His suggestion to move to the stone alcove, only a few feet away was a relief to the younger sibling. He hadnât said anything, but he had spotted it and Sophie knew where they were going, instead of standing in the middle of the entrance to the Slytherin Dungeons. She wouldnât have to deal with anyone seeing her vulnerability. Her feet started to move a couple of seconds after his had. She hadnât followed him for years. Whenever she had seen him, he or she had turned around, by all means avoiding each other. She had answered questions about them for thousands of times. âWhy arenât you talking?â âWhat has he done?â âWhy does he hate you?â And she had always used the same answer. âHeâs a stuck up idiot.â Because that was what she believed. Their entire childhood there had been hostility between them. They lived in the same house, but different lives. Envy was her worst trait. She envied the attention he got, and he didnât even seem to appreciate it. How the parents had always favored him when they two of them had gotten into a fight again. How he was always right and she was always wrong or brushed aside. Of course, this was her side of the story. He probably had his own version of their life, because he wasnât entirely happy with their parents either. She wouldnât call it hate, more a kind of respect mixed with disliking.
That was probably the weirdest she had done for a long time.. other than nearly killing someone and ending up severely hurt as well. She bit her lower lip for a small second as she took a seat somewhat away from him. She wasnât comfortable, of course not. He had brought their parents into the conversation. The one thing that might have scared her to death, if it wasnât for his assurance that he would consider not to tell them. Honestly, her parents wasnât her biggest concern, but they could be if he told them. They would bring down hell. The Hayes clan couldnât have a murder attempt on their resumĂ©. Even though most of them had always been Slytherins, their reputation was still honorable. Sophie was far from honorable in their eyes. She was a trouble maker and far from the best in her class. Not like the ever-so-perfect Ellis. The better Hayes as half the school called him. She cast his range of spells, making sure no one could hear them, or even see them. He took his own measures to ensure they werenât seen together either. She sighed, looking down, onto the floor with a look of despair before lifting her gaze to find his eyes. âNot threatening me..â She repeated and sank the saliva she had in her mouth.
"Iâm saying she did deserve it." She said, rather coldly, her stern voice was back. The bare mention of the blonde Gryffindor made her like that. "She keeps going around, spreading half truths." Her voice continued. He was friends with the blonde. Close, if she wasnât mistaken. She tried not to care, but the fact that the two of them were friends, just gathered two of the people she disliked the most. No, she hated Eliza. She didnât hate Ellis. The feelings were hostile, but not hatred. Her eyes went wide for a second when he mentioned the spell she had used against the blonde witch. She barely knew it herself. It had just instinctively come out of her mouth the second she saw her own blood run down her shoulder. "I donât know, Ellis." She said with sincerity in her voice. "I must have read about it somewhere, it just.. happened, I didnât even know what effect it had." She tried to explain and sighed. It had just started to become too much, she didnât know what to do anymore, everyone had started to turn against her for something she wasnât even fully guilty of. "I didnât mean to try and kill her, but her eyes scared me. The flame she nearly covered me in, scared me. The fact that I started to bleed, scared me. I donât know, I panicked, I went overboard, but she deserved it⊠at least some of it." She said, her voice being shaky.Â
"Let her have her revenge." She mumbled, barely hearable. Frustration came to mind. He thought it was his problem. It wasnât. The second the family name was on stake, he rushed to see what was going on. "So go ahead. Tell mother and father what a killer I am. Iâm sure theyâll have me suspended from everything." She said, clutching her hand into a fist. Wrath came rushing through her along with the sadness and despair that currently filled her body. "Sheâs a manipulative whore. Sheâs getting everyone to hate me as much as she is. Iâm not trying to victimize myself, but sheâs just as much at fault as I am." She couldnât help the rant. She needed to vent it to someone, that someone being her brother didnât matter anymore. "Iâm sorry Ellis, I really am."
The girl's demeanour had caught Ellis offguard, and try as he might to mask his incredulity, he knew that it was etched all over his face. The way she held herself, shoulders slumped and back rounded, her head staring at the floor. The way she moved, barely more than a purposeful shuffle, the walk of a defeated being. The more obvious lack of venomous insults being hurled in his direction, her mind clearly preoccupied with greater troubles. Each and every sign alerted the boy that his sister's reaction to this particular situation wasn't quite the same, standard 'Sophie' he'd come to expect. While he couldn't be sure what this would mean for the eventual resolution he'd have to come to, Ellis vowed silently to try to temper his own tone and continue to remain as neutral as he was able. Clearly, through a sense of defeat or an honest desire to show how contrite she was, his sister was the very picture of vulnerability, a fact that the Ravenclaw would respect and value. It wasn't often that the pair found themselves in a similar situation, and he wasn't going to risk it by taking advantage of her passive mood.
"No, not threatening you," Ellis echoed back to her, wanting to ensure those words sunk deeply into her mind. Although she knew as well as he that the dark-haired lad wasn't on her side per se, he wanted her to know that he wasn't fully against her either. Regardless, the gravity of her acts had to be impressed upon her, but with grace and tact. As she she shared her version of the events, it was this thought that continued to run through Ellis' head, as his sister's tone dithered somewhere between icy and remorseless and depressed and apologetic. It was clear that she felt as though her victimization was being lost in the subsequent reaction, and that somehow partially vindicated her actions. Although Sophie wouldn't find a sympathetic ear outside of Slytherin house, Ellis understood the young girl's sense of utter frustration and helplessness. She'd already been cast as the pariah, the murderous heiress to a wealthy family bent on attacking any that stood in her way. Although this version of the events was currently popular around the school at large, Ellis was wise enough to know that they were no more accurate than the portrayal of Sophie as an innocent lamb only defending her honour.Â
"You see the problem though, don't you? It's one that you created for yourself long before any of this happened. You've lost the benefit of the doubt. That seed of doubt that would make everyone pause and think 'Maybe there's more to this.'. That's gone, Sophie. While I don't disagree that Eliza may have started it, and that she might have gone overboard herself, the problem is that no one cares. She's no saint, but she doesn't have the same...image problem as you do," he said tenuously, knowing that he was walking on eggshells in the current conversation. He felt sympathy for his sister in the moment, but very little in the situation she'd caused for herself. Her manner with her peers of all ages was horrendous - she'd been known to insult, degrade, and taunt anyone she saw fit, and those were the good days. Ellis was always so keen to dissociate himself from his sister from the moment she'd arrived at the school, but not for the reasons she believed. He hadn't hated her then, when school had started - but her reputation spread quickly, like a sickness that enveloped those merely associated. His only chance at social survival was to cast her to sea, adrift alone in the vast ocean of students that was Hogwarts. Was he partially to blame for her increased volatility? Perhaps. But she had to understand that the reason she stood her now was because of her actions and no one else's.
"It doesn't matter who's at fault any more, and calling Eliza names isn't going to solve your problems. I'm not going to send anything home, because this is something that you need to solve. Mother and Father apparating in and ending your Hogwarts life is only going to make it worse, Sophie." His voice bore the same tired tone of his sister's, as if her fatigue was transferring onto his shoulders. "I know you don't believe me, but...I want you to come out of this better than when it happened. But you have to take responsibility and mend some fences. Which means swallowing some pride and apologizing."
