May 1st

You went out with the wind, Dreary as you can be
You know you're right in the end, Wherever you've been
Arthur Stroud // Hi surprise thread tuesday

She only had a few friends, but that didn't ever bother Clio. There was something better about being on your own, anyway. She didn't have to worry about other people and how they were thinking and what they were worried about. She had her few friends, and that was enough. Violet and Octi, she didn't have to worry about them constantly. They were self sufficient, and they knew how she felt about the world. That was nice. They didn't expect her to be any different than she normally was, and they didn't seem bothered by how she treated her surroundings. Being by herself, when she wasn't with those two, that was usually better for her. She was always so awkward. She hated speaking to people, especially people that she wasn't friendly with, and she usually wound up sticking her foot in her mouth, or else she didn't speak. Talking was... Well, it wasn't her forte. She could talk to Octi, and she could talk to Vi, but she much preferred keeping her mouth zipped shut. Actions spoke louder than words, anyway. 

Actions spoke louder than words... She always tried to be that friend who was constantly supportive, but she never knew how. Actions spoke louder than words, so she tried to make Octi feel better when he was upset, and she tried to help out Vi when she was struggling with her mom being missing. She did her best to make things better, but she sucked at it. She awkwardly patted at Vi's head, once, like she was a dog. And that was stupid, but she had tried to be helpful. She just wasn't good at that. There definitely was a reason she wasn't a 'Puff. That and the fact that she was constantly getting into brawls... But that was a different thing. That was a completely separate situation. That was action, yeah, but it didn't have to do with her inability to talk to people. She just got frustrated, sometimes. She snapped at people when she didn't know what to do, and she struggled to  get people to like her. Punching people did happen to make things better. It was different. It solved quite a few of her problems. And she was pretty good at it, too.

At least she was good at something. So far, Clio was sure that she was really just good at being grumpy and disappointing her siblings. Cam was finishing off his final year of school, and he seemed to be doing well. He had his friends, he was charming, and he was excited to possibly go off as a Dragon Keeper or something just as dangerous. She was sure that he had told her what he was doing, but... Well, he was her older brother. She kinda tuned him out some days. She constantly disappointed him and Rory with how she never quite socialized, how she got Gryffindor in trouble... She was a wreck, to them. But she was good at fighting, she was average at Quidditch... Maybe above-average, but that might be reaching. She just tried hard, and she loved flying. It was probably the best thing that there was. Sometimes, Clio thought that would be enough for her siblings to not be constantly annoyed with her. She was on the Gryffindor team. Wasn't that enough for them? 

She guessed not. Clio rubbed at her bangs, frowning. She needed to give them a trim after she dropped her bag off in the tower, and then she could grab her tarot cards and go lay on the Quidditch Pitch. Maybe she and Octi could go smoke for a bit. Her day had been pretty boring, after all. She hadn't seen much of Vi over the past few days, not since they had met in the Owlery. She wasn't sure if she counted on seeing her today, either. Clio turned to grab her jacket out of her bag, and stumbled slightly.

I know that you can make it on your own, my friend

Sun goes down
Time goes on

Everything was confusing. Maybe even disturbing. There was something very wrong with the message their mother had sent Vi and him, and he had tried several times to come up with a perfectly reasonable explanation. Yet, it always ended up being flawed. Vi was experiencing the same, he was sure of that. Since they had first read the letter, they had tried to make sense of it, but it was even more puzzling when they were both trying to explain away the many oddities. Still, all in all the confusion of now was way better than all he had felt prior. There was the hope that another, more understandable letter of their mother would arrive and clarify things. And they would see her again. Maybe the day they came back from school, she’d be at the station and he’d be able to jump into her arms. This had been something he had so seldom been able to do. Mostly they had to travel abroad to see their mother during the summer holidays. So the prospect of meeting her at the train station was exhilarating. And yet, the very thing that made him happy also made him uneasy. Why wasn’t Mum on a dig? It didn’t feel right.

When he had been convinced that the Death Eaters had murdered his mother, things had at least been clear. Horrible but clear. He had known that he had every liberty to hate the Headmaster and his entourage. There were those who were openly monsters like Rosier, and then there were the more fiendish ones like Graves, who always seemed so nice. And he had known it was a ruse. But now? Maybe it hadn’t been. His mother was alive and well. So weren’t they as bad as he had thought? But the headmaster had tortured a student. Their Muggleborn classmates had disappeared, and though they were apparently visiting a school again, they weren’t with them. Which was unfair. Wrong. Outrageous. But his mum was well. Just… how?

Nothing made sense, and that was not a good state for things to be in. Yet, things were better. He wasn’t afraid anymore to fall asleep, despite still having nightmares. He’d see his mother at a short distance and call out for her, run after her, never reach her. But he could see better. She looked healthy, she was smiling. He didn’t like the dreams, but they didn’t make him sick any longer.

He had been looking at the floor and so he almost collided with the girl before him. Ouf of the corner of his eye, he saw her stumble, which made him raise his head because he had been convinced that he hadn’t touched her. “Look wh- oh, hi, er…” Vi’s friend? Now that he saw her face, he knew who she was, but he had no idea what her name could be. All he knew was that she was a friend of his sister’s. And that she was the girl he hadn’t said a word to during the Valentine’s Ball. Great, that this was the first thing he had to think about. That horrible ball. All pink and lovely and expecting them to be romantic when he had only wanted to be away from everybody because they were happy. And his mum was dead or suffering or… nothing good for sure. It seemed now that he had been wrong back then. Still, thinking of that day, he really could have lived without running into Vi’s what's-her-name-friend now. He hadn’t behaved like one was supposed to behave at a ball, and while he would most likely act exactly the same again if things happened to repeat themselves, he didn’t like the idea that he had been a jerk towards his sister’s friend. “You’re… em, yeah, hi…” Though, on second thought, he would not now suddenly make excuses for what he had done months ago and wasn’t sorry for. It wasn’t like he had anything against this girl, only against balls hoisted by Death Eaters.

YOU WENT OUT WITH THE WIND

DREARY AS YOU CAN Be,
YOU KNOW YOU'RE RIGHT IN THE END

The OWLS were coming up, right around the corner, and she felt the stress bubbling around her throat like a constant ache. Clio didn't have any expectations for her exams, but it still felt like a pressure against the base of her skull. She had to do well, or she at least had to do something. She couldn't just stand there and hope, she had to actually study, or try... Or she could pass the bare minimum, which was her original plan. Pass the only courses she was expected to, and then everything would be fine. That didn't stop the nervousness, but it did ease it a bit. If she just kept that thought in her head, everything might wind up perfectly fine in the end. She might make it through her fifth year without much of a problem. She might be able to get a breath in, and she might be able to do what she normally did. After all, the end of the term was supposed to be fun for Clio. 

This was when she got to get wrapped up into more fights, when she was able to fight and laugh and just exist. If she was more social, she would go to parties, but that wasn't like Clio. Clio and Vi, they were a bit keener on staying on the outside. They were fine together, they were able to just sit like wallflowers while Clio threatened to hurt anyone that got too close to them. Octi was more social, but he wasn't very big on being close to everyone. She thought that, sometimes, that was worse than what she did. At least she didn't try to forge attachments with people. Octi thought that he would, and then he just did what he always did. He was acquaintance with people. He was friends with Clio. At least Clio could say that she had two friends and wasn't even acquaintances with the rest. They just floated along near her, and she barely acknowledged their existence. 

There were people, though, that she felt forced to recognize. They were either nice looking or captivating, or else something magnetic... And she had to actually pay attention. Clio was not fond of those moments. She lived in her little bubble, and people weren't allowed inside of it. They didn't listen to that, not always, but she wished that she did. 

"Clio," she said, pointing to herself. Clio was still twisted around, pulling her jacket from her bag, but she didn't think that she needed to face Arthur to say that. A blotch was spread out across her freckles, red and uneven, and she steadied her breathing as she turned around. It's not like she expected him to know her name. She dropped her bag onto the ground for a moment, pulling on her jacket and flipping over the nose ring she kept hidden. "Hi." She tried not to seem as rude and grumpy as normal, her arms crossed across her chest. Be nice, she ordered herself, fixing the other student with a serious gaze. It shouldn't have been too hard to keep her prickly self shoved away, at least for a bit.

#525   # Arthur Stroud   # this was short and late!!

♛fai

It was awkward that he had almost collided with this girl, and it didn’t really help that she was Vi’s friend. He wanted to get along with the friends of his sister, otherwise he'd only cause trouble for her, and they both had enogh trouble as things were. But now he had, first, managed to forget her name. He supposed that his sister had mentioned her, so he should remember it. And second, there had been the Valentine ball where they had spent the whole evening standing grimly around in silence. He had once or twice tried to convince himself that this was bad manner, but he hadn’t been able to make himself care. Back then, he had been a half-orphan, forced to be present at a ball hoisted by his mother’s murderers. What did they expect of him, that he’d shout hooray? Already back then, he might have ignored it but had been aware that it was hardly fair to let his ill mood be there the whole evening. He hadn’t spoilt Vi’s evening. She was as little inclined to be there as he was, but he didn’t know about her friend. She had been looking as grumpy as he felt during the whole time span that they had had endured there. Vi had hardly said anything. He had completely ignored her. That had been very rude.

Now that his mother was still alive — under many odd circumstances that were giving him headaches, but alive — his whole premise of hating the evening of that ball was… not gone. His mother might be alive — she had to be, they had her letter, she had to be — but other Muggleborns had been killed or tortured and that with the approval of the headmaster. But they weren’t the murderers of his mom. So he hadn’t had all the right to hate everything, had he? He didn’t know anymore. What had even happened? What was even real? And did it matter at all as long as his mother was well?

It did matter that it made the fact that he had been bad company worse. “Yeah, Clio, right,” he said, trying to make his tongue form a coherent sentence. His apology had already started great by not even remembering her name, so he might do an effort and try to get to the point. “Listen, er… about… I wanted to say… well, you know, I haven’t really come across you since then… but…” Argh, it couldn’t be that hard to say that he was sorry if he had hurt her feelings back then at that stupid ball. “So what I wanted to say, about the ball — not the End of Term Ball, but…” Why had he to bring that up too? He was going to ditch that one. Okay, maybe he’d get cold feet and end up being there somehow, but he shouldn’t talk about balls with girls. That might give them stupid ideas. “About the Valentine Ball.” There it was. Finally he had come to the point. “If I’ve been rude or anything… I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings and… yeah, I didn’t mean to. I mean… I’m glad that you’re there for Vi and…” He turned red. Now he was sounding patronizing. She was not friends with his sister for his sake after all, so it had been really stupid to mention it. “I’m sorry,” he added, forcing himself to look into her face.

---

Words:583

May 1st

YOU WENT OUT WITH THE WIND, DREARY AS YOU CAN BE
YOU KNOW YOU'RE RIGHT IN THE END, WHEREVER YOU'VE BEEN

She knew that Vi was going to make fun of her when she went to talk to her later. She would find this whole situation funny, in a weird sort of Violet way. Of course, she wouldn't laugh-- she hadn't been laughing at all this year. She would just quirk the smallest of smiles and say that she found the whole thing to be extremely ironic. And Clio knew that would be her little way of laughing, and she was sure that it would become a little joke for a while longer. She wanted to be mad about it, but she couldn't bring herself to be. Vi had been so miserable for the past year that she knew that just hearing about such a little mistake would make her smile a bit. And then say something nihilistic, but Clio didn't fault that. They were really a gloomy pair, this year... Really, it was supposed to be a gradual push and pull. They weren't always stuck in pits of grumpiness and despair at the same time. They were just the silent duo, and she liked that. There was no pressure to be slightly more talkative than she was. Vi and Octi, they were the ones she was more comfortable with. 

Other people... Clio wasn't good with other people. She was abrasive and grumpy and rude, and she got into more fights than she knew what to do with. Talking to people wasn't her forte, not at all. She could talk to Vi and Octi, and she was getting better at saying more than one syllable to the damn Quidditch team, but that was about this. Vi's brother? Unfortunately, she had a specific brand of awkward that she resorted to when she was around him. Thankfully it was only the slightest degree off from her normal "I hate everything" features... Or else that's what she was hoping as she stood there awkwardly. She stared blankly at Arthur for a moment, trying to figure out what was going on. What was he even apologizing for? A ball? Oh, the Valentine's Day ball, since he was clarifying that it wasn't the End-of-Term Ball. Clio had been planning on skipping that, if she could manage it. But why was he talking about the Valentine's Day one? Nothing exciting had even happened there. She and Vi just stood there, pissed off that they even had to be there. It wasn't really much fun. 

Maybe her first guess was right. He really couldn't stand her, could he? Clio chewed on her lower lip during the strangely looped apology, trying to figure out exactly what was going on. "You didn't hurt my feelings," she mumbled, furrowing her brows. She did appreciate the apology, for all that it was a bit concerning. "I didn't want to be there either." How else was she supposed to explain that she absolutely hated everything about the Ministry, the ball, and how the teachers treated them? Because, really, she wasn't close to Arthur, and she wasn't even sure what Vi said about her to him. Clearly not that much, since he couldn't even remember her name. "It was a stupid ball." She managed to shut herself up after that; she had never been one to ramble and she couldn't come up with any more words that were relevant to the situation. Seventeen words was more than enough for now, thank you. Not that she had counted. That would be weird. 

#577   # big yeet # Arthur Stroud

♛fai

His present situation, standing before Clio and stammering, might be awkward, but somewhere in a remote part of his mind, Arthur noted that it had distracted him from the turmoil that his mother’s letter had caused. If it was his mother. It seemed more probable, but then he didn’t want to get all his hopes up and then it was proven in the end to be a cruel joke — especially as so much didn’t add up. But for the first time since they had got the letter, he wasn’t thinking about it but about what an idiot he was. He hadn’t had much social interactions at all this year apart from Vi (she was his sister, being with her could hardly count as social) and his dorm mates. He didn’t think he had talked at all to a girl over the course of this year (no, Vi didn’t count). The last time he had tried to talk to one had been before the End of Term Ball last year, and she had been taken away shortly after. And even that conversation had ended with him turning red and running away.

At least this Clio was still small, so that made the whole thing less awkward. By a iota. She was a class below, that much he had at some point registered. Who was he trying to fool? It was as awkward as talking to any girl. Maybe there was something wrong with him, most of the others his age weren’t as clumsy as he was anymore. Neither did they spend a year suspecting all teachers to potentially have murdered their mother. Did that allow for being so… immature? Was he immature? He felt old, very old, but somehow that didn’t help at all when he should talk to others. He could think of little else, but that Clio had to be wondering why Vi had such an idiot brother.

“Oh, er, great,” he said, feeling even stupider than before. “I mean, that you’re okay with… that you’re okay.” Was there anything positive he could say about this meeting? She hadn’t laughed at him. Yet. That was somewhat not too bad. And he now knew that she hadn’t minded his behaviour. He guessed this was better than if she had felt insulted by him, but this might make her think he cared about her feelings. Which he did. Not normally, no, but if he had… He didn’t know her, so he usually didn’t spend any time thinking about her. Maybe when trying to figure out where Vi was. But other than that, there was no reason why he ever should think of her. “Y-yes, it was,” he said, pulled from the knot his mind was trying to unravel to a simpler thought. “Very stupid.” He didn’t know why, but it felt good to hear such words from someone. There were various reasons why she might think the ball stupid, but for now he was simply happy to hear his thoughts echoed. Though now he didn’t have anything left to say. It wasn’t like he wanted to talk to her. She was Vi’s friend, not his. And he had in the past had a certain talent to be rude to her friends. Back then, in a time when being rude to his sister had been perfectly acceptable. After all that had happened, who he had been just a year ago seemed so childish. And yet, he still wasn’t able to have a normal conversation with someone he didn’t know well. He supposed he should say something, but the silence between him and Clio lengthened and lengthened. He should just say “bye” and go… where had he wanted to go? It might not have been important if he couldn’t remember.

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Words: 629

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may 1st

you went out with the wind, dreary as you can be

If she was being honest, Clio was used to people not liking her. There was a special sort of bitterness that was set deep in her shoulders, and a lot of people found it to be very off-putting. Most of the time, it didn't bother her. She found it fine to be able to count her friends on one hand and even more thrilling to need two to count the people who found her to be too brusque. She generally didn't quite care what anyone thought of her, and for anyone to imply otherwise would have been laughable. She was proud to say that she only cared about that small handful of people-- despite the fact that she had, on more than a few occasions, got into fights on behalf of other individuals. But that was besides the point, and she could always claim that she had punched that one Slytherin because they had looked at her funnily, not because they had picked on that annoying first year that had one singular friend. Who would be shocked by that? Nobody. Everyone would believe it except for Vi and Octi, and that was because the two of them insisted that she was, in fact, a cuddly pitbull, and not a feminist/environmentalist fighting machine. Which was dumb. She wasn't a pitbull. She was a fighter, a Gryffindor and someone who wanted to just be done with this whole Hogwarts thing. 

Especially this whole talking to people thing. She couldn't wait to graduate and go on some wild, spinning adventures with Octi, adventures that did not involve Clio having to speak to people. Cooperation? Not at all what she was good at. And talking to someone that probably did not want to be speaking to her-- even though that did hurt her a bit more than she liked to let on-- was certainly not her forte. She wanted to say that she could care less. She hadn't cared before. It was probably because Arthur was Vi's brother, and she knew that her friend cared about his opinion. "I hate that these things are mandatory now." She didn't know why she was pushing the conversation. Clearly, Arthur didn't want to stand there and talk to her, and Clio couldn't fault him for that. She was prickly and awkward and hated talking. "The balls, I mean." She didn't think it needed that much clarification, but just in case... 

Vi was going to laugh at her later. She was going to laugh, or raise at least one eyebrow at her, and Clio wasn't going to be able to do anything about it. Because it shouldn't have been this hard to talk to someone that she had met more than once. They hadn't ever exchanged a real, real conversation, but it shouldn't have been so hard to carry on one. "Are you okay, Stroud?" She crossed her arms and attempted to smooth out the rough wrinkles between her brows. Be nice. Okay, this was being nice. This was attempting to be nice. She knew she could go storm away at any moment, but not yet. 

# 519   # Arthur Stroud

♛fai

Didn’t he have enough problems without making a fool of himself in front of Vi’s friends. Friend. The others were all locked away or dead because Muggleborn. All Muggleborns had been enslaved and yet his mother was unharmed despite all that they had previously believed… It should be a reason for joy, not for being more confused than ever. Not that his current situation was of any help. He had never been exactly eloquent and his interests had been fairly limited. A year spent with studying until he fell asleep and had nightmares had not made him improve in the slightest. It wasn’t that much of a problem to talk to, say, Nick but he had known him since he was eleven. And Vi of course. But she was his sister. That couldn’t count as socializing. She was just there like another limb of his body, as taken for granted as he’d miss her if she’d suddenly disappear. So that this girl was friends with his sister, it should make it easier to talk to her, shouldn’t it? But no, obviously not. He knew Vi, but anyone else she interacted with could not be understood by understanding her. And yet, he felt like he had to try and be friendly. Maybe he wouldn’t have cared before today. Before they had got the letter that changed everything. A few days ago, he supposed he’d have just walked away at the merest hint that there was someone he should interact with. But now… he’d have to try and be friendly.

On a more positive note, she was not cross with him for ignoring her at the ball. So that would be okay, it was just that… she had just said she was not angry with him. But her attitude seemed to contradict her. On the other hand, he wasn’t really skilled enough to interpret body language to make sure. Maybe he should go and ask Vi whether she’d advise anything so that her friend wouldn’t be whatever-she-was with him. Why did his sister always have to have the strangest friends that he felt obliged to get along with? Or was this normal and he was the strange one? He should remember how other people were from the year before this last one. He had thought girls liked balls. Dancing. So why Clio didn’t like them… “Yeah, the balls are the worst,” he answered, looking at her with a bit more interest. Did she have Muggleborns in her family? Had Vi ever said something like that? Would he have listened enough to remember if she had?

Who was he trying to fool? He hadn’t even remembered her name. It wasn’t as bad as back in third year when he had managed to confuse the name of two of her friends into some weird mix, but it was still not a great way to start a conversation. So here he stood, feeling like an idiot. Probably was an idiot. Most likely the girl thought he was one — he didn’t really know how to read her expression. She still looked annoyed with him, maybe slightly less so. “Er… yeah, I’m okay…” he replied, feeling like everything about him had to be out of place to make her ask something like that. “I’m Arthur by the way. I thought you knew that,” he added. Wasn’t Vi ever saying his name in conversations? Whatever that meant…

may 1st

you went out with the wind, dreary as you can be

you know you're right in the end, wherever you've been

The difference between the current year and the last... It was staggering. Last year, she had had Alisander, Octi, Vi, and the other people that Vi hung around with. There was only the slightest bit of moping, and even then it had been out of sheer obligation. Both of them were silent and solitary with one another, and she smoked to get through classes and she giggled and laughed when provoked. Her fights had been out of an obligation, or from boredom. And now? She was fighting, constantly, for her beliefs. Her friend groups had separated, more, if only because Octi and Alisander had become far more popular once partying had begun to be so. Vi had lost the others and had only Clio, and Clio... She loved Vi a very good deal, and it hurt to see that the others were gone. So she fought on their behalf, and she punched people that insulted her few friends... And it all felt a bit harder, now. 

Clio felt like she had known right and wrong for her entire life. Their headmaster and deputy head? They were wrong. The Ministry? Wrong. Right was fighting for what you believed in, sticking up for the smaller ones. Right was making sure that Vi felt grounded and safe when she was upset, and knowing just where she had to be. Right was how it felt to hold her tarot cards. Wrong was the ball. Pretending like they had to showcase crushes and things, pretending like it was just fine to make the world mandatory for them... Because Hogwarts was their world. She and Vi reserved the right to go for ten minutes and then abandon everything. Clio should have been able to go out of obligation, dance ridiculously with Alisander and Octi, and then abandon both of them so that she and Vi could mope near a tower. "After last year... I could punch them."

She would, if she could get away with it. She'd paint a whole damn mural in the hall if she thought she could, too. Actually, it wasn't that she cared about getting away with it... It's that she wanted to keep her hands and feet, that she wanted to make sure Rory made it through school without being hurt. "I know," she responded. "You just seem out of it. Like you were at the ball. I don't bite, you know." 

#414 # wow got her to cooperate # Arthur Stroud

♛fai

Everything right now was just a giant puzzle where no piece fit to any of the other. Try as he might, he couldn't come to any satisfactory solution of his mother's weird message and the letter. He wasn’t proceeding even the tiniest bit. Nothing made sense. Nobody could deny that it was enough confusion for at least a dozen persons and he couldn't think about anything else. There were exams coming up… sometime this month… next month… never mind these exams. They weren’t even NEWTs or… he really didn’t care about them. He couldn’t learn for them anymore. Every time he tried, he ended up thinking about his mother anyway. Maybe the whole uncertainty would stop once a second letter arrived, so there was that to hope for but… right now it was just making his head swirl.

Running into Vi’s friend was not helping. He was obviously not welcome and she’d far rather he’d stop talking. And so would he. He didn’t want to go on her nerves. She was his sister’s friend, and he didn’t want to annoy one of those. But they had stood next to each other at a ball for a very long time without saying a word and that was not how balls were supposed to work. But now that she had told him that she didn’t mind — that she thought the same about the whole travesty of a feast… There wasn’t much left for them to talk about but all the horrible things which had happened — still were surly happening no matter that his mum was safe. Hopefully. “I wasn’t anywhere near… it… last year,” he replied. “But… and he was a Gryffindor, so that must have meant more to you… and there were absolutely no consequences for the Headmaster… how can anyone still dance around and have fun when one of us has been mutilated in the same place.” And he wasn’t even talking about having thought for almost a year that his sister and he were half orphans. Sure, the Deputy Head had sort of tried to talk to them about it, but he had thought back then that this was just an act and now… he didn’t know. All he knew was that their Headmaster had almost murdered a student. “But probably better you didn’t punch anybody. Who knows what they’d do to you.”

But apart from hating what was going on in the world and at school right now, there didn’t seem anything for them to talk about. All he did was getting convinced more and more that she didn’t like him. Maybe he should ask Vi what annoyed her so about him. On the other hand, Vi had enough problems without that on her mind too. It was probably just that he was obviously such a bad brother, and she was indignant in Vi’s place. “Yeah, em, sorry?” He had no idea what to say. All he wanted was to be on good enough terms with her that his sister wasn’t upset. “It’s just… we got a letter from Mum and… it’s all a bit much… so… nothing to do with you. I’m sorry.”