Errand Boy

@truly

Atha had asked him out. It had finally happened, and he hadn't really said yes yet because he needed to know that he had made up with his sister. He knew it wasn't going to happen, that it was stretching it, but he had tried so hard. Mils was his best friend, the person that he had relied on since they were in their first year. This was someone who had had his back through everything, who he had first told that he also liked boys. That had been a laugh, because they both fell to the ground laughing over each other's crushes. But he couldn't have Mils and Atha fighting, not as hard as they had been. They needed to stop ignoring each other for his sake, because he didn't want to be in the middle of it anymore. He wanted proof that everything would be okay, that he could actually go on a date and talk about his best mate without his date rolling his eyes blankly. It was hard enough at the ball, when he had asked Atha to go with him. He had abandoned him in nearly five minutes, and Nick still wasn't sure why. He had tried asking- that had been the premise of the first letter. As soon as he had gotten home he had sent a letter asking why he had left, why he had decided that he wasn't a good enough date. It had been embarrassing, but at least he had found Mils almost instantly, but he was really hurt. He had dressed up, he had tried his hardest... He might have been trying to convince himself that he wasn't overly fond of the boy, that they had gone as friends.

It had taken a lot of guts to send the message, and he had hoped that the owl was going to be received well. He hadn't even thought that Atha would send him a message back, and he really hadn't expected that. It was something, certainly, and it was just about what he would've hoped for. Now, though, the waiting was the worst. He was waiting on a response and he was hoping that everything would be fine. It wasn't like he had a lot of time to date, though. He was at St. Mungo's, running around and helping to fill scripts. 

Ah this was the best part of the summer for Truly, besides the time that she got to spend with Luke. She was learning so much and she was more certain than ever that she wanted to be a Healer. Her final year was approaching and she was so excited. She knew that with the upcoming ball her father would know about her relationship with Luke. She was worried, but not by much. She knew that her father loved her and he would do anything to make her happy, including accepting Luke.

She had been running all over the hospital running errands and was happily getting to see some of her favorite healers. They were a pretty great bunch at St. Mungos and they all came from different ways of life. It was a little refreshing, but it was saddening. She knew where they stood, she knew where she stood. It was a little disheartening. She didn’t worry about it all that much at the moment, but she knew there would come a time when she would have no choice but to.

With the needed things on a sheet she made her way to the pharmacy, she knew that would have nothing left to do after this so she took her time in getting anything done. She stepped into the Pharmacy and tucked hair behind her ear. ”Nicholas, hello.”

Outfit

He knew that the internship was taking a toll on his sister, and Nick was trying to bring himself to care. He knew that she got lonely when he was at St. Mungo's, and he knew that she was trying to wrap her head around the fact that she wasn't still in Singapore. It was hard for her, but she had to realize that this was everything that he had been hoping for. He had worked so hard for this; he had wanted, truly wanted this. He wanted to work towards becoming a Healer and this was how. This was how he was supposed to do that, and he was focused on it. He was going to work as hard as he could to get the job that he wanted. This was going to affect his future, and he knew that one mess up could ruin everything. He wanted to help people. He had to help people. It was important to him. He couldn't live up to the other expectations of his family, but he could heal. He was good at charms like that, he took care of his sister all the time, and he was going to do it. He had gotten good scores on his O.W.L.s and he was going to be a prefect again, so this internship was the icing on the cake.

Nick was planning on having a perfect sixth year. He didn't have the stress of major exams,  he got more breaks... He already had a career in mind and even though he knew that N.E.W.T classes were near impossible it was nice to know that everything he was doing was for a reason. He was going to get exactly what he was hoping for. Nick liked rushing around the hospital, he liked looking to see who needed what and why. It was interesting, really. It was also nice to see how people fixed things... Their lives, their illnesses... And the spell-damage ward was a mixture of hilarious and nerve-wracking.

The things people did to each other! It was terrifying. "Hey, Truly," Nick said, turning just as the witch entered. "How are you?"

Truly was going to have a full year before her. She was interning, she was probably going to be either a prefect or a head girl and she had a boyfriend. Not to mention all the drama of her best friend expecting twins. She had no idea what she was going to do, and she already felt like she was going crazy. She also had her NEWTs to study for and that was probably the hardest part. She was hoping to have a great seventh year, to have something to make her father and Luke proud, after all it was who she was to work hard to prove herself. She was still the cold and distant person she had always been in public, but in private, she was becoming a happier person. She felt loved.

Things were looking up for her and it made her feel better about herself, and about the life that she was leading. She no longer felt like a mistake, she felt worth her salt and it was making her hold her her up high. ”I’m well, thank you. Yourself?” She asked him with a tilt of her head. He hadn’t been there the year before as an intern and she was curious about what made him want to be a healer, but less than a year before someone could have asked the same about her.

Nick had a lot of things on his mind; his mother was in Singapore because she couldn't be anywhere else, she was stuck because she was a muggleborn, and because of that Lizzy had been brought back to London so that their family could be seen as being fine with the registration and not attempting to revolt. He had caught word that his auntie in Scotland had tried to have the children pulled and moved over to Singapore, he didn't know how that had gone but he was sure that it was something problematic, that she might have ended up in a lot of trouble... He had made arrangements to have lunch with Nari in the upcoming future, he wanted to make sure that his cousins weren't going to be a problem during the school year. He just wanted everything to go smoothly, and he hated how that had happened... He didn't want to be branded as having a relationship with them if Nari and her brother were going to try to openly oppose everything that was going on. He was sure that they would be fine; who was going to make the connection, anyway? Nobody really knew how his family worked, they didn't really realize that he was related to Cho Chang through his grandfather... He also hadn't known that for a bit, because they were from the Mainland, and his family elected not to interact with those sort of people, they were far better than that.

With the internship and with his prefect duties, Nick had had to make a choice regarding his classes, and that was the hardest thing that he had to do. He didn't want to completely overwhelm himself this year, he wanted to make sure that he could do his duties as chess club leader as well as one of the other two clubs he was in, he wanted to make sure that he had a bit of a social life now that he and Atha were together... He had to make sure that he took the right amount of classes, but not the perfect amount that he really wanted, because that would only serve to make him just as grumpy and miserable as he had been the year before. He knew that he should be more upset, what with his mother having fled the country, but he was... Conflicted. He didn't think that she was less than anyone for her blood, she was extremely powerful and brilliant. Her blood just made it difficult right now, it was making her seem weak... He wondered what would happen if they could find a Squib line for her, somewhere. 

"I'm doing well, thank you," he remarked, offering the elder student a smile. Truly worked hard, she was determined... She was probably a shoe-in for Head Girl in the upcoming term. He also heard that she had done the internship before, and he wanted to know what to expect... But that was forward, and that wasn't Nick, so he simply waited to see if she would say anything on the matter. 

It had been a hell of a year thus far for Truly. She had gone from the unwanted daughter of a lower level Death Eater that no one could stand to the bastard child of a Death Eater that no one could stand. She had gone from being a nothing, a nobody, to being Head Girl and a second year intern. She had a brother and her best friend was now her sister in law. Her father had married and she had a mother. For once in her life she had a family, a real family. People that she could count on and know that. It was not something tha was coming easily, but she knew too now that she had Luke.

It wasn’t like she and he were all public yet, or that they were all that serious. She liked him well enough, and based on how things went during the term, she might even be staying with him during the winter break. Merlin knew she didn’t honestly feel like staying in the Manor for the entire time. She had enough problems without watching her father and ‘Mum’ suck face. She knew they were getting desperate for an heir, but this was a little silly. She pushed hair from her eyes and smiled at the boy before her.

”Your summer going alright?” She asked trying to keep the small talk going, not sure what to say. She didn’t know much of anything about the male, save for the fact that she thought that he was perfectly adorable.

He knew that his year was going to be crazier than his summer, Nick was certain of it. Despite having dropped a bunch of classes and sticking to the ones that mainly focused on healing he was still going to be prefect and would have the internship to balance. That didn't bother him; he was eager to deal with that sort of stress. It was important to him, it was something that he wanted to focus on. There were things that he would get to do that would help prepare him for his future, and that in itself was more exciting than anything. Apart from that he was going to be leading two of the clubs that he was part of, and that was also something great. He was in three, of course, so that would be something to balance... It was probably good that he had decided to drop some of his courses. He knew that his Ah Ma wouldn't have wanted him to pile too much on his plate, and she really didn't care for classes that she considered to be 'useless' and 'baseless'. It was one of the reasons that he had never learned a magical language- apart from taking Runes for the past few years. With those types of classes off of his plate he was in for an exciting year, especially seeing as his sister was going to be starting.

That was traumatizing, to say the least. He knew that Lizzy would do fine in the end, but it was Lizzy. She liked to get into dirt and messy situations, she liked to run amok and dance around and hang about with the gnomes. His sister thought that rules were made to be flouted, quite the opposite of him. Nick followed rules, he liked them. Lizzy hated when people told her what to do. She was going to lose points and end up in a bunch of detentions- it was going to be terrible. He knew that people would immediately know that they were siblings considering that their last names were the same... And the fact that they were of only a few that spoke Mandarin and Singlish. His sister (despite having less of an attachment to Singapore) was far more like their country than he was. She liked flash and glitz; she was planning her Halloween costume despite the fact that school hadn't even started yet. 

"My summer's going well," he said, smiling gently. She didn't really need to know the stress that he was under this summer. He and Truly weren't that close, they were just friendly because of the internship. "I'm excited for the new year to start. Are you ready for your final year? N.E.W.Ts are crazy, right?"