| Details for Exposing Secrets to the Sun |
| Summary: | After hearing Medusa and Douglas' plans, Elise runs right to Cillian and tells all. Then Fiona comes along and discusses bosoms and mischief making. |
| Date: | 1938-10-26 |
| Location: | Central Castle Roof |
| Related: | Under the Boat-Walk |
| Characters |
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Sick of shadows for the day, and bursting with news, Elise had asked Cillian to meet her on the castle roof as soon as possible. Luckily it's Saturday, so there are no classes to worry about. Here in the bright sun she paces, waiting for him to join her.
Cillian makes his way onto the roof, hands in his pockets and a picnic basket hanging in the crook of his arm. He looks around with a hint of a frown before his gaze settles on Elise and his eyebrow quirks a bit with a small smile. "Oi, Mousie…how are ye today?"
Elise hugs herself, nervous. "I'm scared," she admits. "Medusa Malfoy /hates/ me!"
Cillian's eyebrows raise as he looks at Elise with some concern, lashes fluttering and he bends over to set the basket down, pulling out a bar of chocolate that he quickly unwraps and offers to the young girl. "What has that dark evil lady done to you?"
Elise takes the chocolate and has a bite. It soothes her enough that she can start talking. "I was in the boathouse with Caitlin and Mary," she starts. "We had a breakfast picnic. But they started talking about Astrology, which I find very boring, and I must've dozed off. The next thing I know, I woke up hearing voices. Douglas Macmillan and Medusa Malfoy were in a boat together." Her face turns a bit red. "You know, kissing and — and talking. But they were saying the most /awful/ things. I thought that I'd better stay hidden until they left, and so I heard everything!"
Cillian just blinks and blinks again, wrapping an arm around Elise's shoulders as she speaks and listening closely. "Douglas /and/ the Medusa?" He has to ask for clarification before shaking his head slowly and sighing softly. "Ye 'eard /everyting/?"
Elise nods and leans into Cillian's arm. "First they were talking about how Medusa's got some kind of prefect position in the Magijugend," she explains. "And they talked about that sixth-year, Augustin. I don't understand why he's friends with Douglas - he and Medusa were talking about how they think that — that /mudbloods/ shouldn't be allowed to even use magic, and how they were taking wizarding jobs, and they should either go live with Muggles if they love them so much or just be grateful to serve 'the purest' wizards." She looks very distressed at this point. "It was so /hateful/," she whispers.
Cillian is quiet as he listens and takes a deep breath, hugging Elise tightly. "There's /no/ such thing as a mudblood, you can't have mud for blood! Ask Gunny, he knows medical stuff. That's just…" He trails off. "Magic can be pure, wizards…can use pure magic, but you listen to me…the more they hate, the more they will be consumed by that hatred, something can't be pure if its built from hate."
Elise nods. "Yes, of course," she agrees. "But how many innocent people are going to be hurt before then?" She shakes her head and shivers a bit. "Then they talked about how Flint put some kind of binding spell on their wands, or maybe it's an unbreakable oath, they're not sure. And something is happening on the eleventh and Medusa is going to be rich," she tells him. "I think it has to do with her and Douglas' relationship. I think they're planning to fool people about it, somehow. I think they're going to pretend to fight and break up, and then get back together. I think there's some kind of bet going 'round. And then Douglas said something about being obsessed with —" Elise stops and turns very red. "Er, never mind," she says hastily. "It was quite inappropriate, anyway." She rubs her forehead. "And then I coughed, and they heard it, and I had to pretend I was asleep. Then Medusa threatened to hurt me if I told anyone anything about what I may or may not have heard, and she wanted me to swear an unbreakable oath that I wouldn't tell, and Douglas told me I should, too, but I /didn't/. They kept calling you a cyclops," she says, frowning. "I called their bluff. I could tell Medusa was bluffing. She was scared I would tell everyone about their bet and I think she really loves him, and doesn't want anyone to know."
Cillian looks troubled, blinking. "Cyclops?" He then giggles and snorts. "Yes, they think I really don't have another eye I think." He sighs softly and closes his eyes. "This…this is very troubling indeed…we be 'avin' to tink of what we're going to do."
Elise steals a moment to snuggle a bit closer to him. "If they find out I've told, I'm afraid of what they might do to me," she half-whispers. "But I couldn't be quiet."
Cillian just sighs and closes his eye(s) for a moment before patting Elise's back and nodding quickly. "Well, we'll tink about this. We 'ave to do something to be 'elpin' the others…"
Elise nods. "We have until the eleventh, I suppose," she says. Then she looks up at him. "What others?"
"11th of November?" Cillian tilts his head. "Hmm, the others who could potentially be hurt. We could…convince them into protecting key err, less than 'pure bloods' in different houses and groups…"
"You mean we could blackmail them?" Elise asks. "I don't think they'll like that very much."
Cillian just quirks an eyebrow and chuckles lowly. "We don't blackmail anybody. We be Pirates, not miscreants. Just…at time I feel is best to be very convincin'."
Elise's mouth twitches into a bit of a smile. "I was very convincing today," she tells him. "You'd have been proud of me. They really thought I was asleep, or they never would have let me go." Her eyes drop to his mouth, watching his smile for a few seconds before abruptly she pulls away. To cover the sudden awkwardness she feels she peers closely into the picnic basket. "What else did you bring?" she asks. But even before he can answer she starts to poke around herself. "So… I should invite Douglas, I think. He seemed the least… the least terribly awful. We could convince him that we'll tell."
Cillian laughs and hugs Elise a bit before letting her go and in the basket are sandwiches and some fresh fruit and of course chocolate and a few biscuits. Cillian just nods slowly. "I be very proud of ye." He then sighs softly and rests a hand on his hip. "Aye…I think that would be a good thing."
Elise grabs a sandwich and settles on a parapet with her feet facing in. She half-turns to look out over the view. "Where?" she asks him. "I think probably somewhere with lots of others around. Maybe the Great Hall. If we go to a corner and talk to him, he won't be able to do anything but talk with us." She finishes off a bite and licks her lips. "And we should have a backup plan."
"He also 'as been losin' our house lots of points." Cillian's jaw set and he bows his head for a moment before settling down beside Elise with a thoughtful expression.
Elise doesn't keep up with House points very much. "Has he?" she asks. "Doing what?" She pulls out a sandwich for Cillian and hands it over to him with a little smile. "What's going on in that brilliant little brain?" she asks curiously.
Boredom leads people to do all sorts of things. If you're Fiona it often leads you to go climbing. She clambers over one of the louvres, moving with grace and familiarity. Heights don't bother her in the least. She shimmies to the end and drops onto the ramparts, then hops down on the floor not too far from Elise and Cillian. "Oh I been looking for you Cillian." She looks at Elise and gives her a smile then turns her attention back to Cillian. "I have an idea for some mischief.
"Umm…well silly stupid things, aye." Cillian laughs and shakes his head with a thoughtful expression as he waves a hand vaguely and accept the sandwich with a blink. "Well. First, I'm thinking how to kidnap him…" Then he trails off and just stares as Fiona comes into view and he takes a bite of his sandwich, chewing slowly and gesturing between Fiona and Elise. "Mousie, this is Magpie, Magpie this is Mousie."
"Eep!" Elise squeaks when Fiona drops by out of nowhere. "Um, hello," she says to Fiona. "Magpie? Why Magpie?"
Fiona isn't quite all up with the nickname thing, she's a somewhat odd recruit. "I know Elise, she's in my house. We fought bullies together." Fiona reaches into a pocket to pull out an apple and bites into it, "Magpies on their own are bad luck. One for sorrow." She takes another bite and eyes their picnic. "Am I interupting some sort of," even with her apple in hand she manages finger quotes, "'date'?"
"Because Magpies be likin' shiny tings as well." Cillian replies before gesturing for Fiona to settle down on his other side with a soft chuckle. "Naw, we jest be talkin' about how to twist the arms of upper years to bend to our charmin' yet purposeful will." He waves a hand. "Ye said ye wanted to cause mischief?"
At the word 'date' Elise's face turns red. She bites her lips and shakes her head.
Since they're not on a date the pretty little Irish girl drops down to sit in the gestured to spot. "So you think kidnapping an older boy will help you blackmail him?" Fiona shakes her head, "It doesn't tend to work. You have to have something they want first. Or some kind of secret knowledge they don't want you to have." She takes another bite of her apple. "Like how I knew my brother Gilroy fancied Victoria Humbolt, only she's a muggle and I know our parents would hate it and also figured he only really liked her bosoms. They're really big." She holds up a thumb and squints as she looks at it. "If you do this and you look at her head and then her bosoms, her bosoms are bigger than her head."
"Oi, we dun say 'bosoms' in front of Elise or…girls at all! It might cause them to be growin'!" Cillian just looks at Fiona with a blink. "Do /ye/ want bosoms bigger than yer head?" He looks to Elise. "Or ye? No…No…that would make it impossible to work on a ship. Ye'd fall over all the time. I mean, it would look like this…" He works to rummage through his satchel and then tug the picnic blanket out of his basket and he sets his sandwich aside to begin stuffing the front of his shirt, he adds a couple of apples as well, then he stands up and holds his hands out before placing them on his hips. "THIS is what 'appens when ye talk about bosoms!" He mimics a mincing walk, back and forth, wiggling his hips and bouncing his giant bosoms. "OooOOOooo, I can smother ye now, hee hee, come and give me a huuuug, hee hee!"
When Fiona starts talking about bosoms Elise's face does indeed turn red. "What?" she asks. And then Cillian says talk of them will make them grow, she crosses her arms over her chest and turns even /more/ red. "I don't think that's true," she murmurs. And then… and /then/… Elise watches Cillian stuff his shirt and mince around, her eyes growing wider and wider, until finally she can't stand it any longer. At first she giggles, then she chuckles, and then she just cracks up. "BWAHAHAHAHAH!" She laughs so hard that tears come into her eyes, and she leans over, clutching her stomach. "Cillian you're loony!"
The look Fiona gives Cillian clearly implies she is questioning his sanity well before the apple bosoms come out. She eyes the apple she is eating and then takes another bite. "Bosoms don't grow because you talk about them. I have a book you can read if you want. Mother gave it to me before I left for school." She looks over at Elise to ask if Cillian is always like this but finds the older girl is crying with laughter. "Right, so I was wondering if we could short change the older kid's sheets while they're at the dance." Time for a subject change!
Cillian just winks his good eye at Fiona before flopping back down gently by his sandwich and snorting delicately. "Aye, I be loony but tis good to 'ear you laugh luv…" Then he looks voer to Fiona and arches an eyebrow when she starts talking about books and such and he facepalms, rubbing a hand over his face. "Well while that's doable, we'd need a pirate in each 'ouse and we 'avent any Slytherines yet."
Elise takes a second to recover, wipes her cheeks, and grins at them. "Why would we want to do that?" she asks. "Besides, I still might go. Bruce Wickham said he might take me if he can't get a date from the girl he likes, and he said his friend Joseph will take Luci, too. He just wanted some chocolate in return."
"I can probably get a Slytherin to help," muses Fiona. She turns her apple and takes another bite. When Elise talks about going to the dance Fiona looks at her funny. "You've got a date with an older boy? A fourth year?" Another bite of the apple and she is thinking about what this means. "It'd be funny. They'll come back to the dorms late at night all tired and get in bed and think their beds have shrunk or maybe that all that dancing made their legs longer." She eyes her apple core looking for more flesh to eat. "But if the pirates aren't up to it I'll organise it myself so long as neither of you rats me out."
Cillian scratches his nose and just watches Fiona thoughtfully for a few moments, taking a bite of his sandwich and taking his time finishing it up with a tilt of his head. He doesn't speak, but he does reach into his shirt for a bosom apple and pulls it out offering ont to Elise before pulling the other out for himself. "Well. The Pirates all 'ad plans of attending the dance with other students or 'avin our own little party…do somethin' spectacular to make people go 'wha' and short sheets dun exact do that unless hmm…add some spice to it luv, tell me what would make it more than a prank?"
"Well, it's not a date," Elise says. "We're not going to spend time together, really… he's just getting me through the door in exchange for chocolate." She shrugs, and thinks about Cillian's last question. "You could put itching powder in the sheets," Elise suggests. "But that's really rather mean." She thinks for another second or two. "What if we put something in the punch that made their eyebrows grow?" she asks with a giggle.
Huh," says Fiona when Cillian mentions the plans of the other pirates. "Didn't know that." But then she doesn't really hang know who the other pirates are either. "Why does it need to be more than a prank? Good harmless pranks are fun." She tucks her apple core away in a pocket to throw in a bin later. "So you're paying someone to sneak you in," she says following Elise's explanation. "Paying for a not-date-date. Is there a word for that?" Fake bosoms didn't make the Irish girl laugh, but the idea of massive eyebrows does. "I don't think there is a potion for just eyebrows, there was that hair growing charm that I tired to get people to use for moustaches, but you'd have to charm everybody."
Cillian considers something, pursing his lips. "Because we are makin' a legacy here at the school, to keep others safe from bullyin' and other tings that start with bull. Pranks are good, and good fun…but iffen ye get caught, ye need to make sure it was worth it in the end, and that more than ye 'ad a good laugh." He waves a hand vaguely. "Ye dun know because ye dun 'ave a coin…" He rummages around in a pocket to pull out a golden coin and he offers it to Fiona. "When we need to meet, it be turnin' black…if ye need for us to meet, kiss it and it turns black and lets us all know that its time to get together. Halloween is however the time for tricks, so I 'open all yer ideas can work together good."
"Well, the eyebrow-growing potion — or jinx — is about as creative as I can get right now. Cillian, let's try to get Douglas alone in the Great Hall for a conversation tomorow. I'll go ahead and write down what I remember and give it to someone for safekeeping. That way we can use it as a way to convince him to help others." Elise stands up and impulsively hugs Cillian if he'll let her. "Good bye!"
Fiona takes the coin and turns it over in her hand, she tucks it away in a pocket. "It's a lot nicer to remake people's beds so they're a bit squished until the fix their sheets than to make them grow bushy eyebrows," she observes. Her brows draw together as she thinks of something, "I know about Elise because she's," Fiona tries to think of a complimentary word rather than cursed, "a little famous, but are there any other pure-bloods in the pirates? If I do get into trouble, which I'm not saying I mind so much, but if I do my Father is really strict and very anti-muggle especially after my brother ran off with that scarlet woman." When Elise mentions Macmillan Fiona frowns, she's had run ins with the the Seventh Year before, but stays quiet, watching the interplay between the two second years.
The hug is returned by Cillian as he waves after Elise and then his attention turns back to Fiona. "Eh? Pure Bloods?" Cillian's nose just wrinkles as he takes a bite from his apple and takes his time chewing slowly. "In the Pirates, we all 'ave blood. Its the same color when we get scratched or poked or cut…red normally." He shrugs a shoulder. "Does your Father 'ave an issue with ye bein' with anybody who isn't a pureblood?"
"He doesn't mind half-bloods quite as much as he hates muggles," explains Fiona. "We don't have any half-bloods in my family." She gets up onto her feet and leaning on her tiptoes peers over the ramparts, looking far off in the distance. "It's hard. Muggle borns are like surprised with magic, it's not their fault they were born with a flicker of it in them, but I'd never marry a non-wizard and don't understand why others would. It'd be like denying who you are." She sinks back down again, sitting beside Cillian. "You should be careful if you and Elise are going to mess with people in the Magijugend. There are a lot more of them around than you might realise."
"I see." Cillian just responds carefully, watching Fiona with an unreadable expression before smiling kindly and shrugging a shoulder. "I know there are many many around." He looks down and rubs his temples for a moment, cringing and flinching before exhaling softly. "And you should remember true character, honor, and love…is in the heart." He nods a bit and toys with his apple.
Fiona looks at Cillian oddly. "Who do you think has no character, honour or love?" She gets to her feet again, not certain she wants to hear the answer. "Maybe you should have this back." Fiona pulls the coin from her pocket and sets it down carefully near Cillian. "I'm getting the idea that maybe you don't want people from my kind of family around," especially as she thinks he just insulted her father, a most serious offense indeed. "Maybe I'll see you around, Cillian." Fiona grabs her apple core by the stem and walks off then, leaving the pirate captain to the remnants of his picnic and his own company.
Cillian blinks and stares after Fiona with a blink, and another blink and his eyebrows shoot up as his lips form a tiny 'o'. "…wha? No! I be talkin' about…" He trails off and watches after Fiona with the biggest look of 'wtf' on his face. "I be sayin' its somethin' to remember! How the world…of the…what the…" He just sighs and covers his face. "Seriously…I said character, honor and love is in the heart…not People don't have honor love and character…what the…"