ttd | secondhand sentiments [perpetua]

She’d had to go down to Hogsmeade in the afternoon (something Barbara avoided most of the time, as every time she went, she felt obligated to stop at home and say hello, and her parents had developed a tiresome habit of quizzing her on her studies when she did) but she returned with the good tidings that, firstly, her cat was not going to die, and secondly, yes, her cat shouldn’t have eaten a Streeler, and was probably poisoned now, but the antidote cost only four Sickles, and the phial was wrapped in a handkerchief in her bag.

If only she could find her cat.

All morning she’d sat with Pinky in the lavatory, so she (the cat) could vomit in the sink and not on her (Barbara’s) bed, while she’d sat cross-legged on the floor trying to pay dual attention to her sick cat and to her Monster Book of Monsters, and – when that had proved unhelpful – she had tied the Monster Book of Monsters up again, and almost run all the way to the village to the menagerie, trying to hold her pointed hat onto her head with one hand.

In the time it had taken to do so, and to convince herself that she didn’t need to stop by home if it was an emergency, and to sprint back up to the castle (which had turned into a bedraggled walk halfway through, as she was quite wiped out) Pinky, who had been set down on her bed in a fruitless attempt to make her comfortable, had absconded. Barbara looked at all the windowsills, pulled all the covers off her bed, and finally heard a rustling from under her bed.

She was trying to seize her cat by her tail when the door opened; at once she grabbed and pulled, and from under her bed came a hissing, scratching kneazle – Barbara, more from surprise than fear, let out a shriek as it flung itself away, and looked with shock at her roommate standing in the doorway, fairly positive that she didn’t remember Perpetua having any pets – “Ugh! Is that yours?”

@Perpetua Robbins

Perpetua thought that now would be a good time to enter her dormitory to get her Potions textbook and do her homework as she believed that nobody should be in there at this time. It was a Hogsmeade weekend. Most students were either in the village or in the grounds or the library or… well, anywhere but in their dormitories.

Therefore, when she pushed the door open she stopped dead in her tracks when she saw Barbara there. She was tempted to ask her what she was doing here but didn’t get to do so as the other girl seemed pretty annoyed and confused her with a question.

“What?” Perpetua asked, entirely perplexed. Her gaze wandered from Barbara to the kneazle and she shook her head. They shared a dormitory now for the fifth year and Barbara still didn’t seem to know that she had no pets. It was a clear sign that the other girl didn’t even want to put in an effort to know her. Admittedly Perpetua liked it when none of the girls at the dormitory paid her any attention but it was still sad in a way.

“No,” she finally muttered, “not mine. I don’t have a pet.” She wanted to say ‘as you should already know’, but refrained. She was not going to pick up a fight with Barbara. Clearly the other girl was tougher and if any of the others joined them she’d be doomed anyway.

“That’s what I thought,” said Barbara, half defensively. “How did it get up here?” The girls’ dormitories were supposed to be warded against unwelcome visitors – although, she thought, that applied more to boys than to cats. Still. It’d been under her bed where she slept.

Now that her hackles were going down somewhat, she registered that Perpetua was in the room on a perfectly lovely Saturday; she was about to ask curiously what the other girl was up to (all year Perpetua Robbins had been acting rather suspicious) but was interrupted by the kneazle, which (after a bit of tail-wriggling) launched itself at her roommate. Barbara jerked backwards; her wand was already in her hand, from when she’d attempted to lure the creature out with its lit tip, and she raised it automatically – “Immobulus!”

The cat froze in midair, and Barbara looked up with relief at her roommate and found, to her horror, that Perpetua had also frozen in midair.

Merlin and Morgana. She hurried over to perform the countercharm (fortunately she’d been revising for her Charms O.W.L. yesterday) and held her hands out for the taller girl to take, if she unbalanced as she unfroze – “I’m so sorry,” she said sheepishly, “I was aiming at the kneazle – it must have gone right over.”

“No idea,” Perpetua muttered. How was she supposed to know how a kneazle found its way into their dormitory. She certainly hadn’t let it in and hadn’t left the door open either. It had to be the fault of one of their dormmates but that was hardly anything Perpetua was risking to say. If she suspected Rowen, Merlin knew how the other girl would react and what kind of nasty payback she’d receive.

“What…” Perpetua was taken aback when the kneazle launched itself at her. Her eyes widened in shock and, before she could think of anything to do, a spell from Barbara’s wand hit and immobilised her and she was hovering midair looking like a fish in an aquarium with her mouth wide open.

Barbara was sensible to quickly cast the countercharm and kind enough to hold out her hands for Perpetua to take so she wouldn’t topple on the ground. While the apology seemed to be sincere, Perpetua felt her eyes watering with tears. This was just typical that things like that had to happen to her - whether Barbara had immobilised her on purpose or not - it was a terribly awkward and unpleasant situation.

Perpetua blinked and pretended to readjust her glasses when she wiped off an obnoxious tear that ran down her cheek. “Yeah,” she muttered feebly, looking down at the floor where she spotted a single sock laying around, “it’s…” she wanted to say okay because that was the kind of thing one said to signal forgiveness, but the word just didn’t get out.

Perpetua was crying now – oh no – Barbara fought back her rising defensiveness (it had been an accident!) and said, “Well…”

She wasn’t very good with situations like this; it wasn’t like she could say that anybody was finally at peace now, which was what she defaulted to when she came across weeping people (she had grown up in a funeral home, which lent itself well to random weepers around the area, and had had to learn to deal with them in the way she imagined others learned to deal with foxes in their gardens.) Casting out a little desperately, she said, “It was an accident.”

Accident or no, she didn’t want to be here any longer – she had a cat to medicate and surely Perpetua had her own weird things to attend to, and in any case Barbara always preferred to cry in private. She drew herself up to her full height (somewhere at Perpetua’s chin) and said, “I’ll see you tonight, but I’ve really got to find my cat – she ate a streeler.”

Now at the height of discomfort, she fished out a handkerchief, pressed it into the other girl’s hand, and ran for it.


OUT

Although she really tried to stay calm and not to show how she felt, Perpetua knew that she was not convincing. Barbara seemed defensive but not actually apologetic. Perpetua wondered how the other girl would feel if their roles had been reversed.

An accident. Perpetua readjusted her glasses and tried to look as though she believed the other girl. "Yeah," she muttered. Accident or not, it was typical that she ended up being the victim. The girl chewed on her bottom lip, thinking that more confident students would either laugh about it or hex the caster.

Barbara seemed to think that their conversation was over now and clearly valued her cat higher than her dormmate. Perpetua frowned but didn't say anything, afraid of what that would provoke and, besides, she wasn’t sure what she was expecting anyway. She didn't have a pet herself and figured that, if she did, she'd prefer its company to that of her dormmates anytime.

On her way out of the dormitory Barbara pressed a handkerchief into her hand, leaving Perpetua standing in the middle of the dormitory, feeling entirely confused.

[out]