apocynthion { killian }

"I'd bet -- she likes to be up for day hours, chat with people in the morning or back from meals. Not so much the middle of the night." After years of guarding the Gryffindor Tower entrance, the Fat Lady must be used to returning prefects by now, yet every time Killian came back from patrol she seemed well miffed. Perhaps it was because she had been there for years, and she was over it. Or perhaps the portrait was racist. Killian wouldn't be all that surprised.

I wish we were in the same house, Billie said softly as they walked. Killian's smile quirked sideways. He wished that too, sometimes; less these days, which felt like a slight betrayal now that he thought about it. He had felt so out of place in Gryffindor house, though... "Tried that, first year. Flitwick thought I was mental, trying to get transferred." He reckoned that Flitwick still liked him well enough, but Killian couldn't shake the feeling that the Charms professor still thought he was a little touched to want to leave Gryffindor House.

Billie made a small joke, but it was too nice an idea to not take in earnest. "That would be wicked," Killian agreed, then -- "Do the stairs let girls into the boys dorms in Ravenclaw Tower but not the other way around, too?" That had been a laugh, the girls hooting and hollering as Killian slide ass first down the stairs the only time they tried. It was funnier to watch, since every year someone tried. It was hilarious, though archaic.

He didn't want to think about trying to get into Billie and Barbara (and Reinhardt, urgh) and all's room, though, just how nice it would be talk about things right away. "Do wizards have -- I don't know, pagers? I suppose there is Floo calling but that seems so --" undignified, you stick your head in the fireplace wizards are bizarre, "-- like a crap shoot. Pagers are these little things that show messages kind of instantly? I think." Killian shook his head. "I just think that would be nice, is all. Jumped ahead of myself again, haven't I?"

“Oh no, Ki, you didn’t,” Billie looked at him, her eyes a little wide. She hadn’t heard this story before. “To Ravenclaw?” she clarified, though the answer was obvious. Of course he’d want to be in her house — it suited him. It suited him in the same way that she’d always thought there was a version of Phillip that could have been a Gryffindor, and a version of her that could have been a Hufflepuff… People were more than one thing, she thought.

“Well, we would’ve been friends earlier,” she said, even though that wasn’t necessarily true. She imagined what September to December would have been like if Phillip and Ki had been in the same house, but tried not to linger on her boyfriend. She nodded at the stairs question.

That seems so… “Messy?” Billie offered. Her least favourite thing about floo was the fact that she ended up smelling like ash whenever she travelled. It always seemed to mess up her hair, somehow, made it static-y like someone had rubbed a balloon on there. It was shorter now, she thought distantly — maybe it wouldn’t be as much of a problem.

“No pagers,” Billie said as she walked up the stairs beside him. Thinking about instant communication, though, was… Well, she could only think of one thing. And she’d been trying not to think of him. She tried not to let her thoughts affect her expression, or her tone, but a little bled through.  “There are other ways,” she told him, “two way mirrors, vanishing cabinet pairs, things like that…” Her twin journals had been expensive, but the cost hadn’t been a problem for her. She imagined that the magic was quite complex to perform — the charm was supposed to last forever. “Less… standardised, I think,” Billie finished, her voice a little soft.

She was quiet then, her mind inevitably drawn to vanishing cabinets and a small stack of twin journals she hadn’t been able to stop re-reading. Yes, she thought. There were ways to send messages instantly. Before she and Phillip had had the journals, they’d just sent her owl back and forth, even though they were in the same tower. It felt intimate, to get handwritten notes in the middle of the night, in her bed.

"No, Slytherin," Killian said, deadpan, before letting out a snorty sort of laugh. "Ravenclaw, of course. I wanted to read and I wanted everyone to be more quiet." And there had been other minority ethnic boys in Ravenclaw, Killian thought but did not say. Billie was raised by blood supremacists -- as wonderful as she was, she was almost certainly not the audience for his thesis on ethnic distributions in Hogwarts houses.

We would have been friends earlier, Billie thought. Killian disagreed but didn't say so, nodded anyway. Maybe by a year, half a year. Maybe. But he hadn't sought out white friendship at all until recently. More likely he would have been closer with Ara and Ingvar, if he were sorted in Ravenclaw.

It was a moot point all the same -- there were no house transfers, because the Hat was never wrong, apparently. It had been pretty confident with Killian's sorting, barely touching the top of his hair before making a declaration. This still felt suspicious to Killian, years later.

"Messy, yes," Killian agreed. No pagers, but there were other ways -- "Oh, two way mirror, that sounds wicked, can you get them as little hand mirror type things, put them in your book bag?" Cabinets seemed too heavy, and it didn't sound like it had quite the utility of being able to contact anyone like a phone did, but beat sticking his hair into literal ashes. "How much do those run?"

Billie went quiet then, just as they drew close to the Fat Lady. Killian frowned, hung a left to the little stairwell beside Gryffindor Tower and sat on the second step. Gave her another moment to break the silence on her own, ran out of patience. "Penny -- hn, sorry, knut for your thoughts?" The phrase didn't flow as well with Wizarding currency, which... was par for the course, with Wizarding currency.

Slytherin. Billie smiled a little at that, wondering how anyone was happy in a house in the dungeons.

She hadn’t ever owned a set of those kinds of mirrors — she had no idea how much they cost. “I’m not sure, sorry,” Billie replied quietly. If she and Phillip had still been together next summer they might have looked into getting a pair — it wasn’t so necessary here at school, but at home… Then again, he’d always been able to just apparate to her when she was free. Sometimes he’d apparated up to Craven just to walk the dog with her for half an hour before heading home. Belatedly, she wondered if Killian meant the cabinets — she didn’t know how much they went for either, but Phillip would. After his uncle had sold the one his family had disappeared in, they’d tried to track it down.

Billie sighed, thoughts of Phillip and his family and — inevitably — her family swimming in her mind. They were all linked together, now.

Sitting on the ground was novel to her. On the stairs, too, where everyone walked back and forth each day? She tried not to be judgemental, but a little house prejudice slipped into her subconscious, making her think that these stairs were probably a little dirtier than her own. Billie didn’t hesitate, though. She brushed her robes under her legs neatly, treating them like a long skirt or dress. She crossed her ankles a couple of stairs down from where they sat, the book in her lap and her hands folded demurely on top.

Billie glanced at him when he spoke, polite curiosity on her expression as she brought herself out of her thoughts. “I’m sorry,” she said, quieter now that they were up here, even if the portrait was sleeping. She didn’t want to talk about Phillip some more — Ki didn’t react the right way, and it made her feel too vulnerable and hurt. There were a lot of other things she wanted to speak with him about, that she could bring up, but was this the right place to do it? This was the most isolated, intimate space they’d had since they’d come back to school and she still hadn’t been able to talk about her family.

“Um, can I ask you about something?” she asked, glancing at him, a slight frown on her face.

Killian frowned -- "What have you got to be sorry for?" he asked, tone gentle but confused. He could hear the faint rumblings of the Fat Lady snoring from here. Was Billie concerned about waking her? Had he upset her, somehow, in the last thirty seconds? All he had asked about was the mirrors. If that was some sort of button, he didn't know that yet. His brows furrowed, unsure of whether he should apologize now, or ask what was wrong, or something.

He didn't need to always be talking -- but Killian thought out loud and Billie thought in her head, silently, and sometimes that was frustrating. If only he could hear her half baked thoughts and sentences, that would be easier, sometimes.

Killian was still running through the possibilities -- had she heard about him and Mae, was she upset Ki hadn't told her first -- when the blonde spoke up. "Oh, uh, of course." He wiped his hands on his robes, pressed them together as he leaned forward, arms resting on the tops of his legs.

She felt confused by his question and just sort of shook her head as a response, wanting to apologise again.

“It’s sort of… Off topic,” Billie said, as if they’d been on one single topic that she was now diverting them from. There was no easy way to segue to what she wanted to talk about, but she felt like they were running out of time, sitting outside his common room as they were. Even now — knowing that he knew so much — alarm bells were blaring in her head, and her heart beat a little faster in anticipation. Years of telling herself to keep quiet had built walls that were difficult to ignore. Maybe she should have just kept talking about Lord of the Rings.

Billie hesitated, her eyes on his. Then she looked away, making a decision. She was settling on what might have been the easiest, most peripheral part of what she wanted to talk about. Her volume dropped as she spoke. “In January, we spoke about Azkaban,” she said quietly, her eyes on her hands as she brushed a bit of dust off of one nail, as if it was the most interesting thing. She didn’t want to look at him now, but her aversion was only barely stronger than the urge to look, to study his reaction. She resisted the urge to fidget, too, her hands stilling. “Your reaction wasn’t… What I expected,” she said gently.

She glanced back at him then, unable to wait to check his expression any longer. She gave the smallest of smiles — a little rueful, a little apologetic. “We don’t have to talk about that now, I didn’t meant to…” She stopped herself, shaking her head slightly, then tried again. “But I’ve been curious about it.” Merlin and Morgana, what a tone shift. Billie hadn’t meant to steer them so abruptly down this path.

Off-topic. He nodded, but was expected the left turn into the topic of Azkaban. He remembered that conversation; burned it into his memory on accident in the retelling to Adam. Killian frowned, watching Billie try to stumble through her question. There didn't seem to be one, just a statement: Your reaction wasn't what I expected.

"Um," Killian said. There was a lot of ways to take that, given Billie hadn't asked an actual question. "Uh, I guess? Was I supposed to be happy to hear your --" He cut himself off, aware that this wasn't actually a private space, corrected himself to say "-- that anyone is in there?" He shook his head, a familiar rolling wave of disgust churning in his stomach. Evil depression prison. Wizards were right fucked up.

"No, it's okay, we can talk about it!" Killian said, interrupting his own train of thought. "Just -- trying to figure out how to put it. What to say. What 'it' is." He leaned back resting his elbows on another step as he stared at the high stone ceilings. Jesus, where to start. "I feel like this might be easier if you had, uh, a specific question." Killian bit his lip. He supposed that the answer to most of the possibilities were the same -- I'm Black, Billie. Of course I hate prisons.

The alarm bells didn’t stop ringing, but she pushed through.

— happy to hear —

That part caught on something, like a thread of torchon lace snagged on a thorn, and Billie felt that internal-wince feeling again. No, she thought; he wasn’t supposed to be anything, it had just surprised her that he wasn’t. Wasn’t he a muggleborn? He was too clever for her not to assume that he understood her confusion. There were other people in Azkaban of course, but especially after the first war, it had been full of Death Eaters. Happy wasn’t the right word, but.

He leaned back and she shifted a little so she could turn and face him, her knees tucked neatly so she didn’t brush his legs. “That’s understandable,” Billie responded. Mildly torturous, being forced to be explicit about things that were difficult to talk about, but understandable. Barbara would never, she thought, feeling a distant appreciation for her housemate, who was far better at both utilising and understanding indirectness.

Despite her earlier indication that she did, Billie wasn’t sure she had a specific question. She was quiet again when she spoke, her words heavy and carefully chosen. “I think most people are happy those prisoners are rotting behind bars for life,” she started. “And I don’t have the impression that very many people were concerned that it was dementors guarding them all those years.” She recalled a history lesson from third year that mentioned a concerned minister from the seventeen hundreds. It had stuck with her for obvious reasons.

The dementors were gone, now, but Billie suspected that that had more to do with the creatures changing allegiance during the war than it did any kind of ethical concern. Maybe she was wrong about that. Maybe.

“I don’t know what I think,” she admitted, but she didn’t elaborate on that. There was too much to unpack, and she felt deeply guilty about around half of it either way. It was too personal. “But I understand why a lot of people feel that way.” It was personal for a lot of people, she thought. In a different way, perhaps, but still. Her eyes were on him again. “I want to know how you feel about it.” Still another statement, rather than a question, but at least this one had a clearer request in it. Maybe he could work with it.

Billie was, perhaps, unable to phrase the question she was trying to ask as a question. This was slightly agonizing for Killian, who was prone to hearing every question but the one actually implied in these sorts of situations. Barbara and Billie seemed to communicate exclusively through implication and induction, which was exhausting. Perhaps he was too stupid to get it, and thus why he wasn't in Ravenclaw, he thought with no malice towards himself or the blue and bronze house.

Still, Billie was trying. Killian nodded with each carefully crafted sentence, staring at an keystone in the arch above them as he thought through it. Most people... happy... rotting... life... that was one of the things, wasn't it, that Azkaban was a life sentence, that made his skin crawl. Life, no parole, depression-inducing monsters. He shuddered again despite himself.

I want to know how you feel about it, Billie said, and though it still wasn't a question it was an invitation. Killian pushed his lips out and over to one side, trying to think through everything like a Ravenclaw would before opening his mouth. "Huh," he said softly. Promising start, Ki!

He tried again. "Well, I think I understand why a lot of wizards would want Death Eaters removed from society, I'm not super keen on interacting with Nazis, that makes sense." He paused, looked at Billie's face -- did she know what a Nazi was?[/I]? -- before carrying on. "And I suppose the idea of it -- no innocent people ever go there, remove the worst of the worst, make them suffer, is kind of appealing."

"But I don't really believe that wizards are any better than regular people at determining guilt -- there are ways to fool pretty much any kind of truth telling magic, apparently, in NEWTs level Defense they teach you --" off topic, veering off topic. Killian swallowed, leaned up onto his legs again. "And even if they weren't -- what kind of justice is that? It's only one step above death penalty, sending people off there now without the Dementors. Was the death penalty, before." Killian licked his lips to moisten them, feeling very much like he was talking well too much.

"And -- that's base, isn't it? Retributive justice, generally. Humans should be capable of better than that. Normal or magic humans. Because prisons, and the laws what put people in there, in no society ever is it about protecting people from further harm? It's about metting out the same harm, again." Christ, how did Mum and her students make talking about this so easy? He hadn't even gotten to Audre Lord and prison abolition and felt quite stupid.

He looked to Billie again, checking to make sure it was okay to keep going, he needed to explain himself a little bit more; "I probably sound like a wet rag about this. Mum studies this kind of stuff, though, so I grew up around it." don't bring up race don't bring up race -- "And, well, I'm Black, aren't I?" Killian, you idiot. "Not like I particularly trust the prison-industrial complex an' a police state, whether run by guns or wands."

Killian shuddered at the thought of it, but she caught it again — that sense that he wasn’t just horrified by the idea of being exposed to dementors, or being in Azkaban, but at the thought that anyone would be.

Or that anyone would want to make it happen.

He said — the idea of it — remove the worst — she nodded, just a touch, because that seemed to be the common opinion — make them suffer, is kind of appealing — she nodded again, but it was forced this time, and she curled her toes inside her shoes, tried not to mirror the action with her fingers. Tried not to linger on the moment, because it wasn’t one she wanted to replay later.

Every time he checked in with her nonverbally, she nodded, making sure to meet his gaze to make sure he knew she meant it.

… And he talked a lot. Billie liked that about Killian, at least when he was speaking about himself or a topic they shared an interest in, and when he wasn’t pressing her to do the same, or when the topic wasn’t her. She felt very ignorant right now, and she frowned slightly, trying to memorise prison-industrial complex and police state, so she could try to understand it better later. She didn’t have much of an ego when it came to learning, though; she’d learned a very long time ago that there were always more things to learn, always people who knew more than you.

She didn’t understand what being black had to do with it, but he said it like she should know, so she took a moment to digest it all before saying anything at all.

“You don’t think… That bad people — people who have done truly awful things — deserve to suffer?” She glanced at him, because that was definitely one of the things that he’d said. She wasn’t sure that it was a commonly held opinion, though, wasn’t sure that most people were interested in different types of justice than the one he’d described in the first place. Metting out the same harm, he’d said. Billie thought of Phillip, who’d lost his whole family because of the Dark Lord and his Death Eaters, whether directly or indirectly, thinking that his version of justice almost definitely included some degree of suffering for those involved.

A part of her felt a need to defend the status quo, but if she dug a little deeper she’d know that it had a lot more to do with trying to counter the bias she already held than it had to do with her own deeply held opinions. Her mother, her uncle, other family or family friends who’d been imprisoned… She felt in her soul that the punishment was too cruel and terrible. Far too twisted to inflict, far too horrific to suffer through. But that feeling was firmly in the box of things she wasn’t supposed to feel, and she didn’t want to give herself away as some kind of... Death Eater apologist, or something. Especially not to him.

Billie kept nodding, so Killian kept talking. She didn't have anything to say about race, or the prison industrial complex, or the police state. Killian felt often that having Rhonda Afolayan for a mother was a curse, because the minute he went into what was normal dinner discussion at his house people looked at him like he had said the earth was flat, or, among normal people, that magic was real.

He wanted to ask if she understood why it mattered, that he was Black. Wasn't sure he wanted to hear the answer.

You don’t think… That bad people — people who have done truly awful things — deserve to suffer?

Killian frowned, biting the inside of his cheek. That... was kind of what he said, wasn't it? The skin between his brows creased. "Yes... and no, I think."

That was a non-answer. He twisted his fingers together, staring at the cuticle of his nails. "I mean, like on the one hand, I get angry and hateful at people like anyone does, right?" He thought briefly of his surge of frustration when Billie defended Donnelly over and over and over again, a little of his confrontations with Hackney and Reindhardt. "Especially if someone is doing me wrong, personally. Or does something that targets me or people like me." He uncurled his fingers, pressing his fingertips together until they lightened a few shades. "And then, if its horrific enough, I'll feel like, yes they should hurt too, because I'm hurting."

He twisted then, rearranging how he was sitting so both legs were on a single step and his back was pressed against the wall. He could see Billie better this way, and felt more anchored with the pressure at his back. A modified sort of floor time. Ki tried to catch Billie's gaze again. "But, hurting people back doesn't actually solve my pain, right? That's the point of like, every revenge story in history. You might think someone deserves to hurt because you're hurting, but isn't all that doing is creating more hurt?" He shifted his legs up, hugging his knees. "Just because I feel that Nazis or Death Eaters should suffer doesn't mean you should build a justice system around that feeling. It's a cycle, isn't it?"

Killian looked up the stairwell -- he was fairly certain they were alone, but he felt rather vulnerable saying all this out loud, knowing that it was a contrarian opinion to have even outside a student body full of war-traumatized students. "I don't know all the specifics about magic prison, but out in the real world prison is, uh, it's a tool to destabilize communities and get forced labour and to threaten minority groups, and the more I learn about wizards the more it all seems the same, so I can't imagine it's much better."

"I don't really know what an alternative would look like, my mum has some ideas about post-carceral justice because she's an expert on this, not me. Uh, I could bring up some Audre Lorde, her books or something, if you're interested, and --" Killian wiped a hand over his mouth, tongue feeling dry, "-- I'd like if maybe, you said what you're thinking right now, about all that, before I accidentally give a whole half-remembered lecture."

Billie nodded again, because that made sense to her. Not in an acute sense — she couldn’t think of many (any?) situations where people had hurt her and she’d wanted them to hurt too, but she’d come to learn she was a bit of an outlier there. There was no moral superiority attached to this thought; maybe she didn’t value her own hurt the way she valued other people’s, or something. It didn’t really matter. She followed his gaze up the staircase, wishing she could hug her knees to her chest. She clasped her hands a little tighter instead.

Real world prison. Billie didn’t like that. The wizarding prison had felt pretty real to her, every time she’d been there, and his wording didn’t sit right. Of course, she said nothing at all about it; what good would it do? She frowned a little when he talked about what prisons were for, trying to fit the picture he’d painted over the top of the one she understood. Forced labour? She was pretty sure everyone in Azkaban now was just suffering, and before, they’d just suffered until they went insane. Destabilise? Minority groups? All the people she’d known in Azkaban were white purebloods — maybe that was just her bias again. She couldn’t contradict him, though; he really sounded like he knew what he was talking about.

She started to nod when he mentioned books. Book-learning she could definitely do. She felt a little relief for a moment, but then he asked her what she thought and her mind immediately went blank at the question. “Um,” she said. She didn’t think she’d had time to process it all, and wanted to go away and look up all of the words she hadn’t understood.

“It’s a lot,” she admitted, her gaze on her hands. She felt guilty for not having a better answer, but wanted to give him something. The best she could do was be honest, she hoped it was enough for now. “I haven’t thought about any of this before. I mean…” She hesitated, not wanting to say that the implications of what he was saying made sense, because she felt like doing so would undermine her in some terrible way. How could she explain that to him? “No, that is what I mean. I haven’t thought about it, I think I need some time to digest it?” She sounded a touch apologetic at the end. It was personal, she wanted to say, and complex. It didn’t feel right to say it now, but it was true.

Billie was quiet for a moment, turning it over. She wanted to explain the feeling, but was having difficulty putting it into words. “I feel like… I can’t think about it… Any other way.” She looked at him, frowning slightly to check that he’d understood her meaning without her having to actually say it. He didn’t look like he did, so she forced herself to elaborate. She allowed herself to drop her gaze, even if it felt a little selfish and cowardly to do so. Her voice was quiet, hesitant, confessional as she spoke. “I mean, I know what I’m supposed to think, and how I’m supposed to feel. About my… Family.” A beat. “About Azkaban. And it makes sense! And I do feel like that. Have I told you that Ken's wife is an auror?" It was slightly off-topic, but only slightly. "But then you say these other things that make sense, too," she said, "and I feel like I’m doing something... Wrong by considering them.”

Something wrong was a bit of an understatement — she felt like she couldn’t agree that the way prisoners were or had been treated was unjust. Or that prisons in general were bad, or whatever. She simply wasn’t allowed to have that opinion, with the blood that ran through her veins and the surname she shared with her mother. “It was so awful in there, Killian. So awful.” She felt a little distressed, her arms automatically folding themselves across her chest in some kind of self-protective move. She shook her head. “But even saying that feels a bit like I’m undermining… Something?” she glanced back up at him, feeling very vulnerable.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, shaking her head, “I know that’s not what you meant.”

Billie's hands tightened, a small almost imperceptible movement on the edges of Killian's vision, her frown deepening. Ki wondered if he should stop, wondered if he was putting his foot in his mouth again. Maybe he should stand up, go upstairs and grab the History of Magic textbook. His teeth dug into his lower lip, unsure if this conversation was smart. Billie was nodding, sure -- but that didn't mean she was getting what he said. It was important she understood -- Ki didn't think he could stand it if Billie thought he was crazy, or stupid, for all this.

Um, said Billie, which was reasonable enough but made Killian feel a little stressed. "Yeah, it is, isn't it? Sorry about that," he mumbled, a little heat in his cheeks. One day he would stop being the Weird Black Boy who Talked Like a Textbook. One day. Maybe. "Sure, that makes sense -- I've been hearing about this all since I was born, so." He rubbed his knee just for something to do with his hands.

It was quiet, but a thinking quiet. Any other way? The confusion must have been apparent in his expression. Supposed to think. Supposed to feel. Killian didn't nod so much as just bob his head along, wearing a spot into his lip. "What?" He had thought it was Silverman who was the Auror, so she must have told him and he had gotten it scrambled. "Oh, yes."

Wrong to consider them. Killian didn't bother hiding his expression, a mix of hurt and disappointment and frustration warring across his broad features. He wanted to interject, something about how wasn't that the problem, that everyone like her, the purebloods, the wizards, just did what they were supposed to, said what they were supposed to, wasn't that how it had all gone wrong in the first place, that the castle and robes and Statute of Secrecy were suffocating and made thinking anything new or changing anything so hard --

It was so awful in there, Killian. So awful. Killian's eyes went wide. They hadn't discussed this before, he hadn't noticed when Billie stopped pretending they weren't talking about her mother. He took a deep breath, chest rising and falling in time with a picked up heartbeat, quickening with anger or pity or fear or all of the above.

Billie began to fold into herself, not quite trembling but looking like a light breeze might knock her over. Oh, no. Killian swung his legs back around, scooting down and over on the stone steps until he was right beside Billie. "Hey, hey. Come here." His hips were on an angle, there was no way to lean well the way they were sitting, but Killian still reached and wrapped an arm around Billie's side. It was easy to gather her up into a hug, awkward as their sitting made it. It was almost instinctive. Belatedly, he mumbled, "Is this alright?" He loosened the pressure of his arms at that, to make it easy for her to break away if she'd like.

She wasn’t sure that he understood, but she’d said so much already; the stress of sharing had her tense and uncomfortable. What? he said, and then Oh, yes. She wanted to press that, and ask him if he understood what that meant for her, to spend summers with people so closely involved with everything that had happened. They’d both fought at the battle too, if she recalled correctly. Her aunt had almost never spoken about her parents, or Death Eaters generally, or Azkaban, but Billie knew from the times that she almost did that the woman had absolutely thought that they all deserved to be there. How could she compile all of these different things into one clear perspective? It felt like it was breaking her brain to try. She’d held a lot of conflicting truths for  a long time.

Billie didn’t say any of that, though. She was already having difficulty explaining this one other feeling, and if she started digging now then who knew what kinds of tangled knots she’d dredge up?

“It’s just — “ she started to protest, as he moved closer, wanting to answer his question more, or better, or again. She felt like she was failing. At the very least she should communicate that she was taking everything he was saying seriously — it was just difficult and confronting in a very specific way for her. It undermined the walls she’d built, clean solutions she’d absolutely needed as a child coming into a world so jarringly different to the one she’d known. Billie sighed, letting him curl around her in his very Killian sort of way. Some distant parts of her — the part conservative about touch, uncomfortable with the concept of any boy touching her other than Phillip, the part paranoid that Phillip would see, would hate her even more — disapproved, but it felt nice. She hesitated for a beat, but didn’t pull away. “It’s nice,” she reassured him quietly, nodding slightly.

“I’m sorry,” she repeated, “I know that’s not what you were asking.” She felt tired — she wasn’t used to having to dig at these particular feelings, and certainly wasn’t used to sharing them with others. She definitely didn’t want him to leave her alone with her thoughts now, but if he wanted to then of course she’d let him. Her mind lingered on dementors, spinning a memory of her father’s much larger hand wrapped tightly around hers as they moved down a hall, her feet moving more than twice the speed to keep up with his long strides. He was rushing them, she remembered. Because it was so… Unpleasant.

“I think… If I’d thought about any of this, like this, when I was ten or eleven, it would have really messed me up,” she said, hoping distantly that he understood why. She didn’t know if she had the energy to explain. “I want to read more,” she said, looking at him, then away when she found their faces too close. Reading wouldn’t come with the same unexpected emotional weight that learning like this did, she hoped. At least she'd understand all of the words, if she had a chance to sit down with them and learn before they spoke. “I’ll read anything you suggest," she said, gazing down at her hands, "and maybe we can speak about it again?”

"Okay," Killian acknowledged, voice gentle again. "It's okay." He wasn't even sure what he was answering, now. Probably his fault for asking too many questions, pushing too much again. He squeezed his arms around her, trying to communicate something comforting without actually saying anything.

If I’d thought about any of this, like this, when I was ten or eleven, it would have really messed me up, Billie said, her breath fluttering against his jumper. His hand on her back moved in slow circles, almost more to comfort himself than Billie. He nodded, deciding not to try to say something relational here. There were stories on his lips though, his own and his families, of being young and terrified in the red and blue lights of a police vehicle. It wasn't the same, but Killian could relate to being young and getting messed up by the world. But he didn't say any of that.

Billie's face was really close to his. He hadn't noticed, but now it was all he could notice. He loosened his grip a little, not quite letting go yet but letting a little more air fill the space between them. Reading, that was -- good. Yes. Reading. Killian nodded. Reading and thinking about it would help, both Billie to continue this awful and painful conversation, and him to feel less responsible for explaining the entirety of the prison abolition movement. He had been away from home for too long, had absorbed maybe half of all there was to know, and was deeply uncomfortable suddenly having to be the Voice Of The Abolitionist Movement. Even if it was just to Billie.

"That sounds -- yeah, right, yeah." Killian let one arm drop, the one around Billie's back still curled around her. "I'll write to my mum, she's the real expert in it all." He paused, frowned, looked back at Billie for a moment. "Could I borrow Denny, actually? The school owls always go right for Dad's head."