Getting close to someone is a strange thing.
Someone you meet can within the span of just a couple of days, can become someone you start to like by many reasons. Either its for looks or because of their personality, maybe even their humor. Sometimes it all of them packed neatly into a box so that the person has a little of everything.
Maybe that the reason why Fila and Bea got close really quickly. But this close? Fila thought as she felt the whole weight of Bea while she laid ontop of her.
She had woken up in her bed yet again, and this time Bea had gotten even closer. Even laying on her.
The ceiling of Bea's room was made of the same pale stone as the rest of Castelobruxo, with a crack running from the upper left corner toward the middle that had at some point been colonized by a very thin vine. The vine had three leaves. Fila had memorized this over the past few mornings because the ceiling was the first thing she saw when she woke up and lately waking up had come with a reason to be still and look at things for a while before moving.
This morning the reason was approximately fifty-five kilograms and was breathing very slowly against her collarbone.
Bea made a small sound in her sleep. Not a word, just a sound, the kind that means someone has shifted slightly deeper into wherever they are. Her hand uncurled a little against Fila's sternum and then curled back.
She thought about what Bea had said in the kitchen. I think I've been meaning it for a few days. The way she'd said it, past the embarrassment and into something quieter, just holding it out. Not performing it. Not asking anything back from it. Just letting it exist in the room between them like something that had always been there and had finally been acknowledged.
Fila was not, as a general rule, someone things crept up on. She noticed things. It was essentially her entire skill set, the noticing, the watching, the reading of what was underneath what was visible. She had noticed Bea from the first day. She had noticed the way she moved through a room like she owned the air in it, and the way she worried about people she didn't want to admit she was worried about, and the way she laughed when she actually laughed, which was different from the polished social version and much better.
She had noticed all of that and had filed it carefully in the place she kept things she wasn't ready to name and had continued noticing and continued filing and had apparently been doing this for several days without arriving at the obvious conclusion, which was that the filing system was full and had been full for a while and the reason she kept adding to it was that she already knew what it meant and was taking her time about admitting it.
Bea shifted. Not waking up, just resettling, her whole weight adjusting slightly, her head finding a better angle against Fila's shoulder with the instinctive precision of someone still entirely asleep. Her hair was loose and most of it had ended up somewhere near Fila's face and it smelled like the east greenhouse, like soil and green things and whatever Bea put in it that made it that particular dark warm shade.
Today was Thursday, which meant that tomorrow the second duel would hold its place. Yesterday Fila had spent the entire day with Marcus, making sure he had some sort of chance.
He didn't but he sure held the spirit for it.
Marcus is like a newly bought rake, its good no doubt. Its going to do its job well for a while. But Yumi from what Fila could observe is made like an old rake. Made from stronger wood and a metal rake part instead of Marcus's plastic.
Something interesting to note could also be told about the headmaster of Mahoutokoro. Norihiko Senju, his magic could be seen in all of them. meaning that he was personally training them all. Is this cheating? No, it's a competition after all and he just trained them.
Bea had woken up during her time of thinking. Her dark eyes looking up at Fila. "Hey" she said with the cutest morning voice ever.
"Hey," Fila said back.
Bea didn't move. She looked up at Fila with those dark eyes, still soft with sleep, her hair an absolute disaster in the best possible way, and she had the expression of someone who had woken up exactly where they meant to be and had no immediate plans to address that.
"What time is it," Bea said.
Fila looked at the window. The light was fuller than yesterday morning, gold shifting toward the white heat of mid-morning. "Late," she said. "Eight maybe."
Bea considered this information. "Training?"
Fila shock her head. "No, he needs rest."
"Good." Bea closed her eyes again, though she was clearly still awake, still present. Just resting them. Her hand had settled back against Fila's sternum in its now familiar position, like it had decided this was where it lived.
A comfortable quiet settled over the room. Outside the window the Amazon was doing its morning things, birds somewhere in the canopy, the distant sound of the waterfall, the jungle pressing its green warmth against the stone walls of the school. Inside it was still and warm and unhurried.
Fila only now realized that Bea wasn't wearing a pajamas like she always had before. She raised an eyebrow behind her white blindfold. "Am I crazy or are you only wearing panties?"
Bea gave a little cheeky smile back, one that Fila couldn't really understand but it made her heart slightly flutter. "Maybe your ways has gotten to me."
Fila let out a laugh and squeezed the girl tighter. Bea joined in and also laughed.
After spending too long in bed they were both late. Bea had potions, she had invited Fila to join but knowing her skills in potions she did not want to step foot into a potion chamber anytime soon.
She instead went to the training room again, only to find Fontaine and Professor Hale standing there.
Fila stood and watched them, she didn't want to interrupt something she wasn't supposed to hear. But after just a moment Fontaine signaled her to come closer with just a little wave.
"Ophelia. Good morning." Fontaine said as she approached. "We have some news."
Fila didn't say anything and just raised an eyebrow and nodded slightly.
Professor Hale opened a letter. "Tomorrow we will receive visitors from some more schools here, these being Durmstrang and Hogwarts."
Picking up right where you left off —
The training room was quiet around the three of them. Fila stood with her hands in her pockets and looked at Professor Hale and the letter and then at Fontaine, who was watching her with the particular patience of someone waiting to see what a person does with information before they decide what to add to it.
"Hogwarts and Durmstrang," Fila said.
"Yes," Fontaine said.
"Tomorrow. During the duel."
"They will arrive in the morning. The duel is in the evening. They will be observers." Fontaine clasped his hands behind his back. "As we were observers at the opening of the tournament."
Fila thought about this. Hogwarts was Hogwarts, which meant a specific set of things about history and reputation and the particular way British wizarding institutions looked at the rest of the world, which was with great interest and very little acknowledgment that the rest of the world had been doing things quite well without their input. She had no strong feelings about Hogwarts one way or another.
Durmstrang was different.
Durmstrang was her grandfather's school. The place he had attended, excelled at, been expelled from before he'd finished. The place that still taught the Dark Arts openly, quietly proud of a tradition that the rest of Europe had learned to be more careful about in public. She had never been there but she knew people who had, and she knew what Durmstrang thought about the name Grindelwald, which was not the same as what the rest of the world thought.
Durmstrang thought it was complicated. Which, in Fila's experience, was the only accurate thing anyone had said about it.
"Who's coming from Durmstrang," she said.
Fontaine and Hale exchanged a brief look. Brief enough that most people wouldn't have caught it. Fila caught it.
"Their delegation will be led by Headmaster Volkov," Fontaine said. "Along with several senior students."
"And from Hogwarts?"
"Deputy Headmistress McGonagall and a small group of students from mixed classes." Hale folded the letter. "It's intended as an educational visit. International cooperation. That sort of thing."
"Is there anything I should know," she said, directed at Fontaine specifically, because Fontaine was the one who said things that meant other things and trusted her to translate them correctly.
Fontaine looked at her for a moment. "The Durmstrang students will know your name," he said. "Most of them will have opinions about it."
"Most people do," Fila said.
"These opinions may be more." He paused, choosing carefully. "Enthusiastic. Than what you're accustomed to."
Fila understood what that meant. Durmstrang students who knew the name Grindelwald and felt positively about it. Who might see her as something to attach meaning to. Something to point at and say look, the bloodline continues, look what we still have. She had encountered this before, in smaller doses, at gatherings her grandmother attended where certain older witches and wizards looked at her with a specific kind of hunger that had nothing to do with her as a person.
She found it exhausting every time.
"I'll manage," she said.
"I know you will," Fontaine said. "I'm telling you so you're not caught off guard."
"I appreciate that."
She stood there, expecting more to come but after a short moments she saw that there was nothing else so she started to slowly move away.
The visitors would change much, just more eyes and an even more crowded dinner hall. And maybe some annoying moments when the students of Durmstrang meet a Grindelwald for the first time.
'Maybe Hugin and Munin will have to work again' she thought about her two tree panthers that had been resting for a while now. Something she would rather not change, since they would draw way too much attention.
She spent the rest of the morning doing nothing in particular, which for Fila meant doing several small things simultaneously while appearing to do nothing. She walked the outer corridors of Castelobruxo, the ones that ran along the exterior walls where the windows opened directly onto the jungle, and she thought about the letter in her pocket and Durmstrang and Marcus and the duel tomorrow in whatever order they wanted to arrive.
A small part of her really wanted to meet the Durmstrang students, maybe they would bring something like a bit of drama.
And than there was Hogwarts. She really thought nothing of it, he interaction with Harry Potter in a dream meant little to nothing. And as her magic had told her, she would help him. But not now. But who knows, maybe something interesting would come from the school with the ugliest name ever.
She found a window seat in one of the wider corridor alcoves, the kind built into the wall with a stone bench and a view of the canopy below, and she sat in it with her knees up and watched the birds moving between the trees. The Amazon had a specific bird that she had not been able to identify in four days of looking, bright orange at the wing with a black head, that moved in short aggressive bursts between branches. She had decided she liked it.
The orange bird appeared now on a branch below the window, did its aggressive short movement to another branch, and disappeared into the green.
"There you are."
Fila didn't turn around. She recognized the footsteps, had recognized them since the second day. "Here I am," she agreed.
Bea appeared at the edge of the alcove and looked at the window seat and the arrangement of Fila in it, which left approximately no room for a second person unless the second person wanted to sit very close. Bea sat very close, pulling her knees up to mirror Fila's, their shoulders finding each other with the ease of things that had been doing this long enough to stop needing to think about it.
"Potions ended early," Bea said.
"How early."
"Forty minutes ago."
"You took forty minutes to find me."
"I wasn't looking for the first twenty," Bea said, with the honesty she applied to most things. "I was getting food. Then I was looking." She held out a small cloth-wrapped bundle without ceremony. "Here."
Fila took it. Inside was bread and something that smelled of the slow-cooked thing from the kitchen, wrapped neatly. She looked at it and then at Bea.
"You're doing the plant thing again," she said.
"You didn't eat breakfast," Bea said. "I checked."
"You checked."
"I asked Miles. He said you left before the hall opened." Bea looked entirely untroubled by any of this. "Eat."
Fila ate. The bread was good, dense and warm, and the slow-cooked thing inside it was even better than the kitchen leftovers which seemed unfair for this hour of the morning. Outside the window the jungle proceeded. The orange bird was back on the lower branch doing its aggressive movements.
"What are those called," Fila said, pointing.
Bea looked. "Flame-crested manakin," she said, without hesitation. "The males do a little jumping display when they're trying to impress someone. It involves a lot of very fast movement between branches."
"Huh" Fila simply answered.
The two sat in silence at enjoyed the sandwiches. It's the good kind of silence when words don't have to be said to enjoy each other's company.
"Did you hear about the visitors?" Fila asked.
Bea just nodded at she took another bite. She swallowed. "Something wrong about it?"
"No," she answered with a slight shrug. "Or maybe. we will see, I might have a bunch of fan boys coming after me."
Something changed in the girls expression and she looked, angry?
Fila saw it and looked at her. "Bea? What…"
"I will curse them." She said plainly.
Ah jealous? Already? Fila looked at her for a moment. Bea was staring out the window at the jungle with the expression of someone who had made a completely reasonable statement and was prepared to stand by it.
Fila pressed her lips together. The smile was happening whether she wanted it to or not, the small private one that had been showing up more frequently since approximately Tuesday. "They're not fan boys," she said. "It's more complicated than that."
"I know what it is," Bea said, still looking at the jungle. "I know what Durmstrang students think about your family name. I'm not naive about it." She paused. "That's worse, actually. Fan boys I could ignore. People who want to use you as a symbol for something are different."
Fila looked at her.
That was, she thought, a more accurate read of the situation than most people managed on their first attempt, and most people didn't manage it at all. She had expected to have to explain it, the specific texture of what Durmstrang reverence for the Grindelwald name actually felt like from the inside of it. The way it was never about her, just what she represented. The exhaustion of being looked at and seen as something other than yourself.
Bea had gotten there without the explanation.
"Yes," Fila said. "That's it exactly."
Bea finally turned from the window. The anger had settled into something cooler and more considered, the expression she wore when she had made a decision and was comfortable with it. "Then I'll be there," she said. "When they arrive. If anyone tries to make you into a symbol I'll be very visibly standing next to you being extremely Brazilian about it."
"What does that mean."
"It means I will take up a lot of space and make direct eye contact and nobody will be entirely sure what I'm going to do next." She said it completely seriously. "It's very effective."
Fila stared at her.
Then she laughed. Not the small private smile, an actual laugh, the raspy surprised version that didn't happen very often and that she had even less control over than the smile. It came out before she could decide whether to let it, which was probably the point.
Bea watched her laugh with the satisfied expression of someone who had aimed for exactly this outcome and hit it.
"You're ridiculous," Fila said, when she got it back under control. Fila pulled Bea's arm and pulled her into a tight hug. "And your so extremely cute about it." she said and gave the girl a peck on the cheek.
Which made the Brazilian red all over.
The evening was spent not with Beatriz, for the first time. but with the Ilvermorny students. Some joked about her even being here since most of them hadn't even seen her.
She was laying on a couch in the quest wing, laying and using Junes thighs as a pillow while eating more candy that Miles had somehow acquired from the kitchen.
"Miles who is this secret dealer you have?" Fila said as she threw a piece of caramel covered candy into her mouth.
Miles only gave a scoff. "I cant name my secrets Fila."
"Your secrets are getting expensive," Aaron said from the floor, where he was lying on his back with his feet up on the armchair like a person who had given up on furniture having rules. He had his hand out toward Miles without looking at him. Miles placed a piece of candy in it without being asked. "How are you paying for all of this."
"Favors," Miles said.
"What kind of favors?" Aaron asked while giving him a nasty side eye.
Fila tossed a candy right to the cheek of Miles, "Probably telling someone about our secrets techniques. He sold us out so to say." It's a joke.
Aaron gave a nod. "Not a bad deal if it means more of this stuff."
Fila threw another piece into her mouth and looked at the ceiling of the guest wing. Different ceiling from Bea's room. No vine, no crack, just plain stone with a torch bracket that had a small moth sitting on it, perfectly still, apparently also just looking at the ceiling.
"Marcus," she said.
"Mm," said Marcus, from somewhere behind her. He had claimed the other couch and had been horizontal and silent for the better part of an hour, which was either rest or dread and was probably both.
"How's the shoulder."
A pause. "Fine."
"That means it hurts."
Another pause, slightly longer. "It's fine."
"He took a pretty good hit in yesterday's session," Sera said from the window seat, where she was sitting with her legs crossed and what appeared to be a cup of tea that had materialized from nowhere, which might also have been Miles. "He's not going to say it hurts."
"It doesn't hurt," Marcus said.
"It hurts," Sera said.
June, reached down and offered the candy bag at an angle that required Fila to do significant work to access it. Fila took three pieces without sitting up, which was an accomplishment she felt good about.
"Tomorrow," Aaron said, to the ceiling. He said it the way people say things when they've been thinking them for a while and finally let them out. "How is everyone feeling about tomorrow."
"You should ask Marcus, not everyone else." Fila said with an annoyed tone, she thought Aaron was too daft sometimes.
Marcus sighed. "Im fine, whatever happens, happens."
Fila thought that was the best thing she had heard anyone say in this room in a while. He seemed to have accepted that he could win, but might lose.
"Kick her ass, Marcus." Fila said and enjoyed another pieces of candy.
Marcus made a sound from the other couch that was approximately a laugh. The first one all evening. It was short and slightly reluctant, the laugh of someone who hadn't been planning on it but couldn't help it, and it changed something in the room's atmosphere in a way that was small and significant at the same time.
"Yeah," he said. "Okay."
Aaron pointed at the ceiling in a gesture of agreement. "Kick her ass, Marcus," he echoed.
"Kick her ass," June said, from above Fila's head.
"With dignity," Sera added, which was Sera's version of the same sentiment.
"With dignity," Daniel agreed.
Miles said nothing, but placed another piece of candy into Marcus's outstretched hand from across the room.
The guest wing was warm and slightly over-furnished in the way of rooms that had been prepared for visitors, too many cushions and a rug that was either very expensive or enchanted or both. The moth on the torch bracket still hadn't moved. Fila had decided it was either sleeping or had made a philosophical decision about the torch bracket being sufficient and was committed to it.
She respected that.
"Fila," Aaron said, to the ceiling.
"Mm."
"Are you nervous. For when you duel."
The room went slightly more attentive. The question that everybody wanted the answer to and only one person had been brave enough to ask it. Fila could feel June go still above her.
She thought about it properly. Not the quick answer, the real one.
"Nah." she said. Then, more carefully: "or yes, maybe." it's a har question to answer. "I just hope it's a good opponent that I wont hold back against." They all knew who she meant. And maybe it's a bad thing, but to most It seemed very reasonable, you wouldn't hurt someone you like, or starting to like.
June above her looked down. "What will you do if you go against Beatriz?"
Everyone looked towards them. A question everyone had thought about.
Fila looked at the ceiling.
She thought about the question properly. she thought about hard things, from the outside in, looking at the shape of it before touching the center of it.
Beatriz in a dueling ring. Beatriz with her wand out and that look she got when something had her full attention, the one that was sharp underneath the composed surface, the one Fila had seen when she watched the first duel and understood immediately that the girl beside her was not just watching but studying. Beatriz who had told her she would curse Durmstrang students on her behalf and had meant it completely. Beatriz who watered her like a plant and found her in corridors and waited up past midnight and had said I think I've been meaning it for a few days with the specific courage of someone who had decided honesty was worth the risk.
Beatriz in a dueling ring. Across from her.
The question wasn't whether she could do it. She could. That wasn't even close to the hard part.
"I'd fight her," Fila said. Flat. Certain.
The room absorbed this.
"Full?" Aaron asked. He wasn't being provocative. He genuinely wanted to know.
"Full," Fila said. "Or as close to it as the rules allow."
June was looking down at her from above. Her expression was careful, not judging, just reading. "That's cold," she said. But she said it like she was trying it out to see if it was true, not like she'd already decided.
"No it's not," Fila said. "Holding back is cold. Holding back means I've already decided she can't handle it. That I know better than she does what she can take." She paused. "Bea would hate that more than losing."
Nobody said anything for a moment.
Then Sera, from the window seat, said quietly, "Yes she would."
Which was significant because Sera had spoken approximately forty words all evening and this was a statement not a filler, and everyone in the room understood that Sera had been watching Beatriz for longer than any of them.
"She'd be furious," Daniel said, slowly. Working it out as he said it. "If she found out you'd softened it."
"She'd know immediately," Fila said. "She watches magic the same way I do. She'd know the second I pulled something." She threw a piece of candy up and caught it without looking. "So I won't pull anything. And she won't want me to. And if she wins she wins and if she doesn't she doesn't and afterward we go back to whatever this is."
She said the last part the same way she said everything else. Even. Unhurried. Like it wasn't the most significant sentence in the speech.
The room registered it anyway. Aaron made a very small sound. Miles ate a piece of candy and looked at the wall. June's hand, resting near Fila's head, went very still for just a second.
"Whatever this is," June said, carefully.
"Yes," Fila said.
"Which is."
"Not your business June."
"I'm your pillow. I feel like that earns me some information."
"It earns you a comfortable place to put your legs. That's it."
June huffed. But she was smiling, Fila could tell from the quality of the sound. She didn't push further, which was the correct decision.
"Also," Fila said, to the ceiling, "if I do end up against Bea, she's going to make it very difficult for me. So the conversation about whether I'll go easy on her is irrelevant because she's not going to give me the opportunity."
"You think she'd beat you?" Aaron said, with genuine curiosity and not a single ounce of tact.
"I think she'd make me work harder than almost anyone else in this tournament," Fila said. "Because she's been watching me since the first day and she knows things about how I move that I haven't told anyone."
A pause.
"That's either very romantic or very terrifying," Daniel said.
"Both," Fila said. "Same thing sometimes."