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Seems the more i know, the less i know

He didn't know what he was supposed to think about anything anymore. His younger sister was gearing up to start Hogwarts in the fall (and was extremely bitter about how her birthday was so early) and his parents were being delicate with how they answered any of his questions. Perry knew that they had to take a side, at some point. He knew that they were picking through the details that the Prophet was offering, and he was aware that they were probably not going to tell him what they really thought. They thought that he was too young to know what was going on in the world. He knew that they tried to hide things from him, that they were always going to treat him like he shouldn't know what was going on. But that wasn't fair. He was directly affected by what was going on. He had been in Hogwarts long enough to gather an opinion on things. There were so many things happening every year, so many things that were causing him to frown and mull over the exact details of what to do. Sometimes, it was concerning. Sometimes he needed to focus on things with narrowed eyes as he ran through the lists of what were happening. Too many things were occurring each year for it to be remotely close to peaceful. At some point, someone was going to burst. At some point, someone he knew was going to get hurt.

He didn't want that to happen. Perry didn't want to think about his friends or family getting affected by anything that was going on. He knew that the current events were just a repeat of what his mother had to deal with. He knew that she had lost people, that Aunt Sara and Uncle Kyle had lost people, and that his father had kept away from it all by being invested in Quidditch. He knew that Marcus had done the same thing, if only because his father had told him. He wondered how many former Slytherins had gotten away with that, or if that had extended to all houses. Did they all try to keep away by throwing themselves into their work? That would make sense, but it wouldn't keep them safe. It wouldn't do anything that great for them. It would make everything a struggle in the future. But Perry understood. He didn't think that he could help, not with anyone. He didn't think that he could be that person who helped in the end. He was going to be that person who followed his parents, who stuck to the shadows and dealt with his own problems. He didn't want to get involved. He wanted to stay alive, he wanted his friends and family to stay alive... Because he was a coward, and he was going to follow what his parents did. 

Self-preservation was important. Of course, that did mean that he was alone sometimes. He didn't pick sides in Ravenclaw debates, he didn't try to point out his own opinions on most things. He told Donnie, sometimes, what he thought, but not always. He was scared of being left behind, he was scared that someone might just look at him with narrowed eyes and curse him for anything that he said. So he surrounded himself with people and he kept himself from being too outwards with people he was unsure around. It was one of the few times that he wasn't with people, now. Perry had started off for the grounds before stalling for a few minutes on the bridge. When he was a first year the bridge had frightened him. He knew that it was a long drop down if he fell, and that feeling of vertigo constantly plagued him when he walked over it. But Perry knew that it wouldn't fall. He knew that Hogwarts would hold onto its bridge; the school was, of course, a sentient being in his thoughts. Hogwarts wouldn't let one of its students fall. Perry held tightly onto one of the beams as he gazed over the edge, then shifted to stare at the forest from his position. He was supposed to be taking a little walk before heading back to the common room to do homework. He shouldn't have strayed too long, but he had.

Making love in the afternoon with Cecilia
Up in my bedroom (making love)
I got up to wash my face
But When I come back to bed
Someone's taken my place...

It wasn't exactly planned. Jay had genuinely forgotten about his guitar since returning to school, and of the cigarettes charmed to the inside and a bottle of Akevitt within the case holding his pics. He'd come across them when looking for his astronomy star chart for the class on Wednesday and his evening had brightened. After suffering through Valentine's day and Valentine's Take: II, just about anything would have lifted his mood. Once, he looked forward to glogg. Now... akevitt had taken its place. It wasn't as heavy, didn't need to be warm when drank... and it was clear enough to be mistaken for apple juice. The main difference being that apple juice and his guitar made for a quiet evening that adorned the silent walls of the dorm and the alternative toom him outdoors to cool off. It was about time he tried to relax around everyone after all, so Dion had mentioned in the past- though really, considering how much jævla dritte left Weaver it was strange Jay had remembered that much- and well... maybe tonight he was embracing that. Half a bottle did wonders. If only he'd found it a couple of days ago when he had really needed it... Dion would likely have enjoyed it as well.

Mostly he had taken to outside because he'd felt restless and didn't think Fucker Flint and his Stupid Staff to appreciate any form of music filtering through the halls; especially not when coming from a half-veela with a distinct lack of respect for either of them or their rules. He strummed as he walked, plucking at the strings in a thoughtful manner as he crossed the lawns. It was a nice night for flying- for sober people- or even to cut out curfew and sleep outdoors. A couple of warming charms, maybe a blanket and he'd be good to go. His blonde locks fell into his face and he made no move to shift them; the wind was blowing in typical Scottish fashion so it was eventually displaced at sporadic intervals, ensuring his fag didn't singe it. He almost hoped the Professor's did hear him so they could lighten up a little like the end of his smoke- short of a lumos or throwing a lamp at them he wasn't sure what it would take. Not his business. He played some more and let the tension leave him, smiling a bit. Then the tune changed. Becoming choppy. Slightly more upbeat.

Sauntering up the path, he started towards his haunt at the bridge. Faced with open water was one of his favourite things that connected him to home. He'd be cold. At peace. Free to sing his heart out... or at least his thoughts out, with nothing but the wind and the lapping water as his audience. But when he came to the bridge it was to find a younger student standing there already... and instead of stopping and sulking off he continued to play. Smiling, whistling along as he stepped onto the bridge. Jay recognised the face in the way that he recognised most people; enough to know they weren't a threat but not enough to know their name. His leather jacket whipped at his sides acting almost as the beat, and eventually he paused long enough to greet him off-handedly. "Kveld, ikke enda venn..." He flashed a grin but it had an edge to it. Loaded with mischief. Smoke trailed from his nose then out in small bursts from his lips as he resumed whistling and turned to look out across the lake from the same direction as the third? year. The bottle had been shrunk so he could tuck it within his pocket yet he could feel another swallow of the spirit coming on again. Not around the other boy though. Jyraeve Taar had been accused of a lot of things in his life, labelled as a bad influence- most of which was justified- but he declined on being the one to tempt a small, 'vulnerable' kid into getting drunk on a Monday.

Perry didn't know what he was expecting, not really. He was a student who stayed out of drama and out of the way, and it helped him more than anything. He was able to keep himself out of the problems that so many other people had, and so far he was pretty convinced that he didn't have any enemies as far as he knew. He was a bit smarter than that, if only because he didn't want to be bothered with people like that. He wanted to make sure that he got along with most people, even if he did seem nervous and jumbled to those that didn't know him. Because of that he could say that he got along with some of the surlier students. He was able to get along with Althea Abbott, which he thought was an accomplishment. Thea didn't really get along well with most people, but she did have a small following of fourth year girls that thought she was fantastic. And he got along a bit with Regulus, one of the older Ravenclaws. Perry thought that despite his slight prickliness the older student was really intriguing. There was something, something, that made him think that they had some similarities. Maybe it was just the whole glasses thing.

He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, leaning over slightly. It was so strange to see the growth that he had made in the past year. He knew that if he had tried to lean over last year or the year before, he would have been hyperventilating within moments. He really was sure that he had gotten over it because of how he needed to use the bridge to get to his classes. He couldn't get over it any other way. Besides, it was a relatively silly thing to fear. He loved flying more than anything, so it wasn't the height. Maybe it was the act of falling that he was so scared about. If he fell from that far, he wouldn't be able to save himself. Perry sucked in a breath and tried not to think about it too much, but his thoughts were already spiraling in a way that he knew was familiar, and he tried not to focus too harshly on everything that was happening around him. He needed to calm down. He needed to focus. Of course, as soon as he managed to zero in to the world around him, one hand on the bridge and another on his cheek, Perry realized that he really wasn't alone.

The first thing that he noticed was the guitar, and then it was the slew of foreign words being spewed at him. He really didn't know what to do, especially since it wasn't something he recognized. Perry really had only been introduced to a few languages as a child, and while he used to know some sign language and Russian, the only thing that he could claim to retain was the Runes that he worked out daily. He tried not to seem too confused as he shifted to look at the older student, and he flickered through his arsenal of names and faces to see if he recognized this one. Clearly, this wasn't one of the Ravenclaws. Perry knew them well, at this point, even some of the older ones. The others were harder to know, especially since their paths very rarely crossed. This was one of the Slytherins, and he smelled just a bit like alcohol. "What?" he mumbled out, furrowing his brows. Maybe he would get lucky and the older student would explain what was going on. 

Nowadays, what some would call 'drunk Jay' was really what he'd been like before shit had hit the fan and he had moved to the UK to live with his Mormor nearly 9 years ago. The ready smiles, the friendliness and the carefree attitude had all been what everyone had known him for even when he had been causing trouble around the Island in Norway, that and how he had always included people. By comparison, present sober Jay was everything that young Jay had sworn never to be. He had had a plan for his life, had had many friends, had always been happy about something. And now... now he was always irritated by something or wanting to be alone. Socialising was hard work and it was exhausting when he didn't initiate it and it took a while from him to recuperate from that. And the sharp edge of his tongue usually dealt out biting sarcasm long before something pleasant left him. That was who he had been conditioned to be, it was what he was trying to change. When the mood took him he really tried at it to make a change and try and be nice to people, and other times he felt that if people couldn't accept him for who he was they could take a short jump off the astronomy tower and leave him alone. And through that in the last year he suddenly had more friends than he had ever had before. People who accepted him and didn't try to change him, and others who tried to bring him out of his head. Weaver was the exception. He didn't really care what Jay was like so they got along for that factor alone and that was great too. Up until he started spouting a bunch of dritte and Jay slipped away to find something else to occupy his time.

But he wasn't who he had been two years ago and for that he took a sense of pride. He was still a bit of an arse but he picked his battles more often than he merely caused them for something to do and if he upset someone then he was slightly more inclined to try and fix things. Apologising still wasn't part of his repertoire of responses but then with how he usually chose to sort things, such great lengths weren't really necessary. The point was that he had grown as a person, in his opinion. He still had his off days. But he thought that there were more good days than bad days at the moment and at least he was trying, which was more than he had done in the past. And he appreciated the people who had seen past the cold exterior and cracked him into a joke so he didn't needlessly ruin things. Casper had been good at that, even with his broken lungs. Other than Chris, Casper had been the only other Gryffindor who had beat past his defenses with ease and breezed into place as a friend without much input from Jay. And he really had appreciated that. But he had graduated and was gone, and Chris had been missing for over a year now and was likely dead. Yet another reason for him to drink. Not that he really needed an excuse to break out something strong but it didn't by any means. But he was trying to get out of his head tonight so he could just let himself go and have fun. Merlin knew Hogwarts was direly lacking in anything fun that wasn't a Quidditch Match.

The boy turned slightly and Jay got a better look at his face, his eyes travelling across it quickly for anything to give him a name. The first thing that struck him was how young the boy was. If it hadn't been for his height, he'd have placed him as a first year, and he was just glad he hadn't said anything out loud in case he accidentally insulted him. Maybe a second year? Third really had to be the oldest this guy was, surely? He smiled at the confused mutter and stopped whistling again so he could be sure to hear him. Then it filtered through that he might not have spoken English and cleared his throat, pausing his strings. "Basically I said 'Good evening'. I think." He mused over it as he continued forward, moving to stand next to the railing that the other guy was leaning over. He definitely wasn't a Snake, but that still left another three houses unaccounted for. Didn't strike him as a Gryffindor, so that made two. He was either a badger or an eagle. "You looked like your worst nightmare had come alive in front of your eyes a moment a go, looking at the water. Scared of the merfolk?"

There were points in time where Perry just wished that his brain didn't try to overload him with things, where he wished that he could actually do what he was supposed to do without just... not doing it. He wanted to be able to say that he could do things, that he didn't have a problem with it. But Perry couldn't. Even with magic there were days where he couldn't do anything, but he tried. He always tried. He pretended like he wasn't exhausted, he sat down at the table with Donnie, and he grinned. He stuck close to people on those days because they would talk for him. They would pretend like he wasn't suffering, and it felt like it was almost a breath of fresh air. He wished that things would make sense, for once. That he could finish his homework without just forcing himself to do it, that things would finally make sense for him. But Perry knew that wasn't going to happen, not anytime soon. Things were never going to make sense. He just had to accept that. He wanted the logical thing to work, but the world just didn't happen like that. Logic didn't help him, logic didn't care. This was his draw in life, and he had to just go along with it. He had gotten pretty good odds, all things considered.

He could have been born a muggleborn, but he wasn't. He could have been a muggle, even, and never have experienced something as great as magic. Worse, he could have been a squib. But he was luckier than that. He was already luckier than that because he had magic. He was able to do things that muggles only dreamed of, and he was given a life that didn't try to steal magic from him after he had known it. He could have been one of the muggleborns ripped from Hogwarts, but he was lucky with how he was a halfblood. He was lucky in a lot of things, and it was his fault that he didn't think he was. Because he was. He could have been anyone else. He should have bene grateful, not ignorant. His life didn't suck. His brain might hate him, a lot of the time, but it could have been worse. He needed to not be so terrible. So selfish. He needed to look at what he was given and he needed to grin and bare it. But damn, it hurt so terribly when he just kept trying to do his homework and something was just preventing him from doing it.

He needed to take a breath. He just needed to calm down, and he knew that it was possible. He needed to ground himself, just like his mother had taught him, but he couldn't figure out how. Steady breaths, cool air... He needed to find something. Perry didn't think he was going to be able to calm himself down, and he pushed his glasses up, and he clung to the world around him. Talking. Talking was another technique, even if it wasn't one that he cared for. He didn't like talking. But someone had approached, and he didn't like it when people thought he was rude. "You think?" he asked, shifting slightly. He wasn't liking this one bit. He wished that someone was there with him. Hell, he wished that Althea was with him, and everyone knew that the two of them didn't get along. He didn't like this. He didn't like whoever this was, with their strange language (not a Romantic language, either). "No. Why would I be scared of the mermaids?" He didn't speak Mermish, but he wasn't scared of them either.