|
|
|
last online Mar 28, 2024 4:25:42 GMT -7
|
|
|
Jul 27, 2016 10:22:19 GMT -7
Post by Deleted on Jul 27, 2016 10:22:19 GMT -7
Cecelia was done. She was broken. She was tired. She was scared. She had thought that she had been making new friends, but it had been pointless. Chantal probably thought that she was a raging bitch or emotionally unstable after the way she had ran away from the library, and Ramsey...Well, Ramsey didn't ever see the bad parts of Cecelia. She saw the lovesick whatever the hell she had been that day on the grounds. Everyone in her house seemed to blame her for what she had been without ever seeing what she wanted to be. She was so tired, but there was no rest for the wicked. There never had been, and there never would be. After leaving the library, Cecelia had gone to the one place that she could think of that remotely resembled a refuse - the Prefect's bathroom. There were only ten people in the whole school who knew the password, which meant the chances of someone accidentally stumbling in were slim to none. Immediately, the Gryffindor girl had plopped herself, fully clothed, into the empty bathtub. Curled into the fetal position, she had spent the next six hours sobbing. Sobbing for everything she had lost, everything she wouldn't let herself cry for, or hadn't been able to. Her head had started to hurt about an hour in, and two hours later she had stumbled out of the bathtub to vomit because she had been sobbing so hard. She had returned to the tub dejected, but unwilling to leave the bathroom. No one could see her like this, because if Desi saw, she was as good as dead. That was the only reason she hadn't yet owled her parents to beg them to let her come home - she knew they would tell Desirae, and that her sister would make her stay. Cecelia was tired, yes, but even worse - she was alone.
|
|
|
|
|
grey xavier slater
HOGWARTS ALUM DAILY PROPHET QUIDDITCH REPORTER
688 posts
played by Colin
|
|
last online Mar 27, 2024 19:55:51 GMT -7
WIZARDING ADULT
|
|
|
Jul 27, 2016 14:44:38 GMT -7
Post by grey xavier slater on Jul 27, 2016 14:44:38 GMT -7
The Monsters walk among us Dinner that night had been impressively good. The house elves had definitely kicked it up a notch over the last few weeks now that more students were there. Grey had extremely liked the fact that they were taking international foods into account more as well, and he was definitely making three meals a day a must so that he could try everything available. For some reason, food was a good way to take his mind off of the things that had been going on; not being able to interact with his sister was tough, but it was a necessary evil. He really hoped Addi would understand his reasoning in the long run. But that wasn’t important right now. Grey had work to do for the next day, so he was currently running up to the Gryffindor common room as fast he could, his pockets stuffed full with a couple rolls from dinner. Finally hitting the fifth floor, Grey attempted to skip a few steps only to trip and fall forward. As he hit the ground, both of his knees hit the top step, scraping them up in the process. Upset at his carelessness and in pain from the impact, he looked down to see both knees bright red with blood. “Stupid.” He muttered, pulling his wand out and attempting to seal them up as best he could. It looked like both knees would be fine, but he needed to clean up the blood, not halfway down his leg. The only bathroom he knew about nearby belonged to the Prefects. Lucky for him, Kyle was a Prefect and had told him about it the minute he became one, as well as the password to get in. Grey had never been in it before, obviously afraid of running into a Prefect, and having to explain it to them was not at the top of his list of things to do. He was sure that if it happened now, he’d be let off the hook because he was hurt. Legs still in pain despite the scrapes being fixed up, Grey hobbled over to where Kyle had explained it was and he gave out the password. Grey thought it was strange that it was hidden behind such a weird statue. Regardless, the door popped open and he headed in. As he entered, Grey looked about cautiously to make sure he was the only one in there. From a quick glance, it seemed like he was in the clear. Still unsure, he cleared his throat. "Anyone in here?" Quiet. His voice slightly echoed through the room. Relieved that he was all alone, he walked over to one of the sinks and started to clean up the blood on his legs. What a pain this was. MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
last online Mar 28, 2024 4:25:42 GMT -7
|
|
|
Jul 27, 2016 16:17:46 GMT -7
Post by Deleted on Jul 27, 2016 16:17:46 GMT -7
Cecelia almost didn’t register another voice when it echoed through the room. It took her a bit to uncurl herself, peering over the edge of the tub to see who the owner of the voice was. She didn’t recognize the voice, so she had assumed it was a prefect from one of the other houses, but what she was looking at was a Gryffindor boy. Grey Slater. They had shared classes since Cecelia had come to Hogwarts, but Cece wasn’t sure she had ever said a word to Grey. Until now. “What are you doing?” She asked, voice shaking. The Gryffindor girl slowly pulled herself out of the bathtub, swinging her legs over the edge. Her head was spinning from the sudden movement, but she didn’t care. She knew for certain that Grey wasn’t supposed to be here. Ranger was the male prefect for Gryffindor, and their Quidditch captain was Roxanne Weasley. Grey shouldn’t have known the password, and even if she was an emotional wreck, Cecelia still had to act like she was a prefect. She swallowed, and then stood shakily. “You’re not supposed to be in here.” She stated. The Gryffindor took a couple wobbly steps towards Grey, getting to the first sink before having to stop, leaning heavily on the marble fixture. She took a deep breath, and then surveyed the boy. He appeared to be bloody, and it took Cecelia a few moments to realize that the blood was on his knees, not his hands. Well, that was good. At least he hadn’t murdered anyone.
Cece took a moment to look at herself in the mirror above the sink she was leaning on. Wow. She looked like…hell wasn’t even coming close. Her eyes were red and puffy from crying, obviously, but she hadn’t expected the rest of her face to be equally red and swollen. She couldn’t tell whether it was preferable to the pale gauntness that had been the norm for her lately. It probably depended on who you asked. “Whoever told you the password shouldn’t have.” She said, trying to sound as businesslike as possible. Cecelia wished that she knew something about Grey, anything that would have connected it to one of the prefects, so he could know who to blame. Was Grey one of Ranger’s friends? That was the last thing that she needed right now – more of Ranger in her life. “I’m going to have to petition for it to be changed now.” She informed Grey softly, turning on the cold water tap with mechanical motions. She splashed some water in her face. She thought that it was going to make her feel better, but it didn’t. Now her face was just wet. She turned back to Grey, blinking once at him. Cecelia hadn’t wanted anyone to see her in her current state, but now that plan was out the window, so she was just trying to do some damage control.
grey xavier slater
|
|
|
|
|
grey xavier slater
HOGWARTS ALUM DAILY PROPHET QUIDDITCH REPORTER
688 posts
played by Colin
|
|
last online Mar 27, 2024 19:55:51 GMT -7
WIZARDING ADULT
|
|
|
Jul 27, 2016 21:04:11 GMT -7
Post by grey xavier slater on Jul 27, 2016 21:04:11 GMT -7
The Monsters walk among us Splashing more water over his knees, Grey was making quick work of the blood all over his legs. This had been happening too often later, getting hurt in stupid situations. Just the other day he punched a wall. Completely his fault of course, but also completely avoidable if he had held back. Today was the same. If he hadn’t been acting like a giddy schoolgirl skipping up the stairs, he wouldn’t be here right now. Reaching for a towel on the other side of the sink to start cleaning up the remaining blood and water on his legs, a voice came from behind him, asking what he was doing. Grey froze, deer-in-the-headlights style. Had someone really come in behind him? Getting caught using the bathroom without having permission would surely have repercussions, and ones that were harsh because he should apparently know better. Turning his head slowly to face the door, he didn’t see anyone there. Completing the full rotation to face the bathtub with the rest of his body, Grey saw a person climb out of the tub. If he had seen that out of the corner of eye he would have sworn it was one of the school ghosts. As the girl stood to her feet, Grey recognized her as the female Gryffindor prefect, Cecelia Rousseau. He couldn’t recall the two ever talking before, but he had heard stories about her. Typically Grey ignored stories about other people and refused to comment on them, but he had heard the ones about Cecelia. Still, he wasn’t one to judge until he got passed first impressions, and that was definitely going to be tough after this encounter. He watched her in silence as she walked over to one of the sinks at the end of the row. Walking was the wrong word for it though. It was more like stumbling over to the sink, because she could barely step forward. Whatever was going on with her was far worse than his bloody knees. “I tripped on the stairs out in the hallway and this was the closest bathroom…” Grey stopped, biting down on his tongue to prevent himself from saying anything else. There was no way he could get away with saying he stumbled upon it, since it was stashed away behind that statue. It was worth a shot though. Cecelia didn’t look like she was in the best state, so she could overlook it. Before he continued, she had turned to the mirror in front of her and explained that whoever told him the password shouldn’t have. It looked like Kyle was in the clear for now, since she didn’t seem to know Grey was friends with him. Grey wouldn’t have given that information over that easily either. Kyle was in enough trouble lately with various girls at Hogwarts, all the poor guy needed was another one, and a Prefect at that, breathing down his neck for something Grey had done. “Well, I didn’t use a password. The door was already unlocked. You must have forgotten when you came in here.” Grey squeezed the towel in his hand. He hated lying, but he needed to get off the subject of him in being in the wrong. Anyone would try that right? “Listen, I…you know you really don’t look ok.” He wasn’t sure what was wrong with her, but the wobbly walking, puffy eyes, and pale skin were great indicators that she was not in the best shape. It was actually really concerning. “Maybe you should sit down. I can go grab the nurse.” He said, putting the towel he was holding back on the sink. MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
last online Mar 28, 2024 4:25:42 GMT -7
|
|
|
Jul 28, 2016 7:09:56 GMT -7
Post by Deleted on Jul 28, 2016 7:09:56 GMT -7
Cecelia couldn’t help but stare at Grey. It felt like he was staring at her, too, so at least they were even. When Grey said that this was the closest bathroom, the Gryffindor girl didn’t even bother to look offended. The fact that it was the closest bathroom didn’t negate the fact that Grey wasn’t supposed to be there. She knew that he was lying when he said the bathroom door was unlocked. The last thing that Cecelia had wanted was for someone to walk into her shame, so she knew, knew, that she wouldn’t have been careless enough to leave the door unlocked. “You’re lying to me.” She said plainly. “So I’d advise that you either tell me who gave you the password, or stop talking before you make it worse for both of you.” Cecelia began scrolling through the list of people that had access to the bathroom, and which ones Grey might have known. Sadly, Cecelia didn’t know enough about anyone, let alone Grey, to be able to puzzle out those sorts of relationships. All she knew was that Grey hadn’t gotten the password from her. Normally, she would have been a lot more understanding of Grey’s indiscretion, but this was not a normal circumstance. Besides, he hadn’t had to lie to her – didn’t his parents ever tell him that honesty was the best policy? Even Desirae told her that she had to be honest, and she was a murderer. If a murderer was more moral than you, you were really doing something wrong.
At least he was honest in saying that she didn’t like okay. She wasn’t okay, so why should she look it? When Grey offered to get the nurse, Cecelia blanched. “I don’t need the nurse.” She said slowly. “I just need…time.” Time for her legs to stop shaking, time for her head to stop hurting, time for her heart to stop breaking. There was so much at work here, so many factors that Grey couldn’t possibly understand, so many factors that Cecelia couldn’t possibly understand. Besides, if the nurse saw Cecelia again so soon after the whole passing out fiasco, she'd have a lot of explaining to do. Still, despite the fact that Grey had been the one to walk in on her sanctuary, Cece felt like she owed him an explanation for why he had been presented with such a sight. “I had an argument with someone, and they stepped out of line, and I couldn’t stop crying, okay?” He didn’t have to know that she had been in the bathroom for so long, or that she had missed two meals in that time period. Why should he care about what had happened to her? The explanation was stupid, Cecelia decided, and she sank further against the sink. She was being stupid, and emotional, and she just wished that everything could stop. Too bad that wasn’t the way the world worked. “I’m not sick or anything, so I don’t need the nurse.” She reiterated, just in case Grey got any crazy ideas about using that as his way to escape from her and get both him and whoever had told him about the bathroom off the hook. Cecelia looked up at Grey again, and sighed. “I’m sorry that you had to see this.” It was a lame apology, Cecelia knew, but at least it was an apology. She was still working hard on her whole ‘being nice to people’ thing, and so far this wasn’t the best circumstance for creating her new persona. She still had to be a prefect, right? This was a delicate balancing act, Cecelia realized. The only problem with balancing acts was that Cecelia didn’t have a sense of equilibrium right now, and without that, it was pretty damn hard to balance anything.
grey xavier slater
|
|
|
|
|
grey xavier slater
HOGWARTS ALUM DAILY PROPHET QUIDDITCH REPORTER
688 posts
played by Colin
|
|
last online Mar 27, 2024 19:55:51 GMT -7
WIZARDING ADULT
|
|
|
Jul 28, 2016 13:19:11 GMT -7
Post by grey xavier slater on Jul 28, 2016 13:19:11 GMT -7
The Monsters walk among us Grey sighed. He knew Cecelia was going to figure out that he was lying. It hadn’t been convincing at all. If he was a naïve little first year that stumbled in on accident, maybe that would have worked out a little better. But Grey was the complete opposite of that, and they both knew that what he had spurted out was anything but the truth. Grey scratched his head a few times, debating what to say. Anything he said would be thrown under a magnifying glass and would be scrutinized, so if he wanted to lie again it had to be a really good one. On the other hand, he could admit Kyle had told him about it. Throwing him under the bus for his own issue was terrible, but Grey would warn his friend about it and apologize. Hopefully Kyle wouldn’t be too upset about it. The other factor to take account of was that all Grey was doing was cleaning up blood. He wasn’t using the bathroom or causing harm to it, nor had he ever used it before. Surely they, the Prefects and whomever this incident was reported to, would take that into consideration. Lying already probably hadn’t helped him out though. A guy could try though. “Kyle Williams. One of the Hufflepuff Prefects.” There. He admitted it. It wasn’t hard, but it left a bad taste in his mouth. Betraying a friend so easily like that was terrible, then again Grey had done it to his own sister not even a week ago, so what difference did it make. Bad decisions all around for the Gryffindor. That aside, Cecelia was seriously starting to worry him. It had been a solid amount of time since she had climbed out of the tub, she had even splashed water on her face and was now admitting she was fine and didn’t need the nurse, but even through all of that, it still looked to him like she was about to fall over. Grey had the luxury of never having watched someone pass out or collapse before, something this was starting to look like even if she wasn’t sick. Then she straight up told him she had been crying and had an argument with someone. He wasn’t expecting to hear that at all. Grey was still trying to process whether he needed to actually get an adult to intervene before Cecelia was out cold on the ground, or if she was ok, like she kept saying. Through all of it, he listened silently. What else was he supposed to do? He didn’t know her at all, so wouldn’t it be strange if he tried to comfort her? Grey thought so, and Cecelia was probably going to think the same thing. But if no one else was there to help her, how wrong would it be for a fellow Gryffindor to listen. They were all family whether they believed that or not. He had followed that train of thought since things had started to break down with his own family. “No need to apologize.” Grey started. That was a different change of pace from her acting like a Prefect towards him earlier. She had said that she had been in an argument, obviously that had her mind everywhere still, and Grey entering the bathroom had only amplified it. Now he was right in the middle of it without realizing it. “I still think you should sit down though. If you fall over, I’ll be carrying you all the way to the nurse’s whether you like it or not.” He smiled, trying to make light of the whole situation. She seemed proud of her position as Prefect, the last thing Grey wanted to do was ruin that pride by having to run her to the Hospital Wing, probably in front of the whole school. He stepped back against the wall next to the sink, and slid down to the floor, legs outstretched. Hopefully Cecelia would follow suite. “I know we don’t really know each other, but I’ve heard that things get easier if you talk about them.” Grey could definitely do with using that right now too, but he was intent on seeing what Cecelia would do. “If not, I’ll just wait here until you’re ready to turn me in. No use running at this point, and you’re definitely not up to chasing me down, nor am I up to running away.”MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
last online Mar 28, 2024 4:25:42 GMT -7
|
|
|
Jul 28, 2016 13:42:59 GMT -7
Post by Deleted on Jul 28, 2016 13:42:59 GMT -7
Cecelia was surprised when Grey actually admitted the name of his informant. She hadn’t been expecting that – stereotypical Gryffindor stubbornness, and their idea of what loyalty was, often made it difficult for them to admit such a thing. Still, she supposed it was better for both of them that way, because now she didn’t have to threaten him anymore about telling her who had given him the password. She hadn’t had much interaction with the Hufflepuff prefect, but this was certainly enough to put him in her bad books – the prefects had their own bathroom for a reason. They were doing a job, and a hard one at that, and the bathroom was one of the only rewards they got for that job. To give away the password so carelessly, and so purposelessly, showed that whoever he was, Kyle Williams didn’t have the strength of character that Cecelia deemed necessary to be a prefect. That was now two of the prefects that she had issues with – three, if you included Ondina Weasley, whose history with helping people was less than stellar. She was a known bully, so Cecelia wasn’t entirely sure what the Slytherin Head of House had been thinking when she appointed the girl a prefect. Then again, this was the same professor who appointed her own son a prefect, so Cecelia could safely say that the woman wasn’t exactly of sound judgment. Cecelia appreciated that Grey had told her the truth, but she didn’t know how to express that without sounding like she was reprimanding him for lying in the first place, so she just gave him a weak smile and a half nod to show that she had heart what he had said and understood it. She would be talking to Rose Weasley about this situation later.
At the boy’s suggestion to sit down, Cecelia only managed another tired nod. She levered herself up onto the sink, sitting on the marble lip of the counter. She was dangerously close to falling into the sink itself if she somehow lost her balance, but that was a chance Cecelia was willing to take – it was better than sitting on the edge of the tub and accidentally falling into that. The bathtub was surprisingly deep, and a head injury from falling into the back wall would be a lot worse than the slight shock she would get from falling into the basin of the sink. The amount of concern that Grey showed for her made Cecelia feel slightly guilty for snapping at him in the first place. Like he said, they didn’t even know each other, and here he was, offering to be the listening ear she so desperately needed for all of her problems. As much as her guilt told her that she should brush aside the request or insist that she was fine, Cecelia knew that if she didn’t tell someone something, she was going to explode. “Ranger and I were arguing about something that happened over the summer.” The Gryffindor girl looked up for a moment to make sure that the significance of it being Ranger wasn’t lost on him – Ranger was their male prefect and thus had as much power as Cecelia did when it came to disciplinary matters. She didn’t have any advantage over him whatsoever. In fact, she probably had a disadvantage, since people in their house actually seemed to like Ranger. Cecelia shook her head slightly to clear her thoughts, and then began speaking again. “He asked me how I felt after my sister died, and…and I hate that he thinks my dead twin sister is somehow a bargaining chip that he can use to make me agree with him. He doesn’t know the half of what happened that day, and he doesn’t know what happened after, either.” Cecelia let out a long sigh. “Pain isn’t a competition, but Ranger seems to see it like one, and that pisses me off. I don’t know what the hell happened to him, but whatever it was, it doesn’t compare to having one of your sisters murder the other one.” There. She said it. Maybe Grey knew already, but saying those words – admitting aloud that Desi had murdered Bay – felt like a weight being lifted off of her chest. “Apples and oranges.” She stated blandly. She was worried that if she talked anymore she would start crying again, or worse – mention the Vow. Considering she didn’t want to do either of those things, Cecelia just sat on the edge of the sink, swinging her legs and looking anywhere she could find that wasn’t Grey’s eyes.
grey xavier slater
|
|
|
|
|
grey xavier slater
HOGWARTS ALUM DAILY PROPHET QUIDDITCH REPORTER
688 posts
played by Colin
|
|
last online Mar 27, 2024 19:55:51 GMT -7
WIZARDING ADULT
|
|
|
Jul 28, 2016 14:39:01 GMT -7
Post by grey xavier slater on Jul 28, 2016 14:39:01 GMT -7
The Monsters walk among us She didn’t say anything about him giving up Kyle’s name. Did that mean they were off the hook? There was no way that was possible. Optimism was a great virtue, but Grey had broken a pretty major rule, and Kyle had given him the key to do it. Kyle would probably get reprimanded by the Hufflepuff Head of house, and Grey, well, hopefully just detention. He had been through all of it before; detention and the likes. He had caused quite a few issues in the past doing stupid things, so this wasn’t new at all. At least it was more innocent than what he had gotten into back in the day. He found it hard to imagine a professor being tough on him for the simple fact that he wanted to clean blood off of his legs. Still, the smile Cecelia gave him told Grey that it was all said and done. Whatever the outcome, he was positive it wouldn’t be too bad. Grey watched as Cecelia hopped up onto the edge of the sink. That was definitely one way to sit down. He wasn’t too sure if that was the best place to be if she could barely stand, but he’d let it go for now. She wasn’t unreasonable, that’s for sure, and obviously understood that his concern was real. A lot of students laughed at him when he did that, apparently it was strange to be worried about others. In that same vein, Grey was a walking contradiction. Avoiding his sisters like the plague because he didn’t want to deal with them was his vice. That had seemed to be fixed, at least with Addi, but now it was all a mess again. Somehow that made him feel even worse about trying to help a person he didn’t even know, since he couldn’t figure out his own issues. It was a really screwed up logic that seemed to make more sense the further he committed to it. Maybe he thought that listening to other people’s problems would help him out in the long run. He listened as Cecelia explained what had been going on with her. He didn’t know much about Ranger, despite the two of them living in the same dorm. Grey made spent the majority of his years hanging out with Finn and Rai, as well as being on his own. The bare minimum was all he had for information on the other seventh year Gryffindor boys. They just happened to all coexist in the same location sometimes. He hoped that would make it easier to understand everything that was going on. Not having emotional or personal connections with any parties involved had always gotten Grey through a lot. That was a problem at times with other people, but it had never clouded his judgement. Cecelia continued, Grey taking in all the information so that he could formulate some sort of decent response. It really sounded like Ranger was more of an ass than most people had made him out to be. Again, Grey didn’t know him, but if Cecelia was in this rough of shape because of what he had said, there was something wrong with him. If the two of them were trying to one-up each other on who had it worse, like Cecelia said, then it made sense. She was absolutely right about pain not being a competition. Anyone that thought it was needed to get hexed. Adding to it that apparently one of her sister’s killed another, and that was really messed up logic that Ranger was following. At the same time though, both Cecelia and Ranger were fundamentally wrong. She unknowingly said herself that his pain didn’t compare to hers. Wasn’t that the same thing as what Ranger had done to her? Made pain a competition? “I’m not saying what he did was right, and that what you’ve been through is any less awful, but everyone experiences pain differently right? At different levels, under different circumstances, and at different times. While Ranger might never understand how you feel, that doesn’t mean what he’s been through isn’t any less painful to him as your one sister killing the other.” Grey bit his lip, hoping that Cecelia would be able to process that. He understood that she could possibly snap at him, rightfully so. But at the same time, Grey knew he wasn’t wrong. Understanding another person’s pain was hard to do, because there was no way to compare it between two people. That’s what made everyone unique. “Still, he’s kind of an asshole isn’t he? You’d think he’d be a little smarter. I’ve lived with him for the past seven years and haven’t gotten past a few words here and there. You might be better off writing him out of your life if he thinks so little of you to say what he did.” Grey shrugged. There was no way Cecelia would be able to completely remove him, since they were both Prefects, but it wasn’t hard to ignore someone. Grey was an expert on that. MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
last online Mar 28, 2024 4:25:42 GMT -7
|
|
|
Jul 28, 2016 15:13:27 GMT -7
Post by Deleted on Jul 28, 2016 15:13:27 GMT -7
The strangest thing about this day turned out not to be that she had run into Ranger Lloyd or spent the subsequent six hours crying – the strangest thing about this day was that Cecelia actually felt like she was making a friend, and it had happened totally on accident. Well, she thought that she was making a friend. Maybe this was something that good people did all the time, and it didn’t necessarily bind them together as friends? She didn’t know for certain, but maybe, later, she could ask Grey if they could be friends. Even if she didn’t know much about him other than that he had broken into the prefect’s bathroom and sold out his friend, Cecelia also knew that he was kind, and kindness seemed to be in short supply these days. She could use a few people with compassion in her life, especially the people who gave that compassion out freely instead of just hoarding it for the people that they deemed worthy. Cecelia hated it when people acted differently to strangers than they did with their friends – she understood being a little more closed off, but she didn’t understand being a total asshole to the people that you didn’t already know. That seemed to be Ranger’s philosophy, and Cecelia was firmly against it. At least, Cecelia hoped that he was only an asshole to strangers – she didn’t understand how he could’ve become a prefect otherwise.
The Gryffindor girl listened patiently as Grey explained that maybe Ranger was experiencing pain just as keenly as she had. That wasn’t exactly the point she had been trying to make, but at least he was trying to help. “I was more upset that he was trying to use my sister’s death as a way to get me to agree with him, to be honest.” She said bluntly. “Braelynn and I didn’t always get along, and I’m not ashamed to admit that, but that doesn’t mean that she isn’t worthy of respect, and when Ranger just…used her like that, like a tool, it made me really angry. And also really sad. She deserves better than to be something that people hold over me or use to manipulate me to get what they want.” Ranger wasn’t the only one who was doing that – Desirae was also guilty of twisting Braelynn’s death into a reason why Cecelia should be obedient, or why she should be better at doing whatever it was that Desi wanted her to do. If it had only been Ranger, maybe Cecelia would have been able to deal with it, but her sister had died, and somehow that was now a guilt trip used to shackle Cecelia to whatever the hell it was that people wanted her to be doing. That changed from person to person and day to day, but Cecelia was certain that Bay wouldn’t have wanted that. She wouldn’t have wanted her memory to be tarnished by post mortem manipulation and suffering. The Gryffindor girl had to remind herself that what Braelynn wanted didn’t exactly matter anymore, since she was dead and unable to express her wishes. She hadn’t even had a will, since she had died so young. Desirae had done something with the body (Cece didn't know what), so Cecelia hadn’t even had the satisfaction of a burial or spreading ashes or…any kind of closure, really.
Cecelia surprised herself when Grey next spoke. She surprised herself because she laughed, actually laughed, when Grey made his comment about Ranger being an asshole. “Yeah, he kind of is.” Cecelia said, wiping a little at her cheeks to catch a few stray tears that had been squeezed out when she laughed. She was shocked to hear that, in seven years of living with Ranger, Grey had hardly had a conversation with him. True, Cecelia couldn’t say that she had shared a lot of conversations with the people who she shared a dorm with, but it was a little different. She had come into the picture halfway through her schooling, when lines had already been drawn in the sand and relationships were rather firmly set. The fact that she wasn’t really like other Gryffindors when it came to her ideals about blood purity hadn’t really helped. Her dorm mates were…an interesting bunch, to say the least, and it had been hard to get to know any of them. She had talked to Andromeda that day in the hospital wing, but Cecelia still didn’t know where they stood when it came to actually labelling the relationship. Acquaintances? Friends? “Well, we have to work together, so writing him out of my life completely won’t exactly work.” Cecelia replied. She hated to be ornery like that, but it was the truth. They still had to work together, despite their mutual unadulterated loathing. “And he’s also my dead sister’s boyfriend’s little brother, and I actually kind of like his brother, so…” She trailed off. Zander was a good person, so she couldn’t figure out what had gone wrong with Ranger. Maybe it was because he was the baby of the family or something – she had read somewhere that the baby was always spoiled rotten. “I don’t know, Grey. I can’t keep living like this.” She gestured to herself vaguely. “I mean, I love being a prefect, but maybe it would be better if I just stepped down or something.” It was an idea that hurt Cecelia, but if it was between that and having breakdowns every day because of things he said to her, the choice was easy.
grey xavier slater
|
|
|
|
|
grey xavier slater
HOGWARTS ALUM DAILY PROPHET QUIDDITCH REPORTER
688 posts
played by Colin
|
|
last online Mar 27, 2024 19:55:51 GMT -7
WIZARDING ADULT
|
|
|
Jul 29, 2016 15:04:42 GMT -7
Post by grey xavier slater on Jul 29, 2016 15:04:42 GMT -7
The Monsters walk among us From what Grey could tell, he had misunderstood what Cecelia was trying to tell him about Ranger. He didn’t want to completely toss aside the fact that maybe Ranger was in just as much pain as this girl, because that was pretty apparent, Grey didn’t even have to be there to figure it out. The part he didn’t understand though was that Ranger was using Cecelia’s pain as a way to get to her, to get under her skin. That was really sick. Sure, Grey didn’t know Ranger at all so he couldn’t speak from experience, but that was extremely wrong on so many different levels. Maybe it was a good thing that he was so distant from the other Gryffindor. All Grey needed right now was to be thrown into the middle of another inner-house war centered on bullying, excessive force, and misunderstandings. In a way, he was thankful that he had somehow avoided a lot of issues and drama until now. It allowed him to enter in with a clear mind and figure out problems easily, as an outside prospective. He could sympathize with Cecelia on the fact that he didn’t get along with his sisters that well either. Obviously her case was more extreme, one killing the other, and Grey hoped his family would never stoop to that level. That was a serious instance of bad blood between family, and he knew that his siblings were more confused about how to interact with him. Huge difference in the two. Broken bonds would surely happen, Grey was already the forerunner on that front, effectively stopping any communications with Addi per the rules he had agreed to. While he couldn’t speak to how Cecelia really felt about her sisters, he had an idea. He could tell there was no love lost with the murdering one, but the other, the one Ranger had used, seemed to be a different story. That was more on Grey’s comprehension level. It sounded like what he had with Claire. Mutual respect for the other, and they cared for each other, but there was something missing between the two of them that might never be fixed. In Cecelia’s case, it could never be repaired. That made Grey feel guilty. Here he was always whining about how his older sister acted, refusing to fix the problems between them. If he waited any longer, he could be in the same situation as Cecelia. “What an insensitive prick…” Grey muttered out loud as Cecelia finished explaining what Ranger had done to try and manipulate her. “I probably would have punched him if he was saying things about my sisters.” Grey had definitely wanted to do that to Theodosia after she basically forced him into agreeing with her deal to not talk to Addi. Grey didn’t like resorting to violence, but assuming Ranger had used this tactic on Cecelia before, repeated psychological abuse like that would have made even Grey snap eventually, and swing at the kid. “The only thing I can say about that is you probably knew her better than anyone else, even if you weren’t close. Don’t let other people tell you otherwise.” That was some sound advice. Where was Grey coming up with this stuff? The majority of it could be applied to his own life, and here he was, spouting it out like he was a wizened sage of knowledge. To say Grey was shocked when Cecelia started laughing about his Ranger comment was an understatement. He couldn’t help but smile from it. She had gone from morose, to enforcing, to this. Strange how someone could change emotions that fast. Maybe this was how she always was, the pressure of being a Prefect making her become what he had encountered at the start of all of this. He had heard stories about her when she first came to Hogwarts, but that also seemed like a completely different person compared to the one sitting on the sink laughing. No matter, Grey couldn’t judge people on what others said, he had to find out for himself and make his own calls. So far, it seemed like everyone else was wrong about Cecelia. She was a strict Prefect, but who wouldn’t be if some random student broke into the Prefect’s bathroom. He still hoped that she’d be lenient on him at the end of all this. Good advice had to be worth something right? He knew addressing the working relationship between Ranger and Cecelia would elicit a conversation point. Grey had no problem cutting people out of his life. That was scary to acknowledge, but he had done it with his own family, so a random person wouldn’t be a problem. He sometimes forgot that not everyone was the same as him. While he was correct in saying that Cecelia could just avoid Ranger, that wasn’t as easy as it sounded. They were still in the same house, as well as working together. That didn’t mean she couldn’t completely ignore him the rest of the time though. “If you ignore him enough, he’ll probably figure it out. Especially after what happened. And as for his brother, well, I don’t talk to one of my sisters a lot, but I do with the other, so that’s not exactly impossible.” Correction: he did talk to Addi. He can’t anymore. He needed to get that nailed down in his head so he didn’t slip up and try talking to her. “Wouldn’t stepping down mean letting Ranger win?” Grey still didn’t know what the other boy had been trying to get Cecelia to agree with him on, but using her dead sister as a bargaining chip meant that it had to be something serious. “Say you do quit being a Prefect, who’s to say he’ll stop? At least where you’re at now, you have a position of power on par with him. Guys with egos hate that. Ultimately it’s up to you though.” It wasn’t his decision to make for her. Grey would keep going no matter what, because at the end of the day the person doing it to him didn’t matter. He just had to make Cecelia realize that. MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
last online Mar 28, 2024 4:25:42 GMT -7
|
|
|
Jul 29, 2016 17:02:56 GMT -7
Post by Deleted on Jul 29, 2016 17:02:56 GMT -7
The longer she talked to Grey, the more Cecelia regretted the fact that they had never really spoken before. He seemed like a decent person, which was more than she could say of a lot of the people that she had spent the past three years hanging around with. Of course, it helped that he shared all of her views when it came to Ranger – if he had kept trying to talk her into being empathetic, then Cecelia probably wouldn’t have been warming up to him that quickly. Having an ally in a quarrel that she thought she was going to have to fight alone was comforting, especially when her enemy was someone with considerable power, and, Cecelia assumed, influence. She let out another chuckle when Grey called Ranger an insensitive prick; it seemed like the insults tapped into a part of her that still managed to find humor in everything. She had thought that had disappeared when Bay died, mostly because she hadn’t been able to find anything about that. There was just bitter irony in the fact that everything that Cecelia had held dear had been shattered with the death of one person. She tried not to think about that, though. The more she thought about Braelynn the angrier Cecelia got about what Ranger had said, and now, after she was finally calming down, she didn’t need anything to be reignited. Angry meant sad meant more tears, and Cecelia was all cried out.
Her headache was seriously beginning to hurt her now, and Cecelia hopped off the sink, turning on the cold tap again and scooping a few mouthfuls of water into her mouth. Some of it got on her face again, but it didn’t feel as bad as it had the first time. Cece hadn’t realized how parched she was until she started drinking. She couldn’t stop until she felt like she was near bursting with water, but it didn’t matter – the water had definitely helped her headache, and when she next felt, her tongue didn’t feel as clumsy or as sticky. “You have sisters?” She asked Grey curiously. Thus far the conversation had mostly revolved around Cecelia and her unfortunate situation, except for the part where she had been reprimanding Grey for using the Prefect’s bathroom when he had no right to. It felt good to stop talking about herself, even if it was just for a moment to ask an innocent question about Grey’s family. She hoped his wasn’t as dysfunctional as hers was, because that would just be awkward. Then again, she couldn’t see how anyone’s family could be more dysfunctional than hers and still result in a well-adjusted human being like the one Cecelia assumed Grey was.
Cecelia wondered if her housemate was right when he said that she knew Braelynn better than anyone else. It didn’t seem like the truth. Cecelia hadn’t known that there was anything (or anyone) that Braelynn had felt strongly enough about that she would be willing to die for it, but just that had happened. All she knew about her sister seemed to be obsolete in light of her sister’s death. Cecelia wasn’t sure if she had ever known the real Bay at all, or if she had just been acquainted with the version of her twin that she chose to show to their family and not the rest of the world. Cecelia had a sudden, terrifying thought. She had known that Braelynn had loved her, but in light of the fact that she had hardly known anything about Bay…Was that even true? Had her sister really loved her? The Gryffindor had to believe that Braelynn had, indeed, loved her. She couldn’t believe that Bay could fake the way that she had looked at Cecelia. She couldn’t believe that when Bay had smiled at her, it had all been a lie. Cecelia couldn’t believe that, because then that would mean that neither of her sisters had loved her, and that was just too painful. She had enough pain in her life already without adding on more with hypotheticals. It was a dangerous path to go down, especially since Bay would never be able to answer any of the crazy questions that Cecelia had concocted. Death was oddly final like that.
Ignoring Ranger actually sounded like an appealing option, especially with the way that Grey framed it. Except for the fact that it wasn’t appealing. Cecelia couldn’t explain it, but she felt like she had an obligation, not only to herself, but to everyone else who would eventually encounter Ranger Lloyd, to teach him that there was way more to grieving than he seemed to think. She and Grey had already discussed one of the things that she wanted to tell Ranger face-to-face – that pain wasn’t a competition. But it was more than that. Braelynn’s death had stopped Cecelia’s world from turning, and maybe something similar had happened to Ranger. But it wasn’t enough to just complain that the world wasn’t turning anymore. You had to actually go out and do something about it. Grief was silly and irrational, but one thing was always the same: you had to reach acceptance, or grief was going to control the rest of your life. You had to accept that something seriously shitty had happened to you, and that it had changed your life and would continue to change your life forever. And using what had happened to you to make other people feel sorry for you, or to excuse your actions, wasn’t reaching acceptance. It was letting grief control you. You could never accept what had happened if it was the source of all of your excuses. Cecelia tried to explain that concept to Grey, though the words were a lot less eloquent coming out of her mouth than they were in her head.
“You’re right. I can’t step down. Not only because it would be letting him win, but because I feel like someone needs to teach him a lesson.” She sighed, and then levered herself back onto the sink. “If he thinks that being a jerk is a good way to honor whoever died, then he’s seriously delusional.” She doubted that anyone would want to be the excuse for someone else being a jerk. “I mean…I’m trying to use Braelynn’s death as a way to make myself a better person. To find out how to get to where I want to be from where I am. And honestly, it sucks a lot. Everything that I know changed overnight, and that’s never easy, especially since death was involved, but if I didn’t find some lesson to take out of this, some good to dig out from beneath all the bad, then I feel like Bay’s death was pointless.” Cecelia didn’t think she’d ever spoken this candidly about her sister’s death with anyone, not even Susan, who had actually known Cecelia’s twin. “And I guess…I kind of want Ranger to be forced to see that. That there’s something good. Sometimes you have to squint, and sometimes it makes moving on harder, but you can always find something good.” Cecelia sighed. “I’m obviously not the person that needs to tell him that, because he probably thinks that I’d lie to him just to spite him, but…” She trailed off. “I don’t know. He needs to stop using grief as an excuse for being an asshole if he ever wants to move on. It's okay to be in pain and it's okay to be angry sometimes, but as someone who was really angry for a really long time, you have to move on before it kills you.” She wasn’t a mental health professional, but Cecelia thought that was a pretty solid evaluation of her situation, and of Ranger’s. Besides, it made her feel better. Lighter, actually. Like she had actually said something worthwhile instead of just spitting out another tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. Maybe Grey would agree with her, and maybe he wouldn’t, but Cece felt better nonetheless.
grey xavier slater
|
|
|
|
|
grey xavier slater
HOGWARTS ALUM DAILY PROPHET QUIDDITCH REPORTER
688 posts
played by Colin
|
|
last online Mar 27, 2024 19:55:51 GMT -7
WIZARDING ADULT
|
|
|
Jul 29, 2016 21:08:44 GMT -7
Post by grey xavier slater on Jul 29, 2016 21:08:44 GMT -7
The Monsters walk among us Even though Grey only knew Cecelia from this brief encounter, disregarding the rumors he had heard, it was strange how easily it was to talk to her. Maybe it was because he had completely expected to be dragged out of the bathroom by his collar and thrown at a professor’s feet for breaking a rule, or that Cecelia had come at him as extremely strict, even for her own housemates. The other factor was (given her strong personality at the beginning of their encounter), that she seemed to be the type to hate loud and obnoxious people, something that Grey had been when Finn and Rai were around. There were plenty of times where Grey switched from his typical bored, low-energy outlook on everything, to being the instigator of trouble with his friends. That’s just how he was. But even from the start of this whole situation it didn’t seem like Cecelia had that idea about him. There was a good chance that he was just obscure enough among the other Gryffindors that he passed under the radar. He was sure the Hogwarts staff and Prefects were more worried about Potter the past few years to even see what the rest of the Gryffindors were doing. As Cecelia hopped off the sink and turned to it, Grey couldn’t help but think that her as a Prefect was completely different than she was as a person. Of course he had only encountered her in a situation so far removed from everyday life that it was bound to elicit varying results. Hell, Grey was giving out advice that he didn’t even know he had in him. A lot of advice that he probably subconsciously learned and never applied to his life because it didn’t matter. Just listening to himself spout all of it out was enough to make him second guess the deal he had made with Theodosia about not talking to his sister. His own values and ideas had crumpled up right in front of him because of how unprepared he had been. Surely giving advice to someone that needed it wasn’t entirely right of him. Still, it seemed to be helping Cecelia, and it wasn’t supposed to be about him. Grey was just trying to be nice to a fellow Gryffindor, especially after breaking rules and encountering her in such an awful state. Somehow it seemed to be working so far, and the two of them had gotten off on the right foot after the initial encounter. Grey couldn’t help but laugh when Cecelia asked him if he had sisters. Oh did he have sisters. How vastly different the two of them were, yet at the same time all three siblings exhibited a common trait: they couldn’t figure out the other two. Grey had noticed this when talking to Addi, and it seemed like he wasn’t the only one that didn’t understand Claire, and vice-versa with her understanding him. It was all a huge mess. “I do…how do I explain them?” He had to think for a few more seconds to gather his thoughts. He wasn’t one to change the subject to his life so suddenly, but it seemed like Cecelia was interested enough in it. “So there’s Addilyn, she’s a sixth year in Slytherin. Really bubbly, happy-go-lucky type. I’m still not sure why she was placed in Slytherin. We’ve been on pretty good terms lately, but that just changed, so who knows when I’ll be talking to her again.” The end of his sentence was audibly quiet. Had it really affected him that much? Grey had told himself that it wasn’t going to be permanent, no matter what happened, but the longer it went on the more it felt like it was going to stay that way. “And then there’s big sister Claire. She’s an Auror and the smart one of the family,” he said, trying to hide the bitterness in his voice. “Claire and I don’t really see eye to eye that much. She likes everything perfect and up to par for her standards. Somewhere along the line, I dropped really low on the scale and that was it. Doesn’t help that our parents encouraged that behavior, always pushing Addi and I to be like Claire. No wonder she acts like she’s royalty…” It had been a long time since Grey had been that spiteful about his sister. He had tried to hold it in when he was around Addi, knowing that she got along quite well with Claire, probably because Grey had ignored both of them. Grey took a deep breath and let it back out. “I’m at fault for a lot of our problems though too, so I shouldn’t blame either of them for my issues.” And he had only made everything even worse recently. How stupid of him. “But family is family. There’s not a lot I can do to change who they are without changing myself first, and I want that, but I seemed to have made it a lot worse recently.” He laughed, trailing off near the end of it before looking down at the floor. “Let’s just say that I deserve whatever is coming to me. Not much more to it than that,” Grey said smiling as he recalled the events of the past few weeks. If Addi killed him, he’d be content with that. It was nice that someone actually agreed with him on something, because as of late it seemed like he had only caused problems. If anyone had asked the Grey from a few minutes ago, when Cecelia caught him in the bathroom, if he thought talking to her would turn out like this, he would have laughed in their face and told them they were an idiot. He was genuinely happy that it hadn’t turned into a fight, and more surprising that all he had to do was throw Kyle’s name out to get himself in less trouble. Selling his friend out was stupid and he knew that, but it had made things a lot easier and Kyle would understand that. There was no way that he hadn’t expected Grey to get caught if he gave him the password either, there was actually a high possibility that it could happen, depending on when Grey decided to sneak in there. He listened closely as Cecelia talked out her thoughts. There was no reason to interject at all, because well, she had a great point. Change was good, as long as it was the kind that turned a person better than they were before. Grey definitely needed to do that. “I wonder if he’s jealous of you trying to move on and become a better person. He seems really bitter, especially how he keeps going after you the way you’ve said.” It was an idea at least. Grey didn’t know enough about any of it to say for sure, but if Ranger wanted to make it such a battle for pain and pity, then it made so much more sense. “Or he’s just an asshole like we’ve been saying. Honestly, you kind of have to be one to even think that making light of a person’s death like the way he did was right.” Grey could tell that Cecelia talking about all of her issues with Ranger was helping. He reverted back to his earlier thought about her change in demeanor, this was yet another shift. It was apparent that this whole problem was weighing down on her, both by talking to her and just by looking at her. He wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest if it had been going on for quite a long time either. Grey smiled at Cecelia. “You know, I think you’ve probably helped me more with what I’ve been going through than you realize. A lot of what you just said can kind of be applied to my problems, sans anyone, you know, dying. It’s not worth it to be angry all the time at other people or at myself.” That’s right…that was how Grey had always gotten about when he wasn’t talking to his sisters. Now he could just take that train of thought and turn it around to dealing with the Theodosia problem, hopefully not causing Addi any more problems. It wouldn’t be easy, but no one ever said it would be. MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
last online Mar 28, 2024 4:25:42 GMT -7
|
|
|
Jul 30, 2016 10:25:28 GMT -7
Post by Deleted on Jul 30, 2016 10:25:28 GMT -7
The innocent question that Cecelia had asked, a seemingly throwaway question about Grey’s sisters, turned out to have quite the long explanation. There were eerie parallels to be drawn between the Slater family and the Rousseau family, if Cecelia was honest. The younger sister (yes, Braelynn had been younger, even if it was only by a few minutes) was the happiest of the bunch. She and Cecelia had been on good terms until Cecelia had been indoctrinated into Desirae’s particular brand of crazy, and the Gryffindor girl had no one but herself to blame for that. And when it came to the older sister…Well, to say that Cecelia and Desirae no longer saw eye-to-eye was an understatement. It was impossible, really, for them to see things in the same way, because that would imply that they were equals in any way. If the Unbreakable Vow hadn’t made that clear enough, the fact that Cecelia was here, talking to a half-blood, was. She hated to admit that she knew Grey’s blood purity off the top of her head, but Desirae had drilled it into her. Find the Muggleborns, and memorize their faces. Find the purebloods, and memorize their faces. Everyone else was a half-blood, and they could be consorted with occasionally, but certainly not befriended. If Desirae knew she was here, having a conversation with a half-blood that went far beyond just small talk, she would be furious. It was funny how easily Cecelia’s mind slipped back to Desirae, no matter how many times she shoved the thought away. Maybe it was a side effect of the terms of the Vow – more specifically, the one that she had to protect Desirae at all costs – but more likely, it was just Cecelia’s own mind. She was a moth, and Desirae had always been the brightest flame. Until now. Maybe Braelynn could be her new flame. It didn’t sound healthy, to have her life revolved around a dead person, but it was a lot healthier than having her life revolving around a living psychopath. Or sociopath – Cecelia still couldn’t decide which one Desi was.
The real kicker came when Grey said that he was at fault for a lot of the problems he had with his family. Cece definitely agreed with that, though it was a lot more convoluted than her being the direct source of discourse. Desirae had been the one to kill Braelynn, but Cecelia had let her. Cecelia had supported her and her discriminatory ways until something tragic had woken her up out of her haze of wanting to please. The only point that Cecelia disagreed with out of Grey’s entire diatribe was that family was family. She couldn’t accept that anymore, not when her family had done such horrible things to each other. Family didn’t rip family apart just because they disagreed. Family didn’t kill family. Still, Cecelia nodded. “That sounds…complicated.” She commented. “All I can say is that you have to be careful of Slytherins. Even the good ones can be a little…I don’t even know the word. They can be scary, I guess, when scorned.” Considering Grey was at odds with his Slytherin sister, Cecelia felt like she was obligated to tell him that there were possible negative ramifications beyond what Gryffindors would be expected to do. At least his sister sounded like one of the good ones. If she was one of the bad ones…Well, Grey would definitely have to be worried for his safety. Snakes were worse when they had venom in their fangs.
Ranger, jealous of her? Cecelia wasn’t sure he could stop looking down his nose long enough to realize that she was better off than he was, and whether his fat head had enough room for a brain capable of jealousy. If both those things were possible, then Cecelia could accept that maybe, just maybe, Ranger was jealous of her. The changes that she had made to her life probably weren’t that big of a deal to other people, but they felt huge to Cecelia. Of course, if people would stop worrying about how little she was eating and how skeletal she looked, they probably would notice the smaller changes more. They were hard to bear in mind when there was a large, significant change to focus on instead. Cecelia doubted that Ranger even noticed that she was putting an effort into being nicer to people. If he had met the old Cecelia Rousseau in the alley over the summer, there was a high likelihood that he would have been in St. Mungo’s, or possibly even a graveyard. She might not have been a snake, but Cecelia had lived her whole life with one, so she had developed some of the same tricks. There were times she had wished to be put in Slytherin, even, though Cece couldn’t remember why she had ever wished such a thing. Gryffindors were much easier to deal with, because they always told it as it was – there was no subtext to what a Gryffindor said, most of the time. “If he’s jealous of me, then he’s even stupider than I thought.” Cecelia finally decided. “He has at least one person who cares about him.” She couldn’t see how Zander couldn’t care about Ranger – they were brothers. Zander had cared about her – or at least pretended to – and all she was to him was his dead girlfriend’s sister. “I have one person, too, but she…doesn’t really know about the old Cecelia.” Chantal knew about the old old Cecelia, but not the one between that and the person she was now. Chantal didn’t realize that Cecelia had been a genuinely bad person. And while the Gryffindor appreciated her friend’s support, it didn’t feel real until Chantal knew that there had been badness in Cecelia. There still was badness somewhere, obviously, or the devil wouldn’t have appeared on her shoulder. It would have just been the angel.
“I like to believe he’s just an asshole.” Cecelia finally decided. “I mean, with as many people as there are in Gryffindor, there’s bound to be at least one asshole, and Ranger’s certainly proven himself to have the necessary qualities, so.” She shrugged. The declaration, once again, made her feel lighter. The more she talked the more weight seemed to fall off her shoulders. “I think that times of trial just exaggerate qualities that we already possess, so it makes sense.” That meant that somewhere, Cecelia had always been good, and Braelynn’s death had just magnified that particular side of her. It was a stunning revelation, if it was even the truth. She, Cecelia Rousseau, had always been capable of good. She had just always chosen the bad. Well, that kind of sucked.
When Grey spoke again, Cecelia offered him a smile. It helped her to talk, but it made her feel even better to know that she had also helped someone else work through their problems. Sometimes it was easy to see the possible outcomes of a situation when everything was exaggerated by things like death and betrayal and other not-nice words. “I hope that you don’t have to deal with anyone you love dying for a long time.” Cecelia told Grey when he was done speaking. “It’s one of those things that you think you know how to handle, in case of an accident or something, but then when you actually get down to it…There is no way to handle it.” You just had to keep pushing. Keep on keeping on was one way she’d heard it said, and Cecelia liked that image. It wasn’t about the big breakthroughs when you were trying to move on from a loved one’s death – it was about the conversations you had with a stranger while sitting on a sink in a school bathroom. “I’m glad that I’m not the only one who benefited from this, though. Then I’d feel kind of bad for wasting all your time.” She smiled again. “I think we should probably get back to the common room before people start getting ideas, hmm?” Gryffindors certainly did have overactive imaginations when it came to sexual escapades. Cecelia turned to look at herself in the mirror again. The swelling in her face had gone down markedly. She was starting to look like Braelynn again, which meant that mirror time was over. She abandoned her position on the sink and found that when she walked to the door, she actually wasn’t wobbling too badly. There was still some shakiness, but it was small enough that she could contribute it to tiredness or being distracted by the portraits or something. “As for your punishment…” Cecelia added, becoming businesslike again for a moment. “I’ll let you off with a warning if you tell Kyle not to tell you the password again.” She considered it proper thanks for his conversation with her, and it also eliminated a lot of paperwork and headaches. It was a win-win, and Cecelia needed more of those in her life. She had gotten too used to lose-lose.
grey xavier slater
|
|
|
|
|
grey xavier slater
HOGWARTS ALUM DAILY PROPHET QUIDDITCH REPORTER
688 posts
played by Colin
|
|
last online Mar 27, 2024 19:55:51 GMT -7
WIZARDING ADULT
|
|
|
Jul 31, 2016 19:00:50 GMT -7
Post by grey xavier slater on Jul 31, 2016 19:00:50 GMT -7
The Monsters walk among us He had definitely said too much to Cecelia about his family life. This wasn’t the time or place for it. With everything that had been happening recently though, it was hard for Grey to hold back. She was the impartial judge that he had been looking for; a person that had no connections to him or his sisters, or anyone involved for that matter. There was no way he hadn’t overwhelmed her with the amount of information he had just spouted out. Grey let out a big sigh. That was really all he could do now, because it was going to be awhile before things were fixed between him and Claire, and then he also needed a plan to let Addi know what had happened. Right now though, he didn’t want to deal with either of those. Being swallowed whole by his thoughts and the problems he had caused was his punishment for everything that had happened. Grey needed it to ingrain itself in him before getting motivated to fix all of it. There was nothing more frustrating than making a promise to someone and then going in the complete opposite direction. It was the ultimate way to wound him, showing just how vulnerable and weak he really was. At the same time, he felt that maybe everything he had just said was insensitive to Cecelia. Here she was, telling him about how one of her sisters had killed another, and he was sitting there whining about his personal problems. Compared to her, he was lucky. Both Claire and Addi were alive still, and probably better than ever, especially with Grey removing himself from their lives even more than he had previously. There would be initial heartbreak on Addi’s end of course, she had vied so hard to get him to be the brother she wanted, and for a while it looked like that. Even though this was temporary just to save her from Theodosia’s wrath, he could already tell that there was going to be permanent damage dealt to his and Addi’s relationship. “Complicated is one way to put it. There’s a lot more to it…more factors that were beyond any reasonable person’s control.” That was all there was to it. Theodosia had outsmarted him. She was a spider, and he was less than a fly to her, trapped in her web and let go because he wasn’t even worth killing. Grey had created his own destruction just by attempting to make a simple deal that was far from simple, or even a fair deal. Cecelia then followed up with giving him a warning about Slytherins. Oh did he know about Slytherins. She wasn’t wrong of course, there were plenty of decent ones, like Addilyn and Edmund, but they were easily outnumbered by the nastier ones. In that sense, he agreed with Kyle. But there was also something wrong with disliking someone simply because they were associated with a different house. He liked how Cecelia had put it though. Grey could see his sister being upset at him and do something drastic because of it, maybe even trying to hurt him. Not that he didn’t deserve it though. Grey wasn’t going to run away from that. “Like I said, I don’t think my sister belongs there. She’s too nice…too innocent compared to the rest of the house. The Sorting Hat threw her head first into a pit of vipers, that’s what it did.” Was it wrong to show concern still? Grey didn’t think so. After all, he was doing all of this for Addi, whether she understood it or not. The real question was whether or not any of this would have happened if Addi was a Gryffindor. Probably not. She might have met Edmund eventually, but the issues with Theodosia never would have occurred. The safety of the Gryffindor common room would have been enough to solve all of their problems. “But you’re not wrong. Slytherins are a different breed from us. And I’ll never understand why that is.” There wasn’t much to understand though, Gryffindors and Slytherins were made to be enemies from day one. They were so similar, so close to being the same people, yet simple choices they had made ended up being what made the sorting process place them in two separate houses. It was scary to think that he would have fit perfectly in Slytherin the way he was now. Grey was glad that they were off of him and his problems now. Everything was still so recent, that even talking about the little details was like throwing salt in his wounds. In a way it was good for him to do that to himself, to show what an awful person he was to his sister. Grey listened as Cecelia puzzled over whether or not Ranger was jealous, or if he actually was just an idiot like the two of them had already concluded. He didn’t know much about the other Prefect, but he was definitely going to watch the other boy closely now. There was something not right with Ranger, and Grey wanted to figure it out, mostly because it was affecting other people. That wasn’t how Gryffindors acted, especially the ones that were at the top ranks. If times of trial were suspect to causing people to exaggerate their qualities, like Cecelia had stated herself, then that meant Grey was probably more terrible than he knew. It seemed like having to deal with issues with his family always had him crawling back into his shell where he could hide and avoid them. That didn’t settle right with him. Even though he hadn’t had time to really process what all of that meant, the early result was that he was a coward that only knew how to run away. But maybe, just maybe, thinking about it more would be enough to help him figure everything out. There’s was just so much of it that it would take a while to sift through it all. “Maybe you should talk to her. You never know, she might be able to help.” Grey wasn’t sure what the situation was between Cecelia and this other girl, but it sounded like she was an old friend. Sometimes those were the people that helped the most, kind of like how just talking to Cecelia was enough for Grey, in a little way of course. The one thing that concerned Grey about what she had said though was that this friend didn’t know the “old Cecelia”. Did that mean the rumors he had heard were true, or at least some vague rendition? He didn’t want to press the matter any further though, because his experience with her was rather pleasant, despite the circumstances. He nodded in agreeance with the Prefect as she talked about people dying, wishing that he didn’t have to experience it soon. The scary thing was, he hoped the same thing. The threat he had made towards Theodosia was still standing. He wouldn’t hesitate to hurt her in a heartbeat if she touched Addi, and he knew she would do the same thing to him if he confronted her. The possibility of that occurring in the near future was always there, sometimes at the forefront, other times hiding behind the rest of his thoughts. Cecelia’s advice though…he’d take that to heart. She had suffered an enormous loss, and Grey had no way of knowing what that was like. Their generation was built off the end of one that had almost been destroyed. The last thing any of their parents wanted was more death in their families, something they should have already escaped. It wasn’t looking like that was going to hold true anymore though, from the previous year’s murders and the escalation of crime around their world. “It wasn’t a waste of time.” Grey said looking up at Cecelia. “I learned some interesting things about the asshole that sleeps in the same room with me, so that’s good to know.” He couldn’t help holding back a laugh. Grey needed that, especially after all of the depressing thoughts he had in him. “Oh I’m sure someone has already noticed,” he said jokingly. “For once I could be a part of the rumor, instead of spreading them with the newspaper…” Grey exclaimed as he jumped to his feet. It would definitely be funny to look back on, assuming it happened. He wasn’t exactly opposed to it either. Checking to make sure he had cleaned all the blood off of his legs from the accident earlier in the night, Grey was relieved to see everything looking like it had never happened. He hated going to the hospital wing for minor injuries he could fix himself. That’s why he had spent those long sleepless nights studying up on healing spells. They had already proven themselves extremely useful this year alone. That and the nurse was bound to think he was an idiot if he kept showing up with weird injuries, he had been there just the other day after punching the wall while leaving the dungeons. The nurse’s next course of action would be to lock Grey in the mental ward at St. Mungo’s. That was the last place he wanted to be, though it was starting to look rather inviting the more problems he encountered. Seeing that everything was all good, Grey headed for the door right as Cecelia reminded him of his punishment. He could feel his heart sink, knowing that there was no way he was getting out of this one easily, even after their little heart to heart. The look of surprise when she let him off on a warning was definitely indicative of what he had been worried about the entire time. Just a warning? That wasn’t bad at all. Especially after admitting he had been given the password, throwing Kyle under the bus for it, and then lying about the whole ordeal. Still shocked that he was let off that easily, Grey stood still staring at Cecelia. “Thanks…really, I appreciate it. Don’t worry, you won’t be catching me wandering the halls at night or breaking into here again.” Grey grinned. He could take a short break from his midnight escapades, especially now that there was a small target painted on his back. There was no way Cecelia would buy his cheesy grin, but he was off the hook for now. He just needed to make sure she wasn’t around if he decided to sneak out. Unless she wanted to join him of course, that was always an option. Grey was known to find some interesting things to do when roaming the halls alone. “See you back in the common room then.” Grey waved as he left the Prefect’s bathroom. That was definitely a…unique experience. Cecelia had given him a lot to think about. His head was all jumbled up now. There were a million different routes Grey could take to deal with his problems. First was getting a message to Addi about how his conversation with Theodosia went. If that meant talking to Claire, well, then he would talk to Claire. After that, he needed to start researching what made Theodosia tick, so he could get her back in some underhanded way that wouldn’t make him a suspect. On top of all of that, the tournament selection was drawing ever so close, and he hoped all of these other problems were resolved before the chance of being pulled out of the goblet could be a reality. That was the last thing the Gryffindor needed. For now though, he had to head back to the Gryffindor common room to get his work done. That had been pushed off way longer than he wanted it to, and even though dealing with his personal problems was more important right now, getting the work due the next day was also key in his future. But before he turned in any of his work or dealt with his personal issues, Grey’s first course of action for tomorrow was to go up to Kyle during breakfast and ask for the new Prefect’s Bathroom password. MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
last online Mar 28, 2024 4:25:42 GMT -7
|
|
|
Aug 4, 2016 17:44:48 GMT -7
Post by Deleted on Aug 4, 2016 17:44:48 GMT -7
Cecelia could understand complicated. She could understand uncontrollable factors, too. Even when there were factors she thought she could control, they often ended up slipping out of her hands. That was human nature – everyone added their own level of complexity, and everyone wanted to be in control of their own lives. They didn’t appreciate being treated like pawns, unless they were as stupid and brainwashed as Cecelia had been, once upon a time. Even then, Cecelia had escaped the conditioning, and there were certainly others who were battling against the fates that they had been assigned since birth. She would have been worried if Grey had said that he had everything under control, because that would mean that he was unbelievably cocky or unbelievably manipulative, and Cecelia didn’t need more of either of those things in her life. She had just escaped both of them, in one form or other, and a return to being downtrodden and moved around like nothing more than a piece in an overly complicated game was not on her list of wishes for this year. Hell, she’d be happy if she could escape one or the other; she could deal with being a puppet if the puppet master was not so assured of their own success, and she could deal with a cocky person if they weren’t trying to push her around as a means to their own end. The more she thought about it, the surer Cecelia was that she had accidentally stumbled across humanity’s two biggest vices.
She was distracted, though, by Grey’s continued discussion about his sister’s position in Slytherin. He seemed to be horribly naïve, believing that Slytherin was split into good people and bad people. It was a shame, but most of Slytherin house were students whose destinies were already determined by their parents. Slytherin was full of betrothals and blood ties and other horrible things. Even most of the students were bullies, quite a few of them were the victims, too, and Grey acting like his sister was the only one who wasn’t a snake wasn’t helping anything. Of course, Gryffindor arrogance probably kept him from seeing that, but Cecelia had borne the brunt of too many pro-Slytherin lectures by her sister’s tongue to know anything less about Slytherin house than the Slytherins themselves. Of course, Desi hadn’t painted nearly as sympathetic a picture, but Cecelia had read between the lines. It wasn’t just coincidence that most of Slytherin house was descended from former Death Eaters; children of Slytherins who weren’t put in their parent’s house often weren’t treated well by anyone. They were ridiculed by their parents for not being Slytherin enough, and by their peers in whichever house had chosen them for being too Slytherin. Cecelia had been the victim of more than one mean-spirited practical joke because of her connection to Slytherin, even if she wasn’t one herself.
The Gryffindor disagreed with Grey when he said that Slytherins were a different breed from Gryffindors. That made it seem like they were totally different people, but the reality was that Gryffindors were cut from the same cloth as Slytherins – it was the minutiae in what they did with their strengths and talents that differentiated the two. Cecelia had almost been a Slytherin, but apparently she was braver than she thought, because here she was, a Gryffindor. She supposed that her plan to eventually stand up to Desirae definitely was a brave one, though Cecelia was going to have to be rather Slytherin for a while in hiding her intentions from her sister, especially since Desi could theoretically command her to tell her older sister whatever she wanted to know, including her plans for a coup of sorts. Cecelia would think about that later, though, when she was in a physical and mental state where cutting off her ties to Desirae wouldn’t kill her. Right now, as much as she hated to admit it, Desirae was the only thing that was keeping Cecelia sane. It was fear of her older sister that was driving her to do something more than curl up in a ball on her bed, and as much as it stunk that that was her only motivation, it was certainly a good motivation. Death was something she wanted to avoid, obviously. As for why Gryffindors were different from their Slytherin counterparts, that was simple: they chose to be. It wasn’t difficult to understand, really, but Cecelia didn’t want to make Grey feel like a fool by saying something that rudimentary.
As for talking to Chantal…Cecelia would, but that would mean explaining what she had been a part of, and she didn’t want Chantal thinking that she was a monster. If someone were to tell Cecelia her own story, but with the names switched out, she would certainly think ill of the person. There was no good way to frame ‘I was a violent, unapologetic blood purist’, and even if Cecelia had changed…did people ever really change? She knew that hiding her previous sentiments from Chantal would only lead to disappointment in the long run, since it was a lie of omission, but Cecelia lived for the way Chantal looked at her – like she was still whole, and she was still good. Not a single person at Hogwarts looked at her like that. They were right in looking at her like she wasn’t whole, since her other half had been killed, but they were wrong in looking at her as if she was bad. Maybe she wasn’t good, yet, but Cecelia was certain that she had stopped being completely bad the day that Braelynn had died. Bay’s death had just…burned all of the badness out of her, or maybe frozen it out. Or maybe when she cried, Cecelia had cried all the badness out. If that was true, then after all the tears that she had shed that day, Cecelia was a saint. Chantal helped Cecelia just by being there, just by looking at her the way she looked, and to send that all crumbling down by recounting a past riddled with misery and bad choices.
Cecelia smirked when Grey said that he learned something new about the asshole he slept with. That was one way to put it. Cecelia couldn’t imagine sleeping anywhere near Ranger after what he had just done. He was probably the kind of person who hogged the bathroom on purpose and stayed up talking late into the night even if nobody was listening. The thought of all the annoying things Ranger did to annoy his roommates almost sent Cecelia into a fit of uncontrollable laughter, but she managed to reign herself in at the last moment – she didn’t want Grey to worry about her mental health any more than he was already worrying, and bursting into laughter at a comment that wasn’t actually that funny would probably start pinging his crazy radar really quickly. She wondered if that was the sort of thing that people thought about her – that she was the roommate from hell who threatened to murder everyone in their sleep. That was an unsettling thought. Cecelia had been pretty open about her blood purist views, but she hadn’t gone so far as to act on them, especially with a Lestrange as her roommate. Maybe Andy didn’t agree with the Lestrange values, but Cecelia was certain that there was the Lestrange toughness in her, and she wasn’t willing to mess with that. Besides, Cecelia had too much Slytherin in her to do something so overt, something so easily traced back to her. That was silly and stupid, and Desirae wouldn’t tolerate a sister who was either of those things.
When Grey talked about being gossip fodder, Cecelia rolled her eyes. She definitely was into Grey Slater, that much was certain. If she had been attracted to him, she probably would have found it embarrassing that he had walked in on her crying, and her only emotions upon his intrusion were curiosity and anger. That was a relief – everything would have been so much messier if she had actually liked Grey. The last thing she needed right now was a secret romance with a half-blood boy. A lot of rumors were terrible and cruel, but it was even worse when they were true, because then the person in question couldn’t even defend themselves. Some of the respect for Grey that she had gained across the course of the conversation was lost at the sound of glee in his voice when he talked about spreading rumors as a part of the newspaper staff. Newspapers were supposed to inform and discuss, not to accuse and conjecture. She could understand a love of writing and journalism, but a love of smear campaigns and rumor-mongering wasn’t nearly as noble. Cecelia made a mental note to check the library’s archives for the past issues of the school’s newspaper. She wanted to know what Grey’s writing was like for herself – maybe his glee had been meant as a joke. She didn’t want to be making snap judgments, especially not against a person who had been so kind to her. Being a better person really was exhausting, Cecelia thought.
The Gryffindor prefect may have let Grey off easy this time, but she wasn’t going to take his word for it when it came to returning to the bathroom. If his friend was willing to give him the password once, chances were he would do it again, and since neither of them were being punished this time, said friend would be none the wiser to the altercation. Cecelia had an odd relationship with the house elves of the school by virtue of the fact that she was often hanging around the Slytherin common rooms, and therefore, the kitchens. It had taken a lot of nose-pinching and bile-swallowing for her to get to a point where she could speak to them respectfully, but she found that once she did, they were a lot more receptive to her various requests. She was certain that, if asked politely enough, a house elf could keep their eye on the bathroom. That way, even if she didn’t happen to be in the bathrooms if Grey returned, she could be aware about it, and confront him later. Hopefully Grey Slater realized that Cecelia didn’t appreciate being lied to on this sort of matter. He’d do well to remember that, as much as she was Braelynn’s sister, she was also Desirae’s sister, and being scorned did not sit well with her. She’d also be able to track Kyle’s comings and goings that way, just in case. She’d probably take a detour to the kitchen on the way back to the common room, to make sure that she and Grey didn’t arrive at the same time and feed the rumor beast that was sure to be waiting there.
Grey declared that they were back off to the common room, and Cecelia nodded. She glanced once more into the mirror- Braelynn? – before turning back to the door. She gave Grey a decent head start in case her excursion to the kitchens didn’t take as long as she anticipated. Arriving at the same time, like she had thought earlier, was a disaster waiting to happen. Besides, she needed time to digest all that had been said, and the Gryffindor common room wasn’t always the most peaceful place for thinking. It was one of the many things that differentiated Gryffindor and Slytherin, Cecelia thought with a wry smile as she took a flight of stairs down towards the kitchen. She couldn’t recall Desi complaining even once that the Slytherin common room was too loud, though it was one of Cecelia’s most frequent criticisms of the Gryffindor common room. If only she could ask a house elf to sit in the common room and hush people who were getting too loud…That was impractical, though, considering the amount of people in her house who had no concept of an indoor voice. Cecelia rolled her eyes to herself as she stepped through the portrait hole to the kitchen, ready to put her master scheme into action.
grey xavier slater
|
|
|
|