edge of eternity [Addy]

[Raphael Caelan McLaggen]

12 January 2029

After the constant chaos of Puff Palace, it was strange to sit in silence. Ever since he’d moved in with the other former Hufflepuffs, there was always something happening somewhere. He could be developing his photographs in the dark room, arguably the most secluded room in the flat, and still hear the chaos in the background of Eli knocking things over or Brody bringing another owl back ‘just for the night’ (according to him, at least). It became a constant backdrop of white noise in his life, and most of the time he didn’t even notice it. Not until it was gone, at least.

So he sat on the couch in Addy and Brígh’s flat, and even the usual source of chaos here (really, Brígh and her parties) was also missing. Cheese wasn’t usually so observant about his surroundings, and in fact that’s what usually led to stupid (but funny) accidents like hitting his head on low-hanging lights or his knees knocking into chairs while he walked around and scrolled through photos on one of his digital cameras. This time, though – nope, this time there was just him on a couch sitting with the physically tangible weight of silence in the room. He had his laptop open, balancing on his knees, and he was messing around with the saturation level on a photo while he waited for Addy to walk back into the room.

Were things maybe still a little awkward? Sure, of course. Well-Intentioned Awkwardness (TM) was a sort of specialty of his, and this time it did feel like his fault because of the stupid thoughts racing through his head. It had barely been a full week since he’d broken up with Mallory, and he was painfully aware of why even if he hadn’t shared it with anyone else yet. But that wasn’t why he’d dropped by – and for once, photography wasn’t the reason either. No, Addy was still nursing the wounds (physically and emotionally) of being benched and Brígh wasn’t quite the right person to comfort her. The two girls had always been close, but Brígh just didn’t get Quidditch and that was a natural obstacle in understanding why Addy was so upset.

So he was going to be a good friend. That was the reason, the only reason, he was here, and he reminded himself of it sternly. Cheese focused back on the photograph, smiling a little at the puffskeins all piled on top of each other. Even so, he was hyper-aware of his surroundings (more than usual, for sure) and his hand slipped a little when Addy walked back in. The saturation level dropped so fast that it looked like a shot from one of the Twilight movies. Cheese winced – now the puffskeins looked like they were contemplating the short and meaningless specter of existence. Still, he went with it. “What d’you think?” he asked, turning the laptop around so she could see the screen. “I can add a lyric from a Bête Noire song and make a poster. It’d be a hit with the MAGIC kids.”

addilyn elara slater

[addilyn elara slater]

Wish I had no expectations

But I expect, you expect, we expect

January 12, 2029
Raphael Caelan McLaggen

Addy had stopped counting how many times she’d answered the question, ‘How are you?’ As the number grew, so did her frustration at the demotion back to bench warmer. The door from the kitchen closed with a thud behind her as Addy returned to the living room. Cheese had dropped by, and although he’d messaged the day before to give her a heads up—Addy still felt it was a bit unexpected. After accepting the offer to join the Harpies as a reservist, Addy stopped playing with the local Quidditch League. Her new schedule had been far too busy to find spare time for such activities, plus part of her knew she was in the big leagues now.

But she’d missed seeing Cheese. However, those final weekends with the surprisingly competitive and aggressive matches (with an obscene number of fouls on both sides) had left Addy ready to find an excuse to stop going. It wasn’t seeing her ex-boyfriend laugh at something another girl had told him. Nope. Or watching how he would tilt his head when obviously photographing a moment in his head. And it certainly wasn’t that Cheese was doing all that with someone else. Nope. The careful balance they’d found the previous year was their only chance to remain friends, and like hell, Addy would ruin that. She always worked hard at her goals, and the failure of their relationship was still a failure that loomed from the past because Addy did not fail.

But surviving this injury, while feeling like some great accomplishment, also felt like a failure. Despite the lack of clear direction of her career and no promise of a permanent position—Addy still felt like she’d been so close to something. The match made the Prophet’s Sports section discuss the injuries and length of the match. Naturally, Grey and Claire both checked in quickly while Addy focused on letting her broken bones heal overnight in St. Mungo’s. And her best friends, but Brigh never understood Addy’s love of the sport. Unfortunately, only Cheese could come close to understanding what was on Addy’s mind at the moment.

Addy approached the couch with a butterbeer in each hand and focused on the laptop screen. The puffskeins looked eerie and not at all like the harmless and cute creatures they actually were. ”I’m sure you could print it on a shirt.” Addy replied, shaking her head. It seemed the sort of thing they would wear when classes were not in session. It reminded Addy of their age and how long ago fourth or fifth year was. She placed one bottle on the side table next to Cheese, leaning into his space momentarily. And she put her own bottle on the coffee table before returning to the couch. She sighed heavily. ”At this rate, I’ll have to play with the T’s again—well, when I’m cleared.” Addy felt fine, and she was fine. No long-term effects of a concussion were noted, and yet she still had to wait.

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[Raphael Caelan McLaggen]

If there was one thing Cheese had mastered, it was being completely fine-tuned to Addy’s presence whenever she was nearby. It was the simple byproduct of being inseparable since they’d been eleven years old, especially for that brief period when Brígh had withdrawn from Hogwarts and left them alone. He couldn’t control the fact that his senses seemed to heighten one hundred percent when Addy was around, but he’d gotten pretty good at hiding it – and even tuning it out every now and then once he’d started getting closer to Mallory. But it was his worst habit to slide back into familiar patterns and play out the same scenes all over again, especially if it involved someone else and triggered his people-pleasing tendencies.

So he still felt that subtle streak of lightning shoot down his spine as she leaned in and her perfume momentarily overwhelmed his senses. Cheese felt himself swallow a little nervously as she leaned back, and he kept fiddling with the settings on his photo to distract himself. It looked depressing to him, but he knew some fellow photography enthusiasts that overused the black-and-white aesthetic and played with dark humor in their subjects. He exhaled in agreement with Addy’s observation that a t-shirt might go over well, but a moment later he clicked undo and restored the color. “They look happier like this,” he decided, smiling at the puffskeins again. With that he pushed the laptop back a couple inches on his lap and took the opportunity to stretch after staying in one position for so long.

After a beat, he reached out to snatch the butterbeer off the side table, barely having to reach to grab it. Cheese checked the label and took a long swig. “Dicky always orders me extra-foam whenever I’m late to meet him,” he said, his gaze far away as he remembered the last time he’d gone to Hogsmeade. It was well-known that Cheese hated foam on his butterbeer, which he guessed was sort of the point. Never get a Ravenclaw angry – their revenge could be just as devious as a Slytherin’s. Cheese had legitimately been trying to be better about his time management, but some things just couldn’t wait. The problem with getting the perfect shot was that it only existed for a moment. And once it was gone, you could never get it back. That explanation had never gone over well with Addy, and he’d fought about it once or twice with Mallory too.

He floated back from his idle daydreams at the somber reminder of his now ex-girlfriend, and Cheese rubbed the back of his neck self-consciously as he tried to banish the thought. Addy’s off-hand comment didn’t help, although the frustration in her tone was obvious and came from another source completely. “It’ll be good practice for you,” Cheese offered, trying to keep the sympathy out of his tone and instead analyze the problem from a logical point of view. He figured Addy would want to hear that rather than any perceived pity from him. “You can keep up your usual drills so you won’t be rusty when the team assigns you a new slot.” After a pause, he mumbled, “And you can say hi to everyone from me.” He exhaled slowly and forced himself to stop fidgeting, instead letting his arm fall on the back of the sofa. He was going to miss the T’s, but he didn’t see any other choice. It would be too awkward for both of them to keep going, and Mallory had brought him in. He took another long sip of his butterbeer to avoid chasing that thought.

addilyn elara slater

[addilyn elara slater]

Wish I had no expectations

But I expect, you expect, we expect

January 12, 2029
Raphael Caelan McLaggen

Addy glanced at the photo again after sitting down. The couch wasn’t very big, but she still had to lean toward the middle to see his computer screen. Surprisingly for Addy, when she wasn’t aware, it was easy to be so physically close to him without feeling awkward or hyper-aware of all her appendages. ”I agree.” Puffskeins were happy creatures, not meant to act or appear sad. Magical creatures had never been of great interest to Addy, but some facts were unchangeable, such as how mooncalves were always cute in their own weird way.

She laughed, returning her bottle to the side table and scooting away from the middle a bit. ”That sounds like him.” Dicky was a stickler for such things, at least in some cases. ”I dropped by his flat last week. Apparently, I’d woken him up.” She remembered the half-asleep look in his eyes and the way one side of his hair was flat while the other stuck out dramatically. But that was their best friend, and Addy, in hindsight, expected nothing less. The admiration they all held for one another was a true testament to friendship, even in cases like Addy and Cheese and their history.

Curling up in her corner of the couch, as she often did, Addy lightly shrugged as she stared off into another corner of the room. He was right—saying everything she’d already thought to herself. The organized narrator in her brain had preached much the same and it all made sense, not that it made Addy any happier or less miserable. But her eyes focused and snapped to Cheese. ”Why wouldn’t you be there?” She wondered curiously. Her first thought was that his workload had increased and that weekends were now occupied by photoshoots here and there. Which was good for his career, but the idea that she would be there and Cheese not…well, she hadn’t considered that.

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[Raphael Caelan McLaggen]

Things had been awkward for a while after the break-up and it’d been hard to find things to talk about with Addy. It had been a strange feeling, because he’d always been able to talk to her about almost anything. Brígh’s presence had also helped, because the third member of their trio had absolutely no filter and didn’t believe much in keeping secrets. So the conversation had always flowed between them, until it’d trickled to a halt and they’d stopped seeing so much of each other. The best way to break the awkward groove had been to talk about things that were so familiar that they didn’t take any thought, and their mutual friends had always been a safe space in that sense. Cheese cracked a smile at the thought of Addy waking Dicky up. “What, and you’ve lived to tell the tale?” he teased. It wasn’t hard to imagine what that conversation must’ve been like – but then again, Addy had always gotten away with things like that. Maybe it was the whole loving books more than people thing.

He leaned back on the couch and thought about it for a moment. “If I’d tried that, Dicky would’ve murdered me on the spot. And nobody’d know there’d even been a crime! He’d stage it to look like an accident.” Cheese paused, nodded to himself, and looked at Addy sternly. “Promise me you’d investigate my murder.” That was the sort of thing friends promised each other, right? It sounded reasonable to him. He glanced at the puffskeins again, then looked back at Addy curled up on her corner of the couch. It was a familiar pose to him, since it usually indicated that she was overthinking something and had curled up into a defensive position like some kind of self-comforting gesture. It could also mean that she was making herself comfortable, but the conspicuous lack of a book or half-taken-apart piece of Muggle technology indicated otherwise (Cheese had had a nightmare once that she’d done it to his camera, but she’d just laughed at him).

The thought ran through his mind for a moment to ask what she was thinking about, but Addy had always hated it when he tried to diagnose. So instead Cheese just sucked in a breath at her question and rubbed the back of his neck. “It’d be awkward to see Mallory,” he mumbled, “We, er, broke up.” He tilted his head until it fell back onto the couch and then stared up at the ceiling. He’d been absolutely useless after things had ended with Addy, and remembering the long months of depression had meant he'd procrastinated quite a bit on talking to Mallory. Now that he was a week after the disaster, he’d been reflecting on what he was feeling and what he should’ve been feeling. Depressed? Sure, a bit. Lost in his thoughts? Completely. But it wasn’t the same downward spiral he’d gone through and he couldn’t decide if that meant he was growing up or if he’d just been ignoring his gut for a lot longer than he thought.

addilyn elara slater

[addilyn elara slater]

Wish I had no expectations

But I expect, you expect, we expect

January 12, 2029
Raphael Caelan McLaggen

Addy half scoffed, half laughed. Her friendship with Dicky was different than with the others. From the beginning, academics was their pursuit, and they both excelled. Even when he returned to graduate later than the rest, Addy still felt that connection with him. Maybe that dynamic helped her stand up to him in a sense, but after years of friendship they also knew one another well enough by now. ”Well, he invited me and promptly forgot.” Had Addy been in the wrong, Dicky would have let her know without fail. In this case, she held the higher ground.

From her corner of the couch, Addy lazily looked to the side as Cheese made his request. She took a moment, pretending to consider it seriously. She supposed this would trump any call from Dicky requesting her help in staging the accident. ”I promise that I’ll get Claire to investigate your murder.” Her tone was almost flat, but she slowly smiled at the end. It felt good to talk like this again. No huge discussions or something pending, just talking about whatever came up. Like friends would do. Because lately, that’s what Addy needed. Otherwise, who knew where her mind would spiral in such a state? Her parents weren’t speaking to her, and the big, risky career change wasn’t going well.

It was everything for Addy to keep the thoughts of failure out of her mind. Their weight threatened to drag her from the cliff she held onto with her fingertips. Playing in the neighborhood league wouldn’t have been so bad, especially if it kept her mind busy. But she wasn’t sure if she wanted to if Cheese wouldn’t be there. And as to why? He pushed out an explanation, causing Addy to look at him, genuinely surprised. ”Oh.” Addy managed before coming to her senses. ”I didn’t know. I’m sorry to hear that.” was she? Of course, she was sorry. All Addy wanted was for Cheese to be happy. Though the part of her that had jealously fouled the other Chaser many times seemed to leap with joy. Is that why her stomach did an uncomfortable flip? Addy told herself no. It had been almost two years since their break up. All that was in the past now, right? ”How are you—uh—doing with all that?” She asked cautiously. If he didn’t want to discuss it with her, his ex-girlfriend, that felt fair, but she offered.

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[Raphael Caelan McLaggen]

Cheese was almost comforted by Addy’s promise to make sure his murder was investigated, except she’d invoked the name of her scary older sister and he instinctively looked over his shoulder to see if she’d magically appeared. It didn’t completely comfort him to see the room was empty besides them, but he settled back into the couch a moment later. “Well, alright. I s’pose Claire can check all the spots she’s imagined burying Grey in.” He knew a little about the family drama from Addy’s stories about the beef between her older siblings, but not too many details. Only the certainty that Claire could quite literally get away with murder, and that Cheese would notice if Grey suddenly disappeared from work. He'd been doing a rotation in the Sports Department, which meant the shock of seeing some of Addy’s features in Grey every day had worn off.

The conversation seemed to flow for a while and Cheese felt himself relaxed and smiling – it was definitely not possible to be both in his daily life. Being an adult was hard and working at a newspaper was stressful. But the brief moment of peace vanished at the mention of the T’s and Mallory, and Cheese stewed in silence at the thought of losing custody of the league in the break-up. The awkward pause continued for a while until Addy broke it with a hesitant comment, and Cheese glanced at her in skeptical surprise. She and Mallory had been responsible for half the fouls in their practices, and the half-sincere apologies got lost in the fact that there couldn’t be that many stray elbows in a match. “No one really knows yet,” Cheese said with a downcast shrug, “It’s still kind of new. Good to know you haven’t secretly picked up Legilimency, though.”

He ruminated on the horrific thought of Addy being able to read his mind for a moment, but moved on. He didn’t like horror movies much, so why picture her having access to all of his super-secret, most embarrassing thoughts about her? Cheese still caught himself having not-completely platonic thoughts and feeling at times, especially when she absolutely shone at the things she did, but he kept the secret between himself and his owl. He rubbed a hand down his face as he processed Addy’s loaded question. He'd been asking himself the same thing for a week, and he didn’t have Brígh’s quick thoughts or Addy’s eloquence to help him through it. He didn’t even have Jimmie’s completely cynical take on love and human attachment to reassure himself that all connections are temporary and end in pain.

“I dunno,” he finally said. It encapsulated everything. “I just…I know what that spark feels like, when you’re in the moment and you don’t want it to end. Or having to sit through something you don’t care about, but you do care because it makes her smile. And just…knowing that I take my best photos with her because she inspires me.” He sighed and sunk into the couch, feeling incredibly low with himself in that moment. “I dunno what’s wrong with me. I should’ve felt all those things with Mal, but I just didn’t.” It really made him feel like a cad. Like he’d been leading her on for a lot longer than he should’ve, because he thought the connection would build over time. He was too self-conscious at the thought to look at Addy, so he stared at his laptop screensaver instead.

addilyn elara slater

[addilyn elara slater]

Wish I had no expectations

But I expect, you expect, we expect

January 12, 2029
Raphael Caelan McLaggen

Addy chuckled at his joke. It was only made funnier because he was probably right. In all seriousness, Claire would certainly go to bat for Grey if the situation called. For example, if he had been there when Hogwarts burned to a crisp. She would complain the entire time but would still save her little brother. Though Addy supposed it would also depend on Claire’s temper that day. The Slater women and their tempers, where Addy’s didn’t flare as much as Claire or their mother, but when it did—well, there was no question about it. But Addy avoided commenting on her family. Despite the weeks that had passed, she had not heard from either of her parents. A fact that troubled and hurt her.

Fortunately, or unfortunately (depending on who you asked), Cheese’s recent breakup was the perfect distraction from acknowledging how hurt Addy felt from her parent's actions. She nodded sympathetically. He brought up an interesting point. Would Addy normally have noticed something was bothering him? Of course, she would. Right? Merlin, the past two years really changed their dynamic and connection entirely. Addy didn’t know how to feel about that and about feeling distant from someone who was once one of her closest friends and confidant, among other things. Even when Addy didn’t see Brígh for two months, she could read the woman like a book when she walked through the door. ”I guess I can’t read you like I used to.” She lightly joked, though it felt more bittersweet than funny.

Addy shifted so she could remain curled up but facing Cheese directly. There was that tone. The way he paced his thoughts or sighed, Addy could still read those cues and signs. Chewing lightly on the inside of her lip, Addy let a few moments pass. ”Cheese—“ She wanted him to listen to her, so Addy scooted closer to him, sitting with her knees bent and legs to the side. But she wasn’t quite tall enough to comfortably rest her elbow on the top of the couch with her elbow, but Addy could still lean. ”There’s nothing wrong with you.” And the thing was, Addy knew what he was talking about. The spark. Like when she dated that Auror the year before last but something had been missing. She then thought of Jack, but that was hardly an appropriate daydream for the moment. ”Some things just aren’t meant to work out.” She added. Hearing her statement aloud even made Addy wonder what things she referenced. Many things fell into that bucket.

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