Ezekiel sat on a large puffy arm chair by the fire, with his feet propped up on the pouffe. He'd just finished writing a letter to his parents and was reading through it when he took a moment to glance up from the letter. He smiled a little when he saw a familiar blonde walk past him, "Am I invisible to you?" He called playfully, looking over at the girl in question with a playful smirk. "I'm so offended, I thought we were friends." He continued, starting to fold the letter up he slid it into a pocket of his hoodie.


He moved his feet from the pouffe and shifted himself so he could give his old friend his full attention, "How have you been?" He asked with a bright smile, "It seems ages since we last had a conversation together." He said, frowning a little as he tried to remember when they actually had sat and chatted together.


@cecilia 

Cecilia was leaving the common room without a particular destination in mind. Perhaps the Quidditch Pitch, she mused, though one glance out the window shot that option to hell. Why was it always bloody raining? That eliminated about half of her favorite places to go in this school, and the others were probably habited by a lot of people she didn’t want to deal with at the current time. She rolled her eyes, also realizing the pitch would be out because she was pretty sure that’s why Isabella, Evan, and Roman were all busy. That’s what she got for befriending people on the same Quidditch team, she thought, shaking her head as she descended the stairs of her dormitory. Damn, for a castle this large, she was really at a loss of where to go to spend her time. She had to get out of her dormitory, as she was going bloody stir-crazy staring at the pile of letters her father had sent her. She was just contemplating if she should burn the damn things when she heard a voice, spinning around to face it.

Her lips quirked up in an amused smile at his comment, shaking her head, “Invisible, no—well-hidden, yes,” she told him, changing directions to head over to Ezekiel. Her smile widened at his next words, not replying until she dropped down onto the couch across from him, “We are friends, Zeke; it would take far too much work to get rid of you at this point,” she joked, laughing. Cecilia realized that it had been quite some time since she’d spoken to him last. Apparently, the drama in her life was preventing her from keeping up with the few friends she actually could tolerate, “I’ve been good, just busy. Went home for Easter, so that was a treat,” she said, sarcastically, though it wasn’t as if he knew anything about her family. The only one who really did was Roman, since he’d met them firsthand, though Cecilia had also told Isabella about them a bit, “How about you?”

Ezekiel listened and grinned at Cecilia, he loved how she had such a sense of humor, he was never afraid to give because he knew fine well he'd get something back - twice as bad. "I'm just so awesome that even if it was easy to get rid of me, it wouldn't work." He said with a wider grin. When his fellow Gryffindor said about going home for Easter he felt a stab of sadness and lowered his gaze away from her, but not without noticing how sarcastic and cold she sounded, "Oh? I would have thought you'd love to see your family. I hope everything is okay." He said, not wanting to pry but also leaving the offer of, she could come to him to talk if she wanted to.

"My Easter was no better. I'm assuming Ruby told you what happened over the holidays and why we didn't return for a few weeks after the holidays ended." He asked, his voice breaking a little at his words. He may be good at hiding how upset he was at the loss of his baby sister but speaking her name, thinking about her or even referring to that incident made him want to burst into tears, but he was a male and he knew he'd get so much grief from the petty pupils for showing emotion that wasn't lust.

Her smile widened at his words, “It hasn’t worked yet, I’m afraid, so you might be right,” she replied, always amused and glad that there was someone in Gryffindor House that understood her sense of humor. She didn’t let her smile waver as he spoke, though normally she was better at acting normal as far as talking about her family was concerned—even if she really did hate being home more than almost anything. There were only so much of her mother and stepfather’s expectations that she was capable of meeting at one time, knowing that there was no point in fighting them on what they thought she should be like. As far as anyone at Hogwarts knew, there was nothing of interest going on with her at home, though people did love to talk. She had gone from relatively invisible for the first five years in this castle to being pretty damn on the radar of the gossips when she started dating Roman. Luckily, she really didn’t give a damn, as they were never rattling on about anything of interest to her. “Oh, they’re fine,” she said, dismissively, trying to think of any kind of reasoning for the sarcastic tone she had taken, “Just always drama in the Hill household,” Cecilia joked, shrugging.

Cecilia hadn’t at first even noticed that Ezekiel or Ruby hadn’t returned immediately after the holidays, which she supposed proved that how much she was distracted by her own problems. Of course, that was ridiculous as far as Cecilia was concerned; people had far worse going on than she did, and she found herself irritated every time she even focused on her own problems for a moment. But she had eventually noticed the absence of her friends, and Ruby had told her what had happened over the holidays—which only further proved to Cecilia that she needed to focus on others rather than herself, even if she wasn’t fantastic at comforting people. Cecilia could tell that Ezekiel was trying to hide that he was upset, noting how he was speaking, “She did; I’m so sorry for your loss,” she stated, which sounded like a hell of a cliché, though she wasn’t sure what exactly would be the right thing to say at the current time.

"Aw darn, that sucks. I was really hoping I could get rid of you." He grinned, nudging her playfully. "You're such hard work Cecilia." He laughed. When she went on to explain about drama, Ezekiel could help but roll his eyes. "Always is when family is involved. It gets a little tedius." He grumbled.

He rubbed his forehead with the palm of his hand and exhaled sharply, "No worries, we're sorry we didn't get in contact with you or Iz or any of our friends sooner, for that matter." He said, starting to feel a slight guilt about shutting his friends out, "Word of advice Ceci. Never keep stuff to yourself. Sometimes it makes things worse." He told her sincerely. Zeke sighed heavily and slumped back in his seat. "Hows stuff with Roman?" He asked, he wasn't exactly fond of Roman, but he wasn't going to be quick to judge; he'd not even spoken to the guy. And if he made Cecilia happy, then that was all he really wanted for his friend.

“Oh, I’m impossible to get rid of—suppose I should have warned you beforehand,” she replied, smiling wickedly. She already regretted saying anything about her family, knowing that she really should know better by now. Talking about everything that went on at home was something she didn’t do often, if at all. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Ezekiel, Cecilia was just naturally a very private person, “Tedious is certainly the right word for it,” she agreed, nodding. Growing up hadn’t exactly been easy, having a Death Eater as a father. Of course, having a different last name helped with that, and there weren’t many people at all who knew who her father really was. Then, after he had left, she found that the tedium continued, as her mother decided to marry the most misogynist pureblood possibly on the entire planet. It could be worse, obviously.

“It’s understandable; you had a lot going on,” she said, though she certainly had been a bit worried when she noticed that they hadn’t returned from the holidays right away. She was sorry for their loss, but she was glad that worse hadn’t happened. At this point, it seemed that it was getting less safe to be out and about around here, “Noted,” Cecilia replied, running a hand through her hair distractedly. That statement struck oddly close to home, with all of the secrets she was currently keeping to herself. However, she did know that it was better for everyone around her that she kept those hidden—it was a different situation entirely. “Roman? He’s good. We’re always good,” she told her friend, smiling. Roman was at least a part of her life that she could be sure of, always helping her to forget about the craziness around her, whether he knew he was doing it or not.

Ezekiel frowned a little when Cecilia spoke, he was relieved that Roman was treating her well and they were happy but he really was a protective person. "At least you're happy then." He said carefully. He nestled a little further into the armchair and smiled to himself, "I look forward to when I finally feel ready to date. It will be nice to again." He said out loud, more to himself than Cecilia. "You off anywhere interesting anyway?" He asked, referring to how she was looking like she was about to leave when he spoke to her, "I was thinking of going for a wander around the lake later today." He continued his thinking out loud, "I'll have to see how cold it gets." He continued in his thoughtful manner.

Cecilia noticed that Ezekiel frowned at her response about Roman, which was a bit odd, though she didn’t call him out on it. She supposed friends were a bit protective over each other, as she had certainly remembered when she had started dating Roman that Isabella hadn’t liked her. Of course, now she was best friends with the Slytherin and no longer friends with Roman, which was a bit odd, but now was hardly the time to dwell on that. Although, thinking about it, with how long she had been dating Roman, Ezekiel’s reaction was a bit odd, “I am,” she replied, furrowing her eyebrows slightly at the tone he had just taken, “Something wrong?” Cecilia finally asked, wondering if the bloke didn’t like Roman or something. As much as she valued her friends’ opinions, this was an aspect of her life where she didn’t put all that much stock in what her friends thought. Clearly, if that were the case, her relationship with Roman would have ended when she became friends with Isabella. But that entire situation was a bit messier than a normal disagreement.

“Are you taking a break from dating?” Cecilia asked, raising an eyebrow, “I’m not sure I knew that,” she added, though she had obviously been quite hung up on everything that had been going on, but she didn’t deem that as much of an excuse. She lifted a shoulder in a shrug at his question, “I was going to go down to the pitch since I think Slytherin is practicing,” she said. For someone who hated Quidditch, Cecilia did find herself out there enough, which she supposed could be considered a bit odd, “But I hardly feel like traversing through the rain, so I axed that plan,” she concluded, which really left her with limited options for the day, but she was sure to come up with something to entertain herself with.

"No, no nothing is wrong." Ezekiel lied easily, "I just don't want to see you get hurt." He added on honestly. When she asked about if he was taking a break he bit his lip a little and thought his answer through carefully; he was in a sense but at the same time, the girl he did like was sitting right beside him and they were talking about her relationship with another guy. "You could say that, I kind of got shot down so I'm just getting back into the swing and trying to get rid of my feelings for her, no point entering a relationship when I still care for someone else is there?" He said. There. That answer seemed okay, didn't give to much away, "Then again, I can't say I got shot down because this girl didn't know I had feelings for her." He continued.


When Cecilia explained about her original plan to go to the Quidditch Pitch, Ezekiel glanced over at her. "Have you considered going to one of the top towers or something like the astronomy classroom and watching from there? It's inside, dry but high enough that you can watch the Slytherins. Even if they'd be some distance away." He suggested lightly.

Before she started dating Roman, Cecilia really thought that she’d be stuck married off to whatever Norwegian pureblood her stepfather found for her. That had been the only path that they’d laid out as an option, and there hadn’t been much of a point in fighting it when she’d had no reason to. Meeting Roman had oddly changed her mindset on that more than she expected, and it had helped her realize that she didn’t have to do everything that was expected of her. However, she knew that eventually, she would have to tell the Slytherin the truth about her father, and the unfortunate end result of that was relatively apparent. Hence why she had been putting it off thus far. “No risk of that,” she replied, shrugging. If anything was going to hurt her, it was going to be her own shitty life getting in the way and ruining everything—ad that would be her fault for hiding aspects of her ridiculous life as long as she had. “You should be more worried about me breaking his heart,” Cecilia joked, though that wasn’t at all the end result that she was expecting when the truth finally came out. “Nothing wrong with getting back into the swing of things,” she said, nodding, wondering vaguely who had shot down the Gryffindor, but she wasn’t nosy enough to ask. “Well that certainly doesn’t count as getting shot down, then,” Cecilia agreed, raising an eyebrow at him.

Cecilia glanced out the window at his words, before moving her gaze back over to her friend. “Eh, they can do without me seeing them fly around on sticks for an afternoon,” she said, as really she just liked to go to make sure that they didn’t kill each other. Cecilia didn’t know how they got through any practice without a fatality with all the drama on the team. She also didn’t bloody well know how their team was in the lead for Quidditch and how they kept winning games. Well, of course she knew why… they were bloody excellent, and she supposed they must be motivated by their separate competitive natures and determination to win even though they didn’t get along in the slightest.