September 24th, 1889 - Hogwarts Quidditch Pitch, post practice
Cameron Gillenwater

Autumn was a great time of year; back to school meant back to quidditch, back to her friends. It meant things like the regatta and this year it even meant visitations to town on the weekends! There were seasonal festivities to be had and Halloween was coming up. It was pretty much her favorite time of year and for some untraceable reason, this year it felt off and she didn't know why..

Needless to say it was bothering her.

Thankfully there was quidditch practice to keep her mind busy. Unfortunately Sloane somewhat suspected her discombobulation had something to do with one of her teammates.

Also rather unfortunately it was over for the day. As the team packed up, Sloane fell behind, watching the sky darken over the top of the stands as she stood there a moment waiting for everyone to leave. When the voices faded, though she didn't even bother to look to make sure, Sloane unceremoniously flopped into the grass to find a little moment of peace.

Closing her eyes against the fading light of sunset, she exhaled slowly, taking a moment to be the moody teenage girl she'd apparently started to turn into.

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Apart from one or two classes, quidditch practice was one of the only places he felt truly free to be himself. There was no worrying about letter grades and time limits and writing speed—only scored points, lap times, and broomstick speed. It was thrilling and exhilarating, and it helped that it allowed him time to spend with his friends.

At the age of fourteen, Cammie had shot up since the last time he'd been on the quidditch pitch. He was still lean and showed no sign of bulky muscles, but he was taller and faster and more coordinated than he had the year before. By the time practice was over he was dripping with sweat, partly from on-ground exercises and partly from the heat of the day.

While he'd stayed do polish the broomsticks—which was his chore this week—everyone else had headed back to the castle. Or almost everyone. By the time his task was over, the only figure that remained on the pitch was the familiar one of Sloane Bixby. It had been days since they'd been alone, their only time together spent in a group of other students and in class. He hesitated for a moment, trying to think of what words wold be appropriate. He'd never struggled to find words before, he noted, and he couldn't quite figure out why.

He headed over to her anyways and plopped down beside her on the grass, a good three feet between them.

"Don't tell me you're too tired to walk. I don't think I'm strong enough to haul you back to the castle right now," he teased in his usual friendly ways, though he found himself worrying about how it came across more than usual.

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Whoops, guess she'd missed somebody.

Honestly she'd been half asleep by the time he joined her. Though she hadn't been startled, was was kind of surprised to see him sitting there, just the two of them, which it hadn't been at all this year.

Nonchalance was the name of the game, or so she hoped. "Post practice power nap." She opened one eye to look at him, sitting a little ways away, but close enough to get an unbidden, unnecessary rise of color to her cheeks. "Gotta get them in while it's still warm." She mused, humming out the words slowly, as she sighed softly. After a hard practice there really was nothing like cool grass against her back and the a gentle breeze across her face.

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She looked spent, and Cammie couldn't help but worry what would happen if her nap turned into hours of sleep on the pitch. It wasn't dangerous as much as it was potential for trouble; Cammie remembered the detention that came in first year after being locked out of the common room with Hestia Fairchild.

"Not one of your brightest idea," he commented, resting back on his hands as he sprawled out on the grass. The breeze felt nice, but his quidditch robes stuck to his back with sweat, making it impossible to be fully comfortable. "Wouldn't you rather nap in your dorm? Or the common room at the very least? It's bound to get cold soon." And he didn't have a coat prepared to offer—and at any rate, he'd need one himself lest he freeze to death.

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Sloane merely shrugged. It wasn't as if she planned to stay out here all night. Though she could think of worse things, detentions tended to get in the way of practice and she couldn't have that. "It's peaceful here when there's nobody around, watching the sun go down." She passed him a small smile. Empty pitch, empty stands, no practice, nobody milling about, it was her favorite place at school, especially when it was like this.

"As if I would miss dinner anyway." She added, a bit more of her usual teasing tone to her voice. Little though she may be, she was high energy and therefore ate a lot. Like a lot, a lot.

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Smiles aside, there was no denying that there was something different, something stiff in the air between them and Cammie wished for nothing more than for the wind to take it away. It felt awkward sitting so far from her after spending the last two years crammed together at the Gryffindor table, but there was something stopping him from moving closer. He couldn't even laugh at her teasing, which felt the wrongest of all.

"I never struck you as the type to enjoy quietness. You've always seemed like an 'organized chaos' type of person to me," he said to her. He watched the sun move downwards through the sky, a subtle smile on his face.

"I don't suppose I could convince you to walk back with me?" The words left his mouth, and then the tightness in his chest—a fear, but of what he wasn't sure—set in. "I've already been in trouble for being outside at dusk. I'd rather not spend another night scrubbing every fireplace in the castle."

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Ignoring the awkwardness between them was stifling. Sloane felt like she was choking on it  and she loathed it. All she could do was shrug again. "Everybody enjoys a little piece and quiet every once in a while, even those of us who rarely stop." Was that so surprising? The thought hadn't occurred to her that's how she was likely often perceived, but it wasn't wrong either, she supposed. More often than not when she did pause and slow down, she was on her own.

Eyeing him carefully, Sloane tilted her head in thought. He was right after all, they probably should head back up to the castle before it got too dark to see, but she wasn't ready, not quite yet. "A few more minutes?" She volleyed, sitting up and shaking the grass from her hair.

There were a few thoughts plaguing her, a few questions on the tip of her tongue that Sloane was dying to ask after thinking about it far too much, but she wasn't sure she wanted to- or if she wanted the actual answers. Impulsiveness was her middle name however, and before she could stop herself, she asked, "Are we alright?"

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Cameron couldn't argue with that. Even as outgoing an active as he was, he did take time to slow down, even if that time was usually spent struggling over a textbook concept or figuring out how he was going to finish his homework in the last few hours before it was due. He hummed in response and nodded his head, hoping she was paying attention.

In the but five minutes they'd sat there, the sky had visibly darkened, the clouds turning a lovely shade of pink and orange that was rarely visible from his tree-crowded home in Godric's Hollow.

"Just a few more," he agreed, but resolved to head back by the time the light rays were no longer visible through the clouds. If they were fast enough, they could reach the castle before the evening chill set in.

Her next words came minutes later, and Cammie's mouth went dry. 'Are we alright?' she'd asked, as if there was any proper way for him to answer that question. "I-I suppose," he said, unable to look her straight on and opting to glance at her from the side of his eyes. "I don't know why we wouldn't be."

Except he did, and he couldn't verbalize it—or even wholly understand it himself.

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For some reason, Sloane rather thought the answer to her question would take more than a couple minutes, but the response she got was not... conclusive in the slightest. She'd known Cam long enough to  know that his expression didn't match what he was saying and that only led her to believe the real answer was no.

Honestly she thought she'd been overthinking this but since that day on High Street, when they'd gone their separate ways, walking on eggshells, everything had kind of started spiraling away from her and she wasn't even sure why. And his answer was not helping. Still, she didn't even know why she was questioning it, but ignoring it for the first part of the term wasn't working and she'd been starting to think it was all in her head...

"I don't know, something feels off." Sloane was nothing if not blunt. "Ever since that day in town." Though he wasn't exactly looking at her, she was studying him carefully to see if there was any hint in his face to help her figure this out. "Did I upset you somehow?" That was all she could think of to explain why this was the first time they'd actually spoken alone since school had started.

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Cameron had always been able to rely on Sloane not to beat around the bush, and he'd always appreciated it—until now. His heartbeat kicked up and he struggled with the urge to flee, knowingly fully well that there were no corners to disappear around or doors to hide behind. There was a single path and a field of grass between them and a castle, which made escaping in any graceful way impossible.

"I-I-I," he struggled, brows furrowed as he tried to find an explanation. "I-I was just... just a little upset then, but I'm over that now. Promise. There's nothing to worry about." And there wasn't.. at least that's what he thought. She'd been right: Sisse wasn't a bad Divination partner and never complained about him copying off her notes.

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Sloane waited him out for a moment, feeling like she would regret asking these questions, but honestly she was so caught up in her own head anything he said was only making it worse. Yep, regret. Should have stuck to "ignore and hope it goes away."

"You should have just told me, whatever it was." It was like she couldn't stop herself though. How was she supposed to fix the problem, or not make the same mistake again, if she didn't know what she'd done wrong? She'd thought about their conversation that day more than she would have cared to admit, but hadn't been able to come up with anything that would be enough to cause this level of awkwardness between them. Was she being one of those girls right now? Was he just being a weird boy? Why did it have to be like thiiiiisss.

Ugh. Life was easier as kids.

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What had hurt him that day was... well, it was a number of things, and none that he could pinpoint without taking the next ten minutes to quietly think through his thoughts. He'd wanted her to take Divination with him, but he certainly couldn't blame her for not. It was her classwork and her decision, so he didn't think that was what upset him. Or was it?

"I don't think it was anything that could be fixed. It was.." He tried to think back on the conversation. She'd been her normal blunt self, but it was nothing out of the ordinary. "... Nothing. Nothing I can put my finger on in the present at least." Could they please stop talking about this? He wasn't ready to discuss emotions with Sloane Bixby—not when his emotions towards her were currently a ball of confusion.

"It's fine now. Really. There's nothing on the subject to discuss." And yet, his cheeks flushed pink and he felt even more irritated than before. This was going to be a long year.

"We should probably get back. The sun's setting over the horizon now." He would have to endure the painful silence during the walk back to the castle, but it was better than sitting here.

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Well this was going a whole lot of nowhere, fast. Either she was hallucinating the whole thing or he wasn't telling the truth, or he didn't want to tell her, or a whole house of other options that would only give her a headache. Right now she'd rather not.

"Right, ok." What else could she possibly say on the matter? She didn't have it in her to argue about it at this moment in time so she was going to revert back to the ignoring route.

"You go ahead, I'm going to take my chances." She decided with a dramatic flop back onto the grass. Staring at the sky was much easier than trying to decipher his expression right about now.

  

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Cameron mentally groaned at her tone. He'd known her long enough to know that she'd just set her mind on being stubborn about it, and that took more emotional energy to deal with than he currently had. She even defiantly laid back in the grass when he'd decided it was time to go—at least he would have the last word there.

"You're coming inside with me," she said firmly, quite decided in his own mind that he wasn't going to leave her out there. "You can huff all you want, but you're coming. Not only is it getting dark, but it's getting cold." He nearly threatened to throw her over his shoulder if she didn't, but he already knew what that would bring.

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Ughhhhhh.

The groan very nearly made its way through pursed lips as Sloane rolled her head to look at him, one challenging eyebrow quirked. The ends of her hair were fading into red, though that was probably hard to see in the darkening sky.

"Go inside Cam. You're not my brother, I'm not fighting with you and you can't make me." Sloane propped herself up on her elbows to look him straight on. "You don't even want to be around me right now anyway, so you may as well just go." It came out as an exasperated sigh and harsher than she meant it to, but that was what it boiled down to for her at this very moment. He could take it or leave it, but she was not walking inside with him right now.

  

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He crouched down beside her, his hands folded together in his lap, and quirked a brow to match hers. "You're fighting with me right now," he pointed out. She really was a stubborn one, wasn't she? Willing to put herself through darkness and cold just to prove a point. "I'm not going anywhere without you so you might as well give it up and come inside." It was the truth; if they needed to starve, freeze to death, and get detention together, they'd do just that.

"I do want to be around you, but you're far more agreeable when you're not trying to be difficult like this." He eyed her carefully, noticing that the tips of her hair were changing color. What did red mean again? Anger?

He was ready. He gave her a firm, pointed look that meant he was serious.

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