Everyone had returned to the castle, and while Isobel wished a little that they could have more peaceful downtime, she could tell that Wolfgang was looking better as time had passed. He'd even taken her suggestion of trying to grow a beard, and every time she saw him she was reminded just how good at aesthetics she was--and how good Wolfgang's genes were to give him a face like that, but she liked to think it was her idea. After all, she was an artist and he definitely looked like art...

Of course, it wasn't just that. She was happier when she saw him happier. It wasn't only about his face being attractive, even though that was what she'd been drawn to in the first place--it was about the expression on that face when he looked at her with that warmth in his eyes, something she had been rather unfamiliar with. There was, sometimes, heat in his eyes too, which she knew very well, but that more tender emotion? It was something different, something more.

He'd invited her out for a walk around the lake, and even though it was the frozen middle of January, she'd agreed; the dungeons got stuffy in the winter anyway with how much they had to burn the fireplace. She was wearing a green wool coat, in the emerald color that was her second-favorite to wear after her favorite sapphire blue. Wool, of course, because no matter how little she wanted to be a farmer, as someone who knew clothes well, she could recognize that it was perhaps the warmest fiber out there, even in the cold and wet. A white woolen hat and black leather gloves completed the outfit, simple but classic, as if Isobel would ever go out looking less than fashionable of her own choice.

Wolfgang was waiting for her right outside the common room he couldn't enter, and Isobel smiled at him as she stepped through the dungeon door, adjusting her hat on her head. "Ready to go," she said. "I expect we'll be holding hands so we don't freeze our fingers off?"


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Outside the common room, the dungeons seemed almost as cold as the outdoors must be, and Isobel squeezed Wolfgang's hand, feeling the warmth coming from it. "I've been well. People have seemed a little upset to be back in classes, but I'm sure you knew that. You were there." Isobel had felt so humiliated in History of Magic, but Wolfgang didn't seem to have minded. She was definitely going to sit next to him next time, even if Vinda actually did return. Then she might be able to gossip quietly enough to avoid the professor's wrath.

She led Wolfgang up the stairs toward the entrance hall, giggling at his next words. "Now when did I say I wanted to make love in the snow? Sounds horribly painful, and I'd prefer we both keep all our body parts," she said, shaking her head. What a tragedy that would be! "No, that's for when we get back inside. When we can find somewhere with a fireplace yet again." She winked just before they entered the more public hall, knowing she'd just reminded him of more than one other occasion. Once they'd gotten some fresh winter air, she was sure they'd be happy to be back in the warmth again.

"So, to the lake, then?" Isobel was used to a certain level of PDA at parties, but she'd never before walked hand in hand with someone through the school. That was--something a lot more affectionate than she usually was, but there was a first time for everything. "Out there, we can just chat. And perhaps snuggle to keep warm, if we need." They could use spells, but leaning on Wolfgang's shoulder seemed like a better idea.


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Isobel slipped on her gloves as they went outside, but put her hand right back in Wolfgang's almost as soon as she had taken it out. Not freezing off her fingers didn't mean she was going to stop holding his hand, even if it was, as she kept thinking, strange for her to do. Well, people changed as they grew older, that was how life was--she had a boyfriend now. "Do they just give us all freezing dormitories?" she asked as Wolfgang shivered. "Or--Hufflepuff's got the ones by the kitchens, don't they? I wonder what sort of favor they had to pull to get that all those years ago."

They fell into a comfortable silence for the trudge out to the lake, which was another thing Isobel didn't do often; when people were silent she often felt they were judging her for having nothing good to say. And yes, that anxiety was creeping up on her, but only a little, nothing like it did with her roommates, for example. She told herself it was only Wolfgang, that she talked to him all the time, and she let her shoulder brush against his, as if to remind herself that no matter if he was talking or not, he was still beside her.

Although, when he finally did speak, Isobel felt like her stomach dropped, her eyebrows raising in surprise and confusion. "Concerns? I mean--" They had been together for only a couple weeks, and he already had concerns? It wasn't too odd, though, she reflected; they both had said they were going to try the relationship thing, not that they would succeed. Still, she had already become used to having him around. Of course she could find other boys to sleep with, but who else would she ever have those late-night conversations with? She didn't want to give him up, unless he was truly miserable.

She took a deep breath before responding. "If you've decided that the relationship thing isn't for you, then I guess--maybe we have to talk about it? Something else for us to be? Because I think I would miss you if we broke up. Even so soon. I'd miss you a lot." She stared at the ground, not quite ready to see Wolfgang's reaction yet to her spilling her heart out.


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Wolfgang put his hand under Isobel's chin, making her look at him, and she glanced up hesitantly, meeting his deep brown eyes. She wasn't sure what she was expecting to see there, but it wasn't the amount of concern that he was displaying. That wasn't a look she normally saw on him, not with his usual air of suave confidence. Even when he'd been down in the dumps after the Winter Ball, he hadn't looked at her with such--raw emotions. Something had struck him right in the heart, and it wasn't hard for Isobel to guess which of her words it was. That was confirmed by the way he kissed her then, slow and sweet but with their hands clutched together like they never wanted to let go.

"I'm glad," she said after they broke away, using her free hand to tuck a bit of red hair behind her ear under the hat. "I didn't want to break up either, but--you know." She'd already said that, and she could tell she was blushing, afraid she was talking in circles like an idiot, but she felt it was important to remind him one more time.

"So, your idea," she said, lowering their hands to hang together between them once more. "I agree--I don't want to be in a cage. I would hate that." She had always been afraid of that, her ambitious nature meaning that she never wanted to let anyone get in the way of her dreams. Never would she be an isolated housewife. Maybe she was too young to be worried about that, but then, her parents had gotten married when they were barely out of school, and she was seventeen--it was a reasonable fear then, in her opinion.

"But then, what are you asking?" she continued. "I don't feel like you want to cage me as a person. You tell me to draw, you tell me to design, that's all good." Not that she would ever have agreed to date him if he didn't, but it was important to explain. "The only thing I can think of is that--" oh, she hoped she wasn't reading the situation wrong-- "well, if we're together, we're not supposed to see other people ever again, we're supposed to be all each other will ever need, and is that what you're afraid of?"


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After the moment to stop for a kiss, Wolfgang turned back toward the lake, Isobel following as she grasped his hand. Her heartbeat was slowing back down after all the emotions that had just run through her in the space of a minute or so, and she took a deep breath, letting it out in a cloud of vapor in front of her. Whatever had become of her in the last few months, where she'd gone from swearing she only liked men for fun to agreeing to be someone's girlfriend, it had changed something.

But not everything. Wolfgang was right, neither of them were the type to sit at home with each other all the time. They were, by nature, people who got bored with what already existed, who were determined to make things better than whatever life had dealt them. People who needed new things and new experiences to make them happy, who needed glamour and excitement. At least, that was how Isobel thought about herself, and she would be willing to bet that Wolfgang was alike, because how else would they have found themselves drawn to each other if not for being similar? Perhaps at first she had felt that opposites attracted, that she as a farm girl would be lucky to have a well-dressed boy with the slightest touch of a German accent. But she knew that opposites didn't stay together, that for her own parents, no matter how different they looked on the outside, they were quite alike in personality.

Then she and Wolfgang would try to stay together, for as long as it worked. Especially if they could give themselves that bit of freedom he suggested.

"Of course I would tell you," Isobel said. "And I would explain it to anyone I was with. I want it to be clear to everyone that this would be our arrangement--I don't want them to think we're cheaters. I don't need that on my reputation." Reputation was important to her, it was the thing that would make her business succeed someday, and she didn't want to put it at risk. "So if I'm going to have late night talks with someone, it'll be someone who's just a friend. Vinda or something."

"And I'm sure," she added, squeezing Wolfgang's hand again, "I can save cuddling for you." So that they would have each other to hold, no matter what else happened in their lives.

But was it that easy? To just agree and hope that nothing would go wrong? Isobel understood why they would want an open relationship; it was why she agreed so readily in the first place. But it seemed harder, to trust that they would always be able to tell each other everything so that they always knew what was going on. As she knew--both in her own head and from their talks--neither of them were the most honest people in the world, even to each other sometimes. They'd have to fix that, which, from the way she had lived her entire life, seemed like a tall order.

"I think that it's going to mean we have to be really honest, though," she said, with a touch of concern. "I know we both like to avoid uncomfortable subjects, but on this, we can't let it be uncomfortable. Otherwise we won't say anything to each other and we would be cheating, and I don't want that. Do you think we can manage it?"


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"Selwyn? She's my roommate, I've slept in the bed next to hers for nearly six years now, it's better to be friends than enemies, you know?" Isobel smiled. If she'd been stuck in that room with only Kaylie without anyone else as a buffer, she'd have been miserable. And besides, Vinda was the kind of person Isobel always wanted to be seen with. "Really, she's a good friend to have--knows all the right people, the kind of person I'd hope to have buying my dresses in a few years." While Isobel liked making all sorts of clothes, her favorite would probably always remain gorgeous formal dresses, the kind of thing that would be perfect to replace anyone's awful frilly old dress robes.

"But we're not here for Vinda, are we?" she said, glancing down at their joined hands as they kept walking. Although Isobel had thought it would be only a simple walk, they had gotten into the details of their relationship, a relationship that, no matter how open it was, was unlikely to ever involve Vinda Selwyn. They both had their own boyfriends now, Isobel thought. It was her own that she had to worry about. She took a deep breath. "I'm glad to hear it. That you'll be honest. I have to do it too, for us. I know--it's something that's hard for me sometimes." The number of times she'd told little white lies about things she'd seen, just so she wouldn't be seen as the country bumpkin...

She stopped as Wolfgang started reaching for the apple juice, sticking his hand into a bag that must have been magical by the amount of his arm that disappeared inside. "Here, I'll help get them," she said, pulling out her wand. "Accio mug," she recited, figuring it would be better to summon them one at a time--there were only so many hands she had to catch them in.

"It's sort of cozy, isn't it? Warm drinks in the winter, together?" Isobel looked around for a place where they might be able to set their mugs for pouring. "Imagine if we were older, and we didn't have to go back to the castle to do homework. We could just talk forever."


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Isobel slid off her gloves and put them in her pockets in order to wrap her hands around the mug of juice. The gloves were good leather and so had been rather expensive; she didn't want to ruin them. Clouds of steam were rising from the cups into the cold air--the juice must have stayed hot, so they wouldn't have to use any spells to warm it back up. Cozy, even in the middle of the snow.

"I thought gentlemen preferred blondes? But Vinda wouldn't go for it. Don't you dare ask her, I'd still have to live with her for another year and a half yet." There was amusement in Isobel's voice, although she was serious about her request. "She's got a boyfriend now anyway, and not everyone is like us. She doesn't risk her reputation for anything." They were doing something really unconventional, weren't they? There was a touch of worry in Isobel's mind that, once the way they had decided to have their relationship became known, that people would judge them. She felt it was the right decision, based on the way her heart still felt just as warm for Wolfgang as it had before they'd suggested being open to others, but still... How was she going to make her future if society judged her?

Oh, the future. Now that she was at N.E.W.T. level, Isobel felt obligated to think about the future often, about how she was going to go about starting her career. It seemed like Wolfgang, too, was ready for that to start, with the way he sounded so insistent on moving out. "Well, we're halfway through sixth year, so we won't have too many more months of homework and relatives. My birthday's in September, so I've already been seventeen for a while, and sometimes I wish I'd been born a few weeks earlier, so I could get done with it all sooner. I've got a career I want to start, I don't need to sit around the farm with my parents anymore!"

But, she realized as soon as she'd said it, if she'd been in the next year up, would it have been as easy for her to meet Wolfgang? She supposed that yes, they had only started to really speak at a party, which she certainly could've been at. Still, though, then she might have ended up with someone from that year, and it startled her to start thinking that, given the chance, she might not want to go back and change her birth date after all.


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