Lucy sat on the beach, wrapped in a thick blanket against the chill sea air. She snaked her arms up out of the warmth to pull her blonde hair out of her face again, but she had nothing to tie it with so the effort was futile. Sighing, she looked around and spotted a small stick. She grabbed it and pulled out her wand, tapping it once so that it transfigured into an elastic hair band. Satisfied, she pulled her hair back and wrapped the hair band around the ponytail. She shivered and buried herself back into the warm blanket.

It was a Saturday, and Lucy had requested leave from Hogwarts for the day. It was still very early in the morning--Lucy still didn't know why she'd gotten up at the hour she did, she was normally a very late sleeper--and Derry wouldn't expect her for another few hours, so rather than loiter around the castle waiting to leave, she'd decided to sit awhile on Avalon Island. She hadn't been there since the summer and figured it was as good a place as any to sit and think, particularly since the weather did not particularly scream "beach time."

What was she thinking about? Children.

Being surrounded by youngsters day in and day out was taking it's toll on Lucy's biological clock. She had just turned twenty-nine, and by twenty-nine most women had a child of seven or eight at least. She knew Derry wanted children too, lots of children, and she was growing fonder of the idea every day...but Lucy couldn't help but think that if they wanted that dream realized, they really ought to get a move on.

A wave crashed against some nearby rocks and shot spray high into the air. Lucy flinched in her blanket; when she looked up again, there was someone standing above her.

Bram didn’t know why he was here – he never knew why he decided to take walks during the night and into the morning. He’d started performing this strange ritual after he was released from Dagda ages ago, and whenever he felt like he didn’t know what to do with himself, he just walked until he was tired enough to collapse on his couch like always. It had been a while since he’d last taken a stroll, and after thinking about it for a while, he determined that the last time was shortly before he met Miranda. After that, he was either always planning something with her, doing something with her, or wishing he were in her company. There just wasn’t time in the evening for walks anymore.

After their breakup, Bram was too busy moving, acclimating to his surroundings, filling out paperwork and trying to catch up on the duties the former dementologist left him at the hospital to even think about taking his legs out for a ride. By the time he’d caught up, Ivy was magically alive, and as usual when a Ballantine was involved, trouble and drama ensued. Now, well, Bram had a lot on his mind and entirely too much time to think about it. Normally most folks used this time of night to actually get rest and sleep, but when your mind is traveling at the speed of a Ballantine’s reproduction rate, slumber just cackles at you tauntingly from afar.

Hands in his jacket and hair blown left, right and sideways, Bram trudged along the beach, getting sand in his socks and soon began to feel generally miserable. He was really not a beach person, and usually it was partially because of the crowds, but at least tonight – even though grit had lodged itself into seemingly every fiber of his clothes – he had the place to himself, and that was enough to appease him.

Until, that is, he noticed a familiar looking blonde in a blanket.

Heading towards her, almost on autopilot, Bram stood over her and waited for her to look up at him. He had thought about bolting, but with his proximity, she would have to have been blind to miss him leaving. After a moment, she noticed his presence and he started to open his mouth to refer to her as, “Ms. Simington” before remembering that she was no longer Simington, but Ballantine. Calling her “Ballantine” seemed wrong somehow, so he went with the only thing he had left.

“Lucinda,” Bram acknowledged, shrugging off his jacket and joining her on the sand. Staring a moment, his first thought was, Hypocritically murdered any young ladies lately?, but he didn’t think vocalising that particular thought would be conducive to his long-term physical health. Instead, he turned his head away to the water and opted for something a bit more mundane. “Here I thought the newlyweds were inseparable,” he yawned. “Finally opted for the surgery to remove Dermot from your hip, I see. Brilliant choice.”

Stretching himself on the beach and already regretting it – feck the sand – Bram kept his eyes on the water and tried not to wonder how much was left of her.

Lucinda looked up and stared. Here she’d thought the beach would be a safe place to be alone on a winter morning. Apparently not; but then, Bram was just the sort of strange individual to be where no one was expected just when you didn’t expect them. She wasn’t sure how to address him, so she remained rather impolitely silent. What name was he going by? He’d been using Ian Fry in England; she’d learned that much from the trial proceedings and Ivy’s account. She had tried to ignore what could only be a reference to her. But she didn’t know whether or not he’d be offended by her calling him Bram, since he had apparently forsaken the name.

He hesitated in a similar fashion before speaking, calling her Lucinda. She smirked. No one had called her Lucinda for years, not since graduation practically. More than ten years ago. She looked over at Bram. They had once been on good terms, in school, and recently he had been absolutely crucial to getting Ivy out of trouble with Garrow; but there was still a sort of hardness to his voice, a hardness that had been there for more than ten years, since she had died—the first time, anyway. As far as Lucy know, Bram had never known that she had come back, albeit indirectly.

“Finally opted for the surgery to remove Dermot from your hip, I see. Brilliant choice.”

“It was necessary,” Lucy replied with a small smile. “He was distracting my students; always trying to start conversations with them about how pretty I looked that day or similar, grossing them out by trying to kiss me in the middle of a lecture. I’d’ve lost my job if it’d continued.” Not that it would have been a huge tragedy, Lucinda thought. They’d forbidden her to teach any modern Muggle history and limited her to teaching about barbarous, technologically deficient Muggles. She’d had more than one Muggle-born student ask her when she was going to tell the pureblood students about electricity and all the other ways Muggles made up for lack of magic, and she could only lie to them and say “soon.” Soon, however, she felt that her entire subject would be canceled.

“So, Bram. Are you coming to the Christmas party?” she asked, turning to him with a smile.

(ugh awful)