;lionheart

Augustus Finch, eighteen year old seeker for the Hufflepuff quidditch team.

[goldenprat]

"The one and only."

A wide grin showed his pearly whites, arms stretching to his side in a somewhat theatrical introduction. It was inevitable, really, to avoid the little spectacles the boy was so famous for - after all there was a lot of truth behind the legend of his colossal head.

" Ah, well what are you waiting for, mate? " James asked with a hand rising, furrowing his eyebrows slightly as he took a single step to the side, signaling the boy to move.

" I could do with a bit of company, training before training per say, all with friendly and honest purposes - you have my word this is no deceiving game strategy and whatnot.”

The Gryffindor added with both hands up as if in mock surrender, letting the broom fall on his side before it levitated just a few feet above the grassy ground. As new appointed Captain, James had thought of finding a few of the old teammates and see just the toll the lazy days of summer had on them, but the Hufflepuff was here and James appreciated a bit of a harmless competition with an unlikely companion, especially if he wanted to test out a broom - good hearted boy that he is, James could never say no to flying.

[augustusxfinch]

Augie couldn't help but laugh at James' theatrics. It wasn't every day that someone acted more ridiculous than he felt, and it was appreciated. It was also good to know that he had actual honest to god friendly competition, he'd never really liked cheats or bad sports and a lot of the time the other players tended to fall into those categories. That being said, he did feel a bit guilty about laughing now- after all he didn't know if James was normally like that or if he'd done it on purpose.

"Er, nothing, I suppose." he said awkwardly, getting up from his seat in the stands. He hated how anxious he felt the moment something was expected of him, and his nerves didn't serve him too well when he was flying. But once he'd taken a few deep breaths he felt alright and began to make his way down, the journey down from the stands was a lot less pleasant than he had remembered, after all he'd been a first year during the few days he hadn't been in the sky competing so his memory was a bit foggy.

"I never thought you would be trying to learn out strategy," Augustus said honestly. He hardly saw the best in people but the thought had never crossed his mind. "We Hufflepuffs have never been terribly secret about our strategies anyway," he added, he didn't quite remember who the new Captain was but he could only hope that they changed that fact.

Standing in the quidditch pitch Augustus couldn't help but feel small, it wasn't a terribly large stadium granted but every structure towered above them and if you only looked upwards it was all sky, he craned his head slightly getting a better look at where the sun sat before mounting his broomstick allowing himself a moment to get accustomed to the seating before kicking off. He did feel bad about not warning James or something, it felt rude, but nothing really beat the feeling of finally being in the air after so long. And the precious fact that he hadn't slid off the end of his broom.

[augustusxfinch]

Augustus 'Augie' Finch Moodboard

[prewettingarchive]

Fabian could feel the boy’s nerves. He could see by the way he did everything cautiously that he was, at least on some level, a little uncomfortable with speaking to Fabian. He couldn’t tell, though, if it was him or just the talking in general. He didn’t mind, though. Fabian loved talking with all sorts of people. He loved to talk about things and listen to other people talk and small talk. As long as there were voices floating around, he was in. So he didn’t mind it if the conversation came slowly or quietly, so long as it was happening.

The boy had mumbled, but Fabian picked up on his words. “A classic? Well, I guess I should reconsider before I toss it aside…” He wouldn’t reconsider, probably. It wasn’t anything personal toward Alice and her adventures. He hated reading any books, let alone the children’s ones. Now if someone had offered to read it to him, then he might reconsider. It was just hard for Fabian to read something with the attention span of a squirrel. “Is your dad a muggle, then?” He looked back up at the other boy expectantly.

[augustusxfinch]

Augustus watched him and struggled to relax. While he certainly didn't think of Fabian as a threat (that would be ridiculous, even for him) he certainly didn't know how to keep up with particularly energetic people. Especially the socially energetic variety, because they never really ran out of steam. That being said, he'd be damned if he didn't at least try to keep up. "'spose you could, but most people don't really appreciate it. There's better poems by the author, I think," he reasoned remembering the Jabberwocky. it had been a personal favorite that he often recited as a child. That is, until he became too embarrassed to say words like 'mimsy' and 'snicker-snack' out loud. But Fabian needn't know about that.

"Yes, and my mum too. I think." he replied, wondering if it would be alright to voice more about his personal life or if that was excessive. He supposed he'd crossed the line into excessive a while ago so he might as well. "I've never met my mother, and my Dad reckons she might've been a witch. I don't know if he's joking or not,". He'd always hoped that she was a witch, but then again what good would her being a witch be, it didn't change the fact that she'd never bothered to raise him or the fact that he still felt like a loner even amongst the hundreds of students at Hogwarts

. "Wizards have their own fairy tales right?" he asked. He'd heard of a few of them and they all sounded ridiculous, at least Snow White sounded like a normal name in comparison to bippity-boppity-however-it-went.

[goldenprat]

It was the perfect day for flying. Blue skies (an oddity even in September in the far off lands of Scotland) and nice, fresh winds - the type to mess the hair a bit and make a pleasure out of breathing. It was almost a mockery of the situation; an open invitation to forget for a moment the ugly, darker shadowed parts of life and pretend everything was going just swell.

James Potter was an expert in pretending a sunny disposition, but this came easier after burning off a bit of steam up, up in the skies. To your every day, average student, the Potter boy was always in high spirits though. Laughing, joking, marauding around with his fellow partners in crime. But, while the Gryffindor had a light heart, he could never be blind. The air was thick inside the murky halls of the castle, filled with unstated words and slanted glances - their life was in a pause, waiting for something they all knew to be inevitable.

And yet here he was, chaser, Captain - and right now, he’d enjoy it fully and shamelessly, because he knew very well later he would not be capable of it.

Piercing through the skies, however, the boy soon noticed a lonely figure in the wide open, previously empty pitch. It wasn’t unusual per say, and perhaps someone had thought like him and wished for a bit of a breather before going back to dull schoolwork. Yet as he landed on the slightly overgrown grass, he recognized the boy immediately: Hufflepuff, Seeker, Finch.

"That’s a pretty thing you got there," the Gryffindor said calmly, after getting off his own broom, placing it over his shoulders with a hand keeping it in place as he casually approached the brown-haired boy. " ‘Bet it rides smoothly, it’ll be a sight to see in the next match - Finch, right?" He grined lightly at him, followed by a nod of his curly head. "Have you tested her out?"

[augustusxfinch]

To say the least, Augustus was surprised. He hadn't expected James to come over and treat him like- well like a person. He was a pureblood, a bit of a school celebrity, and on a rival quidditch team he really had no reasons to be nice to Augie. Not that he didn't appreciate it. A precious few people gave him much to work with in a conversation, and honestly Augustus wanted a chance to make up his own opinion of James Potter rather than relying on rumors like he had for the past few years. That being said his ears reddened as he glanced at his broom.

"S'not very pretty," he said simply, Potter was probably just being polite but there was really no need. Augie wasn't blind, and he really did wish he had a new model with him. "It's not even last years model, but it's better than a school broom I think,".

Augie wouldn't know, spending his summer break pretending to be a muggle he hadn't have much opportunity to test the broom out. Not to mention the fact that he'd only owned it for a little while. The trouble was, he didn't trust the broom too much- after all it was rickety and most likely temperamental and with his luck he'd end up thirty feet in the air before being bucked off. He'd read about it in a book somewhere and it had sounded painful, even in theory. Still, as anxious as he was to try out the broom he was rather impatient to get back in the air, after all he was rather rusty.

He nodded, "And you're Potter, James Potter." he didn't bother making it into a question. He'd have to been living under a rock not to have heard of him. Glancing back at his broom again he rubbed his palm against the handle shaking his head, "Haven't yet, been meaning to though, of course." he hurried to wipe the fingermarks off again.

[theprodigalsxn-blog]

"You know, I don’t think you’re doing that right."

Regulus rest his calloused hands against the wooden table, waiting impatiently for his potion to brew. A dark, impartial eyebrow raised slightly at the thick smog emitting from the cauldron across from his, undoubtedly a health hazard waiting to happen.

“Really, you ought to do something about that.”

[augustusxfinch]

"I know that,"

Augustus said, desperately trying to wave the smoke away in every direction but his own. No longer a stranger to noxious fumes he treated potions gone wrong more as mild disappointments rather than potential health hazards. He turned his head towards the speaker, they definitely hadn't spoken before. 

"If I knew how to do it better, I would."

He sighed, already sneaking his hand into the pocket of his robes resigning himself to waving away his potion altogether, he was done for the day. Besides he always felt mildly uncomfortable with new people seeing his mistakes, mildly being a general understatement. Everyone got potions wrong that was a fact of life, but when someone seemed to be doing well it just made things complicated. Besides, he was beating a dead horse trying to brew anything at all really.

"There,"

With a flick of his wrist and a mumbled spell Augustus erased all of his hard work. He wasn't sure if he was more upset with himself or Regulus.

[augustusxfinch]

The only time Augie ever really felt the weight lift of his shoulders was while in the air playing Quidditch. During practice, especially while they were on the ground he'd be his usual nervous wreck of a Hufflepuff. But, once he got a last ten feet of air between him and the rest of the world he lost most of his inhibitions and just- played. That's probably why his teammates had a much higher opinion of him than the rest of the school, and even some of the players on the other house teams as well. Not that Hufflepuff was really the team to beat, not with Gryffindor being Gryffindor but they certainly stood more of a chance with a good seeker.

That being said, it had hurt when some well meaning Quidditch fans had told them that it might be their year- with him being held back and all, which had left Augie wondering if he even really wanted to rejoin the team this year. Maybe it'd be better to sort of fade into the background. However that had changed with his father saving up the money for him to buy a broom, it wasn't the best broom and hardly the newest model but it was more than he'd ever used before. Augie had always used school brooms and there was no denying that they hardly helped him catch the snitch.

Now he had to rejoin it seemed, or he'd be wasting his father's money which was a troubling thought. His father wasn't one for Quidditch, if it wasn't on the telly then it was hardly a sport was it? Besides flying around on brooms sounded quite dangerous and Augie had proved during his childhood he was quite delicate, that being said his father loved rugby and football and it had been a bit of a pleasant surprise to see that his son had an interest in any kind of sport. Even a strange one.

Now at Hogwarts Augustus could hardly keep his hands of his new broom (new for him anyway) and went over it daily with a broom maintenance kit. It had to be the shiniest broom known to wizard kind at this point, but he'd always made a show of working on it out in the open for once having something to show off. Nobody ever made a point of coming over however, there wasn't really much to see there but Augie continued to keep it up. After all it was building his self confidence a tiny bit.

Startled, he wrapped his hand around the broom handle as he noticed someone plop down across from him, instead of trying to engage them in any sort of conversation he busily went about polishing the wood even more, occasionally sneaking glances over at them, utterly bamboozled as to what James Potter wanted with him.

[prewettingarchive]

When he looked back up the boy had a strange nervousness about him, something Fab couldn’t quite understand but accepted nonetheless. “Augie? Alright then, that’s what I’ll call you.” He smiled, more out of habit than at anyone. There was hardly a moment when you could find Fabian without a smile on his face, unless you were great friends with him. He was almost always smiling because that’s just what he did, sort of like laughing. Fabian just laughs. When there’s nothing else to do, he laughs. And so that’s what he did now.

"The book… ?" Fabian had let his voice trail off for a moment before he remembered that he even had the awful thing in his hand, let alone that he’d let anyone see it. He lifted up his hand to look again at the terrible thing and chuckled at the thought of it. "Oh, no idea. I’ve hardly read any of it. Not much of a reader, ‘specially not muggle children’s books." He laughed again then.

[augustusxfinch]

Augie nodded, smiling somewhat at the other boy's words. He often found smiling, as well as laughing infectious, which really only led to more trouble on his part. After all, not being included in too many conversations he had a tendency to laugh at the ones he was listening in on which always attracted unwanted attention and fed into him being mistaken as some sort of freak, stalker, or very bizarre gossip. Augie maintained (though hardly anyone listened) that he was neither of the three. Laughing now he felt a bit nervous and out of place and was careful to watch Fabian's face in case he somehow ended up offended.

Of course, wizards probably didn't have much of a taste for muggle stories even if they did have magic in them. After all they were so particular about magic that they weren't fans of fiction that happened in other worlds or without the bounds of their own set of 'rules' and Alice in Wonderland certainly fit that description. "Of of course," he said quietly. "My Dad read it to me as a kid, it's actually alright. Considered a classic really,". He felt terrible for mumbling at the end but there was hardly anything he could do about it, he always felt awkward asserting his muggle background, he probably should've just kept quiet.

[prewettingarchive]

Fabian looked up to find himself face to face with a quiet Hufflepuff boy he recognized. He searched for the name of the boy and found himself a little shocked when he couldn’t find one. It was rare for someone’s name to slip Fabian’s mind. He looked the boy over one more time and still couldn’t seem to call his name to mind. Fabian merely shook his head and smiled at the boy.

"S’fine, really. Totally my fault. Head in the clouds or summat. I’m Fabian, nice to meet you, mate." He held out his hand and gave the boy’s hand a firm shake.

He bent down to pick up the book that had fallen out of his bag in this whole process. It was just a small one, one he’d been working on reading for a few months at the suggestion of one Arthur Weasley. That, of course, meant that it was bound to be a boring book, something Fabian still hadn’t decided for himself as he had barely made it two chapters in. Still, he looked down at Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the wretched book (The muggles say it’s whimsical, Fab. I swear you’re going to love it.), and brushed off its cover before smiling up again at the boy in front of him.

[augustusxfinch]

Augie was having a bit of trouble putting a name to the face himself, but it eventually came to him. He was certainly one of the Prewett twins though he could hardly tell which, and he was deathly afraid of saying the wrong name. Luckily, Fabian spared him the humiliation. He nodded slightly, sticking his hand out to shake the other's consumed with worry about sticky palms and what grip was the right sort. You could never be sure, some people shook hands like they meant to yank your arm off and others seemed to wank to keep a few inches away, even when actively holding your hand. That sort of surprise was what Augie dreaded.

"Fabian Prewett, right. Er mine's Augustus Finch- er, my name that is," he stammered, looking down at his shoes. "I mean everyone sort of calls me Augie but you don't have to, erm, I mean it's stupid I'm sorry," he flinched nobody seemed to like it when he apologized so much. It always made for awkward conversations.

He was more than relieved when Fabian bent down to grab his book, giving Augie a moment to collect his thoughts and mess with his bangs.He always felt a bit more secure once he'd straightened them out again, but couldn't help notice the title of the book Fabian had picked up. Alice in Wonderland, a children's book and Fabian was hardly the right age but then again it was hardly the most ridiculous thing Augie had ever seen a wizard do. He tried his best to stifle his laugh, masking it as some sort of awful coughing fit that left him redfaced and wheezing.

"'S the book any good?" he asked finally.

[augustusxfinch]

“Do you have a lot of sad things in your head?”

Perhaps he's too trusting, because when he opens his mouth the answer is "yes,". Given all of that though he still doesn't want to talk about it, how could Lily Evans ever understand? The smartest witch in her year, the one with a brain that everyone talked about, couldn't know what it was like to be him not much in the wits department and a chronically bad student.

But it wasn't necessarily because he was stupid. He wasn't entirely. He was too worrisome to be stupid he figured, somewhere along the line he'd heard an old man tell him that the more you worried or the more depressed you were the closer to reality you were. So he supposed that he was close to reality, and not entirely idiotic. Instead he was just terrified of teachers- authority figures really and he hated classrooms. Sometimes the classes weren't so bad but he hated trying new spells, some of his classmates always seemed to get them right on the first few tries and Augie was left to work on supposedly easy spells whilst the rest of his classmates moved onto harder material. So he was terrified of them, and being watched, he was basically scared of everything and by the looks of it Lily would never know that was like.

She was a muggleborn too, and he suspected that she'd heard people call her a mudblood behind her back too but the trouble was, mugglborns like Lily proved that they were just as capable as every other sort of wizard. Meanwhile, Augie did everything to prove the stereotypes right (he didn't mean to but that's just how it played out). Then of course there's his mother, she didn't really leave him he supposed after all it was his father who must've started the mess. Augie knows the birds and bees by now. But he still wishes he could talk to her, or know what she's like these days still pretty? Still a socialite? Did she ever marry? Did she have any magical blood in her family? Maybe she was a witch.

It would be awfully nice to find out he was actually a halfblood.

[augustusxfinch]

“Don’t judge yourself by what others did to you.”

Augie blinked, almost bug-eyed for a second before remembering that it was rude to stare. First off because of manners and secondly because it really only served to inflate the ego of certain others, and if he was right about James Potter then he was certainly one of those chosen few.

"I try not to," he offered, hoping to make a good first impression. Or, fiftieth impression, if passing each other on the way to class could really be counted. He fidgeted with his robes as he thought of something clever to say, unfortunately no words of Hufflepuff wisdom came to him. "But nobody done anything to me," he finally said.

He worried what others thought of him, and he really couldn't afford to let rumors of some horrible fate befalling him spread around the school. Everyone would think that not only was he stupid and strange but also weak. And being weak had all sorts of ugly side effects like being bullied (more) and getting special privileges from teachers. Or that was how it'd worked out in the past with muggles.

"That's a good bit of advice," he added, nodding a bit. "I'll er, keep that in mind I suppose,".

[augustusxfinch]

“Tell me something good about your life.”

Augie blinked, and thought hard. Plenty of good things had happened in his life, he was sure of it but his nervousness wasn't helping him think clearly and the fact that the one and only Narcissa Black was asking him for something, or ordering him to do something wasn't really helping. it was just a simple sentence, an odd request really, but Augie's hands were already clammy and he was sweating through his robes. God he was a mess.

"When I was little my father used to take me fishing," he began, wondering if she'd appreciate a muggle memory. He'd never seen wizards fish before, but there was fish to be eaten in the castle so he supposed somebody did it. Or maybe the house elves did? He wasn't sure. But the story definitely had some elements of the magical world in it, so he guessed she wouldn't find it too horribly domestic. "We don- didn't have very much money so it was the only thing we could do for fun really,".

He felt color come to both his face and his ears, and picked at a loose seam in his robes as he spoke. "My father wasn't much of a fisherman, neither was I. Obviously," he continued, still picking at the string. "He used to get rather frustrated when we came home with nothing, and I felt very guilty about it sometimes so when I was little one time I made the fish fly out of the water,". "I didn't know what I was doing and they just flopped on the floor around me,

it was very... disturbing really," he felt less red and more green with every passing second. "We just stood there while the fish died on the beach, and then we ate them. Well my father did, I lost my appetite," he added, feeling slightly nauseous.

That hadn't been a good memory at all.

[augustusxfinch]

“All I really want to do today is go to the book store, drink coffee and read.” (from hestia)

"Agreed, except for the bit about coffee," he said with a nod, leaning back somewhat in his chair. It was a relief to actually be around someone he could consider a friend, or considered a friend on his good days anyway. There was hardly no accounting for what he thought during moments of extreme self doubt.

"I'd much rather be doing that than school," he admitted, running a hand through his hair before going back to straighten his bangs with the palm of his hand. He never really could decide what sort of style he wanted, and he wasn't one of those boys who could run around with wild unruly hair, it never really sat well with him when he did.

"Hogsmeade visits are coming up," he said with a nod. "Perhaps we ought to do just that then," he blinked, realizing he'd gotten ahead of himself. Hestia hadn't said anything about wanting to do anything with him, for all he knew she wanted to be alone. She often seemed to. He swallowed, feeling guilty about overstepping the statute of appropriate behavior he'd created for himself. It was rather strict.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to force any plans on you," he said quietly, looking down at the book in his lap  trying his best to pretend that he was reading intently.

[prewettingarchive]

Fabian had always loved the first week back from school. There was a certain feeling of mixed excitement and boredom that you couldn’t really find anywhere else. People trudged from class to class with a begrudging look and the occasional grunt, yet they couldn’t help but to smile when they saw familiar faces who hated their own lives equally as much. It was one of the most entertaining parts of his entire year.

So it wasn’t exactly surprising that he’d spent his Saturday roaming random parts of the school grounds, watching students groan about doing homework with their friends but then remembering that at least they were with their friends. He looked at his feet and laughed as he walked through the next hallway. He’d missed Hogwarts. Suddenly, he bumped shoulders with someone passing by.

"Oh, sorry. Didn’t see you there." He smiled in their direction.

[augustusxfinch]

Saturday hadn't treated Augie very well, it was the usual droll mixture of homework and worrying. This year he'd finally gotten a pet, seven years of Hogwarts he'd managed without one and his father had finally insisted that he might as well get one this last year. Whenever he got his own flat he'd need company, and there were certainly no girlfriends or even flatmates in Augie's future.

He'd settled on a cat, an owl would attract far too much attention in their crowded complex. A toad just seemed much too unusual and Augustus had chopped up too many bits of one in potions to have much taste for keeping one as a pet, he felt as if he'd be raising the animal for slaughter. Cats on the other hand could fend for themselves mostly and they didn't seem to hate Augie too much they basically ignored him whenever they didn't want food and when they did they tended to try and eat him rather than their kibble bits.

However, the cat did make staying in his dormitory a rather unattractive option and instead Augie was forced to bumble about the school grounds hoping that he'd run into the right people. Not that he was too sure who the right people were.

"N-no, s'alright," he mumbled after having crashed into someone, he looked up nervously hoping that it wasn't a Carrow or Black, and counted himself lucky enough. "Should've watched where I was going,".

[augustusxfinch]

“It’s blood, yeah.”

Augie recoiled, not because he was particularly unused to blood he had to put up with it in potions and during Quidditch games but he really would've been happier if Evan hadn't pointed it out.

"I know what it is," he said evenly, his voice only shaking the tiniest bit as he measured it out, pouring the blood into the cauldron, his nose wrinkling at the smell. He frowned, watching the liquid simmer, something told him he was doing it all wrong. This was why he hadn't really bothered with potions to begin with things always ended- badly.

He gasped as a giant cloud of gas floated upwards, engulfing him for a second he frowned feeling his face for anything unnatural. You never really could tell with potion's accidents, one minute you could be fine and the next shipped off to St. Mungo's for an eternity. Which would be bad.

 "I guess that could have gone better," he said, pulling his wand out remembering for once to use magic rather than risk whatever horrors the potion might inflict upon touching human flesh.

[augustusxfinch]

“In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.”

As per usual the first words out of Augie's mouth were "I'm sorry," soon followed by a quick sort of confused noise and furrowed brow.

He kept as much distance as he could from Slytherins, despite believing that they weren't nearly as awful as the students in other houses made them out to be. Each of them was different, but the ones that everyone in school knew the names of did tend to strike fear in the faint-hearted, such as Augie.

He looked around nervously hoping that Rabastan wasn't actually talking to him. After all they hadn't really interacted in the past, it seemed quite out of place for this sudden spouted philosophy.  He chewed on the thought, worrying that he was talking too much as it was.

"I don't suppose it's that bad, if we're all here," he offered.

[sxlitarius-deactivated20161023]

random quotes from books & stuff meme

“I feel like it’s November first, and I’m that discarded jack-o’-lantern whose heart and guts are splattered all over the boulevard of broken promises.”

“I swear, you are the only person I know who makes decisions based on what will provide the best material for a diary.” 

“All I really want to do today is go to the book store, drink coffee and read.” 

“I had chosen the path of the black sheep rather than that of the unicorns and puppies.” 

“They’re called hormones.”

“We’d have really pretty babies, huh?”

“I’ll have to act out by wearing lots of eyeliner and doing the drugs.”

“In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.” 

“I just wanted…to kiss you good-bye.”

“Tell me something good about your life.”

“Don’t judge yourself by what others did to you.”

“I’m in love. And I like how that feels. And I hate how that feels. Because love is an invention of fiction writers.”

“Smile. Nod. Say something witty before they find out what an incredible geek you are.” 

“So you try to think of someone else you’re mad at, and the unavoidable answer pops into your little warped brain: everyone.”

“Funny how when your life is mostly bullshit, you turn off feeling. Sometimes it’s hard to turn it back on again.”

“You believe this is a game, and you may be right. But if you think you can play it better than me, think again.”

“Why does it hurt so much? Why does it have to hurt?”

“The cure for pain is in the pain.” 

“That information is classified, I’m afraid.”

“Don’t forget. Not ever. Not for a second.”

“I am not interested in emotional fuckwittage. Goodbye.”

“I’m pretty sure you’re way out of my league.”

“You’ll NEVER understand that kind of pain.”

“The wounded recognize the wounded.”

“Thought you’d be gone by now.”

“Blood isn’t love.”

“Do your ears just block all incoming sound waves?”

“Go make love to a tube sock.”

“Is that a euphemism for penis?  Please let it not be a euphemism for penis.”

“He is a pimple on the cock of humanity.”

“I do not view other boys as threats, and I enjoy making them seem insignificant by calling them the wrong names.”

“Angry grizzly bears are going to look tame next to what is waiting for you at home.” 

“I’m going to kill you one day.” 

“I don’t like it, but my hands are tied. I just want you to know this: if I ever get the chance to betray you, I will. If the opportunity arises to pay you back, I’ll take it. You’ll never be able to trust me.”

“Of course I’d like to help you out. Which way did you come in?” 

“You’re mistaking bitter animosity for heartfelt affection.”

“I don’t know whether to punch you or kiss you.” 

“You’re hurt…let me help you. Please.”

“Look at this burn. It’s going to get infected.”

“It’s blood, yeah.”

“I know you’re not okay.”

“Look at me.” 

“You left me.Without a word.”

“You don’t…have to leave. Please.”

“I don’t need the feeling of completeness. I just need the feeling of not being empty.”

“Do you have a lot of sad things in your head?”

“How do I share what I’m feeling?”

“Not your [ boyfriend/girlfriend ], eh?”

“Are you not happy with me?” 

“This is love, isn’t it? When you notice someone’s absence and hate that absence more than anything? More, even, than you love their presence?” 

“I think your [ girlfriend/boyfriend ] is evil and should be destroyed.” 

“Love me, because love doesn’t exist, and I have tried everything that does.”

[hxstia-blog]

Her mother’s parting words weighing heavily on her mind, Hestia made her way outside to read the book in her hand. "Do try and get out more this year, Hestia, darling. You might find that you make some amazing new friends if you step out of your comfort zone." She had whispered as she hugged her. It was easy for her mother to say, of course. She lived for constant chatter, surrounded herself in social activity after social activity. Lunch, cocktails, sports classes, shopping outings; they all made up life for a woman whose only daughter preferred the company of books and silence. Hestia wondered if her father had been like her. Though she quickly dismissed those thoughts because why should the young girl waste her time wondering about a man who had never wanted her? 

Still, she’d found a solution that would work for the time being. She would sit outside with her books and talk politely to those who disturbed her. She would resist the urge to walk away. She would, perhaps, sit near other readers and join them in the silence. That would almost be like socialising, would it not?

As she walked outside she saw a boy she considered safe and decided to reach out to him and perhaps have an enjoyable afternoon, however, he knocked over his ink and she walked closer. She smiled. Hestia felt for the boy who must feel out of place at Hogwarts now.

         ”Nothing to worry about, Augie.” She smiled and waved her wand, clearing up the mess so that it looked as if nothing had happened. “See, all cleared up.”

        “Would you mind if I sat down?”

[augustusxfinch]

"Of course, of course," he said, "I mean, I don't mind. At all.". He felt color rushing to his face, he needed to become less flustered, really.

He shifted slightly giving her room to sit. He wasn't too sure if she wanted to actually sit near him, most people didn't. The closest they ever really got was sitting across from him in a chess match, or if the game got particularly heated crowding around him for a better look but it was never really about him. Itw was always about the game.

He felt particularly stupid for forgetting that simple solutions were only a wand wave away, he knew he was old enough to practice magic outside of Hogwarts but old habits died hard, and the look his father always gave whenever he used spells made him irreversibly uncomfortable. Even at Hogwarts he tended towards muggle solutions.

"Thank you," he added trying his best to smile in a way that wouldn't be mistaken for a grimace. "Sometimes I forget to use magic, it's a bit weird."