, really. But I’m alright at their names. Especially the people in my own house,” she added pointedly, raising her eyebrows and giving him a slight, self-assured smirk. “Doesn’t hurt to know a bit about the people you surround yourself with on a daily basis.” Her smirk turns into a full blown grin. “Never know when you might need to initiate a grand revenge scheme or take someone down.”

“I most definitely will,” she said and shook her head, biting back a laugh. And if she noticed that he was actually attractive when he was smiling, she definitely didn’t acknowledge it. “Yeah, good luck with that. All the assistants in here tend to mysteriously disappear after five p.m. Probably hiding in the stock room or something. I had to wait ten minutes at the cash register the other day because there was no one around.” The elusive staff members were something that brought her endless frustration, though she couldn’t deny that she’d be the exact same if she had a job.