what you know | brody

[lea cruz malkin]

i will get time

to realize
it's right before my eyes

July 1, 2027
brody christopher dubois

Now that a sixth and seventh year was technically ‘optional’ to students, Lea could only imagine why her will to complete this Charms essay was wavering. Fortunately, she had not procrastinated on this assignment and had another few days to complete it. A walk might clear her mind. Stretching one’s legs after sitting through lectures was likely blocking her brain from putting ink to parchment and forming cohesive sentences. Lea had discovered that the other Wings contained differently decorated interiors outside of the NEWT and General Studies Wings.

For now, she began to slowly walk and look at the various newspaper clippings that lined the walls. Moving pictures of different faces—shaking hands or maybe something more candid. She didn’t know many of these people, at least not personally. A few faces she recognized due to their status in the community, or perhaps they had come through the shop for new dress robes. It happened. Older Ministry Department Heads or Advisors to the Minister of Magic often needed new dress robes as the old men became portlier with each decade. No longer at the same fitness level as when they were Aurors.

Her grandmother always made comments when they would leave. As she stopped to read an article on Professor Weasley and his latest book on Dragons, Lea heard a door and footsteps. Instinctively she looked. Just another student and familiar face. He had just exited the classroom closest to her. ”Hi Brody.” A boy in her year, but of Hufflepuff house. At least for the duration, he had attended Hogwarts. But far less rowdy than some of the other boys in their year.

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[brody christopher dubois]

July 1, 2027

Going from Ilvermorny to Hogwarts and back again might not have been the most logical route to take in his educational trajectory, but Brody couldn't imagine how it would have felt to leave Yvonne behind again after everything that they had been through together. They only had one more year of their magical educations unless she was planning on going into some sort of job-specific training, but that one year apart would have had him kicking himself (proverbially, anyway) all year long. There was still something inside of him that held out hope that things would be okay between them in the end, and he knew that he couldn't see that through from back across the Atlantic.

So far, at least, his academic life had been going well with his new status as a student at the Lufkin Institute for Further Education. It was slightly different from what he had experienced at Hogwarts before the fire, and it was different from the curriculum at Ilvermorny. Although he was preparing to take his NEWT examinations, LIFE, as it was called, had more of a focus on higher levels of study. It was more like a university in that sense, and Brody felt that he was being treated more like an adult, but he wasn't sure that he wanted to stay in school forever, either.

He was still learning his way around the campus, which had changed substantially since he had been at Hogwarts previously. The main building at LIFE, for instance, had the library that housed the more advanced reading materials, plus a computer room. Unlike a number of his fellow students, Brody wasn't very familiar with Muggle (or "No-Maj", as he called it) technology. He and his siblings had attended a No-Maj school before beginning their magical educations at Ilvermorny, but they hadn't had any of those devices at home, which had left some people wondering if they were aliens from outer space or something.

Considering how much more No-Maj technology was becoming part of the magical world, too, Brody was glad to have the opportunity to test out the computers at LIFE before requesting that his parents spend money on one that he could have of his own. He didn't spend all his time in the computer lab, but he had started to make a habit of going there when he had some time to spare. He was getting better and better at navigating his way around a computer, though he did find it frustrating at times.

After deciding that he had had enough of trying to figure out how everything worked and why he couldn't just use his wand to control what was on the screen in front of him, he powered off the computer that he had been using and made his way back out of the computer lab and into the corridor. Right in front of him was Lea Malkin, a girl originally from Hogwarts who was in Ravenclaw but who had been in Horned Serpent with him while she had attended Ilvermorny the previous year. (Was it getting more and more complicated to explain how he knew people? Absolutely.)

Regardless, Lea had greeted him, saying hello. Brody nodded, greeting her in return. "Hey, Lea. What's up?"

lea cruz malkin

[lea cruz malkin]

i will get time

to realize
it's right before my eyes

July 1, 2027
brody christopher dubois

Lea was one of the Diagon Alley kids, as they called them. Others included the Vectors. Lea often saw Professor Vector walking quickly from one place to another but never seemed too busy to give a quick way or greeting to a student. After all, he was her Head of House, so perhaps she would speak with him more this year. Arithmancy was definitely not on her schedule. And then the Ollivanders, who her family knew well, and Gideon was in her year. As children, they’d seen each other often, though Lea got the sense that he wasn’t fond of Lyka’s quidditch fanaticism. And the Weasley’s often visited since Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes was there.

Diagon Alley was always a bustling place, and Hogwarts had also been. See so few students was almost unsettling. Even Ilvermorny had a huge crowd with all the transfers. Lea still lamented that she couldn’t have gone to Beauxbatons. Their uniforms were magnificent. ”Taking a break from Charms.” Lea had done alright at the other school. She was never too loud and never too quiet and agreeable. Easy to befriend, she supposed. The extra few months of school they would have to endure just meant more time where Lea wondered if she should’ve even come back. Naturally, she was lined up to work at her grandmother’s shop when she was done. ”I’m still not used to the quiet.” Lea admitted surely she wasn’t the only one.

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[brody christopher dubois]

July 1, 2027

Lea answered him to say that she was taking a break from her Charms work, and Brody nodded. He worked hard enough, yet he didn't see any point in overworking himself for the sake of examinations. That seemed to be a common experience for the kids who were from Hogwarts to begin with, though. Even just preparing for their OWL examinations, he could recall that some of his classmates had needed to go to the Hospital Wing to be given a Calming Draught. From what he had heard, NEWTs were even tougher than that, so maybe that was part of why they had started their academic year in the middle of the summer instead of in September when the younger students began their year.

It was Lea who added, "I'm still not used to the quiet."

Brody could relate. "Yeah, it's a little bit weird that we're being treated like we're in college—or 'university' here, I guess—even though we wouldn't be done with high school at Ilvermorny yet," he pointed out, shrugging his shoulders as he spoke. He wasn't really sure what to consider his current level of schooling other than to frame it in reference to the two systems of magical education in which he'd studied. He knew, however, that Lea would understand what he meant. Even though she was originally a Hogwarts student, she and her younger sister, Lyka, were now familiar with how they did things at Ilvermorny.

Brody was aware that he theoretically could go on to more advanced studies once he completed his NEWTs, with the way that Hogwarts had been reorganized in the year that he had been back at Ilvermorny. He still wasn't sure what he wanted to do after that, but he wanted to keep his options open. His heart kept telling him that he didn't want to go back to the United States without getting some closure with Yvonne.

"I was just in the computer lab," he explained. "I'm not really good with that stuff yet, so I hope they don't make us write papers on them this year." He remembered what it had been like at No-Maj school to be totally confused by all the technology. There was some robot thing called "Alexa" that everyone swore was like magic, for instance, but Brody had remained perplexed by it. (How magical was it really if it couldn't just summon objects?)

lea cruz malkin

[lea cruz malkin]

i will get time

to realize
it's right before my eyes

July 1, 2027
brody christopher dubois

Lea looked at Brody curiously. While the structure of Hogwarts had shifted, it wasn’t a terribly massive shift. But from her year at Ilvermorny, she discovered how different certain things were there. ”True.” Had Lea’s parents opted to send the girls to Beauxbatons nearby, she’d be wholly unfamiliar with most things regarding the states. But that probably wasn’t abnormal. Really Lea’s world had only grown when she’d left for Hogwarts in the first place. Before that, Diagon Alley seemed like the world. The older she got, the smaller her family’s store felt.

”Do you miss Ilvermorny?” Lea asked curiously. From what she knew, he had transferred back and forth more than once. On the topic of the computer lab, Lea smiled sheepishly. She wasn’t that familiar with them either. And it wasn’t difficult, but it wasn’t that easy either, at least not for Lea. ”Merlin—I hope not. My grandmother was rather appalled at the thought.” Someone had mentioned perhaps moving their orders from ink and parchment to a digital system for the store, but she was having none of it. Lea didn’t mind either way. She was used to how they did things currently. ”Typing is so slow.” Lea groaned a bit. She much preferred handwriting. She also couldn’t picture her sister sitting still and pressing the keys for long as she would grow frustrated.

But it all required patience, which Lea had plenty of. Plus, the other half of Witch Weekly she typically skimmed had articles covering much of the new technology. ‘Infiltrating the Muggle Household,’ they called it. At first, Lea thought it was some kind of written comedy series, but as it turns out, it was all real and quite interesting.

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[brody christopher dubois]

July 1, 2027

Lea, now having had experience with Ilvermorny herself, seemed to understand what Brody meant when he mentioned that the way LIFE was structured felt strange to him. She also asked him if he missed Ilvermorny, and that was a pretty easy question to answer.

"Yeah," he replied with a nod. He wasn't about to get wistful about it or anything, but he did miss Ilvermorny. It had been his school long before Hogwarts ever had, and he was more used to it in general. At the same time, he was the one who had made the decision to go back to Hogwarts. He could have stayed in Massachusetts to finish up his education, and his parents probably would have preferred that to having him go all the way back to Scotland, but he wouldn't have gone back if not for Yvonne De Snaijer.

Chasing after a girl at seventeen years old had never been his plan, but he refused to put himself in a position where he might never see her again. If he were to say that out loud, it would sound overdramatic, but it was true. Maybe it was the trauma of leaving one school and then having so many people die with the destruction of Hogwarts as it had been; Brody couldn't really say for certain. He just knew that he and Yvonne hadn't been through so much only to forget about one another.

Brody wasn't so far gone that he couldn't put her out of his mind long enough to hold a conversation, though, and he was happy that he wasn't the only one who would have been screwed—to put it lightly—if they were required to start using computers to complete their assignments for LIFE. Like him, Lea hoped that wouldn't be the case, and she also bemoaned how slow it was to type.

"The typing isn't as bad as the machines." Brody wrinkled his nose. "I went to a No-Maj school before Ilvermorny. Everything is 'smart' to them," he explained, making air quotes with his fingers on both hands. More and more frequently, No-Majes seemed to be talking about what they called "artificial intelligence" and what it could do and whether or not it would somehow rule the world. Especially being a wizard, the whole thing had always sounded ridiculous to Brody. "They have all these terms for things that don't make any sense, and then they act like the computers have brains."

lea cruz malkin

[lea cruz malkin]

i will get time

to realize
it's right before my eyes

July 1, 2027
brody christopher dubois

Despite their short time in Massachusetts, Lea hadn’t hated her experience there. It wasn’t Hogwarts or Beauxbatons, but even moving back wasn’t the same. This school was rebuilt, but it was not the Castle she remembered. The paintings were not in their usual spots or the small corners of the grounds where one could read quietly in the shade at just the right time of day. This new system was strange for Lea. She didn’t have any massive career goals as some of her peers. The path set before her was clear—she’d work with her family at the shop in Diagon Alley. She really didn’t need NEWTs for that, did she?

Lea looked at Brody curiously. ”Really?” Muggle life was fascinating, but at the same time, Lea was only that much more grateful for the ability to use charms. ”What sort of other ‘smart’ things do they use?” Lea’s muggle-born classmates really did have the advantage on that front. Their fingers flew over the keys of a keyboard as if someone had charmed them. Lea much preferred handwriting, but she loved how her script looked versus the very plain text on the computer screen.

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[brody christopher dubois]

July 1, 2027

"Really?" Lea asked him when he brought up the extent of non-magical technology. "What sort of other ‘smart’ things do they use?"

"Oh, yeah. Lots of stuff," Brody answered her, buying himself enough time to think of where to start. Obviously, the magical world had been introduced to smartphones, but that was just the tip of the "smart" technology iceberg. "Their watches, their locks, their cars," he said, listing a few more examples for Lea as he counted them on his fingers. "At some schools, they have these things called 'smart' boards. They're like chalkboards but with computers. Even some people's homes are 'smart'." It felt like overkill to Brody, but he also didn't need to tell something called Alexa to turn off his bedroom lights for him.

"There's probably more," he admitted. "I've seen people give their babies computers, too. Those tablet ones." Brody hadn't kept up with it all since he had started school at Ilvermorny, mostly because he didn't feel any need to. His areas of expertise were owls, the outdoors, and Quidditch, and he couldn't see himself suddenly switching gears to become the wizarding world's foremost expert on whatever No-Majes were inventing left and right.

lea cruz malkin

[lea cruz malkin]

i will get time

to realize
it's right before my eyes

July 1, 2027
brody christopher dubois

Lea listened intently as Brody explained more about the muggle world. Of course, she often forgot that Americans called muggles ‘no-maj’s. Logically, it made sense, even if it simply didn’t stick in Lea’s brain. It was one way to distinguish where a witch or wizard might be from aside from the obvious accent differences. ”Their homes?” She wondered out loud, her brow furrowed in a bit of confusion but curiosity. That felt terribly over-complicated. For what purpose? Maybe she simply took for granted her world—something her parents might tell her as a reminder of her ‘gift’ for the family business.

”Merlin—it all feels a bit…confusing.” She remembered learning the basics of her phone. It hadn’t taken much time to pick it up quickly, but the idea of a baby using a device like that felt preposterous, like giving a toddler a wand and expecting it to go well. ”And excessive.” Lea added. Just like typing on the computer, it felt slow when handwriting was sufficient and better-looking. ”I suppose it depends on what your work will entail after school ends…I’ll be working with family. I don’t see why I need to learn typing.” But to argue with the curriculum from a Professor was not in the cards for Lea. That was something more up Lyka’s alley, if only because computers and Quidditch didn’t overlap.

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[brody christopher dubois]

July 1, 2027

"Their homes?"

"Yup." Brody understood Lea's disbelief. Yes, for whatever reasons they had, some No-Majes had decided that computers as computers weren't enough. Anything that a computer could be added to was almost always seen as an improvement on whatever they'd had previously. As Lea said a few moments later, it was certainly confusing and excessive, but the No-Majes seemed to prefer it that way.

To each their own, Brody thought, and Lea also saw the other side of it. "I suppose it depends on what your work will entail after school ends," she said. "I'll be working with family. I don't see why I need to learn typing."

"Typing isn't so bad," Brody assured her. "At least with a keyboard, it's like using a typewriter. The rest of it," he emphasized, "is the confusing part—figuring out where everything is and how to make it work to do what you want it to. I wish I could just use my wand for some of that."

lea cruz malkin