life embroidered with stars ~ Lucas

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Wednesday, 26 September 1923
~ 7:10 pm ~
Potions Classroom
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Joyfully swinging her legs, Maevie sat on the professor’s desk, hands tucked beneath her thighs, eyes fixed on Lucas as he drowned in a sea of dirty cauldrons. Her grin was broad and just a little bit gleeful, thoroughly amused by the look on his face.

Who would have thought overseeing detention could be this entertaining?

Certainly not her.

Perhaps it was because it had gotten her out of Library Duty for the evening. When she’d been informed, Maevie hadn’t wasted a second mourning the change in schedule.

But maybe it was because watching the Gryffindor scrub the hell out of these filthy cauldrons with nothing but his bare hands and a boar-bristle brush made her feel a little better about the detention she had served the year before. Cleaning owl droppings for half an afternoon had truly been rather humiliating. Not much worse than digging through green glibber and crusted spider legs, though. She supposed everyone got their fair share of misery eventually.

The rulebreakers, anyway.

Even with the Prefect badge pinned on her sweater, Maevie knew well enough that she belonged among them, too. Lucky for her, though, she hadn’t been caught sneaking through the thicket of the Forbidden Forest in the middle of the night like Lucas had.

Some you win, some you lose.

Regarding the pile still waiting to be touched, Maevie concluded they’d be here for a while.

Smirking playfully, she craned her neck to inspect his work.

“I think you missed something,” she said, teasingly. She freed one hand from beneath her thigh and pointed. “Right there.”

She grinned, looking back up at his face.

“Honestly, Lucas. I don’t know how you’re going to survive your career as a professional cauldron cleaner if you keep missing all these bits. At this rate, maybe you should consider a different line of work.”

One would think that after so many detentions, Lucas would’ve finally gotten used to them. Whoever thought that, however, would’ve been deeply mistaken.

When he had first been caught by Gideon near the woods, he had taken the punishment in stride, with the flair that characterized him. However, after he had been dragged out of Quidditch practice, only to find a smiling Maevie Golding on the other side of the door, his optimism had crashed and burned against the floor.

Still wearing part of his uniform—a red and gold sweater and khaki sports pants—Lucas had been brought down to his knees as he lazily pretended to scrub a corner of the tall stone walls of the dungeons. You could practically see the gears turning in his brain as he planned an early escape, hoping to be back at the pitch before practice was fully over.

Maevie’s voice made him look up. Their eyes met, and he narrowed his dark eyes, glaring at her.

“I didn’t miss any spots,” he lied, just to be contrarian.

She grinned at him, and he grinned back, acting as if he were unbothered. He gave her the smile he always used when he was trying to get something out of a girl—bright and charming all the same. Maevie, however, was smart enough not to fall for it.

Instead, she made a joke that made him roll his eyes.

“Already ahead of you,” he said, arrogance lacing his voice. “I’ll make sure to send you tickets when I win the Quidditch World Cup for Cameroon, Golding.”

His smile turned wider, more mocking.

“I know you’d love to see me on the pitch.”

His contradiction was as immediate as Maevie had expected, and her grin widened even further. Did she actually care whether he cleaned thoroughly and properly? If they left this dungeon cleaner than they had found it?

Not really.

Maevie had always struggled to focus, setting aside fun and games in favour of responsibility, being more serious when expected, and saving her playfulness for later. It reflected in her lack of attentiveness in classes, in her fleeting attention span, and in the way essays and tasks always ended up incomplete or half-hearted, not quite what they should be.

It didn’t happen out of malice. She simply couldn’t help it.

Life was too fun to look away.

Maevie’s legs kept swinging beneath her as she watched Lucas’ eyes roll, amusement bright and open where it shone through her smile.

“Quidditch World Cup?” she echoed, brows jumping high. She barely managed to conceal the giggle beneath her words. “Not if you keep scrubbing dungeons instead of flying. Maybe I’ll get you the tickets instead, and you can watch me catch the Snitch for England from the stands.”

A laugh escaped her at Lucas’ next words, her head falling back before her gaze settled on the boy on the floor once more.

“I’d love to see you scrubbing some more. Maybe I'll let you off early.”

Her grin sharpened with roguish mischief as she lifted her chin at him once.

"If you can convince me that you really mean it."