Who: Adrian Pucey and Padma Patil What: Catalysts and turning points When: Monday, July 11 [backdated] Where: A Wizard park in Falmouth Rating: Shouldn't be over R, mostly for talking of Padma's past Status: In progress
Padma's had two roommates her first six months in Marseille as part of their scholarship obligations—they were promoting international unity. The relevance of that particular memory to Padma—who was currently punching angrily at a transfigured punching bag—was a phrase she'd learned from her American roommate. Fit to be tied. The American colloquialism had never quite made sense to Padma until that very moment, because in that moment she was fit to be tied. She could feel every ounce of anger in her body continually manifesting into physical rage.
What was she doing so wrong? What could she have possibly done in this live or the one before to earn such utter shit? And the ire she'd felt at Adrian's bringing up Luc hadn't dissipated as they'd run, or when they'd stopped at the park. She could feel her fingertips shaking while he'd transfigured the punching bag, shwed her how to curl her fists and distribute her weight. Even the first few hits did nothing to transfer the anger from her body to the bag. Her ire had built until Padma was itching with anger, her emotions bubbling under her skin like hot water. It wasn't her fault that Luc had raped her—but her actions to escape were her own and she had never been able to shake the bitter taste of them. Added to that was her growing guilt over Michael, over each day that passed that he was still in Akaban, so far removed—alone—and she wassitting here, fucking Adrian and training. What the fuck was she training for? The Resistance had crumbled, and her two pillars of strength had been knocked out from under her.
Anthony was her other pillar, and she didn't even know what she could do anymore. She'd tried and tried to hold onto him, to reach him in his anger and despair, but she'd reached a point where she felt too hurt and too scared of him. She couldn't recognize him anymore and it terrified her. And then he'd tried to kill himself, and she'd realized she'd just abandoned him that as she'd abandoned Michael to Azkaban. And with each punch of her hand to the bag, she wanted to scream, to rage, to break Michael and Anthony free—whatever she'd done to earn this karma, she wasn't letting it take her, steal from her.
Padma struck the bag hard with her left fist, the rage starting to break free in an angry, rumbling growl in her throat. She wasn't going to let life rape her as Luc had and leave her broken down again. Her eyes started to water as her fists struck the bag, and she yelled out in frustration. She wasn't going to cry, damnit! She was stronger than this—she was supposed to be getting to a better place than this fragile, crying person. It was her fault—she'd escaped that moment, as much as it had sickened her to do. She made that choice and the disgust she felt over her still sat where it always had, right in the pit of her stomach. And no matter how loud she yelled or how hard she it, those actions where still there, she'd still done what she had, and as much as it pained her to think, she'd readily fuck her way out of this torture if she could just figure out how.
With each impact of her fist on the bag, she started to let the anger that had been building in her chest come out through her mouth, sharp, broken noises that she wasn't sure she'd ever made before, especially in front of Adrian. And each noise made her angrier, frustrated that she couldn't get all the anger out and it just kept coming and coming, her voice getting louder, her fists moving faster, her body becoming overworked and overwhelmed.