Edge of the Lake
Younger Grace
Outfit

The Hogwart's school year was winding down, but that hardly meant that Grace Eddy's studying would end. As the daughter of two educators, her schooling was a year long process. When her father had agreed to allowing her to enroll in Hogwart's, he had mandated that she continue studying traditional muggle subjects during her summers. Grace had not minded the arrangement and she had begun to look forward to the end of May when her father would send her a package with her reading list for the summer.

Most of the time, she didn't get very far into it until the train ride home, but this year she had managed to get most of her end of term projects and studying done early where she could finally turn her attention to what her father had sent.

The weather was quite nice and after returning to the dorms to drop off her bag and change her clothes into something more comfortable. She then snatched up the volume of poetry from the top of the pile of books on her nightstand and headed outside. It didn't take her long to find her favorite little place on the edge of the lake to be alone to study.

English was one subject that she absolutely adored, partially because it was the one that her father taught (and one that her mother was also proficent in in a much different degree). Grace had grown up watching their enthusiasm for nearly every aspect of the subject, but poetry had been a specific facet that held her fascination. It had begun with the story of how her parents fell in love--namely her father wooing her mother by reciting love poems to her--and it had continued through the years by watching her father orally interpret them for her. The way he managed to bring them to life had always amazed her and she had always wanted to be able to do that as well.

But while she loved reading poetry and she was good at it, finding pieces to really get into and feel a connection to enough to "perform" them was difficult. To her, it seemed like most great poems were all about love--falling in love, being in love or being without love--and Grace Eddy simply had very little experience with that.

Grace had been sitting on the shore for a good half hour of pouring over the poems in the book--the sound of the lapping water as sufficent background noise--when she finally found a poem that she felt she could effectively recite. After hoisting herself to her feet again, she kicked off her shoes and she began to pace, ankle deep, in the water. With the book held in one hand, she held the other out the other to punctuate the words she spoke.

"Five years have past; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a soft inland murmur."*

It didn't take long for the soon-to-be fourteen year old to lose herself in the words, completely oblivious that she was studying and equally unaware that anyone might be watching, and that their opinion would surely have made her self conscious.

As her voice grew, calling out over the lake, Grace carefully waded through the water over to a fallen tree that partially exposed. She stepped up onto it and absently walked across it as if she were a gymnast on a balance beam, a feat that was made a little more impressive by the fact that most of her attention remained on the words of the poem she was reciting.

Grace only stopped when there came a sound of snapping twigs from the wooded area nearby. Her head snapped up from the printed text before her and brown eyes intensely scanned for an intruder. Her surroundings became silent again, save for the rhythmic dance of the water against the shore. It would seem as if there was no one there but Grace still ventured, "Hello?"

---

*From Tintern Abbey, William Wordsworth

It was nearly summer. Which meant it was nearly lazy days and fooling around outside without worry of work or class time schedules. He would be free to do what he wanted! And he had a few plans with friends all ready to make it memorable. After dumping his quidditch supplies in his dorm and changing into a pair of trunks and a short sleeved shirt, it was back out. How his parents had dealt with him as a rambunctious toddler, unable to be let loose outside, he didn’t know. Not that he worried himself over those thoughts, of course.

After getting out of classes and having the weekend ahead of him, it had been time for energy to be let out. He’d spent the night before laughing and playing games with friends before getting up at a fairly decent hour to run plays out on the Quidditch pitch for practice. And now that that was done… it was time for a refreshing dip in the lake. Out of the eyes of authority figures, of course—while he normally didn’t mind being reprimanded, the punishment that often came with it was unappreciated by the young Gryffindor.

So after so many detentions, you learned to skirt around the problem rather than dive head first. And as he made his way quickly down the stairs, he thought of the best entrance to the lake. It was a great idea. Ducking under a passing arm of a fellow mate, he laughed and stopped to talk. By the time he got out of the castle, he had a couple of guys up for showing off in the lake, and from the edge of the forest they were able to get a good jump from the branches overhanging the water.

Or that was the plan, anyway. On the way out, they passed a few groups of diligently studying students. One of the older boys George had talked into coming along gave him a solid push into one small group. The laughter and jokes and loud voices of the boys could be heard coming for a while, but few would expect them to land on top of their studying materials. After a yell and muttered apologies, mingled with his laughter, George pushed himself up, tripping over one of the girls. “Sorry, mate-” Shooting a glare in the direction of the one who had pushed him into the group who was currently unable to talk—too much laughter.

“Or… matey…” Smirking at the girl, he gave her a wink—even as angry as she looked, he figured he could try and use his ‘charm’ to get out of trouble. It never seemed to work, either. Then he pushed himself up once more, jogging away as one of the boys got up from the study group, shouting off irritated quips towards the retreating Gryffindor. No need to get in a fight over something so silly.

Losing his mates on the way to the lake side, one to a girl and another to a group of them, George decided that he wasn’t going to let some female stop his adventure of the unknown.

Of course, the closer he got to the shoreside, the lonelier it was. Then he heard the noise of someone up ahead. Raising an eyebrow at that, he listened to the faint voice. Finally he spotted the younger girl. Chuckling softly under his breath, George shook his head and slipped his shoes and shirt off. If she was all ready basically in the lake… Rolling his eyes as she glanced in the opposite direction, he braced himself before letting out a yell and charging into the water at her. "GRACE!"

Grace's face contorted into a mixture of sheer surprise and complete horror at the sight of George Carter barreling in her direction. There was no other way to put it but she was unprepared for what was about to happen. She had barely had time to register that it was her fourth year classmate who had made the noise let alone construct a plan to counteract what he was about to do.

"George!" she found herself feebily protesting with a shriek. She wasn't sure whether to block his advance or run in the other direction, but in that moment of indecision, teh careful balance she had managed to harness while performing her poem was compromised. Her foot slipped and Grace Eddy tumbled, book and all, into the knee deep water below. The way she fell managed to drench her from head to foot and her surprise was capped off by choking on a mouthful of water.

Her book completely forgotten, Grace reached up to brush her soaking wet mess of auburn hair out of her eyes so that she could see. Her brown eyes blazed with indignant fury and she sputtered again, "George!" But as she glared at him, she couldn't think of anything more to say in protest. What could she say, really? How dare you get me soaking wet on this blazing hot near summer day? And it wasn't like he had pushed her into the water.

Still, Grace wasn't about to admit that to him and she used her hands to send water splashing in his direction. She stubbornly tilted her chin up and demanded, "What are you doing here?"

Once you got past water that was ankle deep, it suddenly got harder to keep up the sprinting pace, and he gave up on his fast pace, gasping in slight shock at the cold water. He heard his name shouted and it made him grin, lifting his leg out of the water as if he was jumping invisible hurtles. He really wanted to be the one to—oh. His gleeful expression fell as Grace was not quite so graceful. It was as if his energy ran out of his body and he stopped, dead in his tracks, pouting however slightly.

Well, until he heard her choking. Then his eyes widened and he pushed himself closer. “Grace… You aren’t supposed to drink the water…” Not that she could necessarily hear him as she splashed about. He stopped once again as he saw her pull her own head out from below the surface. At least she could… stand… in the lake. The Wizengamot was still out on her ability to swim, though. She did a good drowning fish.

She did not look happy. Hearing his name once again, he grimaced and raised an eyebrow, taking one careful step backwards. Surely he could get a good head start on the younger girl. After all, he was a growing boy with too much energy. And somehow, she was wetter than he was—which was remarkable, considering he was going to be the one swimming in the lake. Smirking at that, he put his hands up defensively as the water splashed at him, his head turned to the side as he gasped from the cold drops hitting his bare skin. “Grace!”

“What are you doing here?”

Letting his hands fall slowly, he thought about it long enough to spy her book. Jumping after it, sending water splashing, he picked it up. “Returning this to you.” Grinning, he offered it to her. “And you made the lake seem so inviting. I thought I’d join you for a dip.” Motioning to the area around them, he finally rested with his hands on his hips. “What about you?” And just for good measure, he splashed water back at her with a laugh.

Pretending that she wasn't drenched was useless so Grace very quickly decided not to fight it. The one good thing about going into the water the way that she had was that she had met the cold temperature of the water without the usual apprehension. It was as if she were back home swimming on a cool day and wanted to simply jump right into the pool so as to lesson the severity of the water's frigid temperature. The theory was that as soon as you did that, you could actually enjoy being wet.

That was, if one planned on being wet in the first place. In this case, Grace had not. And as she tried to right herself in the water so that she was no longer choking, she inwardly grumbled about how pathetic she must look. Her mood wasn't helped when George joked about not drinking the water. "It's not like I planned to drink the water, George," she grumbled. She held back on smiling when he exclaimed her name after she splashed him.

Then, she released a resigned sigh and carefully made an effort to stand. Since her energy was focused on that and gaining her footing so that she wouldn't slip again, Grace had completely forgotten about the fate of her book. When she was able to stand to her full height, her clothes sopping wet and drip- drip-dripping at that, she looked over at the older boy.

His offering the book to her was a noble gesture, but unfortunately her face fell with the realization that it was practically ruined. Completely forgetting the fact that she was a witch (and one of the more talented ones in her year at that) and that she could probably use a spell to fix it, she bemoaned, "Oh no! My dad's book." She accepted it and shook it by the binding, watching helplessly as some water spritzed out of it, but not nearly enough to fix the inherent damage of soaked pages.

Grace absently reached up and pushed back whatever lingering strands of her auburn locks had remained on her forehead before finally fixating her dark orbs on George's face. It was hard to be mad at that face, grinning at her like that. Teasing her with his playful words the way he did. It was one of the many qualities she had always liked about the older Gryffindor.

She had come to know him because he was the cousin of her dormmate, Emily. And in three years time, he had become one of her favorite people at school. He was older and daring and exciting and those traits all made her want to be around him more. Plus, he knew all about this magic stuff, particularly the sport of Quidditch, and had been instrumental in helping her to navigate some of it.

Bottom line was, the misfortune of her book eventually faded to the background and she shrugged. "Um....thanks." She shielded her face from his splashing assault. "I guess it doesn't matter what I was doing," she commented. After a moment of accepting the onslaught of water, Grace decided retaliation was in order. "Because now that I am good and drenched, I might as well go..." She set her jaw a bit defiantly and hurled the book to the nearest dry land with the accuracy of a baseball player (compliments of her brother Cadan's expert teaching) before she ran towards him and launched herself at him so that if she was lucky, he'd go toppling into the water. "SWIMMING!"

“It’s not like I planned to drink the water, George.”

“Really?” He gave her his most innocent expression, reserved for moody professors and upset parents. “Because you seemed to really like it.” He blinked and grinned, eyebrows raised. It was the look that gave too much teeth, and should be a warning to those who might be easily won over by a suddenly sweet George. As much of a trouble maker as he was, he could suck up to those who would give him punishment. Or, in this case, friends who might attack him for no good reason.

Like with splashed water. Clearly he couldn’t get away with it with Grace.

“Oh no! My dad’s book.”

And clearly his attempt at humor was lost. Feeling a little awkward and out of place, he reached across his abdomen and scratched his side, feeling the cool breeze off the lake. George wasn’t nearly stupid enough to say his opinion on sopping wet books. As he didn’t enjoy reading, he didn’t see the point… but it was obvious that Grace was a little more attached to this one than George would be. Maybe if it was… like his favorite Quidditch trading card, he’d feel similar.

Still, he could keep an easy going smile on his face. Especially for his friends! The appreciation was… appreciated, at least. “No problem.”

“I guess it doesn’t matter what I was doing.”

He nodded his head in complete agreement. Then he paused, unsure whether he had responded right. So to make up for it, he shook his head. Because it didn’t matter, right? The poor boy was confused.

“Because now that I am good and drenched, I might as well go…”

George stood straight up in the water, feeling it drip down, his fingers still lingering in the cool water. He had to be ready if the splash war continued; George felt he had to defend his title of Ultimate Splash King, after all. His eyes widened in shock as the book went flying past him, glancing after the book as if it might come back and hit him in the head. That would be a terrible boomerang spell… Come to think of it, he needed to find out if there was such a thing. How amazing would it be?

Slightly distracted by the possibilities of such a spell, he didn’t comprehend the splashing that was coming closer. Well, until he started to turn back to her and saw her launch at him. “AH!” His hands shot up out of the water, barely having time to catch her before she made him lose his footing. Another yell escaped him before he fell backwards, making a big splash.

And now it was his turn to drink in the lake. He worked his hands on the loose mud, pushing himself (and Grace along with it) towards the surface. Once there, he sat on his bum in the water, shoulders and head out as he coughed and sputtered. “That-” Another cough fit and he took a deep breath. “-Was not swimming!” He started laughing, rolling over after her. Once he was half over her, he held himself up with one hand, the other reaching up to ready for a splash as back up. “You need some serious lessons, Eddy.”

Grace rolled her eyes at his sarcastic retort and she responded in kind. "Oh yes. I just love being sopping wet. All. The. Time. My life hobby, you know." This back and forth banter had become the norm with her and her older classmate but whereas it might be annoying with others, she actually looked forward to it now with him.

Certainly her father's book being sopping wet was something that saddened her. But one thing Grace did well was be resilient. In the back of her mind, she knew that was not the end of the world. Which was why it had been easy for her to switch from Serious Grace to more  Fun-Loving Grace. Being around George and his cousin, Emmy, had managed to help the latter version of herself come out more frequently.

And Grace couldn't lie: she loved that side too when she allowed herself to enjoy it. As she launched herself at George, Grace felt a jolt of exhilaration soar through every limb of her body.

The fact that she had managed to fell her older, bulkier counterpart was icing on the cake, even if they did manage to both get drenched even more than they was before. At least if she was good and wet, now he was equally so, and that appeased her sense of justice. The athlete in her was also felt accomplished, complimented by her competitive spirit being stoked upon seeing his reaction.

Grace laughed heartily at him  as he protested and she attempted to wade away from him into deeper water. But he was hovering over her, prepared to retaliate and her hazel eyes regarded him with a wide eyed stare. Then she gave a haughty upward turn of her chin and lightheartedly demanded, "Lessons? On what? How to topple Goliath?" She brushed her wet mane of hair over her shoulder with a confident air and further declared,  "I think I aced that one, Yoda."