eventualities | [killian]

"So, what you want to do is follow this hallway to the end," Isaac began, leaning over so that he was closer to the chubby face of the lost first year and his little friend. "Then take a left, not a right, a left, at the fourth corridor." He sputtered, quickly enough that his sentence began to jumble together as he wiggled a finger in the direction he was suggesting. "You will find the stairs, follow them down, and you are back in the basements, little Hufflepuff." It was not the directions to the basement, but that was the point. Isaac kept the smirk from his face as the little wizard nodded, clearly trying to commit the tips to memory.

Standing in the middle of the otherwise relatively quiet corridor, Isaac tugged on his tie, ready to take it off now that classes had finished for the day. It was November, which meant even though it wasn't even time for dinner yet, the sun was already beginning its journey down the horizon. Straightening up a little when he thought he heard more footsteps, Isaac nodded again to the student. "Yes, go to the left; that is the way to the basements," He pointed down a hallway that would lead the young students further into the castle and further from their haven of a common room.

@Killian Buckley

"Hackney." Killian's voice cut through the stillness of the underclassmen's retreat. How long had Killian been behind the corner? Too long, probably. Too long clutching his books to his chest, trying to ignore the metal pin on his chest. Too hard to do - the prefect badge seemed to go hot when he ignored it, hot and burning like a brand. Not literally, definitely all in his head - but it was terrible to ignore regardless.

He hadn't actually been around the stone wall for all that long, actually - just long enough to catch the squeaky voices of the children and determine they certainly were foolish firsties and that Hackney was absolutely messing with them. Killian did not have any fondness for Isaac Hackney to begin with - not outright hate or anything, just a vague distaste for him from the brief time they roomed together in second year.

Killian stepped out finally, books tucked neatly in one hand now and his other hand in pocket in a feigned casual stance. His eyes drifted down the hallway - there were tinny sounds of distress as the kids began to get turned around. Killian sighed. "Do you have better things to do than mess with the eleven year olds?"

"Buckley," Isaac mimicked back at the Prefect, very much wanting to replace the B sound with an F sound, and rolled his eyes. Spinning around to see the other fifth-year headed toward him, that pin shining like a piece of armor, Isaac knew he was in for it. As if the Gryffindor squad wasn't bad enough, now Killian was a Prefect too. The Slytherin would never understand how Jae got along with all of them; it didn't make sense.

"Do you have better things to do than mess with the eleven year olds?" Shrugging off the question, Isaac pulled his tie loose, it was after class, and he was probably going to hang either way for picking on the first years. "Not really?" He offered and shrugged again.

"They have to figure this shit out sooner or later; I am just speeding up the process," Isaac meant both how to navigate the castle and the social hierarchy of Hogwarts. First-year Ravenclaws had no business asking a fifth-year Slytherin how to get back to safety.

Aaaaaaand there was Hackney blatantly breaking dress code. "Christ, Hackney," Killian muttered, "can you at least pretend to be embarrassed to be caught? Jesus." Killian did not like Isaac in the best of circumstances, and now it seemed like the other boy was just trying to tick him off.

They have to figure this shit out sooner or later; I'm just speeding up the process, the Slytherin reasoned, smarmy and slick. Killian groaned audibly. If only he could just dock points and move on. Unfortunately, nobody gave Prefects that power. "This is already going to be a write-up to your Head of House, can you at least pretend to be sorry?" He could already anticipate Isaac's answer - no, absolutely not. He reached slowly for the pocket in his robes - Killian was pretty sure this interaction was going to end in a writeup, at best.

"Why would I pretend to be something I am not?" Isaac was intelligent enough to know he should have just shut his mouth, but knowing the right thing to do and doing it were vastly different things. He was already in trouble, so what was the harm in seeing it through, and maybe making Killian uncomfortable in the process.

"I thought your boy-wonder fixed the world so no one would have to do that anymore?" Being a pureblood and a prat, Isaac had no qualms bringing up blood heritage to prove a point. Not that he much cared about the fact that his mother and father were both magical, as far as he was concerned, his mum worked too much, and his absentee dad was a dick; that was all there was to know. Still, he brought it up anyway and dared Killian to respond with a quick raise of his eyebrow.

Isaac knew the write up was coming and that it would lead to detention or docked points, but he was in too deep to back down now. By some logic, the teenager had convinced himself that if he was going to be punished, he might as well do something worth getting into trouble for.

"Boy-wonder?" Killian asked, stupidly, not putting together who the hell Hackney was talking about. The taunting twitch of the other boy's eyebrow was met with just a blank stare from Killian (Martin Luther King Jr? Nelson Mandela? Malcom X) until it dawned on him.

"What -- why --" Killian shook his head. "What the hell does Harry Potter have to do with you being a git to the little kids?" In the back of his head, the pieces were being put together slowly, his choice of pretend and Isaac's asshole pureblood tendency painting a picture Killian was hellbent on ignoring. It shouldn't matter! Killian had enough problems as a Black boy in England to begin with, there shouldn't also be extra weird magical blood quantum to deal with and Hackney should be keeping it out of his mouth anyway.

Killian whipped out the notebook in his pocket, scribbling hastily on two slips of paper. "Right, that's one write-up for bullying and one write-up for indulging in hate-speech and one detention total." The hate-speech one was a bit of a stretch, and it disgusted Killian to know that it would likely not carry weight with anyone in Slytherin house, but he had to document it anyway. He tore off and folded the papers in slips -- they stood up on their own and began to float to the Slytherin head of house office.

Knowing things were going to shit, and flying the broomstick there, were two different things. Isaac would have been better off keeping his mouth shut and taking whatever Killian doled out. His nature was to argue with a Gryffindor, but acting out of pure self-interest was also his default. Isaac should have stayed quiet, but he didn't. Instead, he threw out some half-cocked insult, trying to bring the other wizard down to his level, and failed spectacularly. Isaac had been spending too much time around Magnolia lately, clearly.

Sucking a breath in through his teeth as Killian fired back, the Slytherin tried to shrug it off. Like the burden of figuring out the meaning behind Isaac's words was Killian's responsibility. "Hate-speech? The fuck?" Isaac's relaxed demeanor changed with the accusation. Bullying the first years was his right, a time-honored tradition of being both Slytherin and Upper Classman; he'd take that write up like a badge of honor, but the other thing was far less attractive.

Reaching for the notes floating slowly away from them, Isaac tried to intercept the one with Hate-Speech written on it, only to be zapped by the magic that carried them instead. Cursing under his breath as he shook out his hand, fingers still tingling, he turned his attention back to Killian. "Because I brought up Harry Potter? That is bullshit, and you know it, Buckley."

Isaac would serve the detention; once written, there was no getting out of it, but he wasn't backing down either. Maybe stubbornness was rubbing off on him, or perhaps he didn't want to be painted as a supremacist by a Prefect who knew nothing about him, but either way, Isaac wasn't going to be quiet now. "Are you saying I am not allowed my opinions or that your badge gives you the right to police them?"

He could write up Hackney for profanity, too, if he really felt like it, but Killian was not inclined to dig out his notebook again in this exchange. Still, it was oddly satisfying to watch the white boy reach out for it, and for the charge to slip away from his fingertips. He didn't respond to Isaac's baiting, just nodded.

That is bullshit, Isaac said. "That's bullshit? You're bullshit. You're so full of it, the barnyard ran out." It wasn't a particularly witty comeback, but Killian delivered it quickly in a harsh, biting tone. The hate-speech charge was less likely to stick, true, but only because the Heads of House would hmm and haw about it until it was too late for Hackney to serve a detention. It was almost like race-baiting, is what it was, invoking Harry Potter like that, about muggleborns, and Killian wouldn't stand for it.

He certainly wouldn't stand for one white boy telling him that another white boy was his saviour, or whatever the hell.

Killian resisted the urge to squeeze his eyes shut with frustration, instead just pressing his lips together into a tight, tense line. "What is this, some freedom of speech thing? The First Amendment is an American invention." Police. Like Hackney knew shit-all about interacting with actual police. "You're allowed your opinions, you're free to voice them all you'd like. And you're free to deal with the consequences of them."

Crossing his arms in front of his chest Isaac leaned back slightly, clear disapproval written all over his face. Killian was trying to get him into a lot more trouble than he felt was justified, and that was irritating. Isaac had been purposefully cruel to the first year, yes, and bringing up Harry Potter was a dick move, but he didn't think he had been racist. Then again, what did he really know? Despite being ridiculously poor and from a terrible family, Isaac was white and pureblood, so the number of nuances lost on him when it came to social issues was staggering. Isaac didn't know a damn thing.

And despite his true intentions, Isaac meant to be a jerk, but not that much; the teenager was too stubborn to walk it back. There would be no apology. And he certainly wasn't going to ask Killian of all people to teach him how to be better, not that it was Killian's responsibility to help him anyway. Instead, Isaac dug his heels in instinctively and rolled his eyes at the Gryffindor Prefect. "Whatever, I will face the consequences then." He said, tilting his head back and forth mockingly as he repeated grandfather Buckley's old-fashioned warning.

"We both know it will not stick anyway." He added sinisterly, giving Killian one last hateful look before stepping to the side and walking past him. Isaac had considered bumping against the other wizard's shoulder but thought better of it at the last minute. He already had two detentions pending, and violence would not help his case.

[out]

Isaac looked pissed.

Killian tried not to smile, biting down on his cheeks. It felt disturbingly good to rattle Hackney like this, with his stupid attitude and stupid London-borough name. Even his weird attempt to mockingly echo Killian felt like a win. Killian just nodded, tucking his hands back into his robe pockets. "Have fun with that, then," he replied, tone purposely mild.

Isaac was right, though, in that only one detention, one demerit was likely to stick.  It was frustrating, how wizards, even the nice ones, even the ones with no overt blood supremacist views, were hesitant to actually put any weight behind their soft spoken slogans. And could he really expect any different? Flitwick and McGonagall had worked here during the war, and even if they defended students during the Battle, where were they when students were disappearing? Where were they when students were being tortured?

So, no, Killian had no hope that Isaac would learn his lesson. But today, at least, he would be pissed off, and that would be something.

He watched Isaac walk away for a moment, before turning on his own heel in the other direction. It was time for History of Magic, anyway.


/end