ttd | what matters now [freddie]

It was windy outside; Barbara had strayed out for exactly as long as it’d taken to realise that her robes were billowing too forcefully for comfort and that she was a strong gust away from a tumble. Now safely cocooned in her robes (and in the Great Hall so she could study far from the sixth years staging a debate in the Ravenclaw common room) she tucked her feet up on the bench next to her and rifled through her Ancient Runes notes with a sigh. O.W.L.s year had only begun but she was already woefully sick of the workload.

Most of her year was in the tower enjoying the debate, so she had settled into a small group of Hufflepuff and Gryffindor classmates. Barbara had started to think rather poorly of Gryffindor boys, for a spell, but she was growing fond of them -- studying with Gryffindors was much less miserable than studying with Ravenclaws, albeit much less effective. Most of the Hufflepuffs had already fled to their common room; conversely, most of the Gryffindors seemed to somehow be finishing their work. Barbie dropped her chin in her hands and stared bleakly at her work as the remaining group got up to go, leaving only one boy behind with her.

What a miserable failure this had been; though she would undoubtedly study faster alone, she didn’t like to look like she had no friends.

She shot a suffering look at the boy; he was one of Aase’s friends. He looked about as interested in his notes as she was in hers. “What’re you studying?” she said; she was only still here because this translation was due tomorrow, and rather imagined that he was in a similar time crunch. But they’d been here for hours -- surely it was time for a break.

Barbara sat up straighter, adjusted her skirt, dug through her bag. She’d left her chess set in her room but she had Owain’s Exploding Snap deck in a pocket on the side from when he’d forgotten his bag and didn’t want to set his robes alight by putting it in his pocket. She dug it out -- “Here,” she said, “Do you want to take a little break?”

@Freddie Snyder

The summer had been amazing and Freddie often found himself thinking about the summer camp when he should really work on homework assignments. It was quite challenging to focus on his studies when all this just seemed so boring compared to the adventures of the summer.

With the O.W.L.s coming up, Freddie knew he had to work hard. He didn't want to disappoint his mother, after all. He needed to get some decent O.W.L.s to make her proud. However, it was still pretty early into the year and the pressure was not quite there yet. He had joined a group of students in the Great Hall to work on some assignments.

After a while the group thinned out but Freddie was too dozy now to follow. He yawned as he glanced at his History of Magic essay. This was probably a class he'd fail his O.W.L. in and then, thank Merlin, he'd get rid of the subject. This thought naturally didn't make it any easier for him to focus on events that lay far in the past, before his birth, even before the birth of his parents or grandparents. Why should he be interested in learning about that anyway?

Barbara's voice brought him out of his reveries and into the present. He rolled his eyes as he said “History of Magic, some Medieval crap.” He sighed. It was probably more than obvious that the boy did not fancy the class despite the fact that they had a new professor now. “You?”

“Oh,” he said more brightly now as Barbara suggested a game of Exploding Snap. “Sure, count me in.” He had rarely played the game but it was at least better than his History of Magic essay.

The beginning was quite easy, his reflexes were decent at least and he made at least a few points. However, Freddie felt that the faster the cards shuffled, the harder it got to get a single point. As a card exploded right when his hand lingered above it, Freddie uttered an annoyed “damn,” before looking apologetically at Barbara.

“I guess it's not my game, really,” he admitted, giving up to try and find more matching cards. Since he didn't want Barbara to think that it was her fault that he wasn't into the game, he decided to ask her about the holidays. “Did you have nice holidays? You weren't at the summer camp, right?”

“Oh,” said Barbara drearily. “I hoped that History of Magic would be more interesting with a living professor but I suppose it doesn’t change the content of the class, does it?” She shook her head a little with disappointment. “Oh, this is Ancient Runes. I’ve got to translate two feet of this...” she stopped just short of calling it rubbish, though she pursed her lips with the near slip.

He was, fortunately, no more eager than she was to keep working ‘til they dropped. It was far from her favourite game, but he was not so good that it was an unenjoyable pastime -- playing with Owain, who was a Snap aficionado, was usually more frustrating than it was fun. “No, not mine either,” she agreed, and sighed. “Oh well. I guess we’ve accomplished what we set out to do.”

To take a break, that was -- as she gathered up Owain’s cards and rearranged them into the deck so that they all faced the right way, she contemplated her runic translation again. It was with great relief that she glanced back up at her companion -- “It was alright,” she said. “No, I wasn’t. Were you?”

She had never seen the point of spending her holidays away from home-- and as austere and quiet as the Gibsons’ home could be sometimes, it was still their home. It seemed a waste, though she wasn’t sure what of. Adolescence, or dependence on adults, or familial togetherness, such as it was.

“You weren’t homesick?” she inquired. “All the way in America?”

“Well,” Freddie said, “the lessons might be a bit better now. The homework is pretty much the same old shit.” He shrugged. He actually found the new professor rather attractive for an old woman (everybody older than maybe twenty-five was old in his opinion), but that didn't mean he'd suddenly grow fond of history.

“Two feet?” he asked incredulously. “That's cruel.” He did not take Ancient Runes himself and was now more than ever relieved he didn't. Translating a text of two feet length seemed like torture to him.

Freddie grinned as Barbara was not any more interested in the game of exploding snap than he was. It had been a nice idea but, in the end, it didn't help them to overcome the bored mood that their respective homework had brought onto them.

“Yeah,” the boy nodded, “I was.” He smiled, thinking of his date with Aase. “Loved it there. It's far away from home, of course, and I missed my mother but I wasn't homesick. The prospect of being stuck at our small flat with my constantly drunk father...” his voice broke off and his eyes widened slightly as he realised that he had just told Barbara things that he had kept secret from everybody at Hogwarts for his entire time at school. “Forget that I said that,” he added hastily. “Don't tell anyone, please,” he begged, scared of what might happen when all his classmates knew about his poor family and the fact that his father was a drunkard.

Same old shit. Barbara giggled instinctively at the crudeness of it, then felt immediately humiliated by it. Not because it was improper -- hanging around Owain, she’d gotten less prim -- but because it felt childish suddenly, not to be unfazed by swearing. She tilted her head as he called Professor Babbling’s assignment cruel; feeling a little foolish, she shrugged, and smiled, and echoed timidly, “Same old shit, no?”

She slotted the deck of cards back into their little box.

It seemed to cheer Freddie up, thinking about the camp in America -- Barbara propped her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands to listen. Far away from home wouldn’t have been such a selling point, to her, but -- a moment later she understood why it had been for him -- his eyes bugged out with the realisation of what he’d revealed. It would have been comical had it not been so uncomfortable; Barbie averted her gaze hastily, staring straight ahead.

She had never had someone make this kind of confession to her and did not like it. She wasn’t sure what to say -- he seemed anxious to hear that she wouldn’t tell anybody about it. Without thinking, she said, “Of course not,” before it occurred to her that it might have been a hasty answer: what if Freddie was in danger?

But that was unlikely, she reassured herself -- nervously, she rearranged the way her robes draped in her lap and said, “Well -- your secret is safe with me.” It felt inadequate -- she added, “It’s really nothing to be that ashamed of, it isn’t your fault.” Surely not, at least.

She looked back at him, searching his face for anything tortured or grieved, anything distressing enough to warrant still more concern. There wasn’t, that she could tell, but she supposed Gryffindors could be good at hiding things like that. “Why don’t you tell anybody?” she said, curious despite herself -- she supposed, though, that she had her own secrets; she had been an only child for her entire term at Hogwarts and told nearly nobody that she’d ever had a sister at all.

“Yeah, I guess,” Freddie said, now shrugging as he didn't feel so positive anymore that Barbara actually agreed that her assignment was no fun. Maybe she was just tired but still rather eager to do her work? He couldn't tell. After all, he didn't know her that well anyway.

Freddie liked that Barbara seemed happy to listen to him talk about the summer camp until he let information slip that wasn't meant to be voiced aloud to anyone. He could feel how his face went red and his mouth felt dry.

She was quick to reassure him that she wouldn't tell anyone but could the girl be trusted? He couldn't be sure. She added to her reassurance but still Freddie felt himself shifting on his seat awkwardly. He wished he could take the words back now and it did not help at all that she told him that it was nothing to be ashamed of and that it wasn't his fault. He did not blame himself. Freddie knew it was not his fault. However, he felt like his family situation made him less worthy than others. He felt ashamed that he was poor and that he could never introduce his girlfriend to his father because he'd be too scared that Aase would run for it if he did. It was like his father was a flaw in his own life even though he was not responsible for his situation.

“Why don't I tell anyone?” Freddie felt how colour was drained from his face. Barbara was not suggesting that he should go out and tell everyone that he lived in a small apartment with his parents and that his father rarely left the house and just sat on the sofa drinking and being insufferable. “I just...” he wasn't sure if he wanted to talk about it and he didn't know how to answer this question either. He shrugged again and then ran his hand through his hair, feeling nervous and uncomfortable.

“I mean, I know it's not my fault but… who'd like to associate with me if they knew my situation at home?” He looked helpless and quite worried now. He wondered if it was too much if he asked Barbara once again not to tell anyone but he couldn't help himself. “Please, I need to know that you won't ever even hint at this,” he, therefore, pleaded quietly. He felt vulnerable now that Barbara knew his secret. Although she had reassured him right away that she would not say anything he still thought that if this information got out there he wouldn't be able to handle the situation.

“Oh damn,” said Barbara timidly, as Freddie blanched: “I didn’t mean…” almost certainly he thought her terribly insensitive now. She reached out to pat his shoulder. “Well -- I just meant if anything were wrong, it might be good for somebody to help you.” She didn’t know, she reminded herself, whether he needed helping -- but, she thought, it seemed like it. His reaction was too close to fearful for her to think anything else.

He was being cagey now, which made her regret pressing further -- though not enough to stop. “Freddie Snyder,” she said, her tone a little stiff with the formality of trying to convey how earnestly she meant this: “I would still like to associate you. And I think plenty in our year would, because you’re a good fellow and I like you.” This was less a comfort than she’d intended it to be, though -- she softened her expression, giving him a strained smile.

“Of course I won’t say anything,” she said, “But -- I suppose I want you to know I don’t think any less of you.” She pulled her lips down sourly -- “Besides, I’m sure more of our year have disreputable parents than would care to admit so.” Billie was an orphan, but most of the people Barbara knew still had two parents, whether together or not.

Her thoughts turned to her own parents: her cold father and her distant mother, her father who seemed not to care about anybody’s feelings and her mother who drank during the day travelled to France to cheer up. Barbara had been suspicious for a long time about what it was in France that cheered her mother up; her father was blind to it, whether willfully or not.

She said, after a moment, “You know my mother drinks too. Probably not as much, but… well, I reckon it’s very difficult to be grown-up.”

The situation was awkward to say the least. Freddie realised that it was much harder to talk about serious stuff than to make up some stories that weren't true and thus did not emotionally affect him so much. He found it hard to look at Barbara now but at the same time thought he would have to look at her, because he couldn't tell if she was sincere otherwise.

Barbara seemed to think that he might need help and Freddie shook his head, feeling even more uncomfortable now that she assumed that his family situation would affect him so much. The boy himself had always feared that it would change the way others looked at him. He tried to dismiss any thought on what it did to him. After all he wasn't at home a lot which was one of the benefits of boarding school. Anyway, the fact that this girl he barely knew was seemingly worried that he needed help totally confused him.

“No,” he said quietly, “I'm okay. It's alright.” It was not but he wasn't a small kid anymore. He was only two years away from being an adult. He could deal with this. Then again, he might not need help but his mother might. Freddie suppressed a sigh and tried to focus on Barbara instead of drifting off to the worrying thoughts about his mother being left alone to deal with his father.

He smiled as Barbara said she'd still like to associate with him. It meant a lot and it was quite nice to hear that the girl liked him. Freddie knew that he could be charming but he felt that was only the case when he could keep his façade up. Most people preferred easygoing and happy people to those who were worrying and thoughtful.

“Thanks,” the Gryffindor said earnestly, “that means a lot.” It might sound like a phrase that one said easily in such a situation but the boy really meant it. It did mean a whole lot that she didn't think less of him and that she told him that other students had disreputable parents as well.

He perked up when Barbara mentioned that her own mother drank, too. “Really?” he asked incredulously. He didn't know why it surprised him so much. After all, many people drank more than was good for them and yet he had always felt that his situation was special and shameful.

“Yeah, I guess,” he nodded and then shrugged, thinking about his father and how he was not even trying to make things better. His mother worked a lot while he just sat in their flat, barely ever changing into proper clothes but hanging around in his pyjamas all day. “How does the rest of your family deal with the situation?” he asked quietly, averting his gaze quickly after having voiced his question. “If you do not want to talk about it, that's fine, of course,” he added, suddenly feeling quite nervous how Barbara would react to this slightly indiscreet question.

Freddie was adamant that he was alright, that he didn’t need any help -- doubtfully, Barbara pursed her lips, but didn’t push it. He wasn’t even her friend, really, she reminded herself -- she barely knew him. He was just Aase’s friend. But -- she searched his face, hunting for any sign that he was deeply distressed, but finding none -- she didn’t have to know him well to want him happy, did she?

It was, as she’d imagined, not especially much of a comfort how she, personally, felt about it all -- she supposed that, just as she barely knew him, he barely knew her. Why should he be greatly comforted? Though she knew this logically, she still couldn’t help the slightest bit of offense that he wasn’t -- but then, boys weren’t so good with their feelings. Most boys, at least. It would have made sense if it means a lot was really, truly the best he could think to say -- and, she thought, he’d at least sounded sincere.

She liked that -- so many of the others their age buffered this kind of conversation with irony. Even the rare boys that would say what they were thinking were so likely to laugh it off immediately. Barbara had never understood the impulse: didn’t it bother them to treat themselves so dismissively? Weren’t their thoughts worth sharing seriously?

Nervously, she adjusted her dress over her lap again -- Freddie brightened significantly on hearing that her mother drank, and Barbara worried immediately that she’d mischaracterised it. He asked, after a moment, what the rest of them did to deal, and Barbara couldn’t muffle an immediate, sardonic, “Hah. Nothing really. My father barely speaks to her, I’m here at school the whole year…” she realised too late that she’d set herself up to include Florence in her list, and stopped abruptly.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “Now I’ve gone and made it all about me.” She glanced back up at Freddie, lips pressed anxiously together, now aching to go on anyway. Timidly she added, “Was it a war thing, for your parents?” It was for hers.

Freddie was struggling with the fact that Barbara seemed to worry about him rather than taken aback. He had always believed that revealing this about his family would drive people away rather than make them worry or pity him. He wasn’t sure how he really felt about this now, though. He thought that he might need some time to figure out his true feelings. He certainly did not want to look like a victim but it was still nice to hear that a girl he barely knew did care about him.

He wondered how it would be to confide in his friends and if the fact that he had kept this information about himself a secret and, furthermore, had exaggerated positive details about his life to make himself seem more interesting and his family more accomplished would offend them. What would Aase say if she he told her? It was hard to say and Freddie was too scared of her reaction to consider finding it out.

Somehow Barbara’s response to his question made him look at her carefully again. There was something she was holding back now if he was not mistaken. The way she abruptly stopped speaking, the entire reaction, really. “Hmm…” he said, curious to find out what she was holding back but at the same time unwilling to press further because he didn’t want anyone to do that with him either.

“No,” he then said slowly, “you did not make it all about you at all.” Her question if ‘it was a war thing’ for his parents made him think. It wasn’t really. Things had begun before the actual war but it was still somehow connected, of course. It was hard to tell, especially because Freddie didn’t think that he really knew all about the things that had happened to bring his family into the situation it was in now.

“Well, not really a war thing… My dad was an auror and lost his job… even before the war… and” he shifted uncomfortably on his seat, thinking that he was again revealing far more than he wanted. “He went on downward spiral from then on, I guess…” He trailed off as he saw his father sitting on the sofa with a bottle in his hand in front of his inner eye. It wasn’t pretty, there was nothing heroic in this, nothing that would impress anyone.

“Was it a war thing for your mother then?” he asked, hoping that Barbara didn’t mind him asking.

It surprised her more than it should have, thinking about how much this kind of secret must have meant to Freddie. Were they the only ones in their year, sitting on their hidden personal tragedies? Surely they weren’t, she supposed sadly. If she’d learnt anything from her sister, she’d learned that everybody had a story.

She was starting to turn pink; considering that this was the first time she and Freddie Snyder had really spoken to each other, they were finding out quite a lot. At least she knew he could keep things private, she thought dryly. And at least she knew she could, too, and hoped that he’d decided she was trustworthy. At least she was quiet; at least she had a reputation for not having much to say. Barbie was no loudmouthed Gryffindor.

Apparently, neither was Freddie -- despite appearances.

“I guess,” she said, still sheepish. He was looking thoughtful, now; if he had to think on it for so long, she suspected that it wasn’t a war thing in the way she had war things, or Billie or Phillip Donnelly had war things. She was proven right a moment later -- his father had been an Auror. It was difficult to picture, in her mind’s eye -- Barbara had always imagined Aurors as above that kind of thing. She supposed she didn’t have a good reason to have believed that. She didn’t know any Aurors.

“Oh,” she said, “I guess I understand. It must have been stressful.” Not that she would know, of course -- the benefit of her family was job security. Even she might work for the house one day -- though she thought she’d like nothing less.

It had been a war thing for her entire family -- Barbara nodded. “Yes,” she said, and hesitated a moment before explaining, “My sister died in the battle and my mother took it very badly.” They all had, she added to herself, of course -- but so far only her mother had been driven to drink.

She said it must have been stressful and Freddie looked at her thoughtfully. It had been stressful for sure, for everybody involved. However, he wasn’t quite sure who Barbara was referring to - his father, his mother, himself? He couldn’t tell. In the end it did not really matter because it was adequate no matter what the girl meant.

Thinking about how it all began now, Freddie realised that his memory of that time was somewhat blurred. He had some small memories that were quite vivid of that time, sure, but overall he felt like it was a haze. He could remember some outbursts of his father well but he was not sure what his father had done to prevent himself from getting on that downward spiral. Had he tried to get his job back? Had he applied elsewhere? Freddie couldn’t tell for sure. He could only see his father in his pyjamas lounging on the sofa, drinking and lashing out at his mother and him.

Freddie realised that he had probably been too young to be included in this sort of thing and thought that he would probably not have shown a whole lot of interest had his parents involved him in this either. Yet, maybe, if they had, he could have changed things. He didn’t really think so, but what if he would have had some idea that could have prevented his family life from becoming quite so terrible? It wasn’t likely but there might have been a faint chance all the same. He shook his head, trying to rid himself of these quite futile thoughts.

“Oh,” Freddie said, his eyes widening as Barbara explained what had happened in her family. He hadn’t known and he felt a little guilty for making the girl talk about it now. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know,” he mumbled and looked down. It was a shock to hear that Barbara had lost her sister and suddenly Freddie felt stupid for talking about his family situation. Everyone was pretty much alive in his family. He had no reason to complain, right?

“I’m sure it has been hard for all of you,” he offered, glancing at her again with a sympathetic little smile on his face, “it probably still is?!” he added, thinking that one could not put a time limit to grieving a loved person.

“Oh no, don’t be sorry,” said Barbara -- she glanced sideways, bit her bottom lip with concern. “I didn’t know her very well. She was much older than me and I was ten years old -- you don’t know anything very well when you’re ten.” Though she’d mourned her sister at the time -- of course -- as she’d gotten older, as she’d become aware of how much her sister must have been waiting to talk to her about until she was old enough to understand, she’d grown more and more mournful for the relationship they’d never gotten to have. More and more disappointed that she’d be Florence’s baby sister, shallow and silly and ignorant, for the rest of her life.

She glanced up and caught Freddie’s sympathetic expression. It probably still is? Her instinctive thought was, you have no idea, Freddie Snyder, but -- of course -- what did she know about his family? She didn’t even know what alcohol had done to his father -- all it ever did to her mother was make her stupid and melancholic. Freddie might have put up with far more than she would ever know.

“A little,” she said. “I think I don’t know how to feel about it all. It is sad, obviously.” Her sister had been twice as old as her, when she’d died; it’d already been years since they’d lived in the same home; it felt a little like this was how it’d been for her entire life, like they’d been a family of three even before the battle.

Barbara shook her head and brushed a hand brusquely over her skirt. “Wow,” she said, feeling suddenly foolish about all of this, and unsure how to turn the conversation back onto Freddie instead of her. “I’ve nae told that to anybody before. It always felt -- I don’t know.” She glanced at him -- his reaction earlier had suggested this was his first time telling anybody about his family either; she suspected that, even if she couldn’t put it into words, he would understand how much of a strange, empty relief it’d been.

It seemed polite to extend something (anything) to him -- Barbara said, a little reluctantly, “Well. If you ever want to talk about it again, you know, you’ve got a friend in me.” It had always exhausted her to be an if you ever want to talk about it friend, but it wouldn’t be right not to make the offer when he’d lent an ear for her.

“You’re definitely right about that,” Freddie said as Barbara stated that one didn’t know anything very well when one was ten. He had been roughly around that age too when it had gone downhill with his father. He felt that had this happened just now he would have dealt differently and, maybe, his parents would also have included him in a way.

Anyway, Freddie wanted to say something to comfort Barbara now but he could not really relate to her fate. He didn’t have any siblings, he hadn’t lost a close family member, he could not even imagine what she had gone through and how it still affected her. He assumed, though, that she felt that something, someone was missing in her life.

“Of course it is,” Freddie muttered, looking down and feeling quite uncomfortable in the situation at hand. The death of people was always sad. There was no doubt about that. Well, unless one counted Voldemort as ‘people’. His death was not sad. His death had been a relief.

It was both reassuring and frightening to hear Barbara say that she had never told anyone. He felt how his cheeks reddened and he chewed on his lip nervously. “Well, I hope…” Freddie’s voice trailed off. He didn’t know what he really hoped. Maybe he hoped that she did not regret having confided in him. He certainly hoped that he would not regret it at some point. Right now he felt a little numb and wasn’t sure if he was glad they had talked about it or not.

“It has been a first for me too,” he admitted belatedly and felt how he blushed a little more when she said that he could come to her if he wanted to talk about it again and that he had a friend in her. “Thanks,” he muttered, feeling a little awkward. “Likewise,” he quickly added, glancing briefly at her before quickly putting all his things into his bag. “I gotta go now, though,” he explained. “Thanks again and…” he shouldered his bag and offered a sheepish smile, “it was nice to get to know more of you. I’ll see you around, I guess.” Having said that, Freddie hurried out and made his way to the Gryffindor common room.

[out]

Barbara heaved a sigh -- not as little as it would have been had she thought it through -- and grinned ruefully. They were both young still; even if they knew more than they had at ten, she thought briefly to what her sister must have known at twenty. How much maturer her sister might have been if she’d lived to twenty-five.

Would they have been friends by now? She thought they might have.

She had glanced down at her lap to make her admission, but she looked back up when he echoed it back at her. It struck her, a little darkly, that they were in this together -- each of them with the other one’s secret, like a mutual threat. But it felt rather Machiavellian to think of it that way, so she smoothed her skirt and said, face starting to go pink, “All right.”

It seemed more like a departure driven by discomfort than by any actual need to be anywhere, but she let it go -- she wasn’t too comfortable either anymore. “I should get back to --” she gestured at her Ancient Runes translation -- as Freddie departed she put her chin on her fist and sighed again, picked her quill back up.

[out]