| Details for What's in a Name? |
| Summary: | Lucian happens upon Medusa during a free period. The pair discuss common history, current events and the ever looming future. |
| Date: | 23 October 1938 |
| Location: | Clock Tower and Cliffs |
| Related: | Return of the King |
| Characters |
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Rough cliffs of dark gray and black basalt rear up almost straight up from the depths of the Black Lake to support the southern walls of Hogwarts Castle and the Clock Tower Entrance into the castle's Third Floor. The cliffs form a natural wall almost a hundred feet high with many a crevice and hole dotting its face. The lower ranges of the cliff are constantly wet thanks to condensation from the lake, the higher reaches on the other hand house a few scraggly scrub pines and varied bushes stubbornly in their home cracks clinging against the pull of the winds.
When you have a crazy girl threatening you it becomes necessary to find new places to do things you aren't meant to be doing on school grounds. Medusa has opted to hover near the clock tower and try her hand at smoking, hopefully the strong winds off the lake in the distance and the craggy cliffs will waft any evidence away. Even so she keeps a sharp eye out for nosy prefects, that perversion known as Pringle, and of course the crazy girl who has forced her to give up the ramparts. Thankfully most everyone is in lessons, the few people who have passed - and it has been few - are older students like her who have a free period at the moment and are in search of some fresh air or hoping to do some exploration of another kind in the boathouse.
One of those nosy prefects appears out of the clock tower, looking for a quiet spot of his own. But Lucian sighs when it looks like this one is taken. Well, it isn't so bad being able to associate with Medusa again. They've got some history, after all, and Lucian is a bit short on friends these days. "That's a joke cigarette from the toy shop, right?" he says suggestively as he approaches the Malfoy girl.
The Malfoy girl's lips quirk into a grin, "Of course? Care to try it?" She holds the lit cigarette out to Lucian. "I promise not to tell if you don't." Medusa lets her pale head fall back against the arched doorway to the clock tower as she watches Lucian. "Do you know your hair really is floppy. I joke about it sometimes with Douglas, but it actually is quite floppy. How long are you going to let it get?" Her grin widens, "Such a shame things never could be between us. Imagine how great our hair would look together."
Lucian holds up a hand, refusing the cigarette. "I need plausible deniability." That's a fancy phrase he's learned in his time as a Slytherin prefect. That golden hair of his flops rather wildly in the wind this high up. He gives a noncommittal shrug. "I don't think much about it anymore. I'm a country bumpkin now. Didn't you hear?" He smirks. "You know, you don't have to keep reminding me that we could never be. I'm well aware."
Medusa shrugs and takes another drag off the cigarette before she puts it out, not that it was anywhere near finished. It is secreted away somewhere unoffensive and unlikely to be noticed on her person. The wind carries the smoke away from them both as she exhales. "There isn't anything wrong with the countryside. We're in it now. Bit messy I suppose, but less full of muggles." Her hands pull the sides of her woolen over robes closer and she secures the pin which holds them together across her chest. "I like that we can be friends. I know with you there isn't some ulterior motive. You didn't demand I pay a stupid price to get your help. Not like that rat-arsed Kaiden." She rolls her eyes. "He wanted me to sing his praises to Sunny Parkinson before he'd help me. I told him she had a boyfriend but he didn't care."
Lucian furrows his brow thoughtfully. "He wants to get together with Soleil?" He settles down atop one of the crags of the cliffs, resting his arms on his knees. "He doesn't stand a chance. What have you got him tutoring you in, anyhow? I didn't think you'd have much use for him."
"So it would seem. I imagine it is the Balty thing." Her eyes widen in emphasis, "The big bad arsed Lestrange had her on his arm so Kaiden needs to do so. Compensation for dating that bitch Crocker." Medusa shrugs, she is only speculating after all. "He was going to take over for Alphard. Offered potions too. In the end the price was too high. I can't betray a friend like that." See, she is changing. Growing. Becoming a little bit nicer, just a little. "Gerald got his knickers in a twist when I told him. Said it proved I was disloyal. I hadn't even said anything to Sunny and I didn't." She grins smugly. "I've got Morgana to tutor me instead."
Lucian snorts, "Gerald. That's what you get for mucking about with a Gryffindor. He'll always think he's better than you." He looks down at his hands, lost in quiet thought for a moment, then glances sidelong at Medusa. In as casual a tone as he manage, he asks, "So Sykes is really intent on getting Sunny? Or is this just some passing thing, do you think?"
Medusa elbows him lightly in defense of her friend, "Hey! Gerald is nice and he's one of mine so you be nice. It will all blow over." She grins wickedly, "Besides there is something to be said for a - no, I can't say that. It will make you blush." Back on the topic of Kaiden Sykes Medusa shrugs, "Who knows why Kaiden does anything? Maybe he's hoping to make it up to daddy, trying to get in the old man's good graces after Crocker. That Howler Janette got would be nothing compared to what the great Arlo Sykes would do if one of his precious offspring dipped their wick in a tacky half-blood…" she tries to find a euphemism that will work and lamely comes up with, "wick stand."
Lucian snickers, nudging her back. "Or a bastard. I've met the man. Arlo Sykes is a twat, but he's got his thumb pressed pretty hard on his kids." He pries a loose stone from the crags, cocks his arm back and hurls it out over the Black Lack. "And for the record, you cannot make me blush."
"I bet I could but I can't be bothered. I've already got one seventeen-year-old boy to contend with and he's enough." She slips her hand the pocket of her robes and pulls out a crumpled bag of mint humbugs, the bag is held out to Lucian, enabling him to take one if he wants as with her other hand Medusa pops a sweet into her mouth. "If it weren't Kaiden I might wonder if he is playing a long game, looking for a way to link the Sykes to one of the better purist families. I mean, sure Arlo Sykes is someone but the Sykes are not Blacks or Malfoys or hell, even the Weasleys. The name only carries so much weight." She grins at Lucian, "You should point that out to Kaiden and frequently."
Lucian smirks challengingly when Medusa 'can't be bothered'. He takes a mint, shrugging as he chews. "I couldn't care less about all of that family name nonsense. I've got a 'good' name and it doesn't mean shite for me. Otherwise, you and I would probably still be a thing." The smirk only intensifies. Maybe they can't be a couple, but he can still flirt.
The bag of sweets is crumpled up and shoved back into her pocket again. "Lucian, you wouldn't be able to handle me. I am far too crafty for the likes of you. You'd be all about trying to make me be a good girl and where is the fun in that?" Medusa leans her hip into the doorway, shifting her weight as she crosses her ankles. "Though our hair would look amazing together." She sniggers and reaches up to tug on a strand of his much darker blonde hair. "What do you want to do after school? Have you ever thought about changing your name? Using your mother's instead?"
Lucian barks a laugh, turning around to better face Medusa. "Good girl? Please. Have you seen my taste in girls? You were one of them, remember." He chuckles, shrugging to the question. "I've thought about changing it. But technically my mother's name is Proudmore, too. Or don't you know the sordid tale?" He grins. "Her maiden name is Urquart, but I'm sure they'd throw a fit if I tried to use it. Wouldn't want to, anyhow. I thought about asking Camilla if the Fawleys might let me use their name. But it isn't likely. Not another Sacred Twenty-Eighter family. So maybe I'll just make something up. The hell with all of them."
"Those girls?" Medusa lightly shakes her head, "Paltry immitations of my own mean self." She reaches over and drapes an arm around his shoulder in a friendly, but familiar fashion. "Make something up. Fuck the lot of them. You are ten times the man that tosser Victor is. I'm actually rather hoping he ends up with bat-shit crazy Janette. That's Douglas' nickname for her and I think it works well." Her jaw works as she sucks on the mint. "I get a positive girlish sense of delight when I imagine the freakish genes she will unleash on the Proudmore clan. It fills me with glee, even. They don't deserve you. Her," Medusa nods her pale head, "her they deserve."
Lucian regards Medusa quietly for a moment, a smile forming on his lips, slowly giving birth to a chuckle. "Thanks, 'Dusa. Twisted as that is, that's probably the nicest thing anyone has said to me all year. Don't worry, I won't tell anyone." He gives her a conspiratorial wink. "Vic isn't totally bad. He's an idiot, but he occasionally tries to be halfway decent. Though I expect Abbott won't be much help in improving him. What is with her lately, anyhow?"
She pulls him towards her for a brief side on hug. "I never stopped admiring you, Lucian. I just…I was scared and young and…stupid I suppose. Thirteen is a very impressionable age." Medusa lowers her arm, slipping both hands into her pockets. "I don't have as high an opinion of him as you do. I think he was the one who told my parents. Always have. Always will." She bites down on her mint, crunching it a little. "I am waiting to speak to Slughorn about Janette. She's made some pretty heavy threats towards me. I think she's probably a bit doo-lally. Stupid thing is, I actually tried to be nice to her and warn her nothing good would come of that fiasco with the half-blood." A dark clad shoulder rises in a shrug before falling again. "What can you do? Crazy is as crazy does."
Lucian's eyes darken, and suddenly Lucian the Prefect is sitting there. "She threatened you? Damn it, you should have come to be. What did she say?" He inhales deeply, naturally puffing up, ready to defend one of his charges…even against one of their own, it seems.
"It was all dark ominous blatherings or so I thought at the time. I was studying. Mind half on the work. But afterwards I realised she was quite serious." Medusa kicks at a pebble on the ground. "She told me my time would come. Made some tick-tocking sounds. Said I was standing over an abyss on a thin rope and all it would take is one push." Her chin lifts and she looks at Lucian. "So I've been avoiding going up top. Don't want to give her an excuse to push me. She blames me for what happened, all of it."
Lucian's nostrils flare. "I don't give a damn who she blames. I won't have that barmy bitch going around threatening you. I'll put in a word with Sluggy, too. You want me to talk to her? Warn her off before she does something idiotic?" His fists have clenched into balls, as if ready for a fight this instant.
"It might help if you did speak to him. I've not really said why I want to speak to him, stupid of me. I should have done. He probably thinks it is about potions work." Medusa sighs heavily. "I've been trying to figure out what to do about her, so far avoidance is the tact I have taken. Maybe confrontation is better." She looks up at Lucian. "I'm no prefect, but is speaking to her even something you should do? What she did - it crosses a line. I joke about her being freakish and crazy but you know, she might just actually be a bit off her rocker."
Lucian takes a moment, Medusa's words giving him pause. "It sounds like it. I don't bloody know. For now…be seen with me. Sit with me at meals. We'll make sure it's obvious that it's just friendly. But the more she sees that I'm looking out for you, the less likely she'll try anything. I'll light a fire under Slughorn, and he'll take care of her." He shakes his head, exhaling in exasperation. "The whole school's gone insane this year."
"I'm eating with Morgana a lot now too. Between the two of you I'll look like I have an impenetrable wall of awesomeness around me," jokes Medusa. She looks Lucian over in that calculating way she has. "What do you think of Morgana? She's a bit like you, sworn off dating for the duration of school. But she's cute and a bit feisty. Might be the thing to strike at the heart of both of your exes."
Lucian blinks, his head jerking back slightly in surprise at the sudden change of subject. "The Head Girl? I hardly know her, really. Why are you trying to set me up?" He frowns in mild, but fleeting annoyance.
"Not really, no. Neither of you are the type to go for that anyway. It was just a fleeting thought since both of you got burned pretty badly over the summer." Medusa reaches up to brush her hair off her face. "Conall hurt her pretty badly and she's really nice. Genuine. Not many people in are year are either let alone both."
"She has my sympathies. But…no. I don't want to be set up, I just want-…" Lucian shakes his head, swallowing. "I want to finish this bloody year and get out of this place. I'm tired of all the childish games."
"That's what she said. To me. She said that just the other day." Medusa often gives into impulses and this time she hugs him properly. "I am sorry, Lucian. You'll find someone who's brave and decent and all those things you deserve. Maybe with a bit of mean in them. Just enough, but not as much as me." She grins and ruffles his already wind ruffled hair.
Lucian returns the hug, grateful for the show of compassion. "Maybe," he says weakly as he withdraws. "Sure you don't want to run away with me?" He grasps at playfulness to drive off the doldrums. "Like you said, our hair would be amazing together. Think of the children, Medusa. The children deserve incredible hair."
She pretends to consider it, looking as if she is picturing the children with their amazing flaxen hair. "Tempting. Very tempting. But I've thrown my lot in with the Scot and I actually, believe it or not, am quite enjoying it. Ask me again in a few months." Medusa shivers as a strong wind kicks past. "Am I am mad? I've agreed to come back up here, even further north, for New Years. I must be bloody insane."
Lucian sighs. "Macmillan? Seriously? The other Gryffindor? Come on, 'Dusa, he's a supreme loser. You can do so much better." He shakes his head. "He may not be a half-blood, but it's your turn to hear some solid advice. He will drag you down, and just when you're starting to climb. Don't do that to yourself."
"He's a lot more clever than people realise. Like that old saying about hiding your light under a bushel." But while defending Douglas seems to be turning into a part-time job for her Medusa doesn't want to focus on it now. "However, your advice is duly noted and stored away." She inclines her head politey, "Thank you." Lucian wins himself a smile, not a sneaky one or a sly grin but a proper smile. "It's nice being friends again."
Lucian doesn't let her off the hook quite so easily. "And you're a lot more clever than people ever realized, too. The difference is you give a damn about improving yourself. He's a bloody Seventh Year and he's still skiving classes. It's pathetic, and you know it." There is a bit of that overprotective puffing again. But finally he deflates, giving in to her smile. "I'm just trying to look out for you. I do like being your friend. When we talk like this…there's no pretentiousness. It's a welcome change from the daily stupidity."
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