every time the rain falls, think of me [edmund]

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In a surprising turn of events for a Scotland January, it was raining. The rain was still cold and slightly sleety, but it was rain nonetheless, so Jamie was outside, pondering whether or not she ought to start dancing or do something else. In the end, Jamie elected to continue down the path towards her original destination, the Black Lake. Jamie had wanted to ice skate, but with the rain coming down, that didn't seem like a good idea. For one thing, her vision was going to be obscured like nobody's business. For another, the rain meant that it was warm enough for the ice to possibly melt, and taking a swim in the lake was not on Jamie's list of things she wanted to do that day. As she was thinking of something new to do, Jamie scuffed at the rocks at her feet. Ah - that would be interesting! She wasn't sure if she could skip rocks on the lake, since it was frozen, but she could half-skip, half-slide them. That sounded like fun, Jamie thought, beginning to gather stones from beneath her feet.

@edmund

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Edmund was walking around outside in the rain. Walking outside had become habit during the last few weeks, since he'd broken up with Addi, but the rain was new. Still, he didn't care. He hardly felt the rain falling down on him, all he realized was the empty feeling in his stomach. It had been there since the night of the Yule Ball. A part of him wanted to talk to Addi, demand what she thought she'd been doing, but another part just wanted to leave it be. He always thought she was too good for him. After all, she was the happy, cheerful one. Ed was the I'll-bite-your-head-off-if-you-look-at-me-wrong one. So he walked, not paying attention to his surroundings, assuming that there were few people who wanted to be out in the rain.

@jamie

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While on her rock-gathering mission, Jamie wasn’t paying much attention to what was going on around her. It was so disgusting out that not many people would be around, anyways. Jamie was surprised, therefore, when she heard feet scuffing at the rocks. It took her a few more moments before she straightened from her stooped position, and she squinted through the sleet to see who was making such a racket while walking on the stones. Maybe if she knew the person’s identity, she would know whether or not they were making so much noise on accident or on purpose. “Edmund!” Jamie called out, slightly surprised that the Slytherin boy was outside in such dreadful weather, though Jamie couldn’t talk, since she was outside, too. It seemed meeting Slytherins in the rain was becoming a common occurrence for Jamie. The Hufflepuff made her way over to the other student, a smile on her face even as she continued to squint to keep water out of her eyes. “Want to skip rocks with me?” Jamie asked without preamble. She was hoping that Edmund would accept her offer rather than say that he had to get back to the castle – everything was more enjoyable with a friend.

@edmund

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Ed jumped a little bit when he heard someone call his name. He turned quickly to see Jamie, Addi's friend. He forced a quick smile, despite his mood. She approached him and he waited patiently. He didn't want to be an absolute grump to everyone. In fact, at the moment he was trying to focus on having a better attitude toward others no matter how he was feeling. At her question, he nodded. He liked to skip rocks. It was something he used to do with his Father. "Sure. I like skipping rocks," he started walking down to the Black Lake, assuming that was where she was headed.

@jamie

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When Edmund got closer, Jamie began to remember some of the reasons why he might be outside at such a time as this. There were whispers of something happening with him and his girlfriend at the Yule Ball, though the last time Jamie had seen him that day, all had been well. It wasn’t relevant to their rock-skipping, though, beyond that it probably gave Edmund a reason to be outside and Jamie a reason to want to help him cheer up. Edmund began to move towards the Black Lake. “Hold on a sec!” Jamie told him. “There’s more smooth rocks here than down by the shore.” She explained, handing a few of the ones she had already retrieved to Edmund. “People look for stones good for skipping there all the time, so it’s harder to find them.” She added, hoping that Edmund didn’t think that she was over-explaining things – she just wanted to offer a reason why she was stopping them from their final destination and making them carry an armful of rocks when there appeared to be perfectly good ones on the lakeside, too.

@edmund

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Edmund paused once more when Jamie asked him to, then turned around and joined her in the search for smooth rocks. He might not be very good at skipping rocks, but he knew how to look for the right kind of rocks. "Thanks Jamie," he said as he put the best stones in his pockets. That way he wouldn't lose them on the walk down to the Lake. "You must do this quite a bit," he commented lightly. "Are you ready to go down to the Lake now?" He wasn't quite sure how many rocks she wanted, but thought that he had enough for now, at least. If they wanted to do more, they could always come back in a bit.

@jamie

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Edmund thanked her, and Jamie smiled at him. When he said that she must do this a lot, Jamie shrugged. “Not a ton, but enough to know a trick or two.” Besides, searching for one skipping stone for fifteen minutes wasn’t something that one easily forgot. After accumulating a dozen or so of the rocks she deemed best, Jamie turned back to Edmund, who seemed to be much better at finding rocks than her, to have gotten so many in half the time she had spent. “Yeah, I’m ready.” Jamie smirked a little. “I wonder if we’ll actually be able to use these.” She said, gesturing to the rocks as she began walking towards the Lake. “I mean, I’m not sure if it’ll be stone skipping or stone sliding.” That would be seen when they were at the lake and they could see the surface more easily – it was obscured for now, due to the heavy rain that continued to fall.

@edmund

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Ed smiled as Jamie explained herself a little. She didn't need to, but he was appreciating the opportunity to do something where he didn't have to think of Addi. Jamie wasn't trying to talk about her, and he wasn't going to bring her up. Skipping rocks in heavy rain was a good distraction, he decided. He nodded when she said she was ready and started making his way down to the lake. "I'm sure we will. We might not get as many jumps out of them as normal ... so if there are any you really want to use, you might want to save them for another time, but we can try it." They arrived at the Lake and Ed smiled as he looked at the surface. It was raining hard, but he still wasn't ready to go in. He picked one of his rocks, gave it a light toss and smiled at Jamie before twisting and flinging it at the water. His smile widened when it jumped six times. Not bad. He turned to Jamie and gestured for her to go. 

@jamie

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Edmund seemed confident on them being able to skip rocks despite the thin floes of ice that were floating all over the lake, though he did say that it was likely that they wouldn’t get as many skips as possible. “I don’t get many to start with, so I’m fine with however many I do get.” Jamie said. She was still working on getting the wrist motion right, and while she could get at least two skips every time, she wasn’t the kind of person who could skip a stone all the way across a pond. “Saving rocks to use for another time seems a little silly.” Jamie said with a shrug. None of the ones she had picked up were particularly special, though Jamie was sure if she had found a perfect skipping stone (if there was such a thing), she might have considered keeping it. She was going to ask Edmund if he wanted to go first, but he didn’t hesitate, sending the stone skipping six times. Jamie whistled. “Did they teach you that at Windsor Castle?” She asked, chucking her stone. It hopped twice before hitting an ice sheet, and Jamie sighed. Not a great way to start.

@edmund

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He nodded when Jamie said she was fine with whatever she got. It continued to rain hard, so he wouldn't be surprised if she wanted to go in sooner rather than later, though he wouldn't push either way. he wouldn't be going inside for a while. Then he shrugged, "It depends on the rocks you find. Some people find rocks they like and save them for the 'perfect moment.'" He paused, his mind going back to his father and the time that they spent skipping rocks with one another. Often his father would find a rock and keep it in his pocket for weeks before the "perfect moment" came for him to use it. He'd been amazing skipping rocks. He smiled at her next question. "No, but I learned to skip rocks when I was young. It was one of the things my father and I used to do," he paused for a second before continuing. "Then when he died I did it more and more on my own." It was one of the things that made him feel closer to his father and Ed had done it every day for months after he passed on. He pulled out another rock and tossed it, which skipped once before hitting ice. He rolled his eyes, "See, that happens to everyone," he said encouragingly.

@jamie

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Jamie cocked her head when Edmund said that some people liked to save rocks for ‘the perfect moment’. “I feel like that moment might never come.” Jamie mused. “And if you spend your whole life waiting for it, then you’re going to miss all of the other great moments that you get along the way.” That was why Jamie had such a hard time believing that there was only one of anything – like only one soulmate. She had heard, once, that even if there was only one perfect fit, there were a thousand others that were close enough to perfect that no one would ever know the difference. Of course, she liked to think that there was more than one perfect person, but that was a different discussion for a different day.

“I don’t remember ever learning how to do this.” Jamie said after Edmund explained when, where, and why he had learned to skip rocks. “I think it’s just something I picked up.” She added. “But it’s nice, that it helps you feel closer to him.” The Hufflepuff said. Even though Edmund hadn’t said that outright, she knew enough about having an absent parent (in this case, her estranged mother) to know that there were things that made them seem closer. Edmund’s next skip was a dud, and Jamie smiled a little when he used it as an opportunity to encourage her. She wound up and tossed her next stone, squinting and watching it skip. When it disappeared into the haze of the rain, it was still going. “Lucky shot.” She told Edmund before he could say anything about it.

@edmund

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Edmund nodded when Jamie said that moment might never come. "It never does for me," he admitted, "which is why I always use all my rocks, but my father was really good at finding right moments. I remember once he got a rock to skip eighteen times." Ed smiled and paused at the memory, then shrugged at her next comment, about missing things. He could see where she got that opinion, but he didn't necessarily agree with it. Still, he didn't want to argue, so he didn't say anything.

Edmund nodded, agreeing that it helped him feel closer to his father, but she already said it so he didn't need to. He then rolled his eyes when she said it was a lucky shot. "There might have been a bit of luck in that shot, but you also had to throw it the right way or it wouldn't have gone so far," he argue, grabbing another rock and tossing it, nodding when it jumped five times. Not too bad. Not too good either, but he was alright with that.

@jamie

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Edmund said that the right time never came for him, and Jamie made a sympathetic noise. “I don’t think I skip rocks enough to know what a perfect moment would be like.” She said. She supposed that since this was a regular thing for Edmund, he would be better at ascertaining when the conditions were right for a great skip, and use the better rocks at that point, but maybe it wasn’t about calculations like that – more like a feeling. She knew a thing or two about inexplicable feelings. Jamie made a shocked gasp for breath when Edmund said that his father had gotten to skip a rock eighteen times. “You had a pond big enough for that?” She asked, though that wasn’t actually the shocking part. “I would have thought it would be hard to count, once it disappeared into the horizon or whatever.” The Hufflepuff added, using her experience with her stone disappearing into the rain as a ruler of sorts.

When the Slytherin boy agreed that there might have been a bit of luck in her throw, Jamie was prepared to drop the subject, but then he added that she must have done something pretty well, too. “Muscle memory is hard to develop.” She whined a little when she sent her next rock flying. It only bounced once. She wasn’t much good at consistency, it appeared.

@edmund

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Ed shrugged when Jamie said she didn't know what the perfect moment would look like. "My father always saved them for moments when there wasn't a lot of wind and the water looked like glass." He smiled fondly at the memories. "Then he would show off. Those moments never quite work for me. I get stressed and nervous and throw it wrong." Not that he thought Jamie really wanted to know all of that, but whatever. He already said it. He laughed, "Yes, there's a big enough pond for all of that," he told her with a smile. "It's a place I've never been to with anyone except for my father."

He laughed, "Then just practice. And besides, skipping rocks isn't too big of a deal. It just takes the right angle. Once you've got that down and the flicking motion, it won't leave," He tossed one that went seven times and smiled. It was still raining hard, but he didn't even notice.

@jamie

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Jamie smiled a little at Ed’s nostalgia about his dad and their time skipping stones together. She didn’t get to hear many stories about the Windsors’ father, especially since she hadn’t been with Will long enough to broach the subject of his deceased parent with him. “I can understand that.” Jamie said when Edmund said he just got stressed when the “perfect moment” came. “You get so obsessed with not ruining the moment that you do it by accident.” It happened to her in Quidditch sometimes, though that was a little different – nothing was quite like what Edmund had with his father. Ed said that he had only ever been to the pond where had skipped stones with his father, and Jamie nodded. “Must be pretty special.” She commented. Even more so now because he was gone.

“Sadly, of all the things I’ve thought to practice, this isn’t one.” Jamie said. There just wasn’t enough time, and it was something she didn’t like doing as well on her own. “Like riding a bike?” Jamie asked when Ed said that the motion wouldn’t leave. She didn’t throw another stone of her own yet, content just to watch Edmund throw his.

@edmund