Will’s case was packed. He’d run through it twice, which was sufficient to be certain. Tent, check. Quills, books, inkwells, check. Dress robes, should they be required. A whole cabinet of tinctures and treatments, many of which were actually medical. It had even occurred to him to file away some advanced spellbooks. At first, he’d assumed it would be fine to hit up a local library, if necessary, before remembering that a year of travel and hedonism didn’t always count libraries among primary hotspots. It was always best to be prepared. Speaking of which, his duelling medals (just in case) - check.

It was a nice thing, the briefcase; undetectably extended, it had a good leather finish and he had done the enchantments himself to ensure that everything had its rightful place and stayed there in transit. The only tweaking he hadn’t done had been done by his father. It took years and years of expertise, he knew, to correctly enchant a broomstick, and it was a pleasing fact that there was a reason that, on his own, Will would never have been able to make the thing leap from the ground to his hand simply by gesturing at it. After weeks and weeks of practice, he had managed to persuade a quill to do something similar, but even then, his bewitchments had been sluggish and muddy (not his normal style): Grenville Lawrence, whose reputation as a bespoke broomstick maker preceded him, was an expert: the briefcase left the ground smoothly, undisturbed by any ambient air currents, and he caught it as naturally as taking a breath. Will wondered how long it would be before he reached a similar aptitude as his father - a year, maybe two?

He consulted his diary, pointlessly: a few days in La Place Du Fourmilier for the group to get their bearings, and then, who knew? The whole thing just stank of adventure, and he had experienced precious little of that - duelling was a wonderful art but perhaps a little clinical, while the thrill of pointlessly throwing and catching balls had eluded him altogether. No, sport alone would not a well-rounded young wizard make, while theory and brilliance only got you so far. As he had written in his application for the bursary, he was in dire need of experience and crying out to be challenged. He coiffed his hair and adjusted his tie in the mirror, although he was by now so well-versed in this ritual that muscle memory was entirely sufficient and one might suspect that the mirror served another purpose entirely.

A well-rounded young wizard looked back at him and smiled. It was a winning smile. He had trained it well. It didn’t so much as hint that behind his polished wand and meticulously-honed body lay a human heart that was beating a thick, muscular rhythm, just like anybody else.

He was looking forward to get back to La Place Du Fourmilier. The Lawrences had a glimpse of French ancestry and therefore felt a certain attachment to France; he’d holidayed there multiple times, and thoroughly loved the place. Diagon Alley had its charms, of course, but nowhere in the British Isles boasted quite the same urbane metropolis. The idea that a Leaky Cauldron might be considered a reputable establishment was not one that the French entertained. Will had even once been proficient in the language - he’d spent six months there with his father, aged about six or seven (only later did he learn why), and that was plenty to pick up the key verbs and vocab. His diminutive former self, recalled all the Lawrence family with pride, had had no time for his father’s attempts to integrate, which had consisted primarily of pointing. He ran through the basics in his head to check he still knew them, but was distracted by speculating who else, if anybody, in the group could speak French. Somehow, he doubted that there would be too many.

He had already said fond farewells to his parents, who were still at home in their cottage in Shrewsbury. Restless from his toes to the tips of his ears, he had spent a couple of nights in an inn in Aberdyfi Passage, the Crippled Kipper. This, he realised, was something of a mistake. He’d done Diagon Alley to death, and since his father’s workshop was there anyway, there had seemed little point. Where better to start one’s adventure than in a new place?

Well, he should’ve heeded the warnings. The place was trying to reinvent itself as a tourist destination, Aberdyfi-on-Sea - and had been for as long as anybody could remember. It had hardly been an auspicious start, since there was literally nothing to do and the only young face he’d seen was a Ravenclaw second-year whom he had once given detention for breaking curfew. He’d spent his first night doing his best to be a crotchety old man with the rest of the wizened old codgers that propped up the bar in the Kipper, who had been about as lively as he’d expected and lost interest when a (literal) hag walked in. Apparently, they were considered prime totty in Wales.

The second day hadn’t been too much better than the first; a pub down the road boasted live music, and he did his best to enjoy the Wired Sisters, a frankly dire tribute act to a band that had been out of fashion in the nineties, but shortly afterwards had called it a day and gone for a swim in the sea instead of his evening workout. He’d gone to bed early. It was probably for the best, since travelling could be tiring.

It was therefore with some surprise gratitude that he heard a familiarly-boisterous voice out of his room’s open window:

“Yo yo yo; look what I’ve found.”

He leaned over the window, framed by the shutters, dappled sunlight falling across his face. It was Beck, dashing down the cobbled stones, swinging round an empty bottle of booze like a madwoman. The image was so utterly appropriate, it took him a moment to identify the portkey. He had, after all, spent the last two years trying to prevent her from smuggling alcohol into the Hufflepuff common room for what he could only describe as mass distribution. She, in kind, had kept coming up with newer and more brilliant ways to win their endless game of cat and mouse. The two got on about as well as their metaphorical counterparts.

Still, she had the portkey. And the two would have to learn to get on.