It wasn't quite noon yet, and already the day had seemed to have dragged on far longer. That was to be expected though when one had fallen ill. The weather wasn't terrible, but it wasn't all that grand either, with occasional and sudden bouts of rain. It was a Saturday that would be better spent indoors, but even sick Moira wasn't going to be constrained to stay inside weather or otherwise.

Sitting on a bench under an overhang, Moira hunched a little as a coughing spell wracked her body. When it subsided she set her head against the wall again and closed her eyes. It wasn't anything special, just a fever and a soar throat with the general wheezing and coughing. That kind of illness took over everyone at some time or other.

Moira didn't want to be inside, she certainly didn't want to be stuck in bed, but she didn't want to do much past sitting with her eyes closed. Her stubbornness had kicked in and she wouldn't go to the healing hut either, since then she'd have to be in a bed.

Letting out a soft sigh she opened her eyes at the sound of footsteps. Looking towards the source she wondered who else would bother being out there.

Saturday! How could it be a month since Valentine's day already? The weeks had flown by. Unfortunately, this meant that the end of the fourth year was galloping towards him in a few months, along with end of term tests and the expectation of progression before they entered their final year of OWLs.

Ambrose had been thinking a bit on that recently, whether he'd be facing his final year at Hogwarts the following year after struggling through his OWL exams. He didn't fancy he'd be much good at NEWTs, or he'd only study a few, like creatures perhaps, if he did.

Perhaps if Moira carried on. She was one nice thing about studying creatures that didn't make him feel so incapable. Even if other people thought she was strange, Ambrose rather liked her, and despite how much he was enjoying being with Cyhirae, part of him was always conscious that if he'd asked Moira to the ball at Christmas, it might have turned out differently. Then, Moira hadn't wanted to go anyhow… but if he'd asked…?

Hmm. Girls were tricky. At least they were friends of sorts.

Winnie would have called it fate, but as Ambrose rounded the corner, deep in thought and not entirely considering his direction - just getting some air between rain showers, as he felt too fidgety to sit down and consider homework, he chanced upon McBoid.

She was sat hunched against the wall, and it looked as if she was taking a nap from afar, but her eyes opened and face turned.

"We have to stop meeting like this." Pepper grinned, taking his hands out of his coat pockets as he did and opening his arms in general greeting. But Moira didn't quite seem as switched on and keenly observant as she usually did to such encounters. There was an absence of sketching, which was usually what he stumbled across her doing.

"Y'alright?" Ambrose asked with a tilt of his head. "I don't mean this in a nasty way, but you don't look yourself."

Honestly, she should have guessed that it would be Ambrose who would be walking by. Oddly enough it was something that seemed to happen on a regular basis and she wasn't sure if he was seeking her out and pretend he wasn't or not. Not that she had any idea why he would seek her out anyway. She wasn't all that interesting, despite his claims, and he did have a girlfriend.

Almost immediately he noticed she wasn't quite right. Something like that should be expected, he saw her often enough in classes and out. In that case, there was no point in lying as she might have done with most others. Ambrose wouldn't just keep walking on his way once she gave her answer either, so he'd still find out.

After swallowing to try and ease the ache in her throat she answered, "Not really." Speaking, unfortunately, caused yet another coughing fit to start up as she hadn't spoken yet that day to anyone, and even to her own ears she sounded terrible. Groaning she leaned back again and let her head rest on the cool exterior of the wall. Moira was burning hot and cold at the same time. Being sick was just the worst.

Moira really wasn't well. When she spoke, Ambrose's eyebrows climbed upwards on his face.

"I just thought you were tired or something, but you sound crook too." He astutely observed, stating the obvious.

He tentatively stepped forward towards her, a frown on his face. One never quite knew if it was some lovely magical illness when at Hogwarts, or just a common cold or flu.

"Can I get you anything?" He asked more softly as the distance between them decreased. He sank down beside her on the stone and adopted a thoughtful, yet caring expression that was reminiscent of his father when he or his brother were ill as children.

"You warm enough-" Ambrose had tentatively reached out his hand, relaxed and fingers curled, to put the back of his knuckles against his classmate's cheek, but he didn't actually need to touch her to feel the heat. "Phew, d'ya think you've got the flu or something?"

What was this? Whatever it was, it was new to be sure. Moira had seen Ambrose be uncertain, curious, and many other things but never had she seen him attentive like this. It was rather... strange. Perhaps she was far more ill than she thought because what was even more odd was that she didn't mind so much.

At his offer to get her something she shook her head. "No, thanks. Ah'm alright." Obviously she wasn't alright physically, but in the way of needing or wanting something she couldn't complain.

Once more she looked to him fully when he reached to check her temperature. "Aye, maybe so. Started feeling sick about two days ago, but Ah was-nae this bad until Ah woke up this morning."

As Moira explained, as if being this unwell was a perfectly normal every day occurrence that wouldn't interrupt her usual timetable, Ambrose continued his concerned expression.

"You should be in bed then, not sat out here in the cold." He shook his head, "Sorry I sound like my mum, er, used - I just mean, if you're sick, then aren't you better off in bed?"

"Ah suppose ah should be, as ye say, but Ah din-nae want teh be inside."

Poor Moira was sick enough she didn't even catch Ambrose's slip, which she would have normally picked up on. Fortunately she was still comprehensive of her surroundings and what was going on. No hallucinations for her!

She had the weekend to rest up, excluding her weekly detention with Professor Storm, that was. With how she felt, Moira was sure her performance would be far less than stellar, and it was possible she'd end up even worse by the time she went to bed.

Blinking the sick Hufflepuff refocused her attention on the one currently concerned about her situation. She didn't want to be rude.

Ambrose mustered a smile, to try and make Moira feel better. A small consolation.

"Sure I can't get you a blanket or summin'?" Ambrose asked.

There was a strange an awkward pause between them, before he raised his arm nearest Moira, and then put it back, glancing to her.

He blew out his cheeks and looked out to the grounds, exhaling.

"Got much planned for the Easter holiday?" He asked, as casually as he could. "I'm going home, but you staying here?"

He glanced back to Moira who didn't seem quite with it still.

His instinct was to put his arm round her, but he didn't want to upset her.

It was tricky, as not so long ago he'd been considering asking Moira to be his partner at the Yule Ball, before everything had happened with Cy and such. Three and a bit months down the road and he still felt a bit inadequate for the Ravenclaw. The other girls called him 'sweet' but he read into it as an 'intellectual disappointment' for the smart girl.

Whereas with Moira, he shared quite a common interest, and strangely felt at ease. She was just as clever, but not in a way that intimidated him.

"Here," he said suddenly, making his mind up. His arm lifted and reached up to go around her shoulders, but didn't pull her into a hug - he didn't want to freak her out after all.

Moira shook her head at his offer of a blanket. "Hot," was all she said. Really she wanted to take the scarf and coat off too, but she knew better than to do that, because the cold outside air would only make it worse. Plus it was wet, and that wasn't helping her situation at all either.

Perhaps there was somewhere else they could go, her mind bogged down by the illness as well she automatically dragged Ambrose into the thought, that would be better but wouldn't be inside or in a bed.

"Mmm, no. Ah'm going back home as well. Da's picking me up right after breakfast." It would be nice to be home again.

Opening her eyes, not realizing they had shut, she looked at Ambrose in a dazed, though not rejecting, way. Nodding a bit for reasons she didn't know she let him continue to keep his arm there and enjoyed the quiet company while it lasted.

They sat in silence for a minute or so, Ambrose contemplating what would be the right thing to do, and hoping that nobody came round the corner too quickly.

"Being sick and having a younger brother can be a right pain." He told Moira, somewhat out of the blue, not realising she'd been nodding off again on his shoulder.

"If one of us came down with something, the other would normally too, but sometimes Tim seemed to be immune. So I'd be in bed with whatever it was and he'd be bouncing off the walls and tearing about the place as usual, and it'd make me more miserable that I couldn't join in, and that he wasn't being quiet. But when you're sick, someone else feeling the same is sort of company, I guess."

Ambrose looked off to one side, and then rubbed at the back of his head with his free hand.

"Erm. Yeah, sorry, bit random. I just. I dunno, I'm not that great at trying to make people feel better. I don't know any spells to heal - not that you'd want me to try. I'd blow your head clean off." A couple of chuckles broke free and his shoulder shook.

"Still, I doubt you'd be bothered about a cold then."

Partially asleep, Moira listened to Ambrose talk about him and his sibling if one or both of them were sick. It did sound like it could be a pain but at the same time.... not that she'd ever really know.

With a small grunt she shook her head. "Ye dun have ta try and make me feel better. Tis a common sickness and it will pass, then Ah'll be back ta normal." That said, it was nice of him to try anyway.

When Moira was ill at home she was made to stay in bed and sleep. Her dad and uncle had too much work to do to stay with her all day, but they did check in regularly and fixed her soup if she could eat it and they would chat with her a bit. Angus would tell her a story at night, like he used to when she was still a small girl.

"If ye insist on trying though, just keep talking. Ah've always enjoyed listening ta stories of most kinds."

"A story?" Ambrose asked, surprised to have it suggested. "Are you going to fall asleep on me?" He chuckled again and shifted himself slightly to settle down, feeling a bit like his uncle Octavius, Zeta's dad, with Eta curled up against him. Only he wasn't Moira's dad and she wasn't several decades younger.

"Did Zeta tell you about what happened at Christmas?" Ambrose asked, thinking that the family hadn't exactly broadcast matters, though his uncle was trying to now.

"Oh, well, it's an alright story I guess." He cleared his throat slightly and thought on where to start.

"So, my Dad, and my Granddad and now my cousin Theta, who did her NEWTs here last year, all make time-turners for the Ministry. My family have for generations, way back, but not everyone has, but its normally been the men. I doubt I will.

"So," Ambrose began again, that word one of his little habits, "my uncle Octavius, who is my dad's brother, didn't decide to make time turners as well. He paints people's portraits, you know, the type that talk. He's really good at it.

"But he's always been interested in the whole family business generally, and also in flying cars, which are like, those things Muggles use to get around places instead of brooms. Anyway, he found out that there was this wizard in America who had a flying car company, and his name was Monty Pepper.

"He thought it was pretty cool that this guy could be like our relative, and he looked a lot like my dad and my uncle even, but a bit older. So he started writing to him, and anyhow, last term once Zeta and Eta were at Hogwarts with us, and Theta was working with my dad, my uncle and aunt went to America for a long trip."

Ambrose shuffled his buttocks a bit, wishing he was telling this story inside and not on a stone bench.

"They went and saw lots of things there, but then they made plans to meet this Monty Pepper. My uncle had taken with him an old time turner which my grandfather had made, but didn't work for some reason. It had been hanging in a frame, but my uncle had decided to change the chain and make it into a nice necklace for my aunt as a gift. He also wanted to show Monty what our family did traditionally, but couldn't take like a real turner with him.

"So the night before they were meant to meet Monty, he decides to give it to my aunt Catherine, but as he's checking it over, it actually works. Turns out it was a prototype for travelling back years, and my uncle is suddenly in 1989."

Ambrose peered down at Moira to see if she was still listening, and following what he was on about.

When asked if she had been informed on something that happened at Christmas she just gave a negative grunt. She wasn't about to explain the whole bit where people generally didn't talk to her, not out of spite or anything mean like that though. Moira just didn't relate to most of what was talked about.

Listening to his story - didn't his family ever get confused with so many "Eta's"? - she wondered in the back of her mind what a big spread out family was really like, instead of her close-knit family of three. It had to be chaotic at times.

It was interesting how the Pepper family business was time-turners, even if they didn't all follow that route. They were rather rare pieces of magic, tricky magic at that. Time wasn't something one meddled with lightly, no matter how much one wanted to.

Feeling him move as he paused she nodded to let him know she was still awake, "So he went back roughly 20 years."

"Yeah, right." Ambrose confirmed. "He had no way of getting back - so he had to find a way of getting by while he tried to work out what to do. Last thing he wanted to cause was a paradox.

"So he thought about who he knew in America in these years, and remembered that Monty Pepper was starting up his flying car business, and figured he'd go to him and see if he could help. He went to California, hoping Monty would appear where the car company began, but he didn't show.

"It was then my uncle realised why Monty looked so much like him and the rest of the family, and why he'd never agreed to meet until then - because Monty had been him all along."

He could feel Moira was about to nod off again, so cut to the chase. He'd never been that good at telling stories.

"So after all that, he bought the company, and started to build it up as he remembered from the clippings and the letters, even replying to his own letters, until the day it all happened. My aunt fainted on opening the door to him at the hotel. To her, he'd aged twenty years in an evening."

Ambrose sighed.
"He tells it much better than I do. I think you'd like him, if you met him. You both like things that fly, you know, that aren't brooms." He thought to Moira's family and their flying horses.

"Hey you," He called softly, squeezing Moira's shoulder, "isn't there a comfy bed you would be better off in?"

What a flummox all that was. Must have been a terribly long wait for his uncle too, and now the family having to deal with him being 20 years older. At least they were reunited again... sort of.

Naturally he wasn't like her dad at telling stories, she didn't expect it, but it did have the same effect as even Ambrose was noticing.

Opening her eyes feeling him squeeze her shoulder she looked over at him and blinked. "Aye, Ah suppose Ah do." Of course, she couldn't go crawl into it just yet even if she wanted to. "Ah'll get in bed after taking a bath."

That was, of course, after her lesson with Professor Storm anyway.