March 22nd, 1895 - Skegness seafront

It was a warm day in March when Benedict found himself on the Promenade in Skegness in the North of England. Seagulls called overhead and every so often there was the ding ding of muggles riding along in strange four-person peddled vehicles with questionable steering.

He had been excited about today, a day trip out with his best friend over the Easter break from school. Just He and Millie, and of course a couple of her family that he had become at least a little familiar with during their occasional meet-ups over the last year. Millie Potts walked beside him, Zinnia Gallagher and her adorable baby Emery were a few steps ahead and every time he heard little cooing noises from the older woman into her pram he couldn't help but grin. There was nothing more important than family to him and this was Millie's family, so he felt quite privileged, even if the looming chaperone did mean there was significantly less opportunity for hand-holding or perhaps another stolen kiss. It was a curious feeling being here, they felt like an island, the three of them, walking along with their wands hidden away pretending to be muggles for the day to enjoy the seaside. He was almost surprised when they had earlier entered a small dusty bookshop and every single one of the books sat firmly on the shelves as if they hadn't even realised that books could fly yet. Well, at least three tomes would now rehomed into the wizarding world.

He felt something, two hazel eyes staring at him and he realised he had been daydreaming for some time and had not actually spoken for a few minutes. He blushed a little and smiled kindly at her. ”I'm sorry, I was miles away just thinking how lovely it is out today, I think we got quite lucky considering how cold February was.” he chuckled, how grown up he was, musing about the weather as they promenaded together on the front just above the beach. He took his eyes again off of the pretty girl by his side and looked down past her to where a gentleman with a pipe was trying to get a heavy-set woman onto a rather disgruntled-looking donkey.

”We should have a little walk on the beach, I've got some coins for a donkey ride if you want one, perhaps Emery would like one too?” he elevated the last part of his sentence so that Zinnia could hear the offer, although he questioned just how well the pram might handle the sand.

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   Millie Potts

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The ocean breeze wafted through the locks of hair that Millie didn't have fully pinned up. It was Zinnia who was able to help Mum agree to let her go out this way, with cleverly-placed pins that held back more than might have otherwise passed inspection. Her cousin's watchful eyes on her back were the only pair that she had to worry about, the swarms of Muggles they passed might have stared or gawked without much notice from the young witch. It was freeing, somehow, that the only world around her was so different from her own, as if Millie had stepped into the pages of one of her novels, like a fantasy where nothing seemed quite real and yet she felt it all more acutely than at home.

Which meant that the dashing knight to her side held much of her attention today. To anyone who happened upon them, the pair were nothing but the best of friends. Classmates, fellow prefects, leaders of rival clubs between their two sexes. Benedict's cleverness matched against her thoughtfulness in the bookstore earlier, where curiosity turned into challenge as they each tried to outdo each other in book selections. Perhaps the boys' book club could learn to love the swirling skirts as the girls' could learn to love the Roman period of British history.

If only Hogwarts' parents could get past the notion of their children reading Muggle authors in the first place.

Benedict's smile could light up a room, and when he smiled at her it was that flustered, sheepishness that she'd found on boys when they were caught out of sorts. As ugly as it looked on a boy like Jimmy Fletcher or Maxwell Beck, Millie liked it on Benedict Hunter, for reasons that Anne would certainly scoff at. She wasn't here to share in Millie's amusement at Ben lost in thought, or to scoff at her for finding it such. Perhaps weather was not such an engaging subject to discuss, but she appreciated the boy's discretion in finding a safe subject for them in such public views.

"It almost seems too perfect," she remarked, as if such as thing were even possible. Millie felt emboldened to make the claim, even her cousin's most fastidious eye wouldn't bat at a comment such as that. And Zinnia was the safest choice for chaperone as well, trusted well-enough by the family again now with a daughter of her own, with Millie's own trust never truly wavering. Zin was her first best friend, and one she trusted with enough of a deaf ear to speak more her own mind. "As if, perhaps, I might blink and awaken in my own bed again, with this having all been a dream."

Her lungs filled with the ocean air, tasting as sweet as the freedom the young witch felt in the moment. The seaside town offered more than just a day's adventure, it was a reprieve of sorts, a stay on the injustice of being cooped up in the castle for months on end. Here, the sun warmed the southernly breeze, blowing across the same North Sea as near Hogwarts but somehow utterly different in its disposition. Feeling its kiss against her cheeks was no real substitute for how Millie felt when Benedict kissed her, sometimes repeatedly if they could find more than a moment together, but with his presence by her side it would make do in the moment.

"Do you suppose the water is as cold as the Black Lake?" It was more of a curiosity than a suggestion from her, Millie hadn't packed a trunk or planned to change clothes for their trip at all. They might only be a floo away from home, but to go there would be to break the spell. She might never get to live a fantasy again, there was no sense in escaping it now for something as silly as a swim. "I would love to see Emery ride a donkey!"

Millie drew up closer to Ben, so their sleeves were nearly touching. She hesitated, wishing to raise her hand up to place in his, or upon his arm. They could do that, she supposed, his arm guiding her as any gentleman might a lady. Her eyes scanned the promenade, searching for someone else doing the same, as if needing validation. She found herself tapping at his elbow anyway, making a true suggestion then, until his arm found the right position for her hand to nestle into the crook of it.

"Maybe we can come back when she's older, and have the whole thing photographed like the Muggle fashion." She giggled softly, then a little louder and more carefree. "I heard there's someone trying to charm photographs to keep them from being stuck in one place, like portraits. I wouldn't mind doing that someday, fiddling with charms to make something new and amazing."

Every step she took seemed new and amazing to the young witch, a whole life like that would never feel boring to her. Not that anything ever could when Millie was in the presence of Benedict Hunter.

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Benedict Hunter Zinnia Gallagher

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   Benedict Hunter

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She was right, it did feel a little too perfect, like it would be snatched away from them and they would be plunged back into the daily grind of school and their associated lives. It wasn't that he disliked school at all, far from it. It was just that certain aspects of his personality were outgrowing and he was feeling ready for freedom in fourteen months. He'd miss seeing Millie every day when that happened so he shouldn't wish it away.

"I don't know if it's as cold but I bet it's got fewer monsters in it." he laughed and then felt fingers on his elbow like they were tapping for an entrance. He moved his arm and was rewarded with Millie's sliding into the crook of his elbow and taking hold gently. It all felt so easy being able to just walk and publicly be a couple with no one gossiping and no one chastising them because they had found each other's affection. "I don't think we'll swim though, Mum would kill me if I got salt water on my clothes and I don't think anyone wants me running down the beach in my undergarments." he gave Millie an open-mouthed mock look of scandal.

They walked a little further soaking in the atmosphere, he got the impression from Millie that she wasn't keen on a donkey ride, and pushing the pram in the sand seemed far too difficult to be worth it. "I think you are right, in a few years that will be lovely." he could picture it right now, except in his head it was just him and Millie put together playing like a family, he would like that a lot. "I'm hoping to get my apparition licence next month, and then when I am seventeen I can visit places like this much more often." he looked forward to being seventeen and being able to legally cast magic outside of school. He would need to be careful though, apparating into a popular muggle area could be an easy way to get in trouble.

He thought about her comments on fiddling with charms and modifying them. "Do you think you would want a career in charms after school then or just wait to be snapped up by one of the wealthy lads at coming out?" he squeezed her arm subconsciously at this, only now realising that that was a possibility, he had no claim to Millie but the idea of some older more established man whisking her out of his life, probably forever made him feel quite fretful. He gave a slightly apologetic look to Millie as if she knew the selfish thoughts he had in his mind right now. She looked so lovely with the freedom blowing in her hair.

Another bike whirred past them with a ding drawing Ben out of his inner turmoil. "Sir, where did you hire that?" he asked after him. The other gentleman gestured up the Promenade to a spot near the base of the long pier where Ben could see more people riding up and down. Benedict thanked the man and gave a goofy smile thinking of the two teens sailing along like proper dandys.

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Millie Potts

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   Millie Potts

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Hearing Ben talk so comfortably of the future, and not just as some far-off fancy, bent a little of her reality away from the surreal. With her arm on his, strolling along the promenade as two young people, Millie thought for a moment how oddly proper it felt. They were not the only sharply-dressed pair taking in the sights today, after all, all of them following the marvelous dance of being seen in each other's company. Though not yet in her sixteenth year, the young witch felt positively seventeen already, boldly strolling where no portrait or classmate could whisper rumors behind her.

"You make it sound so easy," Millie remarked quietly, a thoughtful cadence inspecting her words as they emerged. "You have your parent's shop to tend, and I have my parents..." It hardly needed to be said aloud, not with her shadow trailing them from a respectful distance. At least Zin was not the nosy or judgemental type, thank Merlin for that. Of course it wasn't proper for them to be seen without one, but just once Millie would enjoy even a fleeting sense of freedom from thinking about what should not be done. "Perhaps when I am seventeen as well, it wouldn't be so unseemly to be going about alone."

If only she had a free hand to reach for her yearning necklace, but they were all taken up by clinging to her friend instead. The young witch let a sigh reach its links instead, and it didn't quite help settle the fluttering of her stomach. Ben was more than a friend, though she didn't quite have the right word for that yet, she didn't suppose mere friends kissed together in shadows and went gallavanting off to seaside towns to promenade in the open.

"Oh, if anyone is to be snapped up at Coming Out, it will be Miss DeCroix or Miss Grace." That much seemed obvious to her, and it seemed like a strange thing to need to explain to Benedict. He had attended one already, that seemed a certainty by how he described the dances with last spring's most notable ladies. By now they had to be well into a courtship, and they would certainly be reading about Miss Abedayo or Miss Parkinson's engagements any day now.

That was the future that Papa wanted for her, Millie knew. To attend her Coming Out, be courted, find a suitable match, all things right and properly. Only Papa didn't have to live at Hogwarts more than in his own home, or face his OWLs knowing that they could doom him just as easily as set him free. The young witch didn't think she could bear a year of not seeing Ben every day, in passing through the Great Hall if nothing else. It might be worse than the prospect of Finishing School at this point, but she could stomach an entire education devoted to making her the ideal woman just so long as it was with Ben.

Millie found her hand pressing into his arm a little tighter, pulling her closer alongside the sturdy boy who knew the way forward. He didn't have to think about OWLs or fatherly whims. If only her thoughts of a future could be as playful as his to speak of. Her head came to rest on his shoulder, letting him lead her as easily as he chattered along the seaside promenade.

It didn't matter how proper it looked when she was properly standing beside Ben.

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   Benedict Hunter

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He nodded when she replied that he made it seem so easy, he was an optimist, a gentleman ought to be, at least in public. No good came of moping about things that might never come to be, but her did have his thoughts on the matter and his own successes worried him. "A gentleman needs his successes to be allowed to court the right sort of ladies, that is what I am told, so I try to plan for that." he mused to himself with a smile. He had not even got those successes yet and somehow the right kind of lady was willing to have him by her side, but Millie wasn't looking for a husband who would provide, so he got a pass on that, what the future would say about the matter was anyone's guess.

"Nothing you would do could be unseemly, it's not in your character." he complimented to her with warmth.

He gave a murmur when she mentioned DeCroix and Grace being snapped up, from what he had heard the pretty French girl would be leaving soon anyway, and Grace, seemed like she could find a good match, she was a little peculiar by reputation but he couldn't find any reason to mark her down. Ben wouldn't go too far into talking about other girls that he knew little of though, it was impolite. He did have a little smirk though. "I hope Miss Moony finds someone to suit her too." He was unsure of Anne, her reaction to him and Millie was quite abrupt, but it came from a place of love so that was that.

His heart skipped a beat as her head came resting on his shoulder as if it was the most natural thing to do, they had shared closeness but today's public closeness was a declaration to the world of their affection for each other. At least to the part of the world who had no idea who they were and would not spread gossip about the school about them. Oh, and of course Millie's cousin, there would be no pretence around her any more, and falsehoods of mere friends would be impossible to maintain now they had been so affectionately walking. So Ben leaned in a little, not to place his lips to her head, but to briefly rest his cheek on her hair and make a noise with his mouth to kiss her by implication.

They walked in silence before Millie would feel the grip she had loosened and Benedict's attention was drawn to the row of pedal cycles waiting to be taken up the long pier out to see. "I want to do that." Neither Millie nor Zinnia protested the idea, although Zinnia and Emery would need to wait at this end of the pair as the cycle would not accommodate the baby who was just now waking up to feed. It was pleasing that Zinnia trusted them both, or at least she trusted that Millie would not associate with a boy of ill intent.

One side was for the man, he with the strength to cycle and show off to the woman who would sit on the other side and glide gracefully along under her man's effort. Benedict liked that, it spoke to the little knight inside him yearning to be chivalrous. He held Millie's hand to help her into the saddle before taking his seat and beginning to ride. The wheels made a wonderfully quaint noise on the wooden pier but soon they were off, they could enjoy the breeze, and the smell of the ocean, and quickly found themselves distanced from the shore

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Millie Potts

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