After having dropped her stuff off in her dormitory and putting her swimming suit on under a pair of shorts and a t-shirt Evelyn made her way down to the lake. When she arrived she noticed Josh wasn't there yet. She sat down by the waters edge and put her feet in while she waited for him to arrive. While she was swishing her feet back and forth she realized she hadn't brought a towel with her so she could dry off after swimming. Oh, well, I can always just use a quick drying spell, she thought happily to herself. This was turning out to be one of the best days she had had in a long time.

Josh had dropped his bag off in his dorm, getting changed into his swimming trunks as well. Josh put on a pair of jeans, a t-shirt and a fleece jacket over them, since it was almost the end of september. grabbing a towel, he headed out to the lake, seeing Evelyn there. she must be either cold or using a Warming Charm Josh thought, since she was in a -shirt from what he could see. "Hi Evelyn" Josh said, sitting down next to her.

Evelyn jumped at the sound of Josh's voice. "Hey Josh. You scared me," she said with a smile. She hadn't heard him approach her and his sudden greeting had frightened her. "So are we jumping in or are what?" Evelyn asked as she stood up and took off her shirt and shorts that were over her suit. She then took a running start and launched her self into the lake. As she resurfaced she started laughing as she saw that she had splashed Josh with water when she had jumped.

"I guess so" Josh said in reply to Evelyns' question, and started taking off his jacket when he was suddenly splashed with water. Evelyn had splashed him when she got in the water. Oh, it was ON.  Removing his shirt and jeans, Josh jumped in, making sure Evelyn would get splashed. Surfacing, he joined in her laughter.

Laughing Evelyn said, "How was that supposed to do anything? I'm already wet!" She then turned onto her back and floated on top of the water. "This is nice," she said quietly as she stared up at the clouds in the sky. Clouds were intriguing to her because they were always changing and morphing. "When I was younger I used to look for shapes in the clouds. I would always swear that I saw castles with princess's looking down on me," Evelyn sighed.

Josh smiled slightly. " I still got you, didn't i?" He said simply. Looking up at the sky, Josh smiled when eh heard Evelyn talk about looking for shapes in the clouds. " Knowing magic, it's entirely possible there could have been castle clouds. Accidental magic could have done it. Merlin knows I had some weird accidental magic. Possibly the most amusing was the time I Summoned dad's broom and went flying when Mum and Dad weren't looking. I wondered afterwards why dad wasn't more concerned about me falling off, then found out he had added a Gripping Charm to the broom, making it virtually impossible to fall off.[1] Still received a lecture, but it was worth it." Josh said, still smiling at the memory.

1.

Gripping Charms are canon, they're applied to Quaffles to make them easier to grip. I can see them being used as a safety precaution on brooms around small children. Obviously, it's not a complete guarantee of safety ( and notice I didn't say Sam was unconcerned) but it would reduce the risk of the kid falling off.

Evelyn laughed at Josh's story. It would have been nice to have ridden a broom when she was younger. "I'm the youngest in my family and the only girl. My five older brothers didn't take well to having a girl. I remember this one time when I was 6 my brother, Andrew, threw me out his bedroom window. It is on the second floor and with him being 12 at the time he could easily lift me. My mother was sitting on a chair in the yard and thought I was going to die. But I didn't fall like she thought I would, I just floated to the ground like a leaf," Evelyn said with a giggle. Then she sighed, "My family are Muggles though so they just thought the wind was really strong at the time."

Josh didn't laugh at Evelyn's story. "Your older brother threw you out of a window? I hope he was punished severely for that. There was no way he could have known you would survive. Merlin, that's as bad as some people used to do to suspected Squibs in an attempt to 'force magic out of them'. Dad told me once that several kids had actually died due to it, mostly kids who actually were Squibs. Fortunately, when the last of the magicals born in the Victorian era died, the practice died out or was it banned, i can't remember off the top of my head.[1] It doesn't oiccur anymore, that i know for sure." Josh said, still looking shocked.

1.

considering that Dumbledore apparently wasn't extremely old for a wizard ( his OWL and NEWT tester is still working) and we know of at least one witch who is over 100, thne it's not unreasonable to assume the lasty Victorian wizards have only juts died out. The way I see it, dropping kids out of windows is a relic of a time whne far less concern was shown for Squibs, so would likely have died out or been banned during the post-voldemort reforms.

"Well my mom was just really happy that I didn't die and didn't think much about punishment. My dad made Andrew sleep in the cattle shed for the next two weeks though," Evelyn said to him. The thing about her brothers though was that wasn't even the worse thing any of them had done to her. She decided then that it was probably a good idea not to tell Josh about anything else her brother's had done. "On the bright side I lived to tell the tale," she joked as she turned to face him.

"Hmmm"was Josh's response to hearing that the punishment was to sleep in a cattle shed for two weeks, that probably was appropiate "I assume the cattle sheds were no longer in use?" Josh asked, there would be no way it would be sane for anyone to sleep in an actively used cattleshed. Sure, it would be warmer than a disused one, but the risk of getting kicked by cattle and seriously injured was high. "Yes, it's good that you lived, but that doesn't excuse your brother's behaviour." Josh said, then noticed she seemed dismissive of it, almost as if... "They didn't do anything worse, did they?" Josh asked, expression suddenly serious.

"No!" Evelyn replied quickly. Maybe a little too quickly. "Well yes. But It really isn't a big deal. I'm fine and they don't bother me anymore. They stopped as soon as they found out I was a witch," she said in a soft voice. It really wasn't a big deal to her anymore. But Josh seemed really concerned about her which confused Evelyn. No one had ever cared enough to ask her about anything that had happened at her home.

"They've done worse. Well, it's good they've stopped, at least. It is a big deal, though. Your brothers could have killed you. Do you think someone would be made to sleep in a cowshed for something that wasn't a big deal?" Josh said, then grabbed Evelyn's hand. "Evelyn, if you ever need to talk more about what's happened to you at home, or anything still happening to you at home, you can talk to me. I may be a Prefect, but if you don't want me to tell anyone else, I won't." Josh said, his tone sympathetic but not pitying. he knew Evelyn wouldn't want pity, but sympathy...

Evelyn looked down at Josh's hand holding hers. She felt her face going red and instantly cursed her Irish genes. "Thank you," she said in a voice barely above a whisper. She realized that maybe what her brothers used to do was a big deal. For the first time since coming to Hogwarts she felt like someone actually understood her. "Josh, I-" she started to say but stopped. She really didn't know what to say at all.

Josh noticed Evelyn blushing and avoided commenting, figuring it was embarrassment. Why Evelyn would be embarrassed, he had no idea.had no-one talked to her like this before? It would explain a lot. Then Evelyn started to say something, then cut off. "Yes, Evelyn?" he said kindly, wondering what she was having difficulty saying.It could, realistically, be just about anything, although he suspected it was something fairly important.

"It's just that you are the first person to actually care about what goes on with my life when I'm not here. None of my friends even seem to ask," Evelyn said to him. "You know more about me than the girls in my dorm do." She didn't know why she was telling him this. She just felt like she could trust him.