| Details for Plots, Plans and Penances. |
| Summary: | An empty common room is taken advantage of; Marcus' birthday is planned, the issue of hierarchy discussed and the pot is thoroughly stirred. |
| Date: | 1938-12-15 |
| Location: | Slytherin Common Room |
| Related: | — |
| Characters |
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Jenny'd made herself at home in the quiet of the common room, thanks to the majority of the student population being agaggle over Hogsmeade and the lesser classmen still getting escorted about by professor's for the holidays. It made the common room unusually quiet and thus, entirely more comfortable. The fire crackled, the giant squid drifting by the window, with it's great eye staring hungrily through the glass often leaving the sensation that it would much prefer to find out how those on the other side tasted.
It meant quiet, it meant peace, it meant, rather a lot of chocolate sprayed out on the nearest coffee table, including a list of things to be picked up for a party that was summarily being planned and two women on the couch, one of which was currently complaining. "It's just, I hate it when they treat you like an object. Like there's not a lot of personality or that issues don't matter, that it's just about trying to get you into unseemly positions because that's the only thing you're good for." Girl talk? What is this? "And did we just want to throw his party at AJ's, since we're all going to be there? Or were there some other people here from school that you think he'd want to come?"
They say ignorance is bliss. Assuming himself along for the rest of the weekend, as others had declared plans of their own, Silas actually never left the campus today. Instead, he and Adelaide had spent the bulk of the morning, and even part of the afternoon, laying about on the grass in the warmth. As the result of this, said white ferret is passed out over Silas' shoulders, her tiny snore still somehow audible.
He pauses slightly just as he is about to become visible on the stairs into the Dungeon, hearing Jenny's voice, but more specifically the claims being made. A quick run through of the past few days conversations, miniature arguments, and the like go through his head.
Okay…nothing he can place there. Steeling himself, Silas continues walking directly into the room, smiling as he "notices" the two and heading over in that direction.
"It's a lack of chivalry, really," comes the reply from Genevieve's couch-mate. Peyton, having no real regard for the animal rights of chocolate frogs, nibbles idly on the back leg of the thing, where it struggles limply between her fingers. "I suspect they all have those sorts of aims, but it's really a matter of teaching them to supress their instincts. I find that tears work well." She glances over the assortment of sweets, twining a lock of honey hued hair around one finger. "Hm… I don't think we should have the party at the ski lodge; too much of a chance of people showing up and deciding to stick around," she points out. "We should find someplace nearabouts for it. Somewhere pretty," she adds, a dreamy look stealing its way onto her features.
Silas' arrival seems to go unnoticed as this blank-ish look doesn't shift one bit when he makes his appearance, but then she speaks and it's plainly evident she's noticed him. "Where should we have Goyle's birthday party? It isn't as if one turns sixteen every day, so it should be special, but I am insanely jealous, so it can't be too great a location," she says, somewhat softening her bitter words with a bright smile.
Marcus tastes like white chocolate frogs, probably. Doubtful that a squid would want to eat such a thing. Stretching, he enters the common room. It is quiet. Too quiet. The voices of the girls catch his attention, and he approaches. "Solomon, Crabbe," he greets, his tone casual. However, he squints. "What are you two up to?" Seeing Silas also enter, he adds a lazy salute to the other boy. "Meliflua."
He does a double take of the girls and then looks at Silas again. "What are they up to?" He asks of him, in case he heard anything coming in, because apparently Marcus heard nothing. Or maybe he did, who knows!
"I unno. Tears just seem to encourage the whole, holdy thing and being frustrated seems to encourage the whole, we'll let's just…," oh. Silas. Abruptly Jenny shifted gears and shut her mouth and offered an all too happy little smile in the boy's direction, one that had the benefit of warming her eyes and cooling some of her annoyance. She shifted too, reaching up to pluck a sugar quill from the table so that she could absently suck on the flavor filled feather while Peyton posed her question.
She remained quiet too, while he answered, offering a little upnod to Goyle as he entered. "Up to? Why should we be up to anything," the quill waved about airly. "Look at these faces, they're such innocent faces. Who'd think we were up to anything?"
His hands held in front of him, in an almost apologetic stance, Silas is initially silent as as he waits for a reaction from jenny, a clue as to how he's supposed to play his role at the moment. There were, after all, promises to keep. The smile she gives him allays a few fears, however, and he takes a moment to offer her a wide smile back. Peyton's tone catches him, however, and he casts his eyes down for a moment, before heading toward the table in the corner, toward the coffee, of all things.
As he does, Marcus enters, and poses his question. Silas chuckles at the response given, and pipes up, "Don't listen to them. I specifically heard mention of gunny sacks, twine, beater bats, and your name. And something about the Forbidden Forest. However, I wouldn't worry much. Sounds perfectly innocent to me."
"It has to be guilt tears, not sadness tears," Peyton explains, an expert in this particular field. "Not the sort that inspire hugs, the ones that make them start scuffing their toes on the floor. They've been bad, they should feel bad. If all else fails, you scowl and storm off." She blinks when Jenny starts smiling all happily, then laughs quietly. "If you could see your face right now," she teases.
Silas' interpretation of the previous conversation, along with Jenny's airy feather-waving, inspires Peyton to play along, and she looks up at Marcus with wide blue eyes full of angelic innocence. "Double lengths of twine," she asides to Jenny from the corner of her mouth.
"Because you're always up to something. Always," Marcus says this with a serious nod, that doesn't quite last, really. He just smirks and shrugs. "I'm just teasing, carrying on with your scheming," he tells them as he looks for a spot to plop down at.
Grinning at Silas he nods. "That sounds very much like them, and their kind innocent scheming," he agrees. "Forbidden Forest… could be worse, I suppose," he muses, with another shrug.
"I'm not sure I know how to do guilt tears," Jenny ponders, brows furrowed. I'm just not much for crying. Like when I spliced half my foot off and missed the last game…no tears." Jenny could take a physical beating and hardly bat an eye, oh she might curse like a sailor, but that didn't provoke her to delicateness. Meddle with her heart and it was a different story and then? It only pissed her off. "Though I have had practice at storming. Of course, it's generally so I don't just…break someone's nose. They bench you for that, of course, that happened third year and I really probably honestly shouldn't have taken the club to that bloke but…," But it'd been necessary.
Talk of her face though, had her frowning in Peyton's direction and reaching out to muss at the girl's hair. "My face looks fine. No worse than yours, that day at Broomsticks." The tease came, Jenny sticking out her tongue. Yet her eyes tracked Silas across the room, before she straightened up from her half sprawl at the end, making room for him to sit if he decided to join them, without actually vocalizing the invitation.
"Could always use that fire rope," suggested, to Peyton's additional requirement of twine, before she winked at Marcus. "Anyway, how'd things go yesterday after we left? Broomsticks was getting packed, I dunno how you stood it. Bad enough, before everyone came rushing in."
Aside from his comment to Marcus, Silas has stayed silent through all of this… although hearing the mention of tears and storming, he frowns again… this time a little more of a tinge of anger to it, although that quickly dissipates as well. He has to play the part of the penitent here, clearly, if he is to keep his promise.
The coffee is put together the way he's seen her make it for herself, and once done, he pads over to the couch, offering Jenny the steaming liquid with a half-bow, unable to hide the slight smirk from his face as he takes on the role of the servitor.
Once that is done, however, he notes the space left open, shifts a protesting ferret to his arms, and sits quietly next to her. The ferret grumbles, quickly squirming out of the boy's arms to curl up into whatever corner of the couch she can quickly access… not ready to give up her nap just yet.
"Betwee the two of you, we've got the gamut on expressions covered", Peyton observes, looking between Silas and Jenny. "And aww, look - coffee. No one ever makes me coffee," she sighs delicately. The drama. The mention of the Three Broomsticks has her shifting toward an altogether less fragile state. "Oh, really I should have left when the two of you did," she says with an arid dryness. "Things got tedious, to say the least." She doesn't overtly make room for Marcus on the couch beside her, but there's certainly space there for a growing boy to sit, were he of a mind to do so.
"Guilt tears, sad tears, storming, what are you both talking about?" Marcus asks, frowning thoughtfully. The mention of broomsticks gets Marcus to roll his eyes. "Queen Malfoy started flexing her bitch muscles, looking for drama where there was none," he shares in response to Jenny's question as he shakes his head.
"You're far too quiet over there, Meliflua," the Fitfh Year Goyle notes of the other young man in the common room. He does have the mind to sit, and he does choose the spot next to Peyton, squeezing into it and grinning widely at the girl.
There's a glimmer of surprise on Jenny's face, when Silas brings the coffee over to her. And, thanks to Peyton, quite possibly a hint of color on her cheeks as well. Her smile, already warm, brights by default. "Thank you," the murmur is quiet, her fingers brushing his as she claims the cup. Black, as pitch. With a hint of caramel to balance out the fact that it was missing the irish. Absolutely perfect.
The girl was in the process of offering a shoulder-bump when his little Protectress chose that moment to go up the couch and claim a space..precisely where Jenny would have leaned. The small creature was given a flat look, before Marcus' words drew her back in to the conversation. It helped explain why Pey had said tedious, too. "Deuces, is hardly a queen. A bitch, yes. But hardly more. I really hope you didn't let her harass you, Pey. The only person here I've found that's as bad is her, is the little Black brat, who thinks her name excuses her nasty little tongue."
"Penance, my dear boy, penance," Silas offers back to Marcus with light grin, even as he norices where Adelaide has chosen to sleep. A hand reaches out, scooping her up and placing her somewhere less… in the way. "Silly nit… you know sleeping there makes you a target for The Terror." A grin goes back to Jenny with that, before he looks back to the rest, and the conversation at hand.
"I… have never had the displeasure of being in her ill graces, I guess. She, and people like her, have their uses… and I think she'll find that the towers she's built around herself here will not hold much longer after she is gone. But…" this time it's him who bumps Genevieve, "She has her uses. The Black girl, on the other hand… I think she's simply in need of having a peg or two ripped out from under her."
Peyton shifts a bit to give Marcus more room, though his grinning is met with a haughty scowl. "Sit on my lap, why don't you?" she asks. Of couse, the subtle blush that creeps onto her cheeks doesn't really help her efforts to be mean about it all, and in the end she winds up seated quite comfortably beside him.
"Baby Black decided to, right in front of everyone, start whispering in Medusa's ear," she explains. "Apparently she felt it her duty to claim that I was 'mocking' Medusa for dating a Gryffindor. This led to a lengthy speech about Douglas' bloodline and how dangerous it was for me to 'mock the monarch behind her back'. I swear, I couldn't have cared less if someone paid me to. Malfoy will be gone at the end of this year, so she doesn't really matter anymore," Peyton posits. "But Black hiding behind her is pathetic, even for a Third year."
Marcus watches the interactions of Jenny and Silas with some curiosity, that it's even more piqued when Silas talks about penance. "I don't think I've ever had penance work for me," he muses.
He smirks at the other boy's descriptions of Medusa and Lucretia. "I was being sarcastic when I called her queen," he clarifies for Jenny. "Her bite was aimed at Pey, she mostly ignored me when I called her on pissing around with words, listening to the gossip of a Third Year. The Black girl," he shrugs. Glancing at Peyton's words. "I'll totally sit on your lap, if you want me to," he actually decides to warn her. "Or better yet! You could sit on mine, there's a lot of space for you to relax and stretch." That is said with the widest of grins, but he stops his teasing there. He smirks at Peyton's retelling of the events. "Little Black should find herself a champion that will be around for a while, if she's wanting to go that route."
"What're you doing penance for?" Jenny's head swivels in Silas' direction her look one of extreme confusion. "You haven't done anything wrong. Has someone made you feel like you have?" There is an edge to her tone, the kind that suggests it would be…less than good for whomever's responsible should the answer be yes. So caught up in waiting that she doesn't seem to register he's moved his little Warrior until after the furball is gone.
But then, there's Peyton recanting the story and Marcus clarifying and all Jenny can do, is roll her eyes. "The little brat comes by her whispering honest, Dueces is the same way. I'm generally one of her favorite topics. It was quite surprising yesterday when she actually called me Jenny. But you're right. She is on the way out, and it might do for her to realize it. I've extended a branch of protection to Lowe as a result. But little Black can't be given too harsh a lesson. She is family after all, to Alphard who is a friend. And, well, she's quite younger than us. The same rules don't exactly apply, but there is something we could do, that'd be just as effective to someone her age, who thinks she's quite important. After all, what do little girl's want but attention? And if we should all deny her attention or even acknowledgment when she enters a room…well, it's not active harassment so she can't complain to anyone that she's being picked on and it would convey the lesson without requiring more extreme measures."
"Penance, my dear boy, penance," Silas offers back to Marcus with light grin, even as he norices where Adelaide has chosen to sleep. A hand reaches out, scooping her up and placing her somewhere less… in the way. "Silly nit… you know sleeping there makes you a target for The Terror." A grin goes back to Jenny with that, before he looks back to the rest, and the conversation at hand.
"I… have never had the displeasure of being in her ill graces, I guess. She, and people like her, have their uses… and I think she'll find that the towers she's built around herself here will not hold much longer after she is gone. But…" this time it's him who bumps Genevieve, "She has her uses. The Black girl, on the other hand… I think she's simply in need of having a peg or two ripped out from under her."
Silas looks at Jenny with something of a pointed, confused look. "You were speaking about it just as I came in…" The answer can't be explained, otherwise. Quiet again, he listens to the others talk about Medusa… brows furrowing just slightly. He knew she engendered anger with her actions, and he certainly didn't agree with them all, but unlike the others there /was/ a sort of kinship there… if only in that he knew all too well that type of person, and the best ways to stay out of the line of fire.
"I already ignore her, it's other people paying heed to her insufferable little self that make it an issue," Peyton tells Jenny. "But you're right; not responding to her presence at all is probably prudent. I'm all for someone asserting their will and dominion, it's our way. Jenny does it with a bludger bat, Silas does it with coffee, Marcus does it with his insufferable little grin, and I do it with the sheer force of my stellar personality. But to do it by hiding behind someone else isn't clever, it's tacky."
She apparently passes on Marcus' offer of shifting onto his lap, since… she doesn't move from where she sits beside him. "I'm quite comfortable right here, but thank you," she says, smiling ever so sweetly. "And stop telling tales, you've never done penance a day in your life; at least not that I've witnessed."
"How do I do it?" Esther greets from the doorway, entering into the conspiratorial meeting with slow steps. The bountifully haired girl shoots a long, slow glance from each housemate to the next. Silas. Peyton. Marcus. Genevieve. It's either about her, or about Medusa - And hiding behind someone else? She's not doing that… Yet. The assembled are given a rare smile, as she unclasps her heavy cloak, and hangs in on a nearby hook.
"I'm pretty good at ignoring people," Marcus ventures, with a smirk playing on his lips. "And you're right. She's a Black It's not like I want to go around picking up a fight with the Blacks, but, she's also a brat, and brats are meant to be ignored."
Silas' silence doesn't escape Marcus. "You're still very silent over there, Meliflua," he observes again. He opens his mouth to protest, totally intending to contradict Peyton's claim… It stays open for a few seconds before he shrugs. "Nope, you're right." No penance for Goyle. When Esther arrives, he greets, "Esther."
"But I wasn't talking about you?" Poor Jenny, Silas is still confusing her. She has not yet connected one and one, to equal out to two. There is a jumble in the middle that's more political than personal and her attention is split. Yet in an attempt to smooth away whatever confusion that he's laboring under, the girl dips her head and nuzzles just once, her cheek in against Sy's shoulder.
"No, the other day, AJ was talking to her, that should stop. Not even to tease her. And I'll have a word with Alphard to suggest he might like to remind her of where she settles. There aren't that many people left to hide behind. Those she could? Won't be with us for much longer, after all, the year's half gone."
But then, then there is Esther's arrival and Jenny's smile shifts, warm and welcoming all at once. "There you are. Just the girl I wanted to see. In fact," Jenny's smile turned sly. "I could use your help with something! Come join us."
Well… that admittance on Jenny's part may just confuse some. Silas Offers her a slight nod with his eyes closed for a moment, then dismisses the thought for later treatment. Then again, nuzzles are also pretty much a sure recipe for distraction.
Appearances be damned. Prefect-prohibited canoodling be damned. An arm goes to snake around Jenny's shoulders. Let the other two pretend not to want to do the same. "I think Alphard may be the best one to approach about her… it's in his best interests to keep her a bit more in line. Or at least behind us should she need greater influencing."
Then in comes Esther, and the boy offers another genuine grin. "Well,,, there's an unfamiliar face! Esther… it's good to see you." And the tone is honest, to boot.
"With your hair," Peyton responds to Esther without missing a beat. And if it's not a particularly useful assessment, she at least seems to think she's pretty amusing, flashing a brief but bright smile. "You know, there is going to come a point when Alphard realizes he's been appointed as the wrangler of students he's related to; the ensuing explosion will either be amazing or dreadful - both of which I will personally enjoy." She takes up another chocolate frog, motioning Esther over once her fellow Fifth year has hung up her cloak. "Come, sit. Marcus was just telling us all about that one time many eons ago when he apologized for something or another. It might have just been a nightmare though."
Esther walks towards the assembles. Slowly, step, step and then step. They're paired. How interesting. "I have some business to attend to within the castle. It's a shame… I'm quite fond of present company." The quirk from her lips fades a little, her delicate fingers drumming lightly upon her outer thigh. People who are wanting to see her normally want something from her. Still, she walks ever closer, her smokey grey eyes travelling over each of them. Alphard's name has her intrigued. Silas earns her attention. "Silas. I haven't seen you by daylight or lanternlight for far too long." A pause, and a glance at Jenny. What's needed?
"If this plan involves Alphard, I should be aware. I'd hate to disrupt someone elses' plans with my own." Of course she has her own plan. One hardly declares war, and then defies the Heir, without a plan.
"You might have trouble getting Slughorn into the riding this unicorn," Marcus notes, referring to Alyssa and speaking of the whole ignoring the Little Black thing. "She doesn't know when to keep her mouth shut," he grins a little at this, but adds a shrug as well. He glances over at Silas just in time to see that arm snake around Jenny's shoulders. Amusement shows on his expression, and his gaze does go to Peyton's shoulders, which then causes him to frown, just briefly.
"That would be a very short story, I think we agreed on that," he replies to Peyton's teasing. Esther's words get her a look of curiosity, but he doesn't ask about them, and just leans back. But! He doesn't stretch. At least not yet.
"Alphard already knows," Jenny remarked to Peyton, as she settled there beneath the weight of Silas' arm. The gesture earned the boy a somewhat surprised expression, but pleased never-the-less. Cozy. That was a good word to describe how she felt at the moment.
"Somewhat," is Jenny's reply to Esther, while the comment about lantern light floats on by, along with everything else. Instead, her focus is on Esther. "After a fashion," she answers the girl, "It involves an apology, more or less. Kind of in the vein of what we were talking about the other day. And it can be as empty as the air itself, just so long as it's there. I told you I'd help and that you were my friend. And since you and Lowe are public now…I aim to try and help makes things easier for the pair of you. Nevermind that…if Dueces mediation failed, if mine succeeds…well, it just serves to descredit the latter, which contents me on top of making things easier for you and, everyone wins."
Lucretia walks into the common room, hair hair wind-blown and roses in her cheeks. Just back from Hogsmeade, if the wrapped package in her hands is anything to go by, she skirts the older students and drops herself into a vacant seat near the fire. "So cold out today!" she remarks to nobody in particular, a shiver given as she quickly shrugs her coat from her shoulders and wraps arms around the huge silver cat that quickly leaps into her lap.
Standing, there's no way of hiding her reaction when Jenny asks her to apologise. The sharp intake of breath is visible beneath her tight woolen jersey, and the way her delicate fingers go from open to fists, nails digging in firmly to her palm. "… Asking me publicly doesn't allow you to downplay your request." She stares at Jenny. Her gaze is intense. "… Or you don't know what you're asking. The man wants me humiliated. Any apology will include that." Her lips are drawn, almost pencil thin. The distaste is great. She tears her eyes away from Jenny, and stares into the fireplace instead. "You…" She turns towards Jenny suddenly. "I'll do it, if;" Lucretia arrives just in time, attracting Esther's eye instead. "Freezing." She answers in a simple word.
"If what?" Jenny pushes up from the couch, away from Peyton, away from the comfort of Silas' arm to approach Esther and it's a slow walk, a world of understanding in her eyes as she nears the other girl, stepping up behind Esther as a hand reaches to touch against the base of her spine. When she speaks then, it's with a voice that's pitched low enough not to carry behind the soft hairs that it disturbs. Little Black, while noticed, courted nary a word from Jenny, her focus elsewhere entirely. Begin as you mean to go, after all.
With a shake of his head, Silas laughs."So much plotting. I clearly have not been in on the right conversations. However, this place…" He looks around the commons, "may not be the best place for them."
At the arrival of yet another to the room, he sighs. Wonderful company or not, he needs some quiet time, and that won't be had in a room full of people. As Jenny gets up to speak to Ester, he stands as well."I hope you will all forgive me…" He reaches down, picking up the ferret left sleeping elsewhere, "But this one, and I, are in desperate need of a mid day nap."
An awkward smile, a look to Jenny with a "I'll find you later" once she ends her conversation with Ester, and then he is heading toward the dorms.
"Oh, look at the time," Peyton murmurs when the topic turns to Esther-n-Alphard. "I have that thing, I was telling you about," she tells Jenny, lying fluidly through her teeth. "But we should get together soon; I like picking on you all at the same time, in one room - it's convenient." She smiles ever so innocently, and rises from her seat beside Marcus once Jenny abandons her other side. "Walk me to Hogsmeade," she half-asks, half orders Marcus, even going so far as to bat her lashes at him a bit. "Or you'll get naught but coal for your birthday."
"I'm already expecting coal for my birthday," Marcus smirks in response to Peyton. Still, he gets up along with the the girl and is ready to walk her as she requests/orders. Little Black is noticed, but, there is no greeting in her direction. However, he does offer a bit of a lazy wave to the rest of the older students. "I'll see you all later." And with that, off he goes along with Crabbe.
Lucretia keeps to her seat, rubbing the end of one of Gaston's ears as she catches a hint of what's going on. "Oh dear, has my cousin been rubbing people the wrong way again?" Her free hand pushes through her hair, eyes following the comings and goings of everyone, and despite the older students failing to notice her, a smile is given in their direction. Its the order of things.
The Hair stiffens visibly when the nape of her neck is touched - It's a sensitive place, and Esther turns to look at Jenny. She whispers, and as she goes on there's… A brief crack in her voice, becoming audible as she speaks. "… I want /more/." Her last words are haunting. She leaves with nothing further.
Jenny offers a wave to Silas as he heads off for his nap, though her ear is keen to Esther's words, listening, ever listening and that touch there against her nape? It's a soft one, soothing even as it is meant to relax. In the end, it's a small nod, but curt and the tall chaser steps back, giving the girl more room as she moves to retreat. Her words chasing the Hair's retreating figure. "There's always more." That part is easy. Almost as easy as, "Mind if I third wheel on the way? I'm hungry and well," she was always hungry. The look she gave Peyton absolutely full of puppydog eyes.
Peyton looks after Esther as she leaves. "Poor Alphard," she says with some wry amusement. "If it's not one thing, it's two." She beckons for Jenny to join them. "When aren't you hungry?" she laughs as they go. "But come to think of it, all I've had today is pebbles off your mountain of chocolates. Marcus will treat; let's have something extravagant."
Lucretia waits for the others to leave, then pushes Gaston from her lap. A fish-flavored mouse is pulled from a bag that she fishes from her pocket, the treat dropped on the floor for him to enjoy before she straightens her hair. Its only a moment or two before she's walking out of the common room once more, she's an appointment to keep.