Michael Corner (folkdevil) wrote in caged, @ 2013-11-15 21:51:00 |
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Lisa was doing her absolute best to try not to dwell on the news that had swept around the school, whispered between students in corners and scrawled across the journals. It was hard, though -- it seemed like everywhere she went people kept talking about it and it made her stomach turn. Despite the fact that Lisa was stridently in favour of doing what the Carrows said, she could admit that the blood quill detentions weren’t nice and now some first years had been subjected to it. It wasn’t exactly an ideal situation and Lisa knew that she couldn’t really rely on “it is what it is” to smooth over anything. Instead, she’d told herself that she’d simply hold her tongue and not talk about it. It had proved rather difficult so far. Letting herself into the Ravenclaw common room, Lisa let herself relax. She’d come back from the library at an odd time and didn’t expect many people to be around. Practically tumbling over herself, Lisa headed straight for the couches, dumping the books she had clutched against her chest down the instant she was close enough to do so. She threw herself down onto the couch, idly wondering about whether or not she could chance a quick power nap there, when she noticed Michael. Her hand lifted in a wave before she even thought about it. “Hey, Michael,” she said, smiling. “What’s up?” It was a line of thought that Michael hadn’t quite worked out in his head, of knowing that they needed to put out things like the Phoenix Press and needed to get their message out in any way, while knowing that support might come in the shape of particularly brave (or stupid, as interchangeable as those were sometimes) 11 year olds who really didn’t deserve to have to face the same sorts of punishments he was willing to suck up. Really, Michael didn’t know what to think about it, beyond uneasy and uncomfortable. The Carrows were terrible, that much he knew. Michael had been lounging in a chair in the common room, revising and being moderately productive at it when Lisa came in, causing him to look up. He offered up his own smile, though he didn’t bother to wave. “Not much. Lounging, revising, that sort of thing. How are you?” He thought she looked a little tense but he decided not to say so. “Tired,” she answered, the word almost swallowed by the massive sigh Lisa heaved. Stretching out on the couch, she kicked her legs up and stared up at the ceiling. It was a little bit dramatic but, then again, Lisa was a little bit dramatic and she was tired. She groped behind her head for a pillow to prop her head up with and moved it about for a second, until she got more comfortable, before turning her head to look at Michael. “What is with the world? Everyone was whispering up a storm in the library, it was impeding on naptime.” “Maybe you shouldn’t try to nap in the library? Most people try to nap somewhere a bit more comfortable, you know,” Michael pointed out, looking at Lisa for a moment before glancing back to his parchment, pausing to write something down. “You might find that the common room is too loud for you too, you know,” he added after a moment. “It’s been that sort of day, I think.” He felt fairly certain that Lisa wouldn’t want to talk about the first years, though. “Yeah, but I needed a nap and it was my scheduled library time. And now it’s my scheduled ‘sit in the common room and pretend to do work’ time.” Lisa lifted one of the books she’d dropped down, flicking it open to where she’d thrust a bookmark into it and scanning the page, for a brief second attempting to look like she was interested in keeping up that facade. “If people are loud in here, will you tell them I desperately need to nap and they should take their conversation somewhere it’s more appreciated?” Lisa sat up on her elbows and look at Michael, trying on her best “please please please” smile. Raising an eyebrow, Michael laughed slightly. “I don’t think that they’ll listen to me. What with the common room being, you know, for everyone. Maybe you ought to deviate from the schedule if you’re that tired. Go take a nap up in the dorm? Though I suppose that would involve moving.” “They’ll listen to you,” Lisa said breezily. “Everyone listens to you. You talk with authority.” Running a hand through her hair, she glanced around the common room, noting the clusters of students who were huddled together and smiling and waving at the ones she liked better. “Also, you’re right. Today has been a day and I’m not moving. I just lay down. Do you know what moving could do to me?” Lisa didn’t wait for Michael to really answer the question, though she’d looked at him to indicate he should have an answer prepared. “The answer is probably kill me.” “Kill you, eh? That’s not dramatic at all. Not the least bit. A perfectly accurate response to the idea of moving up to your bed, where it might be far more practical to sleep.” Not that Michael was really trying to get rid of Lisa. He didn’t mind a little bit of company, even if said company was a touch prone to hyperbole. “So why has it been a day for you, Lisey?” Michael asked, smirking at the nickname. He figured he knew the answer to the question anyway, and also that he probably wouldn’t get the real one from Lisa any time soon. The nickname was enough to make Lisa sit up, glaring at Michael pointedly. She sighed heavily and then said, “Remember what we said about nicknames, Mike?” Pursing her lips around the satisfied smirk that threatened to spread across her face, Lisa tried not to look too gleeful at using the dreaded nickname but knew she didn’t really manage it. Of course, one of the drawbacks to sitting up was she was actually properly looking at Michael now and Lisa generally found it harder to lie blatantly to peoples faces. Scrunching her nose up slightly, she shrugged. “You know, the same reason that it’s been a day for lots of people. And also I couldn’t find my glitter nail polish this morning.” She spread her hands out, fingernails up and said, “Now my nails aren’t as great and it’s sad.” He’d known it was coming and still, he cringed at the use of the nickname. No matter how many times he heard it, and how joking it was, he still really hated it and he couldn’t quite hide it. But he didn’t comment, instead focusing on how he didn’t believe the bit about Lisa’s nails at all. “Yep, that’s a marked tragedy, misplacing that glitter nail polish. I know how that is. I couldn’t find mine the other morning, and it about ruined my day.” Michael held up a hand as if to prove his point before dropping it, shifting slightly in his chair. He paused for a bit before deciding to say something else. He wasn’t sure he wanted to push the topic much. “Yeah, it’s kinda shit, isn’t it?” Giggling happily over Michael’s reaction to the name, Lisa kept laughing as he held up his hand. She tried to look solemn, as if emphasising deeply with his predicament, but didn’t manage it at all. Or, rather, didn’t manage it until Michael spoke again. She could feel her expression collapsing in on itself, the architecture of laughter giving way to a construction which was much more nervous. She frowned and glanced around, pulling into herself a little. “Well. Yeah,” she said, crossing her legs underneath her for something to do, some movement to occupy her attention. “It’s kinda shit.” Michael watched Lisa closely, noticing the way her mood shifted from giggling to solemn, and he wasn’t sure exactly how much to push the topic really. Because there was talking about it and getting the message out, and then there was beating a dead horse and forcing a message on someone who didn’t care. But Michael didn’t think that Lisa didn’t care. She just preferred to ignore how much. “Actually, I take it back. It’s not kinda shit. It is shit. The whole thing is horrific.” Lisa turned her head away from Michael, taking advantage of someone’s voice raising in the corner to flick her gaze towards them. She knew it was shit: she knew that. It was obvious. They were first years and they didn’t deserve it. They were children. Lisa had seen some of them earlier, their youth stained with worries they were supposed to be too young to deal with. She tried to push the thought away: even thinking it made her stomach twist and roil. “They’ll be okay?” she said, instead of anything else. “I mean. You’re okay, so they will be.” “Yeah, but I’m also not eleven,” Michael replied, glancing at his hand to see the hints of scarring from his own slew of detentions. Sure, he was okay, but it hadn’t made the whole experience any less terrible, and he felt like he was better equipped to deal with it than some. “I mean, that sort of punishment shouldn’t exist at all, but it’s completely disproportionate to the crime for so many reasons.” Sighing, Michael ran a hand through his hair as he searched for something to say other than ‘this sucks.’ Which it did, of course. “I guess this is a hint of what’s to come.” Wasn’t that a cheery thought. Lisa opened her mouth to respond, grasping at words she couldn’t quite formulate. Uncertainty made her features a little more pinched and she tried to relax, her hands fluttering in front of her. Lisa watched the shape her hands made and then buried one of them in her hair, mostly so she didn’t look as daft as she felt. “What? So you think they’re going to keep giving detentions like that to first years?” she said, frowning deeply. Swallowing, Lisa said, “They should’ve just turfed the stupid paper.” Raising an eyebrow, Michael took a breath before saying anything else, giving himself a moment to formulate a response. “It shouldn’t be about whether or not they should have thrown away the paper. They shouldn’t have gotten that sort of punishment for, what, having a bit of contraband and refusing to give it up? That never would have been the punishment before now. So yeah, I think they probably are going to keep giving detentions like that to anyone and everyone. And I doubt it’ll stop there.” “Stop it, Michael,” Lisa said, before she’d really thought about her response. Her eyebrows raised a little in surprise, at herself, and she mumbled something like an apology. “I don’t want them to have got that punishment, you know that.” Chewing on her lip, Lisa struggled to find something else to say. She didn’t want to acknowledge the fact that Michael was probably right, either, but she knew it was foolish to disregard it. Not sure what she was going to say next, Lisa opened her mouth and said, “Did you hear what happened to Paige?” “I know you don’t. I didn’t mean to imply that you did.” And he hadn’t, really. Michael knew that Lisa didn’t want that punishment for anyone. Most people didn’t. She just was so insistent on denying everything that it was frustrating. He didn’t understand why it was so hard to just see and acknowledge what was going on in front of your face. Oh right, because it was incredibly unpleasant. On the topic of Paige, Michael nodded, sighing. “I did. It’s terrible.” “It is,” Lisa said and looped one of her arms around her knees. Honestly, she didn’t really know how to talk about these things, because she spent so much time trying not to think directly about them. She liked to sidestep topics, to change them when she felt like things weren’t going to resolve themselves in a manner she wanted. It was harder to do it with her own thoughts, but she’d also got quite good at redirecting what she was thinking, or of telling herself that it was what it was and there wasn’t much of anything she could do about it. She just had to keep her head relatively down and do what she was told, and she genuinely believed that other people should too. She just didn’t particularly like the punishments when they didn’t. She’d read Paige’s comment and flinched: the thought left a dull, acrid taste in the back of her throat and it returned now so when she next spoke her words tasted like ash. “Is that what’s going to happen, then? People are going to be given nightmare potions next? Because I -- I would much rather that didn’t happen.” Michael didn’t know what to say, not really. Because the truth was that yes, that was probably the next step in punishments, no matter how much any of them didn’t want it. And as much as Michael was all for speaking the truth, for doing his part in trying to keep the administration from brainwashing all of them, sometimes he felt like an unnecessary pessimist. Still, he wasn’t going to lie. “Yeah, that might be what’s going to happen next, but I’m with you there. I’d rather that didn’t happen, too. I’d rather none of this did.” “Is it not going to dissuade you at all?” Lisa asked, leaning forward a little. “I’m not even doing anything but it made me want to go curl up under my covers, throw a blanket over my face and hug myself a little.” Her eyes widened as she spoke and she raised her eyebrows, her expression one of genuine curiosity. He hadn’t been expecting the question, though all things considered he probably should have been. And it was a good question, but not one that would provide an answer Lisa liked, he was sure. “Letting it dissuade me means letting them win. I’m not going to let them win.” Though he’d be lying if it didn’t make him pause. It all made him pause at least a little. Lisa stared at Michael for a second, then licked her lips and sighed, shifting her gaze to the floor. “You’re so competitive,” she said, trying to morph her voice into something more upbeat and chipper. It seemed more than a little incongruous, considering the topic at hand, but she also didn’t know what else to say. “You agree with the paper, right? That people shouldn’t be silent. That it’s complacent, or whatever word it was they used.” Shaking her head a little as if it would jog her memory, Lisa pushed the sleeves of her jumper up to her elbows as she asked, “So do you judge the ones of us who just go along?” “A little, maybe. But I get it too. I understand why people wouldn’t want to say anything. Wouldn’t want to object and get detentions.” Lifting his right hand slightly as evidence, Michael shrugged. “I get it. It’s not fun, and it’s not easy. I don’t know. Silence doesn’t help anything though. I think it’s an inherent agreement of what’s going on.” Lisa didn’t particularly like looking at Michael’s hand, the mild scarring there something she both felt compelled to look at and tried to avoid seeing. It was hard not to look at when he deliberately invoked it, though, and Lisa’s mouth thinned slightly. “I guess it’s not something to do if you wanted to go into a career as a hand model,” she said, grinning at her own joke, forcing the smile to be brighter than she felt. The smile dimmed slightly as she tilted her head. “You judge me for my inherent agreement. Maybe I just really want to be a hand model. I have big plans.” “Is hand modeling really that lucrative of a career? It never occurred to me. Good thing I never had that dream, I guess,” Michael replied, hazarding a smile. “But you know, if you have big hand model dreams, who am I to get in the way?” It wasn’t the point and they both knew it, but Michael was okay with the idea of lightening the conversation a little too. Stretching her hands out in front of her, Lisa wiggled her fingers and then stood up, walking over to Michael and nudging him until he put his hand out. She hmmed in the back of her throat and looked at hers then back at his. “I’m definitely going to make loads more money than you,” she said. “You’ll be sad that you won’t make as much money as me. And it’s a very lucrative career. All the best people do it these days, when they’ve nothing else to do.” “Don’t worry, Lisa. I’m just going to find where you live and then camp out right in front. You’ll have to provide for me with all your hand model money. You’ll be so glad you make loads, since you’ll be providing for the both of us,” Michael said with a laugh before reaching out and poking Lisa in the side. “Provide for you?” Lisa repeated and scoffed. The smiles she’d been half-forcing earlier came easy now, springing into existence, and she laughed, looking down at Michael and wrinkling her nose as if she was deeply considering something distasteful. “You’re a massive moocher, Michael. I should’ve known. It goes so well with your name.” Swatting at his hand, Lisa tried to poke Michael back in retaliation, moving to perch on the arm of the chair. “If I provide for you with my hand modelling money, you can be my housekeeper,” she said, imperiously. “I’m not wearing a maid outfit,” Michael replied automatically, even though it wasn’t like they were talking about anything with real possibilities. “And I don’t know that you’d actually want me to be your housekeeper. How about you hire a different housekeeper, and I can manage him or her. Great plan, I think.” Shifting in his chair slightly, Michael closed the book that was sitting in his lap and looked at Lisa with a grin. “Damn it,” Lisa said, frowning exaggeratedly. “If you’re not going to wear a maid outfit, Michael, there’s no point in you being the housekeeper anyway. It’s all about the outfit.” She returned Michael’s grin with a smile and then shifted so she was propping her elbow up on Michael’s shoulder. “Tell me what kind of job you’re going to be doing that means you’re managing my housekeepers though? And that I’m providing for you. That’s a lot to ask!” “The job of super awesome friend, obviously,” Michael replied easily, looking up at Lisa. “It’s the best job. I laze around and give you advice that you probably didn’t ask for and suggestions that you probably don’t want, while lounging on your sofa and eating bon bons. I’d suggest you get this job, but you’ve got your hand modeling gig going, so.” Lisa laughed, throwing her head back and resisting the urge to bounce happily. She didn’t think that’d work too well, considering she was sitting on the arm of a seat. “What a cushy life you’re going to lead,” she said. “I’m so jealous, I’m going a bit green around my edges. Do you think you could hire me as a super awesome friend and I can have that job in between hand modelling gigs? I promise I give great suggestions and I’m excellent at lounging about and eating bon bons.” Leaning in as if she was about to tell a secret, Lisa added, “Also, I’ll tell you when your butt looks big in your jeans, so hire me.” “Well I can’t have my butt looking big in my jeans, so, I guess I’ll give you the job. We can be each other’s super awesome friend and alternate the whole lounging with bon bons thing. For the sake of our waistlines,” Michael said with a grin, running a hand through his hair. The idea was nice, of lounging about and not having a care in the world. Not the least bit realistic, but it was nice to think about. Giggling, Lisa nodded and said, “Sounds like an excellent idea to me.” Lisa held up her hand and nodded towards it. “To seal this contract -- and it’s a binding contract -- I demand a high five. It’ll be the best damn job you have in your life, because I’m pretty great.” She beamed at Michael, eyes crinkling upwards with glee. Maybe it wasn’t realistic, but she didn’t particularly care: it sounded like the best job, really, and she’d enjoy the idea while she could. Rolling his eyes but laughing at the same time, Michael raised his hand and returned the high five. “It’s a deal. Super awesome friends for life and all that.” |