lighthouses. [magnolia]

She said she didn't mean it like that, and some small sliver of him wanted to believe it, but his mood steamrolled over it quickly. Instead of listening to whatever shit she was going to try to sell him, Isaac turned around. He didn't have the patience for her right now, and he lacked the interest. And then she did it again. Tugging on his hood like he was some child crossing the street without looking both ways first.

His face fell flat as he turned around again, his mind going over whether he should say something exceptionally cruel or scream at her in the middle of this hallway. There were too many people around, and while Isaac didn't give a fuck what the rest of his classmates thought of him (of course he did), he wasn't trying to put on a show either. They could mind their own damn business.

Instead of doing either, he grabbed her upper arm and yanked her toward the corridor. It was mostly classrooms, and since the school day was over, it was relatively deserted compared to the bustling one they had just been in. Dragging her a little further until he knew they wouldn't be interrupted or overheard, Isaac stopped. "Well, stop," He hissed, "I don't want your fucking apology because I don't give a shit." Isaac barked at her. His temper was on the verge of out of control now. A mix of irritation, anger, and confusion. His tone gave away that he absolutely did care; if he didn't, he wouldn't have been so angry.

"Were not friends, were not in a tiff," The Slytherin informed her distantly, reminding himself more than her, that he had no business talking to her in the first place. If she told everyone what she knew, then so be it. "So stop embarrassing yourself."

Magnolia begrudgingly let herself get dragged into the corridor, stumbling over her own feet as she did and looking around at the students within the immediate area. She didn’t want to alarm anyone, but most importantly, she didn’t want anyone making assumptions about what was happening so she tried to keep her expression as calm and collected as she could manage, ignoring the storm of emotions and thoughts wrecking havoc in her head. Sure he had a temper but he wasn’t going to throw her onto the ground, or worse, right? Surely a nice lady like Charlotte Hackney had raised a better son than that. And yet, she remained speechless, at least until they were out of the main corridor.

“Get off of me!” she whispered angrily, pulled her arm away from him and holding it close to her as if he had managed to hurt her, things were happening too fast to decide whether his grip would leave a bruise or if it was all in her head. But what did hurt more than that was his refusal to accept her apology. Why couldn’t he understand that they were even now? It wasn’t like she had given herself detention to spend time with him. If anything, she had all but resolved to no longer write any notes to him in class. She felt bad, but she didn’t know how to say it, and so she wanted him to read between the lines. Just wished he had read it the way she had imagined he would, not the way he actually had.

“I know that!” she retorted to his statement, even if it did sting a little. Magnolia certainly didn’t want to be friends with someone as rotten as Isaac. But she also didn’t go around passing notes of playful banter in class with acquaintances, much less her enemies. This was confusing. “You think I want to be friends with someone like you?” she asked bitingly, just to further pretend that they were on the same wavelengths.

“We’re even, Isaac, I got detention, too, you know,” she tried, not that it would make it any better. “So can you stop like yelling at me for one bloody second?” she continued, running a hand through her hair and taking a deep breath, trying to figure out exactly what she wanted to say. "Just shut up."

Isaac was so frustrated with her that he barely registered his actions. Her snapping at him and yanking her arm from his grasp brought him back to reality, and he huffed. Starting in on his cruel assault, he told her they weren't friends and that she was a fool trying to apologize for him. Isaac wanted her to believe he didn't care, that the note meant absolutely nothing to him, but he'd have to get a lot better control over his emotions if he wanted to fool either of them.

"You think I want to be friends with someone like you?" , he had implied it first, but when she said it back, it stung. Isaac always wanted the things he was told he couldn't have." Even?" He hissed, hunching over, so they were at eye level, "Were not even close to fucking even." He told her. Swatting at the words she was saying like they were a nuisance, Isaac didn't see it the same way that she did. "Your detention doesn't make us even," Caught off guard by it, Issac straightened up when she told him to shut up. It was blunt, even for her, and it aggravated him to no end.

"I'll shut up when I fucking feel like it," He told her, giving the hallway another look for any stragglers, before speaking again. "You shouldn't have written what you did." He began, the anger rising again, "You shouldn't threaten me, Magnolia."

When he leaned forward, Magnolia leaned back a little, that same tension she had experienced earlier finding its way back into her thoughts. It was harder to feel tough when all she could focus on was the closeness and how attractive he really was when she got a proper look at him. However, that same intense gaze of his, the one many girls their year probably daydreamed about, felt threatening in this circumstance.

“I thought you didn’t give a shit,” Magnolia repeated the words he had spoken earlier, wondering if the only way to get through to him was to swear at Isaac the same way he was doing to her. The word was not wholly foreign to her; the witch occasionally swore too but had not made it a habit lest she did it in front of her parents by accident and get in trouble for it. Even saying it out loud in the hallway made her nervous, evident by the way the tone of her voice lowered when she reached the word in the sentence and trailed off.

“Oh please, don’t be so dramatic,” she scoffed, “Didn’t see me crying when you threatened me on the train now did you?” she retorted, her temper sparking at his insinuation. Magnolia was beginning to think that this was part of his game, that he was only pretending to get angry so that she would feel bad. When she noticed a Professor pass by, eyeing them curiously, she took a breath, forcing her shoulders to relax as she tried to take control of the situation again. They were spending too much time like this, in each other’s personal space, and drawing the wrong sort of attention. “Listen, I’m not going to argue with you,” she said decisively, her voice calmer than it had been moments earlier.
Extending her hand she looked up at him with a stern look on her face, “Give me back that note.”

Her words cut back at him; he didn't a shit, did he? Isaac felt like the anger that was raging inside of him was clouding all of his thoughts. Like he wasn't doing the things he usually would. If a witch pissed him off, he usually just dropped her, but instead, he was wasting even more time bickering with Magnolia in the middle of the hallway. And he'd learned already it was pointless. They fought every time they spoke; it was sort of their thing. Not that they had a thing because they weren't even friends, right? "I don't," he said through his teeth, sliding his hands into his pockets so he could be less tempted to punch the wall behind her.

Most girls would have backed down by now. At least the sort that he typically hung around. It was how things went with Allison; when he actually bothered to get pissed at her about whatever dumb thing she said, she'd almost immediately change course and start trying to apologize. Giving in to whatever he wanted, it was easy; it was boring. Nola didn't give in, she just fought back that much more, and he felt like he was at his wit's end. He barely knew this witch, and yet he was putting up with her shit. It was confusing.

Isaac closed his mouth, his full lips becoming sharp thin lines on his face, as the professor passed by them. The last thing he needed was another detention because of fucking Magnolia Hawkins. "Fuck that," he spat out the moment the professor was gone from the hallway, and she was demanding the note back. He wasn't sure if she meant the one she'd threatened him on or the one he'd put in his pocket earlier, but it didn't matter. "I'm not giving you shit," And he meant it.

He was still pissy with her, upset that she'd threatened to break the promise she never actually made to him and that she dared to do it right in the middle of the class. Anyone could have intercepted that note. Students and professor alike. And while it didn't have the exact details, it had enough that someone who cared for gossip would undoubtedly have questions. Unwittingly he had revealed how important the secret was to him, and like everyone else he had ever met, she betrayed him with it.

Moving out of her space, Isaac took a step backward. His brown eyes grew colder, not less angry exactly, but less passionate about the fight they were having. Apathetic was a good look on him, but most things were. Leaning against the cold stone wall behind him, he shrugged at her. The usual smirk was gone from his face, but his words still had that tinge of sinister sarcasm on them. "You want the note, why don't you come and take it," He offered her, knowing she'd remember he'd put it in his front pocket early. He knew she wouldn't, but he desperately needed to put her on the spot and regain control of the conversation.

There he was again, saying one thing and showing another. Magnolia had distantly remembered learning about this in school at some point, about how a person was supposed to read in between the lines. When situated next to body language, sentences often lost their meaning, the subconscious more capable of demonstrating one’s true desires than words. If he just told her that his feelings were heart then she’d consider apologizing for it, Magnolia was stubborn but she wasn’t completely heartless. Not like he was, at least.

However all thoughts on apologizing aside, she needed to get that piece of paper back. She didn’t feel comfortable leaving evidence in his possession that could be used against her. Even if she had thought it cute that he’d stuffed the note into his pocket instead of tossing it into the rubbish, her head was much clearer than it had been early on in class. Now that Isaac had shown that side of himself, Magnolia resolved to never share anything with him again. Not her words, not her parchment, and never her notes. Just thinking about deciphering the probable mess he had made on them would give her a headache later.

There was nothing particularly incriminating about them apart from the fact that she had written them to him. People would get suspicious and she couldn’t trust him to tell the truth if confronted with them.

If he was upset with her now, would he go as far as to show his friends the notes they had passed in class? Would he try to twist her words into something they weren’t so they’d start whispering about her in the hallways? It didn’t seem above the sort of person he was, especially when one considered the slimy Slytherin friends he always spent time with. So it was with that determination (and a lot of high emotion) that she gave him a brief nod. “Fine,” she replied, sheer indignation taking control as she took a step forward and started to pull on his wizarding robes so that she’d be able to reach into his pocket. “Stop being a prick and give me my note back!” she demanded, her voice getting significantly louder as she struggled to get the entire thing over with. She might not have been a former Quidditch star like her father but she had moves on her own she wasn’t afraid to use on him if necessary.

Isaac couldn't hold back the laughter when she reached for the note. This laugh was different than the normal condescending ones he cast her way. There was a lightness to it because he was surprised, and it tickled. The teenager hadn't expected her to stomp over here and reach into his pants pocket to get back the note he'd saved. He was quickly learning not to expect anything with Magnolia, she never did what he thought she would, and she was a constant (and aggravating) surprise.

Nola was reaching for the note, but Isaac was shifting to make it as difficult as possible for her, just because he could; if she wanted it, he didn't want her to have it. Part of him wanted to push her away, but the other part hoped she would stay awhile. He was still mad at her, but this sudden and unexpected change of events had certainly raised his mood.

"Careful, Nola," He warned her. Their faces too close for this situation to look like anything other than what it wasn't. If someone were to walk by, they would surely make assumptions. "People will talk," Isaac laughed again, that smugness back in his face. Curiously he wondered if she even realized what she was doing right then. It was not a proper thing to be doing.

Isaac imagined she had been so focussed on getting the note back that nothing else seemed to matter. And that stubbornness, that willingness to do whatever it took, was something that spoke to him on a deeper level. He could relate.

As she had anticipated, he wasn’t going to make this easy for her, moving around as she tried to bunch the material of the robe in her hand so that she could use the other one to reach into his pant pocket. If he would just stop wiggling around she could get what she wanted and leave, but at the moment she was oblivious to how their little scenario played out in the eyes of whatever straggler that might wander down the corridor. They weren’t exactly being discreet about this but why would they be?

Magnolia just needed to get her note back. She moved her hand with more purpose than before, her expression softening just a little when she realized that he was laughing. At least there was one pleasant thing about him after all. “Stop squirming around!” she demanded but compared to her earlier words, her tone was much less demanding, possibly even a little more playful.

But like all good things, whatever this moment was between whatever they were supposed to be to each other stopped as soon as he spoke. Her hands slowed down considerably when he spoke to her, his voice taking her by surprise because of how clearly she could hear him speak. “Then I’ll tell them the truth,” she reasoned but poorly. It was then that she realized how close the two of them were and how awkwardly positioned her hand was as it tried to find the pocket she had remembered him sticking the note into. Magnolia stared at him for a moment, a little confused by what was happening or how she felt about it but finally found what she was looking for, blinking before looking away, refocusing on the task at hand. 

Her change in tone made him laugh even more. It was as if they were old friends sharing a stupid moment, and for a split second, it was nice. It wasn't bickering or nonsense, it wasn't chaos or compromise, it was just nice. And he wasn't used to it. The moment passed soon enough, as he made some typically snide comment, and she tensed up in front of him. Images of her moving away flashed in front of his eyes, and he frowned, but she didn't. She was so confusing. Magnolia was no Allison, she probably had no idea what she was doing, but it was still driving him crazy. The teenager laughed when she declared she'd correct anyone who thought different, his eyes focussed on hers. "And they will just believe you?" He asked, disbelief ringing in his accented words.

"What, because you are a good little Gryffindor?" Isaac knew better than to assume anyone would just take her word for it. This was Hogwarts; crazy teenagers were looking to gossip and cut each other down left and right. Nothing good would come out of being exposed this way, not for Nola anyway. It would be just another day for Isaac, just another witch, which he was perfectly content with. Even if he didn't make a move on her, he wouldn't mind if his friends thought he had. Mainly because it would have been only that, a move; it wasn't like he wanted to date her. That wasn't his style.

He felt her find the note that was crumpled inside of his pocket, and he wiggled away from her one last time, a failed attempt to make her drop it or fall against him, but she got the note out anyway. Pouting playfully, he slunk back against the wall and chewed on the inside of his lip. He'd been planning on keeping the message, but not for the reasons she was probably assuming. He thought it was amusing, the way they had bickered back and forth, she was pretty good at it, but really, even Isaac didn't fully understand why he had meant to keep the note.

"Happy now?"

“Over you?” she retorted with the same level of disbelief with which he spoke to her with, she didn’t care for his tone. “Any day,” she continued. Magnolia did not have the most pristine reputation but it was still much better than his. Plus with her best friends being part of the largest gossiping network at school, who cared what he thought others would believe, she’d make sure things worked out in her favor. But he was mocking her again and it made her frown. Why did he have to go around ruining everything. It was only a minute or two but things were perfectly fine, they had acted like friends, they had coexisted without one hateful word and it had been nice.

“No,” she snapped, she didn’t like it when he called her a goody-two-shoes and it made her want to prove him wrong. If only she knew how. “Because people know better than to trust the word of a Slytherin,” she retorted. It wasn’t her fault they were the most hated house at Hogwarts, even if they occasionally have a rare gem in there that showed promise and trustworthiness.
 
“I’ll be happier when I’ve burned it,” she said but she never intended to do any of that. It wasn’t really evidence as much as it was a memento. It would serve as a small, insignificant piece of paper that would remind her of Isaac and make her smile, just as the other trinkets she’d collected from her crushes had before she had finally had the heart to toss them out. Magnolia was still holding things for sentimental value from a few crushes ago but that was a secret she would never share with anyone. It sounded creepy when you said that sort of thing out loud, even if for Magnolia their meaning was more sad as they represented things that never were.

He knew they'd believe her because she ran the rumor mill, but he also knew they'd always wonder too. As soon as the idea was introduced, Isaac assumed it would never really go away. Gossip was like that. It didn't matter if it was baseless or even completely ridiculous; sometimes, the pure scandal and unbelievability made it float that much further. Lies were typically far more interesting than the truth, anyway. She snapped at him, and he smiled, accusing him of being untrustworthy based on his chosen house, and he was amused by it. It was such a Gryffindor thing to say. Then again, Isaac wasn't to be trusted; he was a snake in all rights, but his house didn't make him this way, and it didn't prove a thing. Isaac was who he was, Slytherin or not, but he never minded the reputation that came from being a part of the Green & Silver.

Nola had found the note, wrestled it out of his pocket, but she hadn't moved away yet, and that intrigued him. Again he wondered if she did it on purpose or if she hadn't realized she was still standing not more than two inches from him. She let go of his cloak, the one she'd balled up to move out of the way of his pant pocket, and Isaac took the opening.

Pushing from the wall, he stood up in the small space between them, closer than ever, and his brown eyes flickered down to her hand. His fingers moved to her elbow, lightly trailing down the underside of her forearm. His movement was painfully slow, and he was pleasantly surprised at how soft her skin was. Watching what he was doing like it wasn't him doing it, Isaac chewed on his bottom lip. Was that nervousness flashing across his face? Or was it something else entirely? Time slowed as his rough fingertips passed her wrist, and his eyes found hers again. Intently, and with a sweet look on his face, he locked onto them, leaning his face toward hers.

He then plucked the note out of her hand and slid past her, out of reach and smirking.

There he was doing that thing again where he didn’t say but he did and it made her nervous, as she stared up at him trying to figure out anything that would give her a hint into whatever ulterior motive coexisted with all of his actions. She could feel that heat rise in her cheeks and that prickling feeling she often got when her mind was racing but her body was frozen in time. Magnolia distantly wondered if her nervousness was as apparent to him as it was to her, but she couldn’t say anything. She just stood there, very aware of the implication of his hand traveling along her arm and trying to make sense of it. Had Magnolia had any experience in this sort of thing, she might have spent less time thinking about what it meant and more time thinking about whether she liked it or not. But there were too many thoughts racing through her head, a confusing amalgam of what she had heart from others, what she had experienced through books, and the little she understood herself.

When he leaned forward, her breaths grew a little shallow. Was this it? Was her first kiss actually going to happen in some corridor with some boy she wasn’t really sure how she felt about? Was she going to look back and regret this fundamental moment? It wasn’t exactly how she had imagined it but didn’t that feel like the right way to do it? If she back away, would he call her a square again? Everything felt so disoriented.

So in an act of Gryffindor boldness, she finally decided to go along with it, hoping she’d be better for it when it was over and done with. She waited, going as far as to close her eyes but only for a moment until she realized that he had slipped the note right out of her hand. Opening her eyes suddenly she frowned, giving him a shove as she put some distance between them. She shook her head at him disapprovingly, “Can’t you be decent this one time?” she inquired as she struggled to keep her emotions in check. It was typical of him. “Keep the note, I don’t care,” she said after several moments, feeling jilted and embarrassed and even more confused than before. “Just toss it out when you’re done having a good laugh with your mates.”

For a second, Isaac thought he saw her eyes closing, and he didn't know what to make of it. He'd gotten what he wanted; he got the note back, but at what cost? Not that he cared, he reminded himself. Her words bite into him, but he quickly shrugged them off. The teenager should have felt bad about leading her on the way that he did. He should have been sympathetic, or hell, not have done it in the first place. But he was none of those things. He watched her face sour as she shook her head at him, but he kept smiling. The only thing he felt was a bit of an ego boost after he got back what he wanted, and after he'd seen that, she would have kissed him if he had tried.

Shrugging his shoulders at her question, Isaac moved away from where she was standing, putting a proper amount of distance between the two of them again, and felt a sense of accomplishment. He'd left class pissed, he was angry about what she had written, and he felt like he was going to start spiraling. He'd never really known how to contain his anger, and even when he tried, it usually just built and built until it became a full blown rage. Her tracking him down, yanking on his hood until he would talk to her, did nothing to soothe his hatred, but these last few moments had. Instead of being angry with her, Isaac felt powerful because he was in control again, and she was the one spinning in the wind. If only he could get rid of that nagging sound in the back of his mind, he would have been aces.

"I think I will hang on to it," He told her, tossing it up and down in the air as she sulked and told him to throw it out when he was done laughing at her. That wasn't why he was keeping it, he wasn't going to show any of his friends, but he also wasn't going to correct Nola's assumptions.

"Call it insurance," He added with a challenging raise of his eyebrow.

At least this time, when she had assumed he would keep the note to hold it over her head, she had been right. It was a sad truth, but at least she’d take it as a consolation prize for her blatant misjudgment. Maybe she should have fought harder for it, but she wasn’t about to make the same mistake twice, especially when she knew that her reaction just moments earlier would only encourage him rather than change his behavior towards her. At least he hadn’t gotten ahold of those notes with his name scribbled into the corners; now, that would have been truly embarrassing. The notes didn’t mean anything; she convinced herself, they had just been a way to pass the time in an otherwise very dull class.

“Insurance in exchange for your secret?” she said, rolling her eyes at his assumption, “Those aren’t love letters, Isaac; they don’t mean anything,” she said it out loud more to reassure herself than to counter his statement. But in a way, Magnolia was grateful that the Slytherin boy was as much of a jerk as she had initially believed him to be. This saved her the trouble of doing something stupid like liking him and writing him a letter confessing her feelings. Never in a million years, she decided to herself, would she like someone as arrogant as him. Magnolia had a tendency to fall for the wrong people but not this time, not after he had humiliated her like that. Then again, maybe she was giving him too much credit, she didn’t really know what sort of things he knew about her.

“But do as you like,” she sighed, finally giving up. This was a battle she simply would not win with him. Magnolia would have to mentally prepare herself to hear about it by tomorrow’s breakfast, Duncan and Allison seemed the type to spread rumors quicker than wildfire, but he could keep the notes. She’d forget about it.

Eventually. Maybe. But there was one last thing. “Now that we’re even, leave me alone.”

Imagining she'd put up a fight or try again to get the note back, Isaac kept his brown eyes on her. He watched as she seemed to shut down, and he wondered if that meant she was done arguing with him. As irritating as it was, he sort of didn't want it to stop, and that was a strange thing to feel. He was confused by it but pushed the confusion and the idea down as far as he could.

She brought up the secret, and he gave her a sharp nod. He was aware the note wasn't the best ammunition, but it was a start, at least. It wouldn't take that much work to turn it into a much bigger thing than it was, too; he was sure Allison could help him out with it. That witch was particularly vicious; she'd know just how to do it. "True..." He said softly, even though he was already going over in his mind how he could best use them to hurt Nola if the situation called for it.

Hearing her sigh Isaac wasn't sure if he wanted to smile because he had won or frown because the row was over, so instead, he just stood there plain-faced. "We are not even close to even," The teenager warned her, "But it is a start," Isaac was the sort to hold grudges. Even after he had gotten whatever revenge or retribution he deemed fit, he would still keep it. He never let things go, and her writing that note was just the beginning.

"Glad you learned your lesson," Isaac was fully aware of the effect his words would have on her, and it was just what he was hoping for, but also, the wizard wanted his words to be valid. Isaac had to know that she had indeed realized threatening him or his secret was a poor choice.