| Details for Study Time Distraction |
| Summary: | Gerald provides a little distraction for Polly in the Library |
| Date: | 06-09-1939 |
| Location: | Hogwarts Library |
| Related: | — |
| Characters |
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Polly is sitting with a pile of scrolls around her. A huge text is open and she's furiously scribbling on a partially filled scroll. She pauses, pulls out another scroll and looks at the difference between the two. She makes a notation and moves on to the next page in the text.
Seated across from the furiously scribbling Slytherin, Gerald can't help but emit the faintest sigh. He's been there for the past hour, though judging by the half blank parchment and long abandoned book, he's hardly paying attention to his studies. Not like he is the surrounding wildlife. Ravenclaws, Hufflepuffs and Slytherins, oh my! "You have no idea how exhausting it is just to watch someone study this hard. I can't help but assume you're going to give yourself headache at the rate you're going." His business? Not in the slightest. Not that it's ever stopped him before. "Is it at least interesting?"
Polly stops her scribbling and quirks an eyebrow at the boy seated across from her. She had been trying to ignore him but he made that impossible now. "I'm studying for my potions final and also working on a project that will incorporate Potions and Transfiguration to made specific appreance altering potions that are temporary for cosmetics." She sighs and looks down at her filled scroll. "It has to be perfect or Professor Slugworth will deem it a failure." She looks at Gerald. "What are you suppose to be studying?"
Gerald snorts, "You birds and your obsession with your appearance. Before you know it everyone will be altering everything and no one will have a bloody clue what anyone actually looks like." Since she's going to pay him attention, Gerald can't help but grin. "It's like cheating. A fella KNOWS he's being deceived but…ya know..It's nice so we go along with it. And then it fades and you're left with a paranoid, bitter girl with self-esteem problems and no concept on how to deal with it. And here's the guy…stuck between a rock and a hard place with this girl who would have been good enough without the magic alterations, but now she's gone mad from trying to hide her face the whole time and be something she's not..before you know it she's trading deeds and every cent she had to get more and more until BAM..no home, no family, no man because by this point he's hung himself with his belt to get away from the craziness…It's a cycle of mass destruction really. You're enabling the collapse of the wizarding world as we all know it." He sighs, "Just sayin." He then sighs again, "And..Potions. I think..I forget. I'd rather be doing anything but this right now."
Polly is sitting listening to his diatribe and as he continues on her mouth opens more and more with what he's saying until he reaches the end and then her mouth snaps shut. "How dare you! These are temporary things! Hair color, lip color nail color that's it! I am not creating monsters!" She points to his studies. "You don't even know what you are studying!" Polly throws down her quill and has to take a few deep breaths to calm her down
Gerald laughs, his hand lifting to cover his lips as a passing student glares. "Calm down, Dollface. I'm teasing you. I'm sure women would love your idea. If you can get things balanced enough. And..you're right. I don't even know what I'm studying. I /do/ know though that you're putting a lot of worry and fuss into this and you really don't need all these alterations. Most of the girls I know are rather attractive without the additions to sweet colored nails and lips."
Polly gives an unlady like snort at Dollface. "That's not what my cousin said." She sighs and rolls her eyes. "I worry and fuss because I have to get top marks in everything. My parents do not accept failure. I don't accept failure and I have to place well to gain a good job later on." She sighs again and her shoulders drop a little. She looks over at his studies. "You are in my potions class. Do you even know what we're going to be tested over?"
Gerald chuckles. "If you're in my class then you know I'm one of the better students. What I am not, is a stiff who sits around and panics over things I know. You know the material. Part of the key to success is to /slow it down/. Relax. Otherwise you're going to have a panic attack and forget half of what you've learned." Or, so it seems to work that way for Gerald at least. He never worries. Its part of the reason Sunny wants to drown him in the lake half the time. "And you're cousin stays mad at me more than she should. I only earn a marginal amount of the aggression she puts out there." He laughs. "Though last time I saw her we got along better. She didn't hit me with her bucket at least."
Polly gives a small grin. "I study because I don't want this to go wrong. Eventually I would like to do this for a living. I don't want people to end up in the Magical Maladies ward at St. Mungo's due to one of my future products. That would be the worst thing ever." She closes one of the heavy potions tomes and sets it aside. "And Sunny is sometimes fickle. I don't know what makes her tick. We're related, sure, but even we don't walways get along and see eye to eye." She looks at Gerald and shrugs. "Why does Sunny hate you so much?"
Gerald chuckles nodding. "That would probably have a pretty negative impact on sales, yeah." He muses gently as she speaks, though as she turns the question on her cousin, he laughs. "THAT is a good question. Let's see. We dated a while, we had a disagreement. I..kinda get lost at that point and I ended up single and she ended up bitter. Dated a few girls..still bitter. Saw her the other day and we spoke and, yes, still bitter, but she had the chance to clobber me and didn't take it so I count my lucky ducks that I walked away without needing to visit the hospital wing." He sends the Slytherin a wink before he too closes his book, only to send a surprised blink at his Dark Arts book. "…huh..look at that. I really didn't know."
Polly smirks and laughs a little, wincing when the librarian shushes her. "I see. Sunny and I never really talk much about that sort of thing." She shrugs. "You don't seem to worse for wear." She gives him a glance and smiles. "And I dislike people like you sometimes who don't study and manage to make top marks. There are those of us who have to work our tails off to get marginal marks." She sighs and starts to roll up her scrolls.
Gerald shrugs, "Well…I'm just trying to stay positive is all. No sense in being depressed over things right? Also, I study. I just study for a while, and then I slack off to clear my head. I'll brush up before bed tonight, just to be sure I'm good." As she begins to tidy her things, he too slides his books into his bag, though he returns to slumping against the table seconds later. "Are you like Sunny in the aspect that you are completely incapably of having fun?"
Polly raises her eyebrow. "I am nothing like Sunny. We might be Parkinsons, but we are completely different." She picks up a few heavy tomes and hefts them towards a cart to be filed back. She's got a few more to go. "So, do you think I cannot have any fun?" She grabs an extremely large book and scoots it down the table.
Gerald shrugs. "I have no idea. You say you aren't like her but that's really all I have to go on. My circle has been relatively closed off as of late. I really don't spend much time with people outside them. Medusa's not the most tolerant of people." Nor is Gerald, but that's neither here nor there. "What do you like to do?"
Polly gives a reply shrug. "I do some flying. I don't think I'm par for the Quidditch team, but I'm not /bad/. I like reading, but that's a solitary thing to do." She has all her books returned and she starts to pakc her personal items like quill and scrolls. "What about you? Maybe we might have something in common."
Gerald chuckles, watching her as she tidies her things. "Ahh. Well..I like my fee on the ground." He admits with a small laugh, "And I like to read, but you're right that's not exactly the most social thing." He hesitates a moment before his grin shifts to something akin to sheepish. "I just realized..I'm very very dull. I think I just felt a twinge of depression in my chest." He reddens faintly at his cheeks. "I see you're working very hard to get away from me though, so I'll leave you to your studies. Maybe without me irritating you, you can get farther with them."
Polly laughs. "I didn't know my organization was such a deterrent." She sits back down at the Library table. "So, all I know is that you're an ex to my cousin, you study, but you also have fun. You don't like to fly. You like to read. And now you're slightly depressed." She clicks the things off on her fingers. "And now you think I want to get rid of you." She grins. "You are very presumptuous of me so far."
Gerald smirks, though her checklist earns a deep nod from him. He also licks his lips thoughtfully for a moment. "I'm also opinionated, moody and intolerable. If you ask around." The last part is offered as an afterthought, but he move on with ease. "Oh, and I keep to myself most of the time, believe it or not. I only occasionally force my presence on unsuspecting studiers."
Polly leans back in her chair and laughs giving a little clap of her hands. "Bravo, bravo." She sits normally. "So I was just some unsuspecting victim today. Lucky me." She crosses her legs at the ankles and wrests her arms on the table top. "Now, you've convinced me that I need to unwind a little, so I guess we need to find something to do or part ways."
Gerald shrugs gently as she catches him. "I'm pretty sure it's okay. Since you haven't left yet, or thrown anything at me." He must have very violent friends! "I'm afraid though that if I had any ideas of something fun to do, I wouldn't be sitting in here harassing you." He pauses, "Not that I regret harassing you. I'm just saying, I ended up in here because I was bored out of my skull."
Polly laughs. "Well, good to know I'm two steps up from bored out of my skull. We can't seem to find something similar to do." She grabs her bag and stands up. "I guess I'll have to go find my own entertainment unless you can help me find something to do."
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