pretty okay || julia

18 March 1923
6:30 am
Ravenclaw Tower

Morgan hadn’t slept at all; she’d tossed and turned for a while, unable to get the thought of holding Brooks’ hand out of her head. She’d resisted admitting to any feelings since Benji and for good reason. Feelings made things messy. Her relationship with Benji – her friendship – was so much simpler without the stupid crush she’d had when she first met him at summer camp and had a food fight with him.

Thinking about that made her frown. It seemed like it was ages ago. In a way, she was happy he was her brother now. That was a hard line – a very hard one. Well. Not to mention Rae scared her. But that was another story.

Once her mind finally settled, she drifted off to sleep only to wake up about three hours later.

Breakfast. She had to meet Julia before that, which was at 7. So 6:30 it was. Well, not even 6:30! She had to get up at 6:00 to ensure she was functional and didn’t look like she hadn’t slept!

It was hard work.

Morgan was ready to crawl back into her bed. Thank god it was the weekend.

Although… it wasn’t until her slow walk to the Ravenclaw entrance that she realized it was the damn weekend, which meant her dad probably had some punishment for her right after breakfast.

That was just about enough to make her want to cry. She didn’t, though.

“David, this is your fault,” she’d told the toad before she left her dorm. He was grounded in his aquarium for the whole weekend. He’d suffer for getting her caught. If he’d just kept his big toad mouth shut, and his croaks to himself, they could have maybe probably snuck out without getting caught.

Maybe.

She leaned against the wall, letting her eyes close as she waited. Had she been a bit early? Honestly, Morgan didn’t know. She didn’t even notice someone else was beside her until she felt a pinky link with hers.

Green eyes fluttering open, she found Brooks looking at her, that handsome smirk on his face. Handsome?! The thought caused her heart to race and she immediately stood up, her eyes wide. But she didn’t break contact. Nope. She liked it too much.

He asked how she was, and she just shrugged her shoulders. And then she saw Julia appear. She blushed and looked over at Rook. “I’ll find you at breakfast,” she said, her voice a bit quieter than normal.

"Be good for Daddy today," Julia said, hooking her finger under Evander's chin and giving him a little wink. "Try not to wear him out. And be a good helper for Jude. No sharing snacks with him again." Last time had been a disaster. As sweet as Evander was to want to share his biscuits with his baby brother, Jude had only managed to mush them with the four teeth he possessed and spread the mush through his hair and all over his clothing.

And Julia's expensive Persian rug.

There were no amounts of 'scourgify' that could get the blue food coloring out of that rug. Jude had been a strange tint of blue for four days, despite the numerous baths he'd been given. Needless to say, Toddles had been banned from giving the toddler anything that wasn't naturally colored from there on out.

"Okay Mummy!" Evander grinned wide, the newly-four-year-old already full of energy and raring to start his day with no-doubt endless exuberance. "That's my lovebug," she said, popping a kiss on his forehead and another on Jude's as she handed them off to Maddox. "I'll see you all at lunch." With another series of goodbyes, she was gone, moving through the castle's corridors from one tower to the next.

There hadn't been much sleep the night before. While Evander had settled back down easily by the time Julia had returned to her apartments, Jude, as expected, had not. Maddox insisted the baby just needed a more consistent sleeping schedule and a mother that didn't indulge his every fuss and cry to be held.

He was probably right, but she wouldn't admit it. If Maddox wanted to sleep train their boy this summer when they had nothing better to do, then he was welcome to try.

“I’ll find you at breakfast.”

Julia's eyes followed Brooks as he left her step-daughter blushing like a rose.

Good Merlin.

Julia said nothing as the boy wandered off, but indicated Morgan silently through the Ravenclaw common room door and through her office into her apartment. "Sit," she offered lightly, beckoning the girl to the couch as she fussed with the kettle in her little kitchenette. "Did you sleep well?" she asked opening her cabinet to retrieve a pair of teabags and cups. "I imagine after that little adventure you must have been exhausted."

Morgan had prepared herself for the office.

She’d imagined what this morning would entail and what she was going to say. Whether she would be apologetic without being pathetic, definitely not mentioning the hand holding (and now the pinkie touch and her realization that she liked looking at him). But all of it vanished when they walked past the office door and into her quarters instead.

The preparation dissolved.

It was the couch. Morgan sat down on the couch, familiar and comfortable, and picked up the throw pillow she always liked to hold in her lap. She couldn’t formally be in trouble on a couch. It wasn’t possible.

Morgan sat with her legs crossed underneath her, the pillow hugged to her chest out of habit, and looked around the space with the attention of someone who was trying to group themselves in something concrete. She’d been in here before but not too often. It was warm. It smelled like home.

Her brain drifted briefly to the pinkie in the corridor and then she pulled it back firmly.

“Did you sleep well?”

Morgan opened her mouth to say yes, fine, absolutely, of course, and then something about the kettle and the two cups and the fact that Julia already knew the answer stopped her.

“...No,” she admitted quietly. “Not really.”

She looked at her hands. “I’m sorry about last night,” she added “It wasn’t – he needed something and I was trying to help and it got out of hand.”

Morgan mentioned a hand, but not the hand. She wasn’t going to mention the hand. Not to Julia. Not to anyone. Still, now that the word had left her lips, she couldn’t wipe it from her thoughts.

Well, that made at least three of them, then.

Julia didn't take satisfaction in knowing her step-daughter also hadn't slept, but it seemed a natural consequence to her actions. Morgan had never liked getting into trouble or disappointing her father, but that came with reckless behaviors. Was breaking into her Restricted Section reckless? Julia supposed it depended on how one looked at it. The material that was contained in those books in and of itself was already questioned by the Ministry and pearl-clutchers, but aside from that, many of the books were temperamental. Some screamed, some made a mess, some shot poison liquids, others caught fire. Some tried to eat their readers.

Without knowing how to properly handle the books, there was certainly a modicum of danger associated with them.

But that was beside the point. Why was Morgan trying to get in there in the first place?

“I’m sorry about last night. It wasn’t – he needed something and I was trying to help and it got out of hand.”

"Apology accepted," Julia said easily, always willing to give her children grace when they asked for it. She meant it. There wasn't any anger behind her request for Morgan to join her, rather it was fact-finding. Why? How? For what purpose? And what did she need to do as a parent to ensure this didn't happen again. She sat down in the armchair across from the couch, handing a cup over to Morgan.

"But Morgan, you know better. If there's something you're curious about, you only need to ask. Why would you ever think you'd need to try and break into things behind my back?" She raised an eyebrow, wondering if this Brooks kid was a bad influence.

"What was he looking for?"

Morgan felt a strange relief when her step-mother said that her apology was accepted. That was odd enough to cause her to pause her thoughts. When did she start caring? That made her feel somewhat unsettled, but she continued hugging the pillow she’d grabbed.

When the woman offered her the cup, she took it and sipped the warm liquid.

"But Morgan, you know better. If there's something you're curious about, you only need to ask. Why would you ever think you'd need to try and break into things behind my back? What was he looking for?"

Before this – before Julia was married to her father, before she was the mother of one of her baby brothers, she’d always admired the woman. She was confident and elegant and smart. It seemed as if the marriage and the official joining of her into the Barlowe family had shifted things.

It was deeper than that. It was her mother. Morgan knew that, but she hadn’t put words to it just yet.

She kept the warm cup in her hands, using it as something to ground her and keep her present… from getting lost in her thoughts too much.

Morgan considered the answers to the questions Julia asked. She could be vague; the woman knew about runes and about academic interests. But once the apology was accepted and now she was on a couch that smelled like home with warm tea in her hands, her defenses were considerably lower than she’d planned for them to be.

“His dad died,” she said softly. “Last year, before he moved here. His dad ran a pub back in Boston and he was working on something… recipes, with runes involved, his mum’s magic mixed with his dad’s brewing… and he never finished it.” Her green eyes remained on the cup. “Rook has his journal. He… wants to finish what his dad started.”

Morgan frowned. Death, especially that of a parent, wasn’t easy.

“The books he needed were in there. He’d already tried to get proper access and been turned down.” She sighed. “They’re not the dangerous kind. I… should have told him to come to you. I know that, but he mentioned it and I just… I wanted to help him.”

It was too easy to talk to Julia. Morgan wasn’t sure she liked it.

“He’s my best friend,” she added as if it’d change anything, which was the truth but not the whole truth, and she was very aware of both of those things at the same time. She thought about his crooked grin and his hand wrapped around hers. She took a sip of tea, trying to stay focused on the conversation.

“His dad died."

"Hmm." The hum was a soft acknowledgement rather than judgment. Losing a parent was difficult. Both Julia and Morgan understood that well. "I'm sorry to hear that." The boy must have moved to England with his mother or relatives. Leaving America because of a parent's passing usually indicated as such. Julia wasn't unempathetic to the trials and traumas that her students experienced, but she never allowed them to excuse undesired behavior.

“Last year, before he moved here. His dad ran a pub back in Boston and he was working on something… recipes, with runes involved, his mum’s magic mixed with his dad’s brewing… and he never finished it. Rook has his journal. He… wants to finish what his dad started.”

"I see," Julia answered, setting her cup down on the coffee table, "but what does that have to do with you?"

“The books he needed were in there. He’d already tried to get proper access and been turned down. They’re not the dangerous kind. I… should have told him to come to you. I know that, but he mentioned it and I just… I wanted to help him.”

Another hum as Julia leaned back into her chair, a small smile playing at the corner of her lips as she glanced out the window that looked over the Black Lake. "I think the librarian should decide which books are dangerous," her eyes returned to her step-daughter, "Don't you?" Her fingers drummed on the arm of her chair as she let a beat pass, deciding how to handle such a thing. Maddox was already in the know, having been in her apartments when the alarm had gone off. There was no need to discuss whether to tell him or not.

She would have, in any case. They'd learned well enough not to keep things form one another.

"He can come to me if he'd like to talk about the books he's interested in, or even on the subject material." It was neither here nor there, though she was rather relieved to find they weren't after more...taboo subjects. Julia folded her leg over the other, tilting her head a bit at her girl. "He wouldn't be the first bullheaded boy to approach with questions on subjects that others frown upon." She could name a handful off the top of her head.

"You know," she said softly, studying Morgan for a moment, "As a girl, sometimes we find meaning in fixing people, or trying to. We see someone broken or hurting and think 'I can make that better'." She smiled a bit, "But helping someone doesn't mean we have to forfeit our own good judgment to do so." Her smile grew, a little sparkle appearing behind her eyes, "No matter how cute they look when they grin."

It was a long song and dance she'd done with Rosalie. A mistake she'd made herself not even three years ago. "Someone who really cares about you won't want to see you in trouble for their benefit. And I'm not saying Mister Garren had that intention, but sometimes we don't always realize what we're asking someone to do until its too late. So the onus lies upon you to know better."

She reached for her cup again, taking a small sip of the hot liquid. "With all that out of the way, when did you two become such a pair?" That part she'd let Maddox find out on his own, if and when Morgan wanted to tell him.

Morgan nodded slightly, biting her lip as she listened to Julia speak about the librarian deciding what was dangerous, about him coming to her, about bullheaded boys. She took another sip of her tea and considered the smirk again. The butterflies in her stomach reminded her of their presence even though she did not invite them.

"You know, as a girl, sometimes we find meaning in fixing people, or trying to. We see someone broken or hurting and think 'I can make that better'. But helping someone doesn't mean we have to forfeit our own good judgment to do so. No matter how cute they look when they grin."

Morgan’s eyes widened as she looked from the cup of tea she was holding to her step-mother’s face. Her stomach did a flip and she felt her face grow warm with blush. The butterflies in her stomach were doing somersaults now. She looked at her tea, then at a window, then back at her tea.

"Someone who really cares about you won't want to see you in trouble for their benefit. And I'm not saying Mister Garren had that intention, but sometimes we don't always realize what we're asking someone to do until its too late. So the onus lies upon you to know better."

Julia had continued to speak but Morgan was not focusing on her words. Instead, she was thinking about that grin that had kept her up all night.

"With all that out of the way, when did you two become such a pair?"

Widened eyes again, Morgan looked directly at her step-mother. The woman wasn’t accusing her of anything. And she felt… something.

“We’re not –” she began, but cut herself off. “We’re just best friends, that’s all.” She hadn’t even felt this strongly about Benji before they were related. (Ew.) But her hand, while occupied with the teacup and saucer, wanted his hand holding hers again.

After a moment, Morgan finally took another sip of tea. “He lost his dad and I lost my mum, and he has a new baby sister and I have Blippy. He’s just easy to talk to and –”

Morgan had to cut herself off again. Her stomach did another flip.

She knew the truth. It was evident. Clear as day. But… “That’s… that’s all.”