Hold That Thought [Isabel]

[Oliver Russell Blishwick]

7 March 2029

“And when were hexes officially designated as a more severe category of Dark charms than jinxes, Professor Fronsac?” Ollie dipped his quill into the inkpot again and then bent over the parchment to quickly scribble down notes as the portrait began a lengthy explanation of the academic debate around the classification of Dark magic. No, Professor Fronsac wasn’t a current (or even recent) professor at Hogwarts – but he had several portraits around the castle and his Ravenclaw background meant that he loved to answer questions. And doing his DADA homework like this was much more efficient than hunting down the proper textbooks at the library and then sitting down to read them all. At this rate, Ollie would surely finish before curfew and maybe even get a proper night of sleep (if the nightmares about his upcoming NEWTs didn’t keep him up).

Because Easter break was just around the corner, and that meant NEWTs were too. Pursuing Healing as a career meant that Oliver needed good marks in Defense Against the Dark Arts, since Healers were expected to know how to recognize and treat the effects of Dark magic. It was a little problematic, because he loved the theory classes but wasn’t really interested in learning how to actually do all this with his wand. So his essay was going to focus strongly on properly identifying what kind of Dark magic was at play, and hopefully he wouldn’t be asked to demonstrate in class. Hence, questioning Professor Fronsac’s portrait roughly an hour before curfew.

Still, Ollie was making good progress and his parchment rapidly filled with notes as the professor droned on. It was worth the awkward position he had to sit in to make it happen – seated on the last step of a staircase with his legs sprawled out in front of him, inkwell next to him on the floor while he balanced the foot-long parchment on his lap, using a thick book as a kind of makeshift desk. His legs ached but he estimated that he was almost done. His set-up also meant that he was practically blocking the entire staircase, but at this hour nobody had tried to pass him yet. That was probably for the best, because Ollie refused to get up until his essay was done. “And of course, then began a new and entirely controversial line of thinking about the boundaries between hexes and jinxes…”

Ollie perked up and began to write furiously. An observation about the controversial and constantly shifting boundaries of magic would be a brilliant way to finish his essay. He vaguely heard the sound of footsteps approaching, but he stayed hunched over the parchment to finish his sentence before the thought escaped him. “Can’t move yet, five more minutes…” he murmured when the footsteps stopped, blond head still bent over the parchment as he willed his hand not to cramp yet.

isabel alejandra moreno-hughes

[isabel alejandra moreno-hughes]

March 7, 2029

Not living in the dormitories for her second year of NEWT-level study at LIFE wasn't too bad for Isabel, since she was living in a house that she shared with some older LIFE students in Hogsmeade, but it made it difficult to interact with the students who still lived at Hogwarts. As LIFE students, they had fewer restrictions because they were legally adults with OWLs to their names, but Hogwarts still had rules in place for the security of the campus. It wasn't just a coincidence that there was a Head of Security who was on the same level as the Heads of Houses in running Hogwarts instead of having a separate head of school above them all. Isabel appreciated that; she just didn't appreciate the time she had spent trying to track down Oliver Blishwick, a boy in her year. She really needed to get herself a magical mobile phone.

Right when she was prepared to give up and call it a night, she finally found Oliver in what had to be the one place she hadn't looked—seated on a staircase in front of a portrait of some long-deceased former Hogwarts professor. When she had first entered the magical world, there were countless elements of it that had confused or terrified her. Painted portraits that not only talked but maintained the personalities of the people depicted didn't exist in the non-magical world, and though Isabel was used to walking past paintings and being spoken to by their subjects, she didn't actively strike up conversations with them. It was uncomfortable, like talking with technology with artificial intelligence. She wasn't sure how much they actually knew or how "human" they still were.

For someone who came from a magical family, though, it was perfectly normal, so much so that one would have thought Oliver were sitting in a lecture when she approached him. "Can't move yet, five more minutes…"

"I've been looking for you for hours now," Isabel huffed, disregarding his comment about not being able to move for another five minutes. He hadn't said he couldn't converse. "You left your notes after Professor McGonagall's lesson," she informed him, pulling them out of her own bag. They both needed good marks in Transfiguration if they wanted to get into their ideal career paths, so she figured she was doing him a favor.

Oliver Russell Blishwick

[Oliver Russell Blishwick]

His handwriting was turning even smaller and more cramped than usual, but Oliver refused to slow down because he could almost taste the victory of finishing the essay. That would mean staying on schedule in regards to the homework planner he’d made for himself, and filling in another green box on the list of assignments he’d allotted for today. Ollie was already cheerfully anticipating the pleasure of seeing a long line of uninterrupted green in his spreadsheet, proudly confirming that he’d finished all his homework for the week. That was the kind of adrenaline rush one lived for, right?

While most of his attention was focused on the parchment, he vaguely heard the portrait professor asked if he’d already returned the library books he’d borrowed for the assignment. With a carefully blank face, Ollie said, “Sure did, professor.” Nobody needed to know that he hadn’t been in the library all week. He’d thought that would be the last interruption, but Ollie was a few words away from finishing a sentence when he heard the sound of footsteps approaching. His quill slowed but didn’t stop at the sound of Isabel’s voice somewhere above him, sounding a little out of breath as she spoke. Oliver paused and creased his eyebrows, looking up at her while he tilted his head to the side in a silent question. A moment later he actually asked, “Why didn’t you text me?”

Then it occurred to him that maybe she had and he’d missed it, because he’d gone almost an hour without checking his phone. Ollie fished it out from his bag so he could check – but no, there were only the usual study alarms and some unread notifications from Jimmie asking (demanding to know) if he’d nicked her Self-Check Quill. He had, actually, but he needed it for the school newspaper. Anyway, a quick scroll through his contacts confirmed that Isabel wasn’t even in there, and he frowned at his phone. “Thought I’d added the whole year,” he murmured to himself, a little disappointed that he’d overlooked such a simple mistake. Especially since he had more than one class with Isabel, which meant he practically saw her every day and even spent a little time in class competing to answer the question first.

His eyes drifted to the notes in her hand, and he nodded as he recognized his handwriting. “Well…thanks. That’s decent of you.” He stared at the notes like he didn’t really know what to do about that. Nobody really did that for each other in Slytherin unless they’d worked out some kind of arrangement (you could call it friendship if you liked, but it wasn’t so much generosity as a relationship based on mutual benefits). Oliver paused, scribbled down a few more words so he could finish the sentence, and then shifted the book off his lap. He pulled himself up as best he could, even if the motion was a little awkward with his legs half-asleep. He’d told himself he wouldn’t move until the essay was done, but it seemed kind of rude to make Isabel shove the notes into his bag or lean over awkwardly to hand them over. So he stood up and then held his hand out for his precious study material.

isabel alejandra moreno-hughes

[isabel alejandra moreno-hughes]

March 7, 2029

It took Oliver a moment to respond to her gesture, but his first reaction was to ask her why she hadn't texted him about it. Before she could respond with the revelation about her non-magical phone that was going to make her seem totally uncool, he was already getting out his own mobile phone to check it. "Thought I'd added the whole year," he commented. Isabel didn't think that was an exaggeration on his part, either. He probably had added the whole year—at least everyone who had a phone that didn't mess up in the presence of enough magic to overload it.

He at least had the decency to thank her after the trouble that she had gone to. She could have just left his notes sitting in the classroom, and there was no way of guaranteeing that they would still be there when he got back to them. Some of their instructors were better than others about making sure that lost items got returned to students, but they also weren't at MYSTIC. The handholding that the primary school kids got definitely didn't apply to them at NEWT level.

"You're welcome," Isabel answered, slightly peeved but aware that Oliver, who had stood up for her to hand his notes over to him, could have been less polite about it. Isabel knew that but she had never been popular at Hogwarts, so she would take what she could get that wasn't outright discrimination against her based on her Muggle-born blood status. She handed off his notes with a slight smile. No harm done.

Oliver Russell Blishwick

[Oliver Russell Blishwick]

Now that he was standing, it was like he could suddenly feel all the pain in his body at once. Oliver tried to discreetly shake out his legs since they’d fallen asleep, and one hand moved to rub at the back of his neck (which had been bent at an awkward angle while he’d basically written an entire essay). Merlin, is this how everyone over the age of 30 felt all the time? Ollie felt a twinge of sympathy for the elderly while he avoided wincing at the uncomfortable aching sensation in his joints. After a moment, he decided that it wouldn’t get any better than this and stopped fidgeting so he could stand in front of Isabel like a normal person. They hadn’t spent much time together after class, but she didn’t seem like the kind of person to do strange things in the name of homework. Like sitting on a staircase while the sun sank, while people tried to awkwardly maneuver around him.

“Did you take a peek first?” he asked, returning her smile with a small one of his own as he accepted his notes. He was rather proud of the shorthand system he’d developed for taking notes in class, but it made it hard to read for people who weren’t familiar with it. It saved him so much time, though, that it was worth it -- not to mention the odd looks he got if any of his Slytherin classmates tried to glance over his shoulder. But Oliver had never really been one to share. Ollie flipped through the loose parchment, recognized his cramped handwriting, then ducked so he could grab his bag from the floor. He had separate folders for every subject, and then tabs organized by date. He slid the notes into the appropriate tab. “I was in a bit of a rush today,” he explained as he dropped his bag back onto the floor, “We’ve got a deadline for the school paper.” Journalism wasn’t really his passion, but it looked good on his CV. He'd have time to do things he liked later after accomplishing all his goals, right?

Even though they’d finished the exchange, Ollie didn’t move to sit back down. He studied her as the thought occurred to him that she hadn’t answered his first question. But he didn’t really know her well enough to guess why. Maybe it was a sore subject to explain why she didn’t hand out her number, or maybe she’d just forgotten that he’d asked. It was late and it’d been another grueling day for the seventh-years. Even the lazier students seemed to have realized that it was NEWT season, and the exam fever had begun to grip them all. It made people do silly things, even uncharacteristic of their usual behavior. So Ollie slid his phone out of his pocket and made a gesture with it in her direction. “D’you mind?”

isabel alejandra moreno-hughes

[isabel alejandra moreno-hughes]

March 7, 2029

"Did you take a peek first?"

At his notes, he meant? "No…" Isabel answered him, her voice rising a little bit with the worry that he was suspicious of her. "I just brought them from the classroom to you…" She wasn't going to cheat off of his notes, if that was what he thought.

Oliver explained, though, that he had been in a rush because he had a deadline for the school newspaper. It didn't matter to Isabel why he had left them behind; she wasn't their teacher. What mattered was that she had been able to track him down.

"D'you mind?" Oliver asked, holding out his mobile phone then. Obviously, he wanted to avoid a repeat of what had just happened. Isabel didn't mind that; she was all for saving herself that hassle again.

There was just one problem. "Er, I have a mobile phone," she answered, looking at Oliver's phone, "but it's… not a magical one…"

Oliver Russell Blishwick

[Oliver Russell Blishwick]

She was a bit of an anxious one, wasn’t she? Ollie had just been joking about wondering whether she’d looked over his notes first, but she negated that train of thought right away with the hard certainty in her voice that came with trying to convince someone of something. Like Isabel wanted to make absolutely sure that he knew she was telling the truth. And she hadn’t returned his smile either, which was a shame. Anyway, he wouldn’t have been much fussed even if she had stolen a peek. He summarized lectures in a certain way that made it impossible for a casual observer to understand what he'd written, and besides…Ollie couldn’t really remember the last time he’d gotten angry. Annoyed, sure, whenever some rowdy first-years made it impossible to study or relax in the common room. But coming from the family he did – well, the Blishwicks resolved everything through diplomacy. And therapy. It meant raising your voice Jimmie-style didn’t get you results at home.

He nodded at Isabel and assured her, “Okay. I believe you.” If they’d been closer, he might’ve considered messing with her a bit first, but the fact of the matter was that he didn’t know how she’d respond. Some people liked it, but she might take it as a personal attack. Or just start apologizing. He didn’t know. So they breezed past it and Ollie let his bag drop back onto the ground. Truth was, he was glad to get his notes back. Transfiguration was a difficult class, with lots of equations and subtleties that meant you could get a spell very wrong if you weren’t careful. He liked the challenge but doing it from memory was just asking to fail.

She didn’t respond to his comment about the school paper, and Oliver tilted his head forward as he brought a hand up to work out the tightness in his neck. Isabel really wasn’t interested in small talk, huh? The thought made him a little more self-conscious than before. Instead, she just stared at his phone and explained the problem. He frowned slightly, if only because he didn’t understand the problem. Maybe this was one of the downsides of coming from a pureblood family – he was used to some aspects of magical technology, but it still felt like talking in another language. “So?” he asked, trying to work out whatever subtext she was hinting at. A moment later it hit him. “Oh! Yours doesn’t work here. But then…how do you stay in touch with people?” He wasn’t used to not knowing the answer to a question, and this conversation was throwing him a little off-kilter. Like trying to walk with a blindfold on.

isabel alejandra moreno-hughes