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The sky had not looked nearly this ominous when Magnus had left office hours five minutes ago. He probably should have taken Lup up on her offer of borrowing an umbrella when he ran out of the dorm this morning, but he’d been in a rush to get to class on time, and besides, it had been a beautiful day this morning. It had been a beautiful day all day actually, right up until Magnus had walked out of Sterling Hall and had seen storm clouds brewing. Weather around here could confound the best Divination students, and as Magnus is currently in the illustrious major of Undecided, he is not that. It’s hardly his fault that he has proficiency in everything though.
As if in response, there’s a long, low rumble of thunder, and Magnus feels the first drops of rain hit his face. Well, tits. He starts going at a faster pace, determined to avoid the worst of it. He’s unsuccessful in that regard, as by the time he’s crossing the bridge back to the dormitory side of campus, the sky opens up, and rain begins falling in unrelenting torrents. At least his blue Jansport is waterproof. The rest of Magnus? Not so much. He’d started his walk across the bridge mostly dry and by the time he’s across, Magnus is positive that he’s soaked through. His hair and sideburns are plastered to his head, water is running down his now saturated shirt, and, worst of all, rain has soaked through his shoes so completely as to drench his socks, rendering his feet a sad, water-logged mess. He definitely should have taken Lup up on that offer.
He changes his path to walk between the buildings, knowing he can get a little more shelter from the rain by walking through the various courtyards. As he walks into the courtyard of the first, the sudden switch of the surface beneath his feet from concrete to the more aesthetically pleasing cobblestone catches him entirely by surprise. Entirely because the cobblestones, however pretty, are far more slippery in the rain. Magnus slips, staggers, and promptly falls squarely on his ass. And discovers the hard way, that no, he’d not been entirely soaked through, and his ass had been mostly dry right up until that point. At least no one had been around to see him. Right?
A peal of laughter catches his attention. Dunk. Someone is around. He tilts his head back, now heedless of the rain, to look at them upside down. Actually, shit. The person laughing at him is the most beautiful woman that Magnus has ever seen. She has dark curly hair tied back under a red bandana, a blue raincoat, polka dot rain boots, and, of course, an umbrella.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” She manages to gasp out. “It’s mean to laugh. It just looked so-” She bursts out into laughter again, the hand pressed against her mouth doing little to stifle the sound. Magnus is thoroughly enchanted.
“It’s kind of warranted at this point.” Magnus says good-naturedly, but his heart starts racing while he stands up. “Um, hi.” Great job, Magnus. Super coherent, well-thought-out greeting. Though it’s not like it can get much worse than just absolutely wiping out in front of her.
“Hi. Um. You wanna maybe duck under there?” She jerks her head toward the arch of the dorm that Magnus had just been feet from before his mishap.
“Yeah, probably a good idea, right?” Magnus makes the remaining walk to the arch without incident. The woman lowers her umbrella once they’re under and out of range of the deluge, while Magnus checks on his backpack. Yep, waterproof. Thank Istus.
“I really am sorry about laughing. I just wanted to check to make sure that you were all right, but it looked so silly. So, uh, are you okay?”
“Yeah, more just a pride thing than anything else.” Magnus brushes off the bruise to both his dignity and to his ass. “Um. I’m Magnus, by the way. Magnus Burnsides.” He shakes the excess water off his hand and extends it out to her. She stares at it for a moment before taking it.
“Julia. Julia Waxmen. Let me guess, Magnus, you’re not local?”
“Not hardly. How’d you guess? Are you? Local, I mean.” His hand feels several degrees hotter where it had held Julia’s. Magnus tells himself that he’s being as dramatic as Taako.
“Yep.” She pops the p. “Which is how I knew you weren’t. Everyone from the area knows that you always bring an umbrella with you, no matter what promises the sky is making. And you invest in a good one, not one of the school store umbrellas; those go inside out as soon as there’s the smallest breeze.”
“I, uh, feel like I should be taking notes.” Magnus smiles at her. In response, Julia breaks into a wide grin, and Magnus could swear that the sun just came out.
“In that case.” She points her umbrella at his feet. “Rain boots. You can do without the rain coat most of the time, unless it’s extra windy or like, well, this.” She gestures at the rain still pouring down just a few feet away from them.
“That’s… good to know.” Magnus shakes his head. “Sorry, you were probably on your way to something or to meet up with someone.”
Julia shakes her head, shrugging. “Just headed to get dinner.”
“Oh, what a coincidence, me too.” Magnus blurts out, impulsive, and Julia makes a show of looking him over.
“Right. You were going to head to get dinner while looking like you just hopped into the lake.” Julia raises an eyebrow skeptically.
“Well, that was the plan.” Magnus amends. And it really was, kinda. The original plan was to dump his bag in his room, grab Taako and Lucretia, and go eat dinner with Lup on her break. “Sort of.”
“Sort of.” Julia repeats. At least she’s still smiling. That has to count for something.
“Yeah, probably shouldn’t… go directly there. I’d be like, a walking, talking hazard for slipping. And I mean, I already did that.” Magnus is friendly and nice. People like him. He’s supposed to be fairly competent at flirting, if not proficient. Apparently, that went spiraling down the drain with the rainwater though, judging by what’s come out of his mouth in the past few minutes.
Julia shifts her weight from one booted foot to the other. “Do you want to share my umbrella on the walk back to your dorm?” She asks bluntly. “I’m going to feel guilty if I laugh at you and don’t even help.”
“Y-yeah! That would be great.” Magnus nods. “It’s McDonald Hall. Er, the dorm, not the lecture hall. Don’t know why they had to name everything after the one family.” He prattles on a bit more than is strictly speaking necessary while Julia opens her umbrella up and they start walking.
“So, uh, what are you studying?” Magnus asks. It seems a safe topic.
“Civil engineering. But I’m probably going to minor in Government.” Julia seems to be focusing on taking a path avoiding puddles, which is incredibly sweet, if unnecessary at this point. The constant slosh of Magnus’s shoes as he steps only serves to remind him of the discomfort. “What about you?”
“Undecided.” He admits. “Sort of all over the place. Are you back later because you were working on a project or something?” It’s still pretty early in the year, but all three of his magically inclined friends have been complaining about problem sets and projects since day one practically.
“Oh, no. I was actually over at the woodworking club.” Julia eyes him out of the corner of her eye as if expecting judgment. Magnus stops dead, and Julia sighs, but it wasn’t for the reason she expects.
“There’s a woodworking club?” Magnus asks, delighted. “I didn’t see anything about that at the club expo.”
“Oh, yeah.” Julia still looks a little skeptical, as if this is some hare-brained attempt at flirting. Which, fair. “What kind of, what kind of work do you do?”
“I started at carving, which was actually mostly ducks for the longest time, but, uh, I’m a pretty good carpenter now.” Magnus shrugs.
“Ducks?”
“My uh, well, Fisher is a voidfish, and they love ducks. So, yeah, ducks.”
“You have a voidfish?”
“Yep.”
“They’re like, absurdly rare.”
“Yeah, it’s a bit complicated; there was this thing a few years back, but Fisher is pretty happy here now.”
“Wait. You have a voidfish here?”
“Well, technically they live with my, uh, friends? Like, technically, my friend Lucretia and I are kind of Fisher’s people, but since they need a giant aquarium, they’re living with Cap’n’port and Merle- er, Professor Davenport and Professor Highchurch.” They’ve reached his dorm. “I can, I can show you a picture?” He offers.
“Of the ducks or the voidfish?”
“Huh, I guess both? The ducks are kind of in the shot.” Magnus quickly unlocks his phone (passcode: 4773) and opens to a picture of Fisher, luminous and clearly happy, though it is of course hard to read expressions from a voidfish. A row of carved ducks, steadily improving as Magnus made progress and gained confidence, lines the front of the tank. “Merle said I wasn’t allowed to bring any more ducks home, but that’s never stopped me before.”
Julia still looks stunned. “A voidfish…” She trails off and then seems to realize they’ve stopped. “Oh. Uh. You, you probably want to go inside and put on clothes that aren’t soaking wet.”
“Yeah, I should.” Magnus doesn’t entirely want to though. He wants to stay here and continue talking to Julia. “But, uh, about woodworking club…”
Julia is biting on her lip, seemingly thinking something over. It’s also remarkably distracting to Magnus somehow. “How about we talk about it over dinner?” She asks. “Since you were going to go already?”
Magnus lights up. “Sure, yes! Uh, why don’t you come in, so you’re not waiting out here?” He asks as he swipes his ID to get the door to open.
“How gentlemanly.” She laughs as he sweeps his arm grandly as he opens the door for her.
“Oh, uh, my friends are probably around. They were, uh, kinda expecting me to eat with them, but it’s fine! I’ll just duck in and, uh, change real quick, and Creesh and Taako can just head out on their own.”
“Why wouldn’t I want to meet more people?” Julia asks.
“Well, it’d be Lucretia and Taako and then Lup because we were planning on eating with her cause she’s working in the dining hall tonight and she’ll be on break and then Killian will be there, too, and they all can be a bit… much, together.” Magnus sort of shrugs helplessly, though Julia probably doesn’t see it while they’re climbing the stairs.
Julia snorts. “I’m pretty sure I can handle it. Besides, meeting more friends is always a good thing.”
“That’s what I think!” They’ve reached the right floor, and Magnus strides down the hall to the right suite. Julia eyes the door, labeled “Starblaster” and “Team IPRE” in bright glittery letters from an especially interesting late night decision. There are also four portraits pinned to the door, drawn by Lucretia’s expert hand, with their names carefully scorched into the door by Lup (“I’ll fix it by the end of the year, stop worrying, Koko”). “Oh, and it’s probably messy.”
Julia steps through the door, stops. “It looks like someone cast Whirlwind in here.” She says before there’s a crash from one of the other rooms.
“Mags!” Taako yells, walking out, pulling on a bright red sweater that might be Lup’s as he does. “Finally, homie. Cha’boy-” Taako’s head finally pops out of the sweater, and he sees Julia. “Oh. Hail and well met, my dude.” He greets her before turning to Magnus and snorting at the sight. “Lup told you to bring an umbrella.”
“Yeah, I already found that out the hard way. Julia helped. Oh, Taako, this is Julia Waxmen. Julia, this is Taako.”
“You know, from TV?” Taako sticks out a hand, which Julia takes, without hesitation or any apparent confusion. She does seem capable of matching Taako, which is a good sign.
“Oh, Magnus you’re back. Oh- hello!” Lucretia comes out of another room, pen behind each of her ears and blinking away the focus she’d no doubt been applying to whatever she was just writing. “I’m Lucretia.” She shakes Julia’s hand once Taako releases it.
“Julia Waxmen.” Julia says with a smile before turning to Magnus, eyebrow arched. “Weren’t you going to get changed or something?” Magnus suddenly becomes aware that he’s dripping a puddle onto the floor before dashing to his room to grab a quick change of clothes before heading into the bathroom to leave the still sopping wet everything somewhere where it won’t get water on anything important.
Magnus changes quickly, frantically drying out his hair with a towel. He’s about to step outside again when he catches a glimpse of the mirror, and no, that won’t do at all. He looks like a bear, an actual, claws and fur bear. So he takes the few extra seconds to fix his hair and generally straighten up. He hopes he hasn’t afforded Taako and Lucretia an opportunity to a) scare Julia off or b) say something truly embarrassing.
It’s with a certain amount of astonishment that Magnus comes out to Julia, Lucretia, and Taako talking and laughing like old friends already. And that continues at dinner, Julia both eagerly talking about woodworking with Magnus and slipping into the banter and the group as though there were already a spot there waiting for her. Perhaps there was. And when Julia laughs, Magnus thinks it might be the best sound that he has ever heard. And when Julia smiles, it wouldn’t surprise anyone to learn that in love as in life, Magnus rushes in.