April 30th, 1893 - Quidditch Pitch
Lester Hatchitt

As if she hadn't been having some sort of existential crisis all year, the fact that tomorrow as the first of May, the first of the month in which her vision of Hogwarts would drastically change, Sloane was certainly feeling the looming dissonance with greater pressure. She had never known a Hogwarts without the boys, had a hard enough time wrapping her head around not having Alice this year. The disconnect was growing wider and wider and she had no idea how to close the gap.

Not to mention she'd finally come to the decision that the end of this year would be the end of things with Cameron. It wasn't the same anymore, it had lost all of the spark that it once had. Maybe they'd been foolish to even try; there had been so many problems, outside influences and ruined friendships that if given the chance, Sloane may have gone back and changed her entire course of action. Nothing good had come of it, they'd had awful fights, caused awful rifts between their friends, it hardly seemed worth it in the end. Neither one of them seemed apt to rock the boat just yet. Sloane couldn't wreck his much needed concentration on NEWTs and she just wasn't sure he was brave enough to approach her about it.

And so it loomed like the dark clouds overhead. Sloane lay flat on her back in the middle of the pitch, staring up at the darkening sky overhead like some literal metaphor for this season of her life. Spring was stormy, harsh, cold and dreary sometimes, but it always led to summer and something new. Hopefully this would be no different. Sighing deeply, she didn't even have to look back to note the familiar footfalls of Hatch as he made his way across the pitch. Of everyone leaving, she would miss him the most. Next year it would only be the girls in her dorm and it would be weird. "Did you bring snacks? Emotional crises make me hungry." She joked, even if the intended humor didn't reach her voice.

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Next month were N.E.W.Ts, and then the real world — and Lester had no idea what he wanted to do in it, or how to express what he wanted in it. Sometimes he felt it was the paralysis of having lost Mercy. Why should he get to have an adulthood when she didn't? It felt unfair to make choices she didn't get, and so — he didn't make them. But after N.E.W.Ts, he wouldn't have a choice.

Hopefully he wouldn't have to think about it too hard with Sloane. Or he would, but she had a way of cutting to the heart of things that other people didn't.

He held open his bag at her question. "I grabbed some rolls from the Great Hall," Lester offered. "Will those be good enough?"

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set by lady!

"Close enough," She sighed as she sat up, looking at him intently. They both had that look about them, like there was always something else on their minds, even if they weren't sharing with the class. "You ready for NEWTs?" Sloane felt like she was ready for NEWTs with the way Ned kept making sure everybody studied. It seemed like the first step into the next part of their lives even if nothing much was changing for Sloane. She had a whole year of school left.

"Will you please figure out how to be an adult before me so you can just help me when I get there?" Sloane wondered what it was Hatch would decide on after Hogwarts, if anything. She only had a year left herself to make up her mind, but at least she had two solid choices. She wasn't even sure what Hatch was leaning toward anymore.

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Lester shrugged his shoulders. "I'll be ready, I guess," he said. If he was worried about anyone, he was worried about Cam — who couldn't focus well on studying. Lester usually managed, where exams were concerned. He was afraid of NEWTs, almost paralyzingly so — but NEWTs weren't nearly as bad as what came after.

He grimaced at the mention of adulthood. He'd known it would probably come up, but — that didn't make it feel any better. "I'll do my best for you," Lester said, wrinkling his nose at Sloane. "But I don't even know where to start."

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set by lady!

"Appreciate that." Sloane chuckled as she sat up further, learning forward to stretch out her back. She toyed idly with the roll in her hands, picking a piece off and popping it into her mouth. Looking around the pitch, Sloane realized their number of quiet talks in this very spot were coming to a close. Another chapter coming to and end and it twisted the noose around her heart a little tighter.

"Still thinking healing?" He'd told her once, a long while ago and sworn her to secrecy. She was good on her word; she and Lester had a lot of secrets. He would be good at it, she thought. He had patience and was easy to talk to, would likely do well thinking on his feet. She couldn't, she was too impulsive, not nearly good enough at the required magic and people aggravated her too much.

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He leaned back on his elbows in the grass, stretching his legs out straight in front of him. With only a few more months of school, it didn't really matter if he got any mud on the elbows of a jacket he mostly just wore to school.

Lester frowned. "Always," he said, with a rueful twist of his mouth. "I just don't know if I'd be any good at it." The trouble with healing was that you were responsible for people's lives. The trouble with not healing was that he wasn't sure he'd be any good at it.

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set by lady!

Sloane leaned her elbows on her knees comfortably, a perk of being tiny, watching Lester out of the corner of her eye. She sighed softly, wondering just how he couldn't see just how capable he was. "I mean, for what it's worth, I think you would be. If you can put up with me in a state, I think you can handle it." He managed to keep her sane even during January, so why couldn't he handle actual crises?

"What's stopping you?" Sloane knew better than to bullshit Lester or pussyfoot around the truth, so she may as well just cut right to it.

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Sloane cut through to the truth of things right away, whether Lester wanted her to her not. He considered her question for a beat, pressed his lips together and rolled the spit around inside his mouth. Finally he swallowed it, and answered, "Because I don't know if I'd be doing it for me." Even Lester knew that wasn't enough on its own. He drummed his fingers against the earth. "Or for Mercy."

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set by lady!

Sloane rolled her head to the side, eyebrows quirked. She heard what he said, of course, but wasn't sure what to say exactly. "Does it matter to you?" Doing something for himself, or doing it because he lost his sister to illness didn't seem too far off in her mind. Their losses were different, Lester had his sister for a good chunk of his life whereas Sloane had lost Sawyer in infancy, no memories whatsoever.

"There's nothing wrong with wanting to fix something somebody else couldn't." Becoming a healer to help other people who were ill so they didn't have to suffer the loss he had was pretty noble in her opinion. She could have been way off the mark in that assumption though.

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Lester gave up on holding himself up on his elbows and fell back into the grass. "I think it matters," he said, more to the sky than to her. "Even if I'm a healer, I can't save everyone, right?" The Laughing Plague had stuck around despite the best efforts of Hogsmeade's healers; he wouldn't be able to save everyone.

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set by lady!

"No, I suppose they can't." Sloane hummed out, still picking at her roll as she leaned over her legs, watching him carefully. She didn't know the right answer here obviously. It was something he was going to have to decide for himself, but, "You'll save a hell of a lot more than if you choose something else." Saving every single person was unrealistic, but being a healer would do way more good than anything else.

She sighed softly, "But what do I know? I'm either going to play quidditch or go into creatures. Neither of which are life-saving." Well, maybe the creatures. Both options felt a bit more materialistic than his altruistic approach to healing.

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"I don't even know if I'd be any good at it," Lester fretted. He'd started to pull leaves of grass up from the pitch in single strands, and was twisting them in his fingers.

"At least you'll definitely be good at those," he said. He'd never had any question as to what Sloane would end up doing — she was going to be a famous Quidditch player, and then she was going to do something else. "Besides, they're so you."

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set by lady!

"That's a cop out." Sloane scoffed, followed up by a chuckle. She was not going to bullshit him, nor mollycoddle him either. "I think being a healer takes more dedication and determination that anything else." Like quidditch, it was a skill you honed and refined until you were happy with it; but you could always learn more, work harder and get better.

"You are both of those things, when you're not being wishy-washy and existential." She gave him a pointed look over her knees. "Plus you're smart, you have a good reason. But I can't tell you what to do, you have to want it." Just because she thought he would be good at it was not a good enough reason for him to take that route. He had to have the drive, the desire and the willingness to put in the work it required. "Maybe you should reach out to Alice and see how she likes being a mediwitch." Not exactly the same, but close.

Sloane realized she should probably be taking her own advice here, but she had over a year left of school, he had mere weeks.

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Lester sighed, a dramatic exhale. Sloane was right. He was being dramatic and wishy-washy. But he'd never liked making decisions, and this was the biggest decision he'd ever had to make.

"Maybe," he agreed. "She'll probably be at the Coming Out Ball, right? I can ask her then."

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set by lady!

"I believe so, good idea." Sloane agreed with a tone that meant he better follow through. She had time to figure herself out; the sand in his hourglass was almost up and if he wanted an internship, he needed to get moving. He would figure it out however. Once his NEWT scores came in and he could clearly see he was smart enough, he just had to take the plunge. It would all work out, one way or another. Maybe all the panic was a bit much, maybe they all just needed to get the school year over with and then go from there. Things would settle down, they could take the summer and muse through it some more. Gently she reached over to give his harm a reassuring squeeze.

Everything would be fine.

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