Don't Meddle With Her Heart

[Rasmus Mohr]

Exams. Exams, exams everywhere. Rasmus was always a little frantic during exam week; he was smart, but he occasionally slacked a bit in the homework department. It was easy, the homework, but he always worried that just because the homework came easily didn't mean that his exams would be easy. He was always worried that he'd have failed to retain some crucial piece of information and manage to get a T.

Between his morning exam and his evening one, Rasmus had rushed to the library with his books so he could have a last minute cram session. Of course, a lot of people had the same general idea, and so the library was pretty full. With a quick look around he managed to spot an empty seat and he hurried over to take it before someone else slid into the chair.

There was a girl at the table, about his age and height, and he smiled brightly at her without any real thought -- but also without turning on the charm like he would have before getting involved with Robert. "Sorry, I hope you don't mind me sitting here. I absolutely have to get some more studying in! Rasmus Mohr."

  

[Tilda MacFusty]

She was frazzled. Everyone was frazzled. Exams were upon them and Tilda was not letting anything get in her way of studying. Luckily she'd eaten a good breakfast so she was slightly less cranky than she normally was during exam week. Still, Tilda had fair ran [in a near unladylike fashion] to the library, sat herself down and sprawled her days previous homework out in front of her, correcting her mistakes, and occasionally closing her eyes to quiz herself on an answer or two.

It was during one of these various study methods that Tilda was practising that someone had run up and taken the spot opposite her. Her eyes were closed, her brain focused on trying to remember the answer so she didn't take much notice until she found the answer in her mind, opened her eyes and smiled with the knowledge she'd gotten it right. Still, there was someone else at the table. She wasn't exactly pleased - she liked to sprawl out her homework so she could see it all in front of her, and thus took up a good portion of the table. Nevertheless, Tilda smiled graciously and gathered her homework up that she didn't require at this time to give the boy space to study as well. It was with her brief glance at the boy that she blushed slightly.

He was quite handsome, and although Tilda was known for being fairly at ease with conversing with members of the opposite sex, this one made her tongue feel tied up. "Ehr -" she stammered, twirling her feather quill half nervously half out of habit. " 'Is ahlrigh' - Ah can' blame yeh for tha' " her accent was a strange mixture between Scottish and Irish, thanks to her paternal Scottish lineage and her maternal Irish lineage. "Mathilda MacFusty!" she smiled at the handsome boy, trying not to blush again. "Although, ev'ryone calls me Tilda."

  

[Rasmus Mohr]

Rasmus started when she introduced herself as a MacFusty. She couldn't be Robert's sister -- the sister was the one who had been expelled -- and other than that Robert just had brothers. Which meant ... a cousin? Probably a cousin, although he supposed that she might be a niece with Robert being the youngest.

"From the Hebrides?" he asked, before feeling utterly stupid. Of course she was from the Hebrides. "I mean -- I think I'm friends with your -- cousin? or something? Robert. Robert and I are friends."

Friends was the wrong word and Rasmus knew it, but friends was better than oh, I'm having an illicit and even illegal relationship with your relative. He'd stick with friends. "Sorry -- studying!" He hefted his book with another winning smile, as if to prove he intended to study.

  

[Tilda MacFusty]

Tilda returned his smile, though she was sure hers was not nearly as beautiful as his. She'd heard of him throughout school, though nothing bad or scandalous - just that he was amazingly handsome and might be part veela, though one could never be too sure. Mr. Mohr could simply have amazingly good genes. If the latter were true, then heck Tilda considered herself jealous.

"Tha's right!" Tilda said, looking for another place to put her eyes rather than just stare at him like a goldfish. She focused instead on her work, finding an error in her writing. Tilda bit her lip, and furrowed her brow, scratching the answer out and writing in a new one before looking back up at Mr. Mohr once she felt her cheeks had rather calmed down. "Ah, ye met Robert?" she said kindly. "Yeh guessed righ' he's mah cousin. Ah know it migh' be hard since there's a graet bunch of us. Than' the lord most of 'em've already passed through. Otherwise Ah faer the school'd be incinerated with'a MacFusty temper!" Tilda joked. Though more subdued than her cousins, Tilda was still known for having minor outbursts when she was especially hangry.

  

[Rasmus Mohr]

"Yes, I met Robert," Rasmus confirmed. He was having a little bit of trouble following her accent -- it was different than Robert's! -- but he thought that he had gotten at least most of what she had said. "He has a dozen siblings, right? And I suppose you probably have fifteen or something."

He smiled again, then tried to find his place in his text book. He really did need to do some studying, to make sure that he didn't manage to somehow completely flop.

Temper, though -- Raz hadn't really noticed that Robert had much of a temper. Oh, there had been flare-ups during their tutoring sessions before he'd kissed Robert that first time, but it didn't seem any worse than Rasmus's own veela temper. "Don't know what you're talking about with the temper thing, though."

  

[Tilda MacFusty]

Switching her focus from the dashing boy to her homework was as hard as one might have guessed - though Tilda was nearing the end of her session schedule. She'd given herself a 10 minute break every once in a while and - she glanced at the small gold watch her mother had given her for her birthday - her next one was coming up. Contented, Tilda switched around scrolls and focused on her potions class. This was the one that she figured would give her the most trouble. One measurement and she could do serious damage to her grade and earn her a one way ticket to a bad grade....

Pushing that thought out of her mind, she focused on what Mr. Mohr was saying and she gave a small chuckle. "Yeh know, tha's what ev'ryone assumes - o' course Ah dahn' blame 'em, given mah uncle and aunt's kin." Truly there was nothing wrong with her mother and her ability to conceive, but her ma and da were not keen to have as big a family as their relatives. Tilda saw nothing wrong with that. Uncle Ald and Aunt Griz's children were as good as her brothers and sisters - she saw them enough when she was little. "But nah, Ahm mah ma and da's only bairn. Mind yeh, Ah daen' think they'd be too put out if they 'ad another un."

Tilda mused - so Mr. Mohr knew Robert more than an acquaintance. She smiled at that, liking the fact that her brother was getting along with his classmates. Of course the thought didn't even occur to her that their friendship might have been more than purely friendship, so Tilda merely chuckled again at his comment. "Ah s'pose yer righ'." she allowed. "Ah guess it migh' be mor'f a passion? Ehr....firey...exuberance?"

  

[Rasmus Mohr]

At the mention of a passion, Rasmus's cheeks flamed; he tried to hide the blush by busying himself with his book. That he had noticed, and it was something that he rather enjoyed, but he also didn't really want to ... well, it wasn't the best thing to discuss with people. Secrets, after all.

"So just you?" Rasmus said, straining to maintain a level tone. "I guess with all those cousins, though, it's probably not that lonely. And ... I suppose I've noticed that Robert can be passionate about things." Things, yes. Like kisses with his hands tangling in Raz's hair. No one had ever kissed Rasmus like Robert did, kissed him so that he felt wild and out of control.

He was never going to be able to keep all the MacFustys straight. Thirteen children in Robert's family alone, plus wives or mistresses for some of them, and their children. Then cousins, and Raz didn't dare hope that any of the other branches had only produced one child. "I don't suppose you all wear nametags," he grouched. "I'm going to be so lost this summer."

  

[Tilda MacFusty]

Absentmindedly reading her notes from her last potions class - what was that last word in that sentence? - Tilda nodded, letting a "mhmm" escape from her lips before she bit them in concentration. Usually she would feel quite rude for half-listening to someone, but seeing as it was exams week, she figured Mr. Mohr would understand.

"Yeh, i's jus' ol' meh with mah mum and da." she replied. "Bu' i's not so bahd, I get to be with mah cousins a lot an' the're a rowdy bunch. It keeps things interestin'" Placing a hand on her chin to ponder over the word, she searched in her brain to try and picture what was on the blackboard that day. She found her script often got lazy when she knew it as the end of class, and her elegant handwriting soon turned to scrawls until the end of class. It was partially because she couldn't help it - her hand cramped up way to easily, which did not bode well for her essay portion of exams. Good lord, Tilda hoped the professors would have an easy time reading her handwriting when she got frantic near the end.

"Nah, unfortunately yeh'll just have te go bah sight!" Tilda responded absently. At his final comment though, she perked up and focused her gaze back on Mr. Mohr. "Oh're yeh comin' teh visit this sum'r?" she inquired curiously. "Ah didn' know ye and Robert were so close! Careful o' the dragons," she added good-naturedly with a smile. "They can be nasty li'le beasties at the best o' times..." Of course he wouldn't be able to get anywhere near a dragon - not if her family had anything to say on that matter, but Tilda was merely joking with him. He was a nice fellow, she imagined he got along well with Robert.

  

[Rasmus Mohr]

The dragons were something that worried Rasmus, but certainly they wouldn't be close to any of them! "Yeah, he invited me up when he goes home after visiting his brother ... Ninian? He's visiting one of his brothers in Hogsmeade for a while, and then I'm going to go up to Lews Castle with him."

At which point he'd be thrown in with his 'rowdy bunch' of siblings (and try to keep them straight), worry about exactly how far away the dragons stayed, and ... and it was all worth it to spend time with Robert over the summer. Preferably a lot of time. Alone.

  

[Tilda MacFusty]

Tilda smiled when he mentioned Lews Castle. It was practically her second home at times and she missed it. "Tha'll be nice," she said genially. "Yea, good ol' Ninian - or as Ah liek te call 'im, Breaker." she chuckled before continuing. "Ahm not sure if Robert's told ye, but Ninian's known foer breakin' his wands. On his 3rd one already!"

Tilda always found it funny that her cousin always broke his wands. Of course it wasn't funny in the matter that they were quite expensive, but Tilda wouldn't be surprised if Ninan showed up one day saying he'd broken another wand.

  

[Rasmus Mohr]

"Three?" Raz laughed. He didn't imagine his mother would have been particularly pleased if he had broken even one, not only because it had been less than four years but also because his wand had been custom made and the core was his mother's hair. She didn't care about much, but he thought she'd care if he broke his wand. "I think my mother would probably kill me."

"Are you up at the castle during the summers, too?" he asked. He really had no idea how many people were going to be there. It was a castle, and the only experience he had with castles was Hogwarts.

  

[Tilda MacFusty]

Tilda let out another giggle, smiling back at the boy. "Yeh, mah mam would kill meh too if she found out Ah'd snapped meh wand. They aren't cheap, wands, aer they?" She said, absently reaching into her own pocket and holding her wand. She enjoyed the engraved patterns on it, which resembled a series of meaningful Celtic symbols that tied her to her family and roots. It was one of her most prized possessions she owned.

She thought of the castle. She missed the smell of the wind in the air, and the noise of her cousins as they trained and the laughter of her large family. She was only a cousin but that didn't mean she wasn't close to them. Tilda nodded. "Yeh, Ah go thear lots o' times. We live pret'y close to them, so goin' there is pretty much sec'nd nature by now." Tilda smiled kindly at the boy. She was glad he was Robby's friend. She thought he'd get along with the family well if he didn't mind the dragons and such.

  

[Rasmus Mohr]

"They're not," Rasmus agreed. Especially not jobs with custom cores, because those were so much more complicated than just trying wands until one chose you. They had to figure out what sort of wood and length and flexibility was right for you so that the custom made wand wouldn't reject you.

And then it had been rosewood, and the damn thing had been carved with roses in thorns.

"I guess I'll see you over the summer, too, then," he said with a warm smile. "At least I'll know someone other that Robert. At this point I'm half convinced everyone is going to give me the wrong names just for fun."

  

[Tilda MacFusty]

Tilda have a warm smile back to Mr. Mohr. He was nice! She liked him and reminded herself to talk to her cousin and mention she'd met his handsome friend. "Ah guess ye'will!" She chirped, before turning back to her work and twirling her feather quill again absently. "Hopef'lly in less stressf'l situations as exam times." She added. "But when yer around dragons, I gaess yeh never know!" Tilda laughed, though she hoped she hadn't put him off of visiting. He'd be away from the dragons as he could be, obviously.

"Ah'll let ye get back te yer studies," Tilda said kindly, taking her wand and tapping it over her notes so the scrolls snapped together and floated neatly into her bag. "Good luck with yer studies, Mr. Mohr," she said getting up and taking her bag with her. "Ah'll see ye around school and if naht, I'll see you thes summ'r!"