lighthouses. [magnolia]

Magnolia had not expected for him to voice his response as much as she had expected him to simply write her back, which was why she froze momentarily when she heard him speak, turning in his direction a beat later than when he had started as her body caught up with the fact that he was actually speaking. Talking to her, in the middle of class, around all of these other students. Magnolia was certain that not everyone was oblivious to the fact that the two of them had been passing notes for most of the class but there seemed to be a shift in things when they were said out loud. The witch might have been brave on paper but couldn’t be as bold in person.

The girl chose to ignore what he said because she didn’t have a witty comeback to retort with, especially not after the tip of her ears were burning red with embarrassment. Hopefully, he wouldn’t notice that. Magnolia looked at him and frowned again, shaking her head as he started to pull at her notes. He definitely did not need to see those nor what she had scribbled on them.

“Better than your non-existent notes,” she offered as her comeback, whispering loud enough for him to hear but hopefully not too loud that she’d disrupt the class. Magnolia had noticed he hadn’t been following along as diligently as everyone else, but it seemed to fit the image he had been assigned in her head. She tugged the parchment closer to herself in a protective gesture. “But I guess you don’t need any if you’re gonna fail anyway,” she added, assuming he’d failed to write them because he, too, was distracted by her.

Isaac hoped his close whisper had the desired effect, but she was so still, and her face barely changed, so he couldn't be sure. She didn't reply, which he found equal parts irritating and amusing, wondering what she was thinking as he returned to facing forward in his seat. Magnolia was entertaining, far more than this stupid class, and he was thankful for the distraction. Making fun of her notes, he laughed silently when she pulled them out of his reach and brought them closer to her like they were some closely guarded secret, and it would be a lie to say he wasn't curious about what she had written.

He wondered if she took better notes than he thought, if she was the sort who copied everything verbatim from the textbook, or had her own more original thoughts. He assumed the latter based on the little he'd already learned. From the little he could see, held close to her, he could see the hard-pressed imprints of doodles in the margins, and he traced the lines with his eyes. Of course she draws all over everything, it was absolutely fitting. Isaac half expected to see cute magnolia flowers and vines weaving their way up the page.

Raising his eyebrows at her, Isaac didn't prove her wrong when she brought up his apparent lack of notes. He kept quiet about the neatly-written, well-organized notes that were shoved inside of his textbook. He'd finished them nights before, as he often did, but Nola didn't need to know any of that. No one really needed to know. Isaac was intelligent and motivated to graduate Hogwarts and actually get a decent job, but he didn't brag about it. And he didn't care about the assumptions she had probably made of him; he had nothing to prove. "Maybe you should let me use your notes then," He whispered, tugging at them again, even though he certainly didn't need them.

When he heard the professor clear his throat, Isaac turned to face the blackboard again, realizing he had been entirely distracted and not even pretending he was paying attention anymore. While he was no stranger to detention, he didn't really want to lose any more of his free time than he absolutely had to. And the idea of Nola in detention was laughable, so much so that when the thought came to his mind, he shook his head as he laughed quietly to himself.

All of this attention on her notes was making her nervous, the thought that he’d see his name scribbled into the corners of her parchment among all of her other doodles filled her with dread. He seemed the type to share those kinds of things with her friends, using it as just another reason to tease her and spread awful rumors about her. The rumors would not be completely baseless, but this crush wasn’t something she intended to share with anyone, especially not her friends. She would get over it, she figured, probably the following week when he found someone else to be interested in and she, too, shifted her attentions to someone that was actually nice to her.

“I only lend my notes to my friends,” she emphasized, tugging the piece of parchment away from him again to make sure that he understood that he did not fall into that category. “So, no, I’ll be keeping my notes to myself,” she added, but wondered if he thought she had no notes at all. And she did, sort of, at least the first ten minutes of class had been spent meticulously writing, paraphrasing, and highlighting what the Professor had written on the board. Of course, soon after her thoughts had shifted to Isaac and just as quickly, she had lost all motivation to continue taking notes. She'd ask Mavis, Mavis knew everything and could probably help her come up with notes she'd actually look at.

She bit her lip nervously. She was not sure if he would let it go until she showed him and it was with the desire to shut him up, especially if he thought she was dumb or had no notes, that she began to tear off the corners of the parchment she had been working on, to make sure that his name all but disappeared from what she had written. When she had finished doing that, she crumbled the piece of parchment in her hand tightly before sliding over the piece of parchment with her notes in his direction. “Just because I’m feeling generous,” she whispered, not looking in his direction but rather keeping her eyes on the Professor as she spoke.

The Slytherin knew they weren't friends, not really, but hearing her say it out loud sounded more like a challenge than an insult. As with anything else in his life, any time Isaac couldn't have something, he ended up doing everything in his power, and a lot of things he shouldn't have, to have it. Used to getting whatever he wanted, Isaac could be quite charming. They grew quiet for a moment, Isaac laughing about the idea of Nola in detention until finally, she broke the silence as she began ripping corners of her notes off and crumpling them up. The puzzled look on his face spoke volumes about his confusion, and he just watched her; she was so strange sometimes. Isaac's face brightened, ridiculously so, when she slid the pages over to him. That was easy, he thought and smirked even more.

"So does this mean we are friends?" He asked, his voice hushed and low, but he already knew the answer to his question. Or at least, he assumed he did, and it was just fine with him that they weren't. He wasn't really trying to be her friend, but Isaac wasn't the sort who wanted to be anyone's friend. He only cared about himself.

Pulling the notes the rest of the way toward him, he began scanning them over; brown eyes speed reading until he was chewing on the inside of his lip intently looking at them. Some moments passed by before he turned to give her a disapproving look. Reached across her side of the desk, Isaac quickly stole her quill. He had his quill, but this was more fun. Turning the feather over in his hand and scoffing at it, Isaac whispered, "Cute," Honestly, the wizard found it obnoxious, but he hadn't expected anything less.

Turning back to the pages, Isaac began marking things wrong in her notes, making corrections in his perfect handwriting, and generally fixing the entire document. Growing more and more invested in these notes, Isaac forgot he had her quill, and absently he began chewing on the middle as he thought over the information. She'd started strong, Isaac had noticed, but some time during the note-taking it was apparent she had become distracted. He smirked as he wrote, one hundred percent assuming this distraction had been his fault and taking pride in it. When he had finished, he pushed the parchment back toward her and sat back in his seat.

A triumphant and ridiculously smug smile back on his face. Isaac crossed his arms in front of him, still hanging on to her quill, and their shoulders nearly touched again. As he waited for her to check his work, the teenager leaned in close again and whispered, "You're welcome,"

“Don’t push your luck, Hackney,” she replied in a whisper, putting an emphasis on his surname as if to reiterate the highlight the distance between them. Magnolia would never call her friends by their last names, it felt too detached, too removed from the many memories that the group of teens that formed her little cliché had shared. There was no space for Isaac there, she decided, especially not if he was going to keep going for that irritating bad boy image. Her friends were a little rebellious sometimes but overall, exceptionally good people, not shady like the group of Slytherins Isaac hung out with. It was not like she had been looking hard enough to notice but well, it didn’t matter how she knew the point was that she did.

Magnolia felt confused when he took her notes and began to write on them, half expecting him to toss them in the rubbish or worse, take them for himself. Of course, she would likely protest if she did either but at least if he took them home with him, she would have the opportunity to read into it. But, no, as usual there he went defying her expectations and instead taking her quill from her desk and scribbling all over her notes.  Under different circumstances she might have told Isaac that it was a gift from Mavis, but the girl didn’t want to contribute such information to the conversation. He hadn’t earned them. Though she was rather pleased that he found it cute.

Magnolia glanced over at the Professor before she attempted to look at what he was doing, unsure if he was trying to deceive her or…she frowned, why was he adding to her notes? Who did he think he was? For someone that was not very good at taking notes, Magnolia was very suspicious of the notes of others. Especially of Isaac’s non-existent notes.

Either way, Magnolia didn’t want to protest too much, the Professor was already looking in their direction as if he had something to say. When Isaac finally pushed the notes in her direction again, she picked up the final copy, taking the parchment in her hands and reading furiously through her now heavily corrected notes. The accuracy of his notes and his incredibly neat handwritten only further angered her. “Oh, you shouldn’t have,” she whispered in return, the words she spoke highly contrasting the way she was saying them. She turned to him, only then aware of how close they were sitting next to each other and in her own move of rebelliousness, she pushed her things over to the empty space next to her, hopping from one seat to the next with ease. But of course these things never lasted long because only a minute later after she had started pouted, she turned back to Isaac. “Stop distracting me,” she retorted.

Frowning deeply when she called him by his last name, Isaac considered turning back to the class. He called her Hawkins all the time, he did it purposefully to annoy her, but he didn't like it when she did it. Even though it probably wasn't meant as such, Isaac couldn't help but feel like she was judging him and his family name. Especially considering what she knew about Charlotte Hackney. He didn't say anything because then he'd be admitting that he cared what she thought about him, and of course, he didn't. Making his own corrections to her notes, without her permission (or knowledge), was Isaac's way of controlling the situation. He had to be in charge, unable to allow anything else, and too selfish to realize how ridiculous his need for power was.

Upon returning her notes to her, Isaac had thought about possible reactions she might have had. Maybe she would be pissed that he wrote all over them, perhaps she'd be impressed and realize her assumptions had been wrong, maybe it'd make her feel dumb, but he hadn't been expecting her to up and change seats over it. She was an irritating but constant surprise. Frowning when she moved chairs, Isaac stared at her intently, waiting for her to return, but she stayed where she was. He considered moving his seat again, but the professor wouldn't believe him twice. And that was only one reason he wouldn't. Isaac wasn't about to chase her around the room, she was fun to bother, but he wasn't trying to stalk her or something. And he didn't need any of their classmates to get any ideas. Plus, if he did follow her, she'd get that stupid fucking grin that told him she thought she was winning. And he couldn't allow it.

By the time she began to pout, he had already turned his attention, or lack thereof, back to the blackboard. There wasn't a ton of time left in class, and he was thankful for that, but he was still angry about the fact that she had changed seats. Taking control away from him. And then she whispered to him, and he smirked. Without looking in her direction, he barely acknowledged that he heard her talking at all. He waited half a minute, remaining still, before grabbing the second parchment they had been exchanging notes on from the table. He wrote a note and slid it across the surface to her.

You first.

Well, this was frustrating. Magnolia had not actually wanted him to stop bothering her, she had only said it because it made her feel better about the fact that she was not paying any attention to the class at all. Furthermore, she wanted Isaac to take responsibility for any future failures on her part for being so good at pulling her attention away from her studies. It was only October and she was already falling behind on her first resolution for the new school year. Magnolia wasn’t being elusive on purpose but didn’t like that he did the opposite of what she expected him to do. She might not have been the brightest witch in her year, but she knew when she was being played and didn’t care for it. To make matters worse, she wasn’t really putting up much of a fight.

But he should have been fighting a little more for her attention. Even if just on principal, she did have an especially important piece of information with his name literally written all over it. Not that she’d tell, of course, but it didn’t’ stop her from remembering that she had some ammunition of her own.

And then finally he pushed a piece of parchment in her direction and things felt normal again, or at least whatever normal had been for them in the last fifty or so minutes of class. Magnolia was no longer keeping track; class had gone much further than it had any other day before this one. At least that would ensure that she’d have a much more pleasant rest of the day. But of course, that all depended on how they ended this exchange. Or, more importantly, if there was another one to dread (look forward) to. Not that she’d care either way.

Magnolia slyly pulled the parchment closer to herself, her eyes on the Professor to make sure that he was not seeing their exchange of notes. After several moments, when the coast seemed clear, she looked back down at the note and wrote a response before retuning the note to him.

Should you really be bothering the keeper of your secret?

Isaac had been smiling, well if you could call that dark smirk a smile, there was nothing genuine about it, when he slid the note to her. He assumed they would return to bickering through writing, and he'd be able to use her as a distraction for the remainder of the class. He relaxed into his seat, even though he preferred when she had been sitting in the one directly next to him; he pushed down the thought.

Watching her out of the corner of his brown eyes, he waited, impatiently, as she wrote him back and returned the note. Isaac followed suit by watching the professor turn away before opening up the page and reading what was inside.

Are you fucking kidding me? He thought as his jaw clenched tight, his eyes narrowed in something more than just annoyance or irritation, and he slammed his balled fist on the table. It made more noise than he had meant it to, but what the fuck did he care? She was sitting over there threatening him? He couldn't bring his eyes to look at her because, if looks could kill, she'd be dead. And he just knew she'd be grinning, thinking she was cute, and he was pissed.

The professor, and probably half the class, heard the noise he'd made, and soon enough, the teacher was approaching their table. Despite nearly flying into his rage, Isaac had the presence of mind to slide the note under his book and hide it from the professor's eyes. He did not need this one read out loud, thanks to Magnolia. "What is going on?" The professor asked lazily; it was easy to tell he was so over dealing with teenagers and their nonsense for the day. Being a professor at a magical school full of hormone ridden assholes must have been tiring, not that Isaac was sympathetic.

"Not a fucking thing..." Isaac said under his breath, jaw still clenched tight, but his voice hadn't been quiet enough. "Excuse me?" The teacher asked again, a clear warning in his tone, and Isaac looked over at Magnolia menacingly before fixing his answer. "Nothing, professor," And slid back in his seat, assuming he'd land in detention for his foul words but not caring in the slightest. He needed the professor to go away so he could make sure Magnolia understood exactly what he thought about her threat.

Magnolia had been expecting a reaction. After all, the witch had only brought up the word secret to provoke him and in the end be declared the winner of this battle of words. The desire to win was in her blood, the nerve, however, was entirely the Gryffindor within her. And in these conversations with Isaac, it was that daring part of her that was starting to make a more prominent appearance. It was almost as if this entire aura that radiated from him was there to elicit a response from her and naturally, the witch fell for it, pushing the boundaries of their acquaintanceship to see just how invested Isaac was in becoming her enemy. Or her friend, or something in between. Magnolia wasn’t really sure where to position him in her life and it confused her. So instead, she dismissed his threats as empty, pushing back only because he had pushed first.

Regardless of her motivation or whatever sense of bravery Magnolia thought she had acquired between their encounter on the train and this very moment, she did feel slightly bewildered by his response. The noise of his hand hitting down on his desk catching her completely off guard and causing her to jump, just barely, in alarm. When Magnolia realized what the noise was, she looked over at him and smirked, satisfied with her accomplishment. She fully expected him to glare at her in which she intended to laugh silently or stick her tongue out at him or do something equally irritating. But such thoughts were deflated when he didn’t look in her direction. Rather, she straightened in her desk and hid her notes as the Professor approached their table, fully intent on pretending that she didn’t know what was going on so that she wouldn’t get in trouble.

Maybe she should have felt a little guilty for offending him even if she had fully intended to come up with a cover story. I was talking about the tattoo, you idiot she would have told him in return, thinking it might be funny to see how he’d react then, realizing he’d probably overreacted. But the girl knew what she really meant.

Magnolia looked in his direction slowly as the Professor got closer, barely hearing him swear under his breath but shoving the chair next to him, the screeching of the desk against the floor done to create her own form of a distraction. The Professor looked towards her as if he expected an explanation. She smiled brightly.

“Professor, could you come take a look at this?” she asked in the sweetest voice she could manage, pushing the textbook across the table, “You’ve misspelled chiaroscuro, you’re missing the i,” she added. Looking over at Isaac again when the Professor leaned over to take a closer look and mouthing one word: Checkmate.

This witch was fucking crazy, Isaac was starting to think, but even her weak-ass attempt to get the professor's attention didn't change his current mood. He was angry with her, not just because she was trying to hold something over his head but because he had almost started to believe she wouldn't give up his secret. That she meant it when she'd said she didn't plan on telling anyone. She wouldn't swear it, not in the specific and exacting way he had demanding, but she's said nearly as much in a roundabout way. Isaac was untrusting in general, so he had assumed she'd go blabbing to her friends the minute they went their own way on the train. When he didn't hear about it at dinner that first night, or any of the days that followed, he started to think maybe she wasn't as big of gossip as he thought. Or perhaps, she understood where he was coming from.

Those thoughts went crashing out the window when she wrote the note that she had. And suddenly, terrifyingly, he realized she hadn't told anyone because she was smart enough to know the real truth about gossip: It was far more valuable as blackmail. Grinding his teeth together so tightly they might shatter, Isaac didn't look her way when she slammed the empty chair against the desk obnoxiously. He was still waiting for the professor to say whatever shit he was going to say next, but then her little voice broke through the blackness. Was she serious? Distracting the professor by accusing him of spelling something wrong would not have even been in the realm of things Isaac would have thought she'd do. She was so different; it was unbearable, really.

Eventually, his curiosity got the best of him, he had to see if her little gambit was working, and sure as hell, it was. The professor was leaning in to look at the page she was pointing to, and she was leaning around him to antagonize Isaac further. He opened his mouth to speak and shut it again, clamping his jaw shut again, the anger threatening to boil over. It wasn't that the secret was debilitatingly nasty or that she was trying to get under his skin by saying checkmate. It was a betrayal, in his mind, and even though he hadn't earned her loyalty, nor did he deserve it, Isaac expected it. Knuckles white from clenched fists, Isaac felt like he'd lose it if she said anything else to him, and so he mouthed back to her. "Fuck off," only... he accidentally said it out loud instead of silently.

And the professor turned on his heel quickly.

"That's it, detention, Mr. Hackney," the professor said sharply, issuing it as quickly as he was standing up straight again. Isaac sucked in a harsh breath, it whistled between his flared nostrils, and he looked at Magnolia again. "This is your fault," He spat at her, his dark eyes facing forward because he was done talking to her.

Magnolia’s eyes widened when she heard what he had said, not because she was not expecting him to say something to that effect but because he had said it in front of the entire class. Out loud. Her attention suddenly turned to the Professor, whose reaction was not unexpected. That was when the guilt started to set in, realizing that she might have been the one to push him too hard, that maybe she had been a little insensitive. The witch had not thought that he was that serious when he had approached her about keeping it a secret on the train ride to Hogwarts. At that time, it had seemed one of those I’m desperately trying to keep my reputation sort of things that she would occasionally hear when other schoolmates approached her about the latest gossip. If secrets were the currency at Hogwarts, then one was better off not having any of their own.

But maybe Magnolia had misjudged the situation. Maybe Isaac was only talking to her (bothering seemed more appropriate) to cajole her into secrecy. As soon as she did, he’d disappear from her life in the same way that he had appeared into it and things would return to normal. And those thoughts only further established that feeling of remorse for what she had assumed. However, that guilt also made her angry. On one hand, Magnolia felt bad but on the other, she was convinced that he had brought this upon himself. How did he expect her not to react when he said things to get a reaction? Apart from pretending to be unaffected by his words, to laugh off his insults and only hurl even more hurtful ones in their place, how else was she supposed to face him? The witch might have been friendly, but she wasn’t about to let him walk all over her like that.

So instead of conveying the thoughts racing through her head to the crowd of students that had turned their attention to them or to the Professor that was issuing out detention, she made a noise to deliver her frustration, turning in her chair to face Isaac full on. This would get around school, she couldn’t just let him talk to her like that. “Oh piss off!” she retorted with as much anger as she could muster.
“Ms. Hawkins!” the Professor now turned his attention to her and she turned to the board again, huffing and puffing like a little girl as she sank lower into her chair. “What is going on here?” he man demanded to know.

And naturally, Chelsea, the girl through whom they had passed a note to each other earlier, raised her hand enthusiastically, explaining, in a very call and collected manner, that the two were having a row over a set of notes that had been passed over the course of the class. “The notes, if you please,” the Professor extended his hand to Magnolia.

She glanced over at Isaac before she shook her head. “I cannot give them to you, sir, they’re private” she insisted, glaring at Chelsea as she giggled at her response. And just as clock marked the end of class, the Professor announced that Magnolia, too, had been issued detention.   

Still grinding his teeth together, Isaac sat back in his chair and gruffly folded his hands across his chest. It wasn't like he'd never had a detention before, far from it actually, it wasn't even the first time he'd gotten into trouble for cursing at someone during a lesson. But it wasn't about anything of that. It was about Magnolia and the way she had gotten under his skin. He was probably overreacting, but that was par for the course with Isaac, and he wasn't about to change anytime soon. After he'd sworn at her, Isaac half expected her to turn around and ignore him, but the angry part of him, the side that was typically in control, knew better than to assume that of her. She was a Gryffindor, and she was just as irritatingly stubborn as he was, so there was no way she'd leave it at that. Like him, Magnolia seemed too desperate for the last word. She swore back, and he didn't flinch; there was zero acknowledgment.

Magnolia Lane Hawkins no longer existed in his world.

The professor demanded answers, and fucking course, the witch he should have been flirting with instead of passing notes with Nola, he decided to pipe up and snitch on them. Avoiding Magnolia's face, Isaac turned to give Chelsea a deep scowl, anger right there on the surface of his features. The professor asked for the notes, and Isaac did not say a word. He had one of them in his pocket and another under his book, and he knew she had some of them too. The wizard assumed she'd be a good little student and hand them over, betraying him yet again, but she didn't, and he couldn't hide the surprised (and confused) looked on his face when the action earned her detention too. Why wouldn't she hand them over? It wasn't like she'd written anything embarrassing. He thought about it for a moment and then decided he didn't care. It didn't matter.

When class ended, he grabbed his books and slid out of the chair without a word. Long legs carried him quickly down the hall and away from her, but he couldn't stop the anger that was still controlling him.

They were even now, Magnolia had decided, even if she was upset with him, she had not ratted him out and instead had gotten issued a detention instead. Her first detention, in fact, but she wasn’t about to tell him that lest he start calling her a square again. She was probably just as big of a troublemaker as he was, she just happened to be very good at hiding it. So with those considerations, Magnolia intended to say something to Isaac, gathering her books and standing to her feet, though she didn’t really know how to follow up. Shall we set up our next sparring session? didn’t sound very cool, nor did it make sense outside of the reality in her head. “Isaac—” she started, turning towards him only to realize that he was already on his way out of the door
.
She waited, though, assuming that it wasn’t a good look to run out right after he had walked out, especially with the way some of her schoolmates were looking at her. Mind your own business, she thought to herself, scowling at Chelsea as she passed by with a smug look on her face, whispering over to her friend and looking right in her direction. She already knew that she’d hear something about it around dinner time but hopefully her friends would take her word for it, even if she wasn’t about to show them any proof. She’d just say he was trying to impress his friends or something by picking on her. Then, she’d change the topic. Magnolia attempted to ignore it, deciding that she had waited enough before walking out of the door herself, quickening her pace as she struggled to keep up with him in the crowd of students.

“Isaac,” she called out, making a noise of frustration, and reaching out to tug on his wizarding robes to slow him down. “Isaac,” she said his name again, this was probably a good time to start with an apology but no, that wouldn’t work on him, she determined, “don’t be a prat, don’t act like you can’t take a joke,” she said, hoping that he’d listen.      

He was pretending not to hear her as she called out to him. Isaac kept walking. He didn't slow down, but he didn't speed up either; he just kept moving as if she had never even been there. It wasn't until she caught up and yanked on the hood of his robe that he spun around quickly. Turning on his heel abruptly and without warning, he stood like a roadblock as Nola nearly crashed into him.

"What?" He growled through the scowl on his darkened features. The pupils in his eyes had opened so much that his eyes appeared more black than brown. He stared at her harshly. They were standing close now, closer than two people who pretty much fought every time they spoke should have been, and Isaac was all too aware of it.

"Your shit joke wasn't funny," He told her dismissively as he looked down his nose at her. She was so fucking frustrating, and he couldn't help but beat himself up for talking to her in the first place. He knew he should have just left it alone, back on the train, but he didn't listen to the small bit of rational thought that had nearly crept up. Instead, he demanded she keep her mouth shut and ended up making a bigger deal out of than he should have. If he had said nothing or been less of a prick about it, she might not have realized the ammunition she had. And then maybe she wouldn't have gotten so bold.

"Go away, Hawkins," Isaac said as he turned to keep walking away, but he didn't expect she would. It was like Nola had to do the opposite of anything he told her to or thought she would, just on principal.

Magnolia came to screeching halt when he suddenly turned around, her mind very aware of how close he suddenly was but her body, only aware of what was happening a second too late, almost crashing into him. “I—um—” she was at a loss for words again, the telltale signs of embarrassment evident in the prickling heat she felt around her face and the way her heart seemingly sped in her chest. She wanted to take a step back but couldn’t get her body to cooperated with her mind, which was very conscious of what he was saying. She hated how it didn’t seem to bother him at all.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” she emphasized, pretending that she was oblivious to the intentions behind those words she had written on that piece of parchment. His reaction more or less proved that he was well aware of what she meant. Magnolia, too, knew what she meant. But she could not take it back, then she’d be admitting that she was the same sort of person that he was. And that simply wouldn’t do.

If she had known him under different circumstances, then maybe she would have known how to diffuse the situation. The girl could only deal with being the subject of someone else’s anger for so long, maybe because she placed so much value on being liked. But those were the sort of introspective thoughts she could get into later. Right now he was walking away from her again and it made her nervous. Maybe she was an idiot for following him when he had so clearly told her to go away but she read into it. The witch, like usual, had decided that he meant the opposite of what he said and followed him, growing ever so frustrated with his antics that she pulled on the hood of his robes once again, yanking harder than before.

“I’m trying to apologize here, stop being such a prick,” she demanded, though her anger was a little misguided as it was meant more to herself then it had been to him.