AN: Like I said last update, we've jumped forward in time by several weeks! Also my little project is starting to take shape and I was fangirling over that fact yesterday XD Enjoy the chapter guys x

Wednesday July 23rd 2014

Dear Diary,

I didn't cry today. That's a first. It had kind of become part of my routine, to cry in the mornings… It was nice to feel, for once, completely okay.

I doubt this means I've reached a point that I'll never cry about it again, but it's a start, I suppose…

Summer feels long. It felt long before, when I was with my parents… but somehow it feels longer here. I know it's just over a month now until the year starts and Virginia comes back, but it just feels like the days are dragging longer the more of them pass.

Ellen is still buried in her research. She has yet to find any concrete evidence for any of her many thousands of theories. She's written theories and hypotheses by the book-load… but none of them have any proof in them, and it's frustrating her. She works long into the night. It's a good thing I'm an insomniac anyway… Otherwise I'd probably get annoyed at her.

Blue Magic today was… okay it was dull. It was another recap on Truesight (that's the THIRD time now)… I know that spell off-by-heart. I might ask Hieronymous to warn me ahead of time if he plans any other lessons like that… Recapping the mid to high level stuff is fine, great even… But doing such basic stuff as Truesight and Light (seriously!?) is really just kind of… painful. I can see he hates having to recap it too. It's for those who didn't attend any blue magic classes all last year… Who doesn't like Blue magic!? Strange people…

Whatever… Hieronymous asked if I'd like to join him to see how the church is progressing on Saturday. If I want to go, I need to go to his room at ten… I think I'll go, I do want to see how's it's going.

She fell asleep slower than normal that night… The sound of Ellen's pen scratching hurriedly across the paper got on her nerves more than normal as she laid there.

The next two days she was restless… It wasn't helped by the fact that it seemed all her remaining lessons insisted on being as dull as Blue Magic had been, recapping the most basic spells… She nearly fell asleep in Green Magic.

When Saturday rolled around, she was excited. Conversations between her and her husband were at least casual now, and she wasn't afraid to admit she was happy she'd be spending the day with him, even if Potsdam would be there.

She arrived at his door wearing a pair of comfortable jeans, and a vest top with a purple and pink "paint-splash" type of pattern. She had been tempted to put on her blue, flower-print cap, but despite the nice design, it was still a cap (a flat-peak no less – she didn't normally like them but she'd liked the pattern); Hieronymous would hardly approve. She knocked tentatively, and waited.

It took him a few moments to open the door, but she was patient. She did not knock again, there was little point. She just waited. When he opened the door, she smiled.

"Arianna, surprisingly on time." He teased. "Professor Potsdam will be meeting us there. Come in, best not to teleport in the hall, lest someone latch on to it by accident. That can be a little messy…" he muttered, clearly talking more to himself than to her. She ignored that fact.

"Would they end up upside down in a tree?" she joked, and she received a small smirk for her trouble.

"No, more they'd be split between here and the destination." He said ominously. She shivered.

"Eek."

"'Eek' indeed. If you had not had the level of skill you have in Blue Magic it may have happened when you teleported in the first exam." He grimaced as he said it, and she looked down.

"Nobody warned me…" she muttered, another shudder rippling through her at the thought of being half in the dungeon and half in the tree.

"Quite right. I was not blaming you." He placed a hand on her shoulder, and she looked up; he was smiling gently. "And I did not intend to scare you." She smiled awkwardly at him.

"Who said anything about being scared?" she tried to cover the fact that she was scared with indignation, but he chuckled.

"I'm getting to know you quite well, Arianna. I know 'scared' when I see it in your eyes."

She blushed.

"Here, take my hand. I will not allow you to be harmed." He assured her, extending the hand that was not on her shoulder for her to take. She placed her hand in his, noticing that it shook. Why am I scared? I've teleported hundreds of times… It's my best spell! But that didn't calm her. What did calm her was how he wrapped his arm around her protectively, before starting the chant. She glanced down as the runes appeared beneath them and she stayed as still as she could, closing her eyes and leaning into him slightly as a wave of magic washed over her. He released her slightly. "You can open your eyes now, Arianna. We're here."

As she opened her eyes, her mouth fell open. The church looked magnificent in the bright summer sun. What was once a derelict shell of a time long gone now looked like a perfectly preserved memory, the worn stones the only indication that it wasn't a new building. It towered above them, casting a dark shadow in the morning light.

"It… It's amazing…" she whispered, stumbling forward to look at it properly.

"It isn't finished yet." He muttered, amused. She turned to stare at him.

"What do you mean, not finished? What's left to do?" she turned back to examine the magnificent structure. It looked perfect…

"We intend to restore the stained glass. Or had you not noticed it is a terribly plain church?" he drawled. She frowned.

"Oh yeah… Churches always have huge stained glass windows… I guess it didn't strike me as something missing because it just looks so beautiful with the light streaming through the places where the windows would be." She speculated, walking over to one of the gaps in question in order to look through it. "Is it structurally safe now? I'm not gonna get hit by any flying rocks am I?" she asked lightly, turned to smile at her husband. He shook his head with a smile.

"It is safe. We finished the construction work last week. This week we were doing some simple cosmetic adjustments in preparation for the windows."

She grinned and hurried through the large wooden doors. He followed, watching as she danced between the rays of light that shone in through the windows, her long hair flicking around wildly as she did so.

He found himself pondering whether she should be labelled a child or not; she was certainly acting like one at that moment in time. But acting like a child and being a child were two completely different characteristics. Acting like a child showed that a person could remain youthful in their energy and curiosity, while remaining mature when it mattered. Being a child suggested a lack of maturity not just physically, but mentally as well. It suggested an inability to think rationally, something that his young wife was all too familiar with. After all, hadn't it been her recklessness that had landed them in the peculiar situation they were in?

However… She had rushed to his aid because she'd reasoned there wasn't time to fetch someone to help. Besides, how was she to know what the markings on the floor were? They were part of the senior white magic curriculum, not the freshman one. How was she supposed to know that the Manus was bound to his family? How was she to know it couldn't hurt him?

But perhaps the most important question that he found himself asking was this: How could she have possibly known he had summoned the blasted creature, considering how foolish the act itself was? Thinking about it, he knew it had been foolish of him to have been experimenting with the Manus on school property, particularly in the accounting room, on a Saturday morning… He'd practically been asking for someone to walk in and blunder into danger.

He had gravely misjudged the amount of magic he would expend when casting the wards which would bind the Manus, and therefore had ended up slipping into unconsciousness when he summoned the spirit. He had begun the experiment in the early hours, intending to be done with it and out of the room by three in the morning…

He had not been thinking rationally when he had commenced the experiment. He was overconfident and reckless… So did that make him the child?

No.

It simply meant he sometimes acted like a child.

Just like Arianna.

Thinking about it, Hieronymous Grabiner realised then how similar he and his accidental wife were... And as she turned to throw him a gleeful smile, he found himself smiling happily as well.

I hope you liked it guys x Don't forget to let me know what you think :)