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booksmarts and broomsticks
act iii , turning tables
chapter thirty-four, no place like newquay

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➖DRIA LOCKABY ➖
august 1993

"HASTA LA VISTA, BABY!"

Dria's head shot up from her hand of cards at the sound of the Irish accent with which the words were said, and her eyes widened as they landed on the sight before her.

"What the fuck happened to you?"

Jackie was stood, not two feet from the blonde, upon the front deck of Penny's parents' beach house — where, until ten seconds prior, she had been playing a rather exhilarating game of Cheat with Tess — and was drenched from head to toe with a shit-eating grin on her face as she clutched a carpet bag that was also dripping with water.

"Turns out I'm not great at Apparating." Jackie confessed, as she reached up to wring the water out of her hair. "Fell in the Irish Sea twice."

"At least you didn't lose an eyebrow." Dria chuckled, as the Hufflepuff threw her bag down and dragged a chair over to sit beside the blonde.

"It grew back, okay?" Tess cried in objection to her fellow Gryffindor's comment, narrowing her eyes slightly as she grumbled. "It was only gone for like three weeks."

Dria's gaze shot back to her cards, pursing her lips before withdrawing two and placing them face down on the growing pile in the middle of the table.

"Two sevens."

"Cheat."

"Fuck!"

Tess let out a victorious scream of laughter as the blonde leant forward and grabbed the large pile of cards from the centre of the table and added them to her hand with a disgruntled huff.

"Jackie, you're getting water all over the bloody deck!"

"Well, hello to you too, Penny!" Jackie cried in excitement, disregarding the Ravenclaw's clear anguish at the state she was in.

Penny stifled a forced laugh as she stepped out onto the deck from the kitchen, with a jug of ice cold lemonade and four glasses on a tray in her hands.

"I'm sorry, I'm just happy to be on dry land again." The Irish girl continued to make excuses as she grinned up at the prefect who placed the tray on the table before Dria and Tess.

Squaring her jaw, Penny withdrew her wand from her pocket and pointed it at Jackie, blasting a jet hot air in her face — which very nearly sent the deck of cards flying out onto the beachfront, and would have if it weren't for Dria slamming her hands down on top of them.

"Oh, shit!" Jackie cried in glee, once she had fully dried off and Penny set to work on drying her baggage. "I forgot we can do magic now. Accio!"

Before Dria could comprehend it, Jackie had whipped out her own wand and directed it at the glass of freshly poured lemonade that resided in Tess' hands, causing it to fly over in the Hufflepuff's direction much to the annoyance of its former holder.

"Jackie!"

"Please don't break anything!" Penny groaned as she sank into another seat round the table, and pressed a hand to her forehead.

"Don't stress, I can just fix it if I do! Remember magic, duh?" Jackie retorted as she crossed her legs upon the seat, taking a large gulp of lemonade as she smirked in victory, while Tess shuffled the playing cards, dealing Jackie and Penny into the game.

         The sun was still high in the sky despite the afternoon waning into the evening, and the deck of the cottage was lit in its strong glow. The tide was low but was beginning to ebb back up the shore as the minutes passed, the sound of each wave crashing upon the sand in a calming rhythm carried all the way up to the beach house, as it progressed.

        Tess and Dria had already been at the cottage with Penny for three days before Jackie's calamitous arrival — the Hufflepuff had been delayed due to her brother's various professional Quidditch commitments back in Ballycastle — and had very quickly settled into the peaceful lull of their holiday.

         They'd been blessed with very hot weather which has caused them to be on the beach every single day. Between long periods of sunbathing, cocktail-making — from a Muggle book they found in the kitchen belonging to Penny's mum — card games and reading, Dria could have sworn she'd never been so relaxed. The only time she'd felt her blood pressure even slightly rise was when Tess got into an altercation with a seagull after it stole her wand — but even then, she'd found it more amusing than stressful. However, she highly doubted she'd have opportunity to relax now that Hurricane Jackie had landed — not that she was complaining.

"Where's Perfect Percy, then?" The Hufflepuff asked, as she shuffled through her cards with a smirk on her lips.

"Hey!" Penny cried, swatting the girl with her hand of cards, although a small smile had crept onto her face. "You said you'd stop calling him that."

"What? It's catchy."

        "The Weasleys won the Daily Prophet's Grand Prize Galleon Draw a couple of weeks ago, so they've gone to Egypt for the summer." Tess shrugged as she shuffled through the cards in her hand.

       "Penny is distraught." Dria added with a light chuckle, earning a small glare from the Ravenclaw opposite her.

       "I'm not distraught." She countered with a shake of her head, as she leant back in her chair. "I'll see him when he gets back, and anyway he's writing to me to make up for it."

         "Daily. He's writing daily." Tess said abruptly, slamming her hand of cards down on the table. "It's sickening."

        "We've been woken up by his stupid screech owl every morning for the past three days." Dria groaned, as Jackie looked on with a light laugh.

       "Wow, sounds like I really missed out."

        "Don't worry, he'll be back tomorrow morning." Tess continued, massaging her temple at the thought of the large owl shrieking outside the house again.

       "Whoever romanticised birds singing in the morning needs a punch." Dria agreed, with a grimace as she laid down another two cards on the growing pile in the middle of the table.

The Hufflepuff snorted into her lemonade before turning her attention back to the Robbins girl and arching an eyebrow as she added more cards to the pile.

"How was your date with Una, Tess?" Jackie asked, with a small smirk as — upon the name of the ex-Head girl — Tess' face lit up. "That was last week, right?"

"Yes, and it was the singular greatest day of my life." Tess confirmed with an eager nod, earning simultaneous groans from Dria and Penny.

         "She hasn't shut up about it."

         "We spent the entire day in Florean's—"

         "Three hours." Dria quickly cut the Robbins girl off with an incredulous laugh.

         "Wow, three hours in Florean's and he didn't kick you out?" Jackie mused, before taking another gulp of lemonade.

"Turns out if you actually stick to your agreed hours and don't skive off, he's a pretty cool guy." Tess shrugged with a satisfied smile on her lips, leaning back in her chair.

"You only stuck to your hours to impress Una." Penny chuckled, as she poured a glass of lemonade and handing it to Dria.

"And it worked!" Tess retorted, her smile quickly transitioning into a smirk. "She said she liked how responsible I was."

"Well, it's gonna be a shock for her when she finds out you're not." Dria chuckled with a quick roll of her eyes as she took the lemonade from Penny.

"What she doesn't know won't kill her."

"Out of curiosity, Tess, does Florean know you're on holiday this week?" The blonde quirked an eyebrow before taking a sip of her lemonade.

"Of course he doesn't."

"Sorry, stupid of me to ask."

        "What about you, Doc?" Jackie asked, turning to face Dria and raising her eyebrows with a small smirk.

        "What about me?"

        "You been out with Squire yet?"

        Dria mirrored the small smirk that Jackie wore and leaned back in her seat a little, feeling a light blush rise up her cheeks.

        "Actually, I have."

        "Have you?" The Hufflepuff replied with a devilish grin as she took another sip of her lemonade.

        "Saw him the other week, I took a day trip up to Cardiff." Dria told her nonchalantly, her smirk never fading.

        "And?"

       "And we had a pretty good time." Dria chuckled in response, although Jackie didn't seem too satisfied with her vague response.

        Nate hadn't wasted much time before sending an owl to the cottage in Ottery St Catchpole — three days to be exact — and inviting Dria to join him for an afternoon in Cardiff.

        Of course, she gladly accepted and a week later found herself roaming the streets of Cardiff with a certain Hufflepuff Chaser. Nate didn't live in Cardiff himself but instead in a small wizarding village on the outskirts, leading him to know it well enough to give her a very entertaining tour.

        When it started getting dark, he suggested they visit the fair up at Cardiff Bay so they could absorb some Muggle culture. Dria only accepted because she didn't want to miss out on spectating said traditional Muggle culture and definitely not because she didn't want the date to end.

        Things had got very competitive at the coconut shy especially when Nate couldn't knock a single coconut off its stand for the life of him, ("And you call yourself a Chaser?") but his frustration soon subsided once Dria won him teddy bear after playing a game of hoopla.

       They'd spent the rest of the evening sitting on the beach front, chatting aimlessly and trying to come up with a name for the teddy bear — they eventually settled on Derek Lockaby-Squire — as well as sharing some candy floss which they both decided was the vilest they'd ever tasted.

       The fair was all but closed down when Dria realised she should probably be heading back to her dad's. She said her goodbyes to Derek, and eventually parted ways with Nate, but not without a kiss on the cheek — which had led to her cheeks being very rosy when she'd Apparated into her kitchen to find her dad and two siblings sat with hot chocolate and very smug looks on their faces.

        "From the look on your face, I'm going to guess it was more than pretty good." Jackie continued to smirk as Dria shook herself out of her brief daydream.

       "A great date." Penny chimed in with the same smirk on her lips at her raised her brows at the blonde.

        "A great date with Nate." Tess chuckled along from behind the rim of her glass, earning laughs from the other two of Dria's friends.

        "You're hilarious." The blonde rolled her eyes, trying desperately to stop thinking about the heat rising up her cheeks — however, luckily for her, the sound of a loud engine roaring gave her the desired distraction.

       Her eyebrows furrowed as she met the gazes of her three friends who also looked perplexed at the sudden eruption of noise.

        "The hell is that?" Dria spoke up, as she craned her neck in the direction of where the racket was coming from, only to see a run-down looking car pulling into the driveway of the beach house.

"Oh no." Penny muttered, her eyes widening as they landed on the car, the noise ceasing as the engine was turned off.

"Wait a second, isn't that—?"

But whatever Tess' theory was, it was cut off by the sound of the car door creaking open and a loud voice calling out in the direction of the four girls.

"Alright, weirdos?!"

"Oh, dear God." Penny groaned at the sight of her older sister waving at them, car keys in hand as she slammed the car door behind her and began to walk over.

"You didn't say Millie was going to be here!" Jackie grinned with excitement as the four girls stood up from the table and crossed the deck.

"I didn't think she was." Penny groaned as they descended the steps from the deck onto the driveway, and reached Millie who was wearing a broad grin at the sight of annoyance on her sister's face. "What are you doing here? What happened to Reading?"

"Bailed, line-up was shocking. " The older girl shrugged, her smirk never fading as she turned to her sister's friends. "Alright, guys?"

"Alright Mil." Tess greeted in response, as she leaned an arm on Dria's shoulder, the blonde offered Millie a bright smile while Jackie gave her a devilish smirk and wave.

"What are you doing here?" Penny repeated, her eyebrows furrowing as she tried to make sense of her sister's sudden appearance.

"I thought I'd come and keep you company." She shrugged once more, throwing an arm around Penny as the group of them began making their way towards the beach house. "I love spending time with my little sister."

"Be serious."

"Okay, fine!"

The older girl gave a huff of defeat but it was no more than two seconds before her smirk was back on her features.

"Since Reading sucked, everyone's coming down here tomorrow and we're throwing a beach party." She said candidly, strolling past her sister and jumping up onto the deck.

"What?"

"I know, I'm buzzed for it." Millie chuckled, only becoming more and more amused by her sister's response.

"Wait, we're going to be at a Muggle beach party?" Jackie chimed in with a wide grin, nudging Dria who was also wearing an excited smile.

"Hell yeah, you are!"

"Mil, what did Mum and Dad say about it?" Penny asked with an arched brow as she folded her arms across her chest.

"Like they know anything!" Millie scoffed, mirroring her sister's stance. "Come on, Pen, they're in France as we speak — Dad's probably already drunk two bottles of merlot and Mum will be taking a million pictures of it. They don't need to know."

"Well, I have guests here—" Penny tried to reason once more, only to be interrupted.

"I want to go to Muggle party!"

"Jackie, you're not helping."

"Hey, why don't you invite some of your school friends?" Millie suggested, looking at the four girls and arching a brow. "They can get do that whole teleportation thing, can't they?"

"It's called Apparating—"

"Oh my God, can I invite Una?" Tess gushed, shaking Dria's arm excitedly as she looked at Penny with wide eyes.

"Dria can invite Squire, as well!" Jackie cried out in glee, earning a loud chuckle to leave Dria's lips. "Oh come on, Penny!"

Penny gave a defeated sigh before she looked to her blonde friends who shot her a sympathetic smile.

"Come on, get your wand out of its knot." Dria said gently, a small smile on her lips. "It'll be fun!"

Penny looked at each of them once more, rolling her eyes when Jackie fell to her knees, before eventually giving in with a large sigh.

"Okay, fine!" She declared, earning a series of cheers in response. "But I'm going to need a lot to drink."

"That's the spirit!" Jackie grinned, slapping the Ravenclaw on the back before throwing an arm round her.

"Wand in a knot?" Millie repeated, looking at Dria with a confused look as they all made their way up the steps back onto the deck. "You magicians are fucking weird."

𝖙𝖗𝖎𝖓𝖆 𝖘𝖕𝖊𝖆𝖐𝖘!
welcome to act iii, folks!
and a very belated thank
you for 100k eeek <3

on a side note, i realised
that i should probably
insert some warnings,
based on the nature of
upcoming act paha —
like i said it's gonna be
on crack, so feel free
to check those out in the
act divider, if you so wish!

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