#fcnwick

[unspeakablevance]

closed event starter for @fcnwick​

It had been time for Emm to take another wander around the stadium to check nothing was amiss but seeing Benjy was a welcome break from being on high alert. “How good is the zoom on that thing?” she asked, nodding at his camera. “And before you ask, no I’m not sure if I want to know to make it easier to watch the game or for other reasons.” Now she thought about it, though, she wondered if they shouldn’t have all just brought cameras with them and tried to get as many photos of the crowd as possible. There weren’t enough of them to really manage it, she knew, and there was every chance nothing would even happen at the event so it would be a waste of time but it was an idea for the future.

[dfcresswell]

Where: a coffee shop Who: Dirk && @fcnwick​

It wasn’t often Dirk went into coffee shops because he wasn’t really a fan of either tea or coffee but an advertisement for fresh lemonade and a tempting cake in the window brought him inside. He tapped his fingers on the counter as he waited for his order to be filled, and glanced around as he did, eyes falling on a familiar face. “Benjy? Benjy Fenwick, right?” As he confirmed it, however, it occurred to him that Benjy might not remember him. They had both been the same House but Dirk was known in Quidditch circles and the Slug Club and his ever presence in the library or Potions room. He hadn’t particularly been a social butterfly beyond those areas, happier to stick with a small group, Barty and Alecto for the most part. Even so, he figured he would just carry on and hope for the best but not be offended if Benjy asked who he was. “Wow. It’s always a bit weird seeing people from school now. Even though I know the world’s small,” or the Wizarding world was, at least. “What are you doing these days?”

[mcmarlenea]

Marley wasn’t thinking, she was just mindlessly throwing things in the general direction of the bag sitting on her bed. It would have been easier to use her wand to do all the work, but she was frustrated and she had to do something more with her hands than flick a wand around. She had to stay busy. Because if she stopped, even for a moment, then she would have to think. And if she stopped to think, her mind would go to a dark place - darker than it was now. It was too much, so she threw things. It didn’t help. She paused when she saw a shadow in the door, but only cast a quick glance over her shoulder before resuming. “Benjy,” she greeted flatly, turning her attention back to the task at hand.

[mcmarlenea]

WHO: Marlene and @fcnwick​

WHAT: quality bonding time!!

WHEN: march 28th ish?

WHERE: the easter thing??

Marlene was... easily distracted, so she lost James and Lily and Harry in the crowd. Hopefully Harry was still with them. Of course he was still with them. Pft. Pfft. Okay, so maybe she was the last person told to ‘keep an eye on him’ but she was pretty sure she remembered Lily picking him up before she wandered off. He was probably, definitely, maybe fine. It’s not like anyone ever really trusted Marlene with a child for more than like five seconds anyway. She was about to head back and look for her friends when she spotted another familiar face coming straight towards her. Her favourite familiar face. “Hey handsome, come here often?” she asked, physically unable to keep a straight face before a wolfish grin spread over her lips. “Seriously. I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever,” she continued, like they didn’t live together... like she hadn’t just seen him earlier that morning. So maybe she was a little codependent when it came to her roommate. Who cared? “Where have you been all my life, BenFen?”

[mcmarlenea]

It had only been a few days, but it felt like weeks, months years had passed since she had been home. Home wasn’t her mother’s house anymore. It was the place she shared with her best friend. Home was her best friend. Home was Benjy. As soon as she got home, she looked around... and didn’t see him. Her heart dropped in her chest and she called out a weak, “Benj?” and he was there in another second. She didn’t hesitate before - a few days too late - bridging the gap between them, arms instantly wrapping around his form, hugging him tighter than she had ever held anyone before... and she didn’t want to let go, not now or ever. “Sorry I was such a witch,” she said through something between a chuckle and a sob. @fcnwick​

[dfcresswell]

Where: Summer Solstice Festival When: 21st June Who: Dirk && @fcnwick​

When the paparazzi got a little too much, it was an apologetic look towards Bertram that Dirk slipped away and ducked into the Nature Pavilion for a break. He was attempting to find the rumoured merpeople in the depths of the lagoon when a particularly loud squeal from a nearby child scared off any possible creatures from coming near to the surface of the water. Dirk looked around to people watch instead and his eyes landed on Benjy nearby. He waved over to the man and greeted him with a smile. “Benjy, hi! Are you here with...” Just before he let Barty’s name slip, he remembered his friend’s request that  he not say anything about his budding relationship. Dirk wasn’t sure if that was for Barty’s sake, and the reaction his father might have, or for Benjy’s sake. Just in case Barty hadn’t told Benjy he had mentioned it to Dirk, and also because that conversation had been a while ago and Dirk was not a gossip and would not pry but that meant he actually had no idea what their current relationship status was, he instead asked, “With anybody? Or, uh...” His demeanour dropped slightly as he remembered what Benjy’s job was. “Are you here to take photos?” It would be just typical if he had come in here to get away from the press and inadvertently invited them over to him anyway. Bertram might not be there at that moment, but Dirk would prefer to avoid his relationship being plastered all over the papers.

[dfcresswell]

closed starter for @fcnwick​

When it came to friendships, Dirk preferred to keep a smaller group. He would never be the sort of person who was always in the middle of a crowd or having an active social life that involved somebody different every day. Barty had been part of that small group of people Dirk considered a close friend for a long time now, first meeting when they became dormmates at Hogwarts. Over the years he had seen Barty go through a few relationships but it wasn’t often something they talked about. It had never been a topic that interested Dirk all that much and Barty knew that.

Of course, things were a bit different now that there was the ongoing question of his feelings for Bertram. Like his eyes being opened in one sense had led to the number of couples around him no longer feeling quite as exhausting as it once had and when Barty brought up Benjy (albeit with the warning that he wasn’t really telling people), Dirk decided he might as well try and get to know Benjy a little better. They had a more in common, after all, besides Barty. They had met in Ravenclaw and were both muggleborn even if Benjy didn’t know about Dirk.

Dirk remembered Benjy mentioning he was a photographer now and so he came up with an idea that had been nudging at his mind anyway and contacted the man to get a little photography advice. “Thanks for meeting me,” he said, a cheap camera in one hand. “My mum’s always complaining that she doesn’t get to see anything of my life any more so I wanted to do a bit of a photo album for Christmas but it doesn’t feel like it’s going very well so far.”

[missmary]

Where: Muggle Arcade Who: Mary && @fcnwick​

After the complete and utter failure of the Halloween masquerade and the way it had culminated in her getting cornered in the bathroom by Bellatrix Lestrange (because she was apparently an idiot who after twelve years still hadn’t learned not to go to the bathroom alone) and then watching Isaac get arrested, Mary was almost surprised to find that she still liked the fact that she had seen so many of her friends in one go. It had been a terrible trigger for her anxiety but she still wanted to try. She still wanted to feel like she had her friends back again rather than settling into another rut of being so scared of leaving her comfort zone that she found herself engulfed in loneliness as everybody else carried on with their lives and she, unwilling to accept invitations to public outings or not feeling up to being social after a day at work, got left behind. She didn’t make enough of an effort most of the time and she knew it all too well. Her sister had told her plenty enough.

The first in her goal to make more of an effort had been visiting Marlene at work and the second was reaching out to the other old school friend she hadn’t seen at the masquerade. Benjy hadn’t been the only person she befriended out of muggleborn solidarity — after all, Lily was in her own dormitory — but in some ways it was nicer to have someone with a little more distance from her. Who hadn’t seen her cry because she didn’t want to go to Charms and who hadn’t had to deal with her tired and grumpy in the mornings after only getting half an hour’s sleep. It was impossible to find anybody their year or the years either side who didn’t know what had happened to her (or at least, the parts that had got out) and Benjy did get something of a front row seat to the quagmire of her and Bertram’s relationship with her leaving Ravenclaw tower fretfully after another argument about her friendship with James and Sirius. Those, however, were the events which made up Mary and meant he could understand her without pitying her as he probably would if he knew more details. He was a muggleborn and he wasn’t too scared to go to Quidditch matches or Hogsmeade weekends by sixth year.

But that was behind her. It was almost 1983 now and Mary had decided that 1983 was going to be different. She would forget about Mulciber and the Averys and anybody related to Sirius who wasn’t Sirius himself. She would start to do something to find justice for Harry and for Rosalind and so that other eleven year old muggleborns didn’t have to worry about being hexed in the corridors of their school. It was a scary thought but maybe facing some of her fears was what she finally needed to start to do. So, she had suggested they meet up for a bit of a catch up somewhere beautifully Muggle where she could pretend the war didn’t exist.

“Hi!” She hugged him then tugged on his hand to pull him into the arcade. “I’m going to kick your butt on the dance machines. Seeing as you’re one of the only people I didn’t get to dance with on Halloween. Weren’t you there?”