I Got You PV Closed

The farther they got from the abandoned bathrooms, the more laborious the task of aiding the first year seemed for the third year and the guiltier Jack felt as a result. He definitely owed the older student for this. It crossed his mind to ask Victor if he could just leave him somewhere where he could remain undisturbed (since the abandoned toilets were no longer an option) until he felt well enough to get up on his own, but he also worried somewhat about earning the upperclassman's suspicion as well.

Furthermore, Jack had since discovered other reasons to want to go to the Hospital Wing. For one, he was genuinely curious as to what the nurses there might have had to say about Victor's strange ailment. For another, he wanted to know just what misfortune befell the third year so often that he had to be treated at the Hospital Wing weekly. The more he heard, the more concerned about the other boy he got.

He didn't seem to be the only concerned one, though.

"Who hurt you?"

Like he hadn't felt guilty enough for requiring so much of Victor's strength to move, Jack struggled with how much to reveal to the cold, fragile-seeming teen. The unexpected words that followed, however, brought the redhead to a decision.

"If you don't want to say, I won't make you," Victor sighed. "We are all entitled to our secrets."

It was as if Victor himself hadn't just been threatened to the moon and back to spill his guts. Yet here he was, telling Jack this as if the first year hadn't been among the other students requesting that Victor tell them what he knew regardless of what it might have cost him.

Jack began with a shaky laugh and a grimace at the pain he paid for it. "It wasn't so much 'hurting me' as doing what I asked him to," he felt it necessary to explain first. "Specifically, allowing a dorm mate twenty-four hours to do what he wished to me. It was the price to regain his trust after I had spent a previous twenty-four hours doing what I wished to him. So, to put it in simpler terms, I was just settling a debt."

The younger boy closed his eyes for a weary moment before uttering another weak chuckle. "Ironically...I think his choice caused more damage to himself than to me, but...I'll have to make amends for that once I recover from my current situation." Turning his head, he cast Victor a lop-sided grin. "I also owe you for this, you know. It's my policy to repay favors so no one will be able to hold them against me."

In spite of regretting having allowed his senior to assist him as much as he had with as taxing a toll as it was taking on Victor, Jack had to once more admire his upperclassman's tenacity. It wasn't every day he met another student who was so strong-willed, much less for another's sake as opposed to their own. As loathing of small talk as he usually was, Jack decided to indulge Victor for the duration of their trip, smiling musingly as he listened to him discuss girls he thought were cute, including Wren Caster. The talk of cold weather almost made him laugh aloud again, but he was in agreement about hoping for warmer weather in the near future. He just hoped Victor wouldn't melt away like a snowman under higher temperatures.

Though it was slow going, the pair of Slytherin boys eventually made it to their destination. Jack was interested to note that Victor called for a specific adult by name; the same one from earlier. He wondered idly if they were close. Whatever little Victor knew of VanCleaf's fate, though, Jack knew even less, and thus could not be of much use in locating the man.

All too glad to relieve Victor of his burden, the first year sat himself on the closest cot they came across as soon as he was able - almost before his upperclassman had finished uttering the command to sit. Though he would have liked little more than to simply lie down and sleep the remainder of the day, his worries regarding Victor forced him to remain upright on the edge of the bed, his eyes following the third year for as far as they could while he rapidly made his way to the back of the ward.

How curious that there was such a lack of activity in the Hospital Wing, especially after it had been so ridiculously busy when Jack had dropped Arlo off after the spider attack not too long ago. Had VanCleaf been present then? Jack should have paid better attention, but he'd been too exhausted and almost promptly gone straight back to bed.

It wasn't long before Victor was back, but he was frowning, evidently unable to find Mr.VanCleaf. In his hand, though, was a bottle of some strange golden liquid which the older boy was presumably more familiar with than Jack was.

"It's alright," the redhead assured the blue-eyed Slytherin. "Even if he isn't, I'll be okay. It's you I'm more worried about." Shedding his rather warm robes, Jack carefully put them to one side and examined his pajamas beneath. There was some blood staining through, but not nearly so much as the agony he'd endured had made him think would have. With a bit of a wince and a whimper, he delicately tried to peel off his shirt from the bottom upward and immediately regreted the action.

"Owowow...ow...um...Victor?" he spoke up with a strained, sheepish smile. "Would you...possibly...help me pull this off, please...?"

Beneath the fabric were various cuts a few days old that had been carefully stitched up and bandaged, but it was evident that Jack's mad dash to get to the abandoned toilets had put tension on some of the healing tissue and even ripped open a few wounds in some places. His latest, impulsive effort to lift his shirt off his head had not helped at all, especially with the injuries spanning his arms and shoulders. The bandages would need to be changed, at the very least, but Jack figured that even a magical infirmary must have kept a supply in case of emergencies.

"Also...I was meaning to ask," he continued, feeling awkward for attempting to question Victor even further when he had just been interrogated more than many people had in a lifetime. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to, of course...being entitled to your secrets and all that...or...what's left of them..." He glanced away, embarrassed. "But...the reason why you come here at least weekly. That...wouldn't have anything to do with your current...condition...would it?"

@Victor Moore

Victor carried the majority of the burden of conversation. He did not have a specirfic interest, if anything, he seemed like a normal teenage boy. Girls, weather, and sports; specifically Quidditch not that he played. He was also a casual fan of Gobstones.

He was unprepared for Jack's answer to his only direct inquiry -- who hurt you?

Apparently Jack's injuries were the result of harm done to him by a dorm mate. He wondered why until Jack made a stranger claim that he had done as he pleased to his future aggressor. A strange, potentially too kinky to consider, agreement he was not going to question. He simply nodded his head and replied with a simple "I see." The tone of his voice and the way he averted his gaze was the first indication of his disapproval, followed by a brief awkward silence. He let out a sigh, what in the world did this guy do to his 'friend' to make him beat the crap out of him in recompense? A question he only silently wondered as he changed the subject to owls - it was the first thing he could think of. He lacked the clever subtly of his Slytherin peers.

VanCleaf was not there, that much was obvious. He knew the ward better than most. His weekly pilgrimage made him rather self-sufficient. He grabbed the potion he was the most familiar with -- thick golden potion and brought a pair of them back to Jack's bedside. He popped the cork off a bottle and chugged the contents. A bit grassy tasting despite the color and thick like room temperature gelatin that had not quite settled consistently. Well, that or a raw egg. His stomach did a single flip before it settled.

Jack struggled to get his shirt off. "Dude, I got you," Victor announced as he helped the underclassman pull his shirt over his head. He would immediately regret this when he saw the injuries. "That's no ass kicking," he muttered at the crude efforts to heal. They were in Hogwarts for Merlin-sake! "Friends don't do that shit," there was a sharpness to his voice as he dictated a simple but obvious law. "Drink," he thrust the bottle in front of Jack. The potion would be useless for Jack, it only helped with potions. Something Victor half knew, but in the urgency of the moment he had to hand Jack something. "I will find you something else," Victor muttered, he ran into a table distracted by his own thoughts as he searched for the potion he needed. Yeah, he knew what Jack needed. He rifled through the cabinet until he found the bottle -- Wiggenweld Potion. He frowned as he looked at the bottle and rushed it back to Jack. "Drink," he was a lot less talkative.

There was no need for bandages, or stitches for that matter. Where was VanCleaf when he needed him? He was not equipped for this, not that Jack was dying but Merlin looked like someone tried to kill him.

"Also...I was meaning to ask."

He had another question?

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to, of course...being entitled to your secrets and all that...or...what's left of them..."

Victor sighed. It did not seem had had many left. "Yeah?"

"But...the reason why you come here at least weekly. That...wouldn't have anything to do with your current...condition...would it?"

"Cursed," he admitted. "We all are, how do you think the nurse knew how to treat your housemates. Took him two days to figure that out for us," two days of endless agony. "But a treatment is a far cry from a cure," it was like how insulin treats diabetes rather than cures it. "Not that I had anything to do with the common room incident," he added preemptively as if he needed defend himself. If the abandoned baths were any indication of how people thought, that was very likely.

Of course that would leave one with more questions -- All of them? Two days? Where is his mark? How did it happen?

As the term 'kinky' and any words of a similar or romantic nature were largely unknown (or selectively forgotten) by the first year, Jack appeared to be innocently unaware of how awkward his claim might have sounded to anyone with a mind prone to wallowing in the gutter. It was for this reason he felt no need to be assured or clarify that Victor knew exactly what he meant when he told Jack 'I see'. The aversion of the third year's gaze and his tone of voice was indication of his thoughts on the matter, of course, but Jack simply assumed that that was the reaction Victor would have had even if he was aware of the exact details of what had transpired. At least not until the older boy referred to what had happened to Jack as an 'ass-kicking' and insisted that 'friends don't do that shit', which first made the first year blink back in bewilderment and awe before choking on another pained laugh.

"Thanks," he croaked after Victor so swiftly assisted with the removal of his shirt. "And no, it isn't. But I don't recall ever saying it was." The Welsh boy gave his upperclassman a wry half-smile at the audible edge to his words. How kind of Victor to care so much. If Jack hadn't been so tired, he might have remembered to be more afraid. "Don't think I ever said we were friends, either. Just dorm mates with mutual interests willing to use each other as needed. Trust is vital to that sort of relationship, same as friendship, but that doesn't make us friends."

His smile dissolved then and he sighed, thinking of who Victor might have called 'friend' until recently. "Then again...from what I know of so-called 'friends', including yours...maybe trust is less vital than I thought." He eyed the golden potion absently. "I wouldn't know. I try to avoid making them in order to save myself the heartache that they invariably seem to cause."

As nearly the entirety of his upper torso seemed to bound up with bandages - as if the layer was its own undershirt - Jack knew he would have to do a lot of unwinding and cutting before he was able to change them all. The full bottle of potion that Victor thrust at him was taken, but not drunk as instructed. After having just seen Victor down his own bottle, he had no doubt the stuff wasn't poison, but then what was it? If it really did any healing of any sort, wouldn't it have been better to reserve it for Victor instead of him, particularly with the Infirmary void of that VanCleaf fellow? Besides, if Victor was going to 'find him something else', Jack didn't want to have his stomach full first with whatever thick liquid was in that bottle unless it was absolutely necessary. He wasn't feeling so much up to eating or drinking just then.

The redhead placed the corked potion bottle on the table next to his bed before attempting to try to find where to start with removing his bandages. Before he could find the end, of the bandage tape, though, Victor was already back with a new bottle - something containing a brighter green potion - and again handed it to Jack with the same single-word command as before to drink it.

"Wait, wait, Victor...hold up," Jack pleaded. "I know it looks bad because there's a lot, but they're not all as deep as you might think," the boy insisted. "And Fa - my dorm mate is really skilled at muggle first-aid. He washed, sterilized, sewed up, and bandaged all these himself. It's nothing to worry about, really. I just need rest." He set the bottle of green potion next to the one with the gold-colored potion. "Anyway...if you use these for...whatever curse you and the others have...it sounds like it'd be better saved for them than me. Especially since I was the one who basically allowed this to happen."

Scrutinizing Victor with a sad smirk, he listened to the older snake before carefully thinking of what to say in response. Yes, he did very much wonder all the answers to those questions...but what right did he have to prod further, especially after all Victor had done for him so far without even having been asked?

"Thank you, Victor," he told the English boy, meeting his gaze to let him know he meant it. "As far as I'm concerned, if the common room incident was anyone's fault, it was that stupid girl with the blue hair. If she hadn't opened the door, we might never have had to deal with those cursed spiders in the first place." He rolled his eyes briefly.

"Anyway...it sounds as though you were suffering with the same affliction that others did even prior to the spiders showing up. I'm sorry we didn't notice. We should have paid better attention." Jack's mouth twisted. "I find it interesting you choose to refer to the other Slytherins as 'my' housemates instead of 'our'...but I suppose after how they laid into you so bad, I can't blame you for it. Don't know that I'd call them my housemates either after something like that if I was in your shoes."

@Victor Moore

He would fumble and find the potion he needed; not that he often required the potion but it was a generic healing potion that took care of 'most issues' as far as he was concerned. Jack went on about how the person that did that to him was not a friend no shit. But also the fact that trust was integral to the relationship he had with this person. Victor released a lungful of air through his nose all at once with that comment, letting Jack finish with the caveat that perhaps 'trust' in friends might not be vital. "I would have a hard time trusting someone that did that to me," deserved or not. He sighed, seeming a bit closed but in truth he was simply agitated. He did not like the idea that someone was hurt, that there was some strange deal or tit-for-tat that could be casually accepted. It felt wrong.

Just avoid making friends, they cause too much heart ache. Looking the boy over, it seemed like he had a lot of other aches instead. He frowned. "Sounds lonely," he commented. "And you seem to be managing an ache of everything else," he observed. After all he let this person do this to him as recompense for an earlier trespass. "Letting someone," he felt a surge of agitation in him as he watched Jack put the potion aside. He could feel his blood pressure rise, a heat in his head and a bound in his chest. "You have nothing to gain from suffering needless," his tone had a sharpness to it.

Not that deep. He claimed. Not that bad. Just numerous wounds that left him limping, hardly able to carry himself. Muggle first aid. As if a bandage was useful! Stitches and sterilization. There was a potion in front of him that could make the pain go away. Seal the wounds. Repair the scars. "That's dumb," he muttered. His brow furrowed. "Just because someone does a mediocre job fixing you with sub-par means," yes he was acknowledging the superiority of magic in this case. "I can make you feel better now by drinking a potion that is readily available," he nodded towards the potion that he had handed him before. "There is no need for some display of masochism or penance, whoever did that to you has just as much if not more to answer for!" While he was a rather weak boy, at least presently, he could make Jack drink the potion. Force him to feel better. He considered it. But what sort of person would he be if he forced his values on someone else.

Jack blamed the blue-haired girl for everyone's suffering. It was his fault, even if he asserted otherwise. He did blame himself. Had he not drawn attention to the door, it never would have been opened. He regretted saying anything but he had a strong sense of justice. He did not feel right about leaving a student out in the cold in the middle of the night. There was no other consideration in his mind. The only thing was -- spiders don't knock. He internally shuddered, it meant one of two things as far as he was concerned. Someone died that night, not that he knew who. That or it was a delusion, a hallucination. He believed the later, nobody else heard the noise and it was so loud. "It was so loud, it was deafening," he muttered. Yeah, he knew Jack heard nothing. "It sounded like someone really needed my help." He was haunted by the possibility that someone was out there even though nobody else besides Marion heard the noise.

"Anyway...it sounds as though you were suffering with the same affliction that others did even prior to the spiders showing up. I'm sorry we didn't notice. We should have paid better attention."

"Heh," Victor shrugged. "There was nothing to notice, they don't want me," he admitted. "Corruption is for the living after all," he smiled and shook his head.

"I find it interesting you choose to refer to the other Slytherins as 'my' housemates instead of 'our'...but I suppose after how they laid into you so bad, I can't blame you for it. Don't know that I'd call them my housemates either after something like that if I was in your shoes."

"I don't feel like I belong. Maybe I never did," he admitted. He eyed Jack's bandages and helped undress them. A roll of bloodied bandages making a pile next to Jack. He would look at the stitches, a low growl rattled in the back of his throat. "I can just pull the stitches, you'll be sealed up in a few minutes," he offered. "If he is some sicko looking to see you suffer, keep the bandages over the healed areas," he suggested. While not particularly outwardly cunning, there was a hint coming through. A white lie.

Meanwhile he considered who. Fa--

Selim Faust, Gerald Fawkes, Faolan Kingsman and Nicholas Faulkner being the only Slytherin males with a name that started with Fa--. Selim being in their specific dorm room, while they never interfaced he knew the name. Gerald and Faolan, being another pair, but Faolan was not in their dorm. Nicholas Faulkner is a face he had not seen in about 2 years so not him. Leaving the two. No... Gerald was in the Merlin dorm. That left only Selim.

"I would have a hard time trusting someone that did that to me."

The blatantly honest comment caused Jack to laugh again as he realized how little sense he must have seemed to make to Victor.

"That's a valid point," he agreed. "But the one carrying the burden of proving their trust was me, not my dorm mate," Jack replied. "I had first broken his trust by exposing him to one of those love potion cards that Vlad had been selling at the start of February. He - er, that contractual partner of mine, not Vlad - ended up falling in love with sushi for an entire day and later felt really vulnerable because of it. I figured the least I could do was try to earn back his trust by giving him the same power over me that I had previously had over him."

He paused, trying to think of how to explain better. "I know it might not seem right, since maybe being exposed to a love potion card and being physically cut don't equate to the same thing, exactly...but I had wanted to know what had made him so paranoid in the first place," the younger boy continued."He'd said he'd gotten abducted once and attacked, so I suggested he do to me what had been done to him to prove to him I could take it.

"I wanted to know what had made him so afraid of being so vulnerable. And I also wanted him to know that if I...I guess, that if I was put through at least some of what he'd been through...that he wouldn't have to feel alone anymore in knowing what it was like to have suffered the way he had. That if I could be cut up like he'd been and still be able to trust the person who'd done it, he'd have no reason not to try to do the same for me. Does...does that make sense?"

Why was he spilling his guts to this third year he hardly knew, again? Just because he'd shown a little bit of interest? Sheesh, just how weak am I to crumble at the smallest show of kindness? the first year berated himself mentally. Kindness was indeed a horrifying thing to make it so easy to trust a virtual stranger and spill such secrets in so short a time. However...didn't Jack owe it to Selim to defend his peer from being blamed and try to explain his side on his behalf when the redhead was the one at fault?

Jack tried to shrug before wincing at his attempt with a sheepish smile. "It was a selfish request of mine, really. Especially because...I didn't think about the affect it might have had on him to do it." The first year shook his head and rubbed his eyes. "It didn't hit me how much he cared until I realized how hurt and messed up he'd gotten mentally just from...well, doing what I'd asked him to do."

Not that he'd really thought about it or had reason to think about it prior to that, but...it seemed that asking someone who legitimately cared about you to hurt you was much more painful for the other party than if they'd been some random stranger. Depending on their closeness to you, it could have even been considered just as or more painful than asking them to hurt themselves. However, it was that much more meaningful a sign of their devotion for them to try to follow through despite their own pain and difficulty in obeying; no, likely because of it. The whole thing just seemed so ironic. Jack didn't expect just anyone to understand. After all, he himself had failed to until it'd been too late.

"You said Marion and Vladimir were - or are - really good friends to you," Jack pointed out. "If one or both of them asked you to physically hurt them...wouldn't that be emotionally and mentally painful and difficult for you because of how much you care about them?" He paused. "Well...I don't know about Vlad. But Marion, at least. I'd think it'd be really hard for you to bring yourself to hurt her. But if that was her true wish because she so desperately wanted to understand you and she thought that was the best way to go about it...wouldn't you do it for her no matter how difficult or painful it would be for you?" He smirked again. "And no, there'd be no possible way to convince her to think otherwise, so don't even bother trying to argue that."

"Sounds lonely," Victor commented at the mention of avoiding friendship. "And you seem to be managing an ache of everything else,"

The Welsh boy's grin was sardonic. "I won't deny it can get lonely. And sure, it might ache physically. But loneliness can be so easily cured with interactions and connections that they don't even have to be positive ones." Gingerly, he ran a light fingertip over the careful stitches of one of his cuts. "Also...no matter what physical pain I have to bear, I'd prefer it to the emotional sort any day of the week. At least physical injuries tend to heal faster and easier. Emotional ones are much easier to rip open again even after they heal. That is...if they ever end up healing at all."

And yet Jack, in his abundant selfishness and lack of foresight, had ended up unintentionally exposing Selim to the very same emotional harm and pain he had tried to save himself from. After Selim had taken the brunt of that suffering for him without a word of complaint, so silent and closed about his feelings that his fellow Slytherin hadn't realized how dangerous it would be for him, how could Jack knowingly allow Selim to be blamed by others? It was bad enough he still hadn't been able to talk to his dorm mate properly about the incident since it had occurred, much less even try to fix the mess he'd made of the snake's mental state. One day, though...one day soon he'd try to gather the mental strength and tenacity to do so. If only Jack could have been more like Victor in that manner...

His gaze wandered back to regard the upperclassman, marveling again at just how different this young man was from the one who'd been all but bullied into spilling his guts. He hadn't, though; not when he'd had his friends to protect. It made complete sense to Jack now; the apparent mismatch between Victor's supposedly 'cowardly' self and his angry, determined one. He may not have felt much like standing up for himself, but when it came to others...well, it was honestly starting to frighten Jack how strongly he seemed to feel - not to mention how far he seemed willing to go for the sake of those intense feelings.

"You have nothing to gain from suffering needless," Victor scolded with a severity that initially startled the first year. "That's dumb," he went on to say, and his underclassman could make no argument against it. But then Jack responded with a bittersweet smile.

"Don't I, though?" he inquired, inclining his head slightly as he raised a thick brow. "Maybe suffering physically helps me bear the guilt I've earned by causing others to suffer worse. Again...it may be selfish. And I don't really expect it to make sense to someone who's never had reason to feel as guilty as I do. But...in a sense, this is the only way I can tolerate myself for being the selfish, thoughtless coward I am." He sighed. "I've made my bed and I fully intend to sleep in it. As kind as you are to offer me a 'Get-Out-of-Jail-Free Card', I can't willingly, in good conscience, accept, especially if it could be used for someone who actually deserves it."

"Just because someone does a mediocre job fixing you with sub-par means. I can make you feel better now by drinking a potion that is readily available," the older Slytherin logically told him, taking a more practical stance. "There is no need for some display of masochism or penance, whoever did that to you has just as much if not more to answer for!"

But Jack would not budge on his stance. He was impressed with Victor's vehemence on the matter to be sure, watching the thought of forcing him to drink the potion cross the third year's mind as it was reflected in his resolute, blue eyes. In the end, however, Victor refrained and allowed Jack to do as he wished.

When the subject changed to the topic of the night with the phantom noises and spiders, the older Slytherin recounted how loud the banging on the door had been to him. "It sounded like someone really needed my help."

Jack pondered this a minute. "Maybe...maybe whoever it was knew you in particular wouldn't be able to resist trying to open the door for them," he voiced aloud. "Maybe they hoped to rely on and take advantage of the fact that you'd be too considerate not to at least try." Vladimir would have known, probably. Especially if he knew Marion and Victor as well as it sounded like he did. And hadn't Marion also heard a sound that only she and no one else had been able to hear? It had been different from Victor's, but still...what was up with that?

"Heh," the brunet uttered as he shrugged. "There was nothing to notice; they don't want me. Corruption is for the living after all."

Though Victor smiled as he spoke and shook his head, Jack wasn't following. At the risk of sounding ignorant, he decided to ask about the comments. "What do you mean, 'there was nothing to notice'? You're freezing cold even now. Not to mention light as a feather." His forehead furrowed deeply. "And what do you mean, 'they don't want you'? The other Slytherins don't want you in their house? What does that matter? I'm sure there are a lot of people who don't want certain other people in their house. Not like they can do anything about it."

What perplexed the redhead the most, however, was the last statement. It almost sounded like a quote from somewhere, but not only could Jack not recall having ever heard it before, he also could not comprehend what it was supposed to mean. "And that 'corruption is for the living' bit...Where'd that come from? I'm not sure I understand it." He smirked a little in an attempt to lighten up the situation. "Are all the records of ghosts and undead people spotless after they cease being mortal?"

While Victor assisted Jack in removing his bandages without being asked, talk of being part of the Slytherin house brought about the third year's admittance that he didn't feel like he belonged.The Welsh boy listened solemnly, glancing over at his senior only when he heard the low growl sound from what must have been the back of Victor's throat. Wow. It was a good thing no one had seemed to try to treat Marion or Vlad the way they had treated Victor while he was in their presence. Otherwise, everyone might have learned a great deal more than they wished about just how terrifying the third year could be when he thought he had reason for it.

"I think...not feeling like you belong is normal," Jack offered tentatively. "In fact, none of the other Slytherins I've met have really seemed comfortable in feeling like they 'belonged'. Sure, there are some who try or long for it more than others, and several more still who feign the feeling as best they can, but...if you ask me, I'm pretty sure everyone feels more disconnected than they're willing to admit." He almost tried to shrug again, but thought better of it this time.

"Compared to the Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs, it's easy to think feeling like one belongs is 'normal', but...I personally think it's more natural for humans to feel left out." At least he could grin at Victor without aggravating any of his injuries. It made it easier to grit his teeth without revealing his pain, too. "But hey...if misery loves company...maybe there's a kind of camaraderie in feeling like we all don't belong together...right?"

"I can just pull the stitches, you'll be sealed up in a few minutes," his housemate told him. "If he is some sicko looking to see you suffer, keep the bandages over the healed areas."

The confusion was apparent on the redhead's face once more. "What do you mean, 'sealed up'? How?" he asked, wondering if there was some magic Victor had in mind that Jack wasn't aware of. But the notion of 'some sicko looking to see him suffer' just evoked another sigh.

Jack held out his hand to delicately take hold of Victor's cold one, hoping to meet his gaze. "Victor, this person is not looking to see me suffer," he explained calmly. "In fact, it was having done this to me in the first place, at my suggestion, that made him suffer more. In here." With his free hand, he slowly reached up to tap at his temples.

"Both of us were stupid. From the beginning of the year, Fa - " He hesitated again before deciding the nickname, at least, wouldn't be too bad to say. It felt stupid to keep calling him 'dorm mate' and 'contractual partner' in front of Victor when he had already trusted the older student with so much more information. Besides, part of the reason he and Fangs had adopted nicknames in the first place was to keep their real names more anonymous to others, wasn't it?

"-Fangs and I claimed we both didn't care about people. That we wanted to be emotionless. We settled on a businesslike contract with mutual agreements and benefits. We would sometimes get into fights accusing each other of caring and viciously denying having any attachments ourselves. It wasn't until recently that I had to come to terms with that denial, but..." Jack glanced at the backs of his unmarred hands.

"...I hadn't realized until after he changed that Fangs had been so hurt by what he'd done." If Victor was near enough, the first year would absently rest his head against the other boy's frigid-feeling body, which felt remarkably nice against his rather warm skin. "...I should have known when he started to cry while he was doing it. I...I should have stopped him then. But I didn't understand what was going through his head. And I didn't want to make it seem like I wanted to back out on our deal."

('Map' of injuries: Drawn by Selim; not me)

@Victor Moore

I would have a hard time trusting someone that did that to me.

"That's a valid point. But the one carrying the burden of proving their trust was me, not my dorm mate."

He looked at Jack blankly as he said that. "Why test?" There was nothing to prove.

"I had first broken his trust by exposing him to one of those love potion cards that Vlad had been selling at the start of February. He - er, that contractual partner of mine, not Vlad - ended up falling in love with sushi for an entire day and later felt really vulnerable because of it. I figured the least I could do was try to earn back his trust by giving him the same power over me that I had previously had over him."

"That's... dumb," he commented. Jack was doing less than a satisfactory job explaining how falling in love with sushi could equate to the brutality done against his own flesh. That his 'contractual partner' partner felt vulnerable from a purposeful or inadvertent exposure to a love potion to the point where what he did would be anything less than mortally reprehensible.

"I know it might not seem right, since maybe being exposed to a love potion card and being physically cut don't equate to the same thing, exactly...but I had wanted to know what had made him so paranoid in the first place."

"They don't" equate to the same thing he confirmed.

"He'd said he'd gotten abducted once and attacked, so I suggested he do to me what had been done to him to prove to him I could take it."

For one that had so much to say, very little was said that made actual sense. At least to Victor. Yes, the boy divulged a why. It was less than a senseless reason, one where he overreacted and made an offer that he should not have. Sure Jack had exposed the boy who would later violate him to Vladimir's prank. What harm was done, a bit of embarrassment - after all it was a love for sushi that the boy temporarily developed. Not a lust for him. At worst his violation of 'Fa' was at best an embarrassment. Of course, he must have actually made an actual investment to have it be just lust. Nobody ever asked -why- Vladimir had disseminated those sweetsat cost. "Because your friend had a brief want for ...sushi, you volunteered to become a victim of something that had crippled his trust as a way of gaining back his." It sounded ludicrous. No, not farcical. Egotistical. "No, to prove that you could take what he could not." Paraphrased, but that was what he had claimed wasn't it.

"Have you ever thought the notion cruel?" But hardly the point. "Not that that deserves a beating like this either," he added before he boy leapt from a window to repent for another minor sleight or sacrificed his first born to the pagan gods to appease them for his sin.

"I wanted to know what had made him so afraid of being so vulnerable. And I also wanted him to know that if I...I guess, that if I was put through at least some of what he'd been through...that he wouldn't have to feel alone anymore in knowing what it was like to have suffered the way he had. That if I could be cut up like he'd been and still be able to trust the person who'd done it, he'd have no reason not to try to do the same for me. Does...does that make sense?"

He tried to reiterate his point. "No," Victor replied simply without hesitation or sign of uncertainty.

"It was a selfish request of mine, really. Especially because...I didn't think about the affect it might have had on him to do it."

Agreed. He let out a sigh.

"It didn't hit me how much he cared until I realized how hurt and messed up he'd gotten mentally just from...well, doing what I'd asked him to do."

Sick really. The boy was sick in the head. He frowned at Jack. "Because you exposed him, purposeful or not to a love potion... he tried to snog some sushi," or erm whatever he tried to do. "You ask him to hurt you in a way that mentally scared him to see if you could endure it to show him that he could trust you," with thoughtless romanticism. That was the gist of it, HE wanted this. HE had volunteered. That this was HIS fault and HIS penance. "That he should be pitied for agreeing and doing this because he felt bad doing it." A lot of people do bad things, feel bad about it after even, but it does not erase the fact that they had done something to wrong another.

"You said Marion and Vladimir were - or are - really good friends to you." He was trying to turn it back around on Victor.

"Are," he confirmed. Even if he was at odds with Vladimir, sending a few angry worms his way would be nothing more than an annoyance for the Ravenclaw. He would have to extract justice or at the very least understanding at a later date.

"If one or both of them asked you to physically hurt them...wouldn't that be emotionally and mentally painful and difficult for you because of how much you care about them?"

Hurt his friends. He shook his head side to side as if to say no. but he let him continue.

"Well...I don't know about Vlad. But Marion, at least. I'd think it'd be really hard for you to bring yourself to hurt her. But if that was her true wish because she so desperately wanted to understand you and she thought that was the best way to go about it...wouldn't you do it for her no matter how difficult or painful it would be for you?"

He opened his mouth as if he was going to say something, not that Jack was done just yet.

"And no, there'd be no possible way to convince her to think otherwise, so don't even bother trying to argue that."

"No," he answered firmly. "I am still responsible for me, have a choice in what I do. You're not even my friend and if you told me to leave you on the floor, it is my choice and I get to live with those decisions." Ultimately he had a right over his own body and his own actions. That was why taking someone's will away was 'unforgivable' where simply hurting them is just a crime.

His follow-up inquiry was almost cruel but it seemed obvious to him as his eyes traced the bandages and the numerous sites of injury. "If your friend were to come upon the person who hurt them... do you think he would think well of him? Do him every kindness?" The question was rhetorical. He already knew the answer. The boy was damaged, somehow broken. What happened to him shaped him into the troubled young man he had become. He would not be fond of the person that hurt him. in what world would he believe that his victim, Jack would feel any different even if he asked for it. "Or does their memory bring about animosity, fear and anger?" Something for him to ponder. "Eventually you will come to terms with the fact that while you asked it and he might have felt bad, he chose to comply."

He let out a sigh. "It is not that death seems easier," he had a sad smile. "Less pain sure," he let out a half laugh. "But death hurts the people that I leave behind. It is why I keep going, why I wont throw my health away." Jack was throwing his health and ultimately his life away for guilt... no, not really. For hubris and curiosity. "He could have stopped. He never had to hurt you, request or not." Eyeing the numerous sites of injury, he had plenty of time to quit. To change his mind. He did not believe Jack, not wholly. "There is a difference in doing something cruel because you must and because ...you can," or were told to. He sounded annoyed over the fact that Jack was so insistent that he was at fault.

Sounds lonely.

"I won't deny it can get lonely. And sure, it might ache physically. But loneliness can be so easily cured with interactions and connections that they don't even have to be positive ones... Also...no matter what physical pain I have to bear, I'd prefer it to the emotional sort any day of the week. At least physical injuries tend to heal faster and easier. Emotional ones are much easier to rip open again even after they heal. That is...if they ever end up healing at all."

"Bullshit," Victor announced. "You did all this for a..." how did he phrase it? "a contractual partner of yours." At best this suffering was an act of desperation, but in truth he doubted Jack had any idea why he let himself be hurt like this. He just wanted to suffer. He was an idiot, no debate there. But there was an inconsistency in all of this. These injuries will never salve his conscience and allowing them to fester, continuing to endure is nothing more than an exercise in masochism.

"Don't I, though? ...Maybe suffering physically helps me bear the guilt I've earned by causing others to suffer worse. Again...it may be selfish. And I don't really expect it to make sense to someone who's never had reason to feel as guilty as I do. But...in a sense, this is the only way I can tolerate myself for being the selfish, thoughtless coward I am."

"I have plenty of reasons to feel guilty," he admitted.

"I've made my bed and I fully intend to sleep in it. As kind as you are to offer me a 'Get-Out-of-Jail-Free Card', I can't willingly, in good conscience, accept, especially if it could be used for someone who actually deserves it."

"Who gets to decide who should suffer?" If this was the consequence for a prank, a pretty harmless one considering... what would the price be if he had hurt someone?

He reflected on the night in the Slytherin Common Room. How he was drawn to the door, how he wanted to open it. How he was almost the cause of their suffering, not merely the person given most of the blame.

"Maybe...maybe whoever it was knew you in particular wouldn't be able to resist trying to open the door for them."

What he claimed was not wrong. Not that Victor knew that for certain. There was a feeling in the pit of his stomach, a gnawing sense in the back of his head that there was something off.

"Maybe they hoped to rely on and take advantage of the fact that you'd be too considerate not to at least try."

"I am not that considerate," he claimed. He actually was, but nobody really knew him. he had kept to himself since the first year.

There was nothing to notice. Corruption is for the living.

"What do you mean, 'there was nothing to notice'? You're freezing cold even now. Not to mention light as a feather."

He had said too much just then. His flesh visibly paled.

"And what do you mean, 'they don't want you'? The other Slytherins don't want you in their house? What does that matter? I'm sure there are a lot of people who don't want certain other people in their house. Not like they can do anything about it."

"Yeah," he let out an awkward, nervous laugh. Let's go with that.

"And that 'corruption is for the living' bit...Where'd that come from? I'm not sure I understand it."

He let out an awkward laugh again.

"Are all the records of ghosts and undead people spotless after they cease being mortal?"

"A bit more complicated than that man," he admitted with a dismissive tone. He was very much alive, standing and stalking, breathing and beating.

"I think...not feeling like you belong is normal."

True, there was always a feeling that he was an outsider. However, this was a bit more pronounced. Had he forgotten how his house had hunted him down? The fact that he had felt the need to hide? Perhaps Jack had, but Victor had not. Despite this, he nodded politely. He was not going to take away the guy's chance at feeling connected.

"In fact, none of the other Slytherins I've met have really seemed comfortable in feeling like they 'belonged'. Sure, there are some who try or long for it more than others, and several more still who feign the feeling as best they can, but...if you ask me, I'm pretty sure everyone feels more disconnected than they're willing to admit."

"You're probably right," he lied. He did not mean the words but Jack was not wrong. Was it that he was an outsider or that people were just inherently selfish and cruel? Likely the later, but they were willing to leave the guy on the floor of the abandoned bath.

"Compared to the Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs, it's easy to think feeling like one belongs is 'normal', but...I personally think it's more natural for humans to feel left out."

Little did Victor know, they [Hufflepuff and Gryffindor] would reveal their true colors in the coming weeks at the Blossom Ball. They were just as selfish and brutal. That people were people and that people in general were not worth much if anything.

"But hey...if misery loves company...maybe there's a kind of camaraderie in feeling like we all don't belong together...right?"

Yeah, he was trying to make a connection. Victor saw it. was not sure how much truth there was in his attempt but he forced a smile. He wanted it to be true, to be real. Perhaps he was a gambler by nature, willing and wanting to take a chance. He forced a smile of his own, but his eyes still seemed a bit sad. "Yeah," he meant that statement.

He offered to fix him, yet again. They had the means, it was a simple... remedial, no elementary task.

"What do you mean, 'sealed up'? How?"

"You must be a muggle-born," he commented. He raised a hand. "It is fine if you are, I don't really care," he added preemptively. "There is no sin in using magic to help you heal any more than it is to use stitches or bandages." He had no special skill. They had resources at their fingertips. He was saying that the wizarding way was better because it was in this case. His suffering could end in a matter of days, perhaps even hours. "It is not a get-out-of-jail-free card," as he had put it. "It is a resource you have at your disposal like ante-bio-ticks and bandages." He never had a need for the former, a wave of the wand and whatever ailed him as a child was gone.

Jack took Victor's hand. It would feel ice cold to him, but Victor would savor the warmth he felt.

"Victor, this person is not looking to see me suffer... In fact, it was having done this to me in the first place, at my suggestion, that made him suffer more. In here."

Victor would mirror Jack with his own hand, tapping his temple. "If this is hurting him up her," he let his tapping finger rest. "Then just end it." Not the final sort, "just take the potion... let your wounds heal."

"Both of us were stupid. From the beginning of the year, Fa - "

He cut himself short, not saying his name or rather his nickname.

"-Fangs and I claimed we both didn't care about people. That we wanted to be emotionless. We settled on a businesslike contract with mutual agreements and benefits. We would sometimes get into fights accusing each other of caring and viciously denying having any attachments ourselves. It wasn't until recently that I had to come to terms with that denial, but... I hadn't realized until after he changed that Fangs had been so hurt by what he'd done."

He let jack rest his head against him. He let out a sad sigh and offered the potion a second time without a word.

"...I should have known when he started to cry while he was doing it. I...I should have stopped him then. But I didn't understand what was going through his head. And I didn't want to make it seem like I wanted to back out on our deal."

"No deal is a good deal if nobody is happy with it," he muttered as he took a seat next to him. "Rest or heal, whichever you need man."

"Because your friend had a brief want for ...sushi, you volunteered to become a victim of something that had crippled his trust as a way of gaining back his. No, to prove that you could take what he could not," Victor attempted to reason. "Have you ever thought the notion cruel?" he asked before quickly adding, "Not that that deserves a beating like this either."

"We're not. Friends," Jack insisted irritably through gritted teeth as he wrinkled his nose, though he was too tired to act as indignant as he might have otherwise. Besides, Victor was still his senior by two school years, after all. It wasn't as though he had much of a right or an ability to speak up against him and he had already been disrespectful as it was, particularly against someone who had been nothing but kind and caring toward him thus far.

But the third year had made yet another point. Jack's forehead furrowed as he struggled to think of why that hasn't occurred to him before. It seemed so obvious now that Victor had said it.

"I wasn't...trying to prove I could take what he couldn't, exactly," he tried to explain. "He had already survived the experience, so I'd say he was able to take it. Sure, maybe that made him a little more paranoid than most, but I just thought...maybe I could...find out why."

He liked to see things from others' perspectives, but there was only so much one's imagination could do to put one in another's shoes if they had no real idea of what it was like. The first year Slytherin had thought that maybe if he could go through the same thing Selim had to know the same experiences, he could try to come up with a way to help Selim try to overcome his fears and paranoia by utilizing his problem-solving skills and applying them to the trauma Selim had experienced.

Of course, nothing could have really prepared him for what had actually happened. Even then, what Jack had gone through was still not even close to what Selim had experienced because at least for Jack, it was only a day and he had been at the mercy of someone he trusted. For Selim, it had been a whole week until he had been rescued by his family from his sadistic kidnappers. Just thinking about it now made him wonder how he had possibly thought it might have been a good idea on any level. At the time, it had seemed so simple and made so much sense, but during and after the fact...

"Because you exposed him, purposeful or not to a love potion... he tried to snog some sushi. You ask him to hurt you in a way that mentally scared him to see if you could endure it to show him that he could trust you," the older boy clarified. "That he should be pitied for agreeing and doing this because he felt bad doing it."

"He felt vulnerable, powerless, and at my mercy because of what I had done to him without warning or permission. The least I could do was offer to be vulnerable and powerless at his mercy in return." ...Wasn't it? "I mean, what would you have done?"

When Victor put it like that, though, it just seemed all the more stupid. Maybe Jack really had read too many storybooks, fables, and fairytales. How else could he have kept from losing Selim's trust then, though? Should he have just let him be and let their contractual partnership fall apart?

The first year was abruptly startled out of his thoughts by Victor's correction that he was still friends with Vladimir. Jack blinked at him in astonishment, even more shocked to discover not only his upperclassman's responses to his questions, but the lack of hesitation with which he answered them. He seemed so sure of himself; like everything was set in black and white and the 'right answer' was so obvious. How could he be so...so confident?

"Heh..." With a soft, bitter laugh, Jack shook his head slightly. "You're really...something else..." he murmured. "The guy basically sets you up and sells you out, probably betraying you by framing you, and you still consider him your friend." He stared idly at the ribbons of used, stained bandages to be discarded. "...What has he done to deserve that kind of devotion from you?" Not that he really expected Victor to answer him. That seemed quite a personal topic and probably a longer story than the third year cared to indulge him with just then.

"So...you say 'no'. But do you mean no, you wouldn't hurt them, or no, it wouldn't be painful or difficult for you?" Jack guessed it was the former, but he couldn't help being reminded of yet another story. It was the one he had tried to use as an example to Willow not too long ago; the one of the last dragon called Draco who had asked the knight, Bowen, to kill him because his heart had been tied to the life of an evil prince who wouldn't have been able to die otherwise.

What would Victor have done in Bowen's shoes? Let his friend live and allow the kingdom to fall to ruin at the hands of the evil prince, keeping Draco locked up as a prisoner for eternity while being the last of his kind? Wasn't that a more cruel fate and a selfish decision to make simply to spare oneself the suffering of hurting one's own friend?

Well...perhaps that was a bit much to ask Victor to think about. Even if the guy was older, he was still only thirteen. Hopefully, neither he nor Jack nor anyone else they knew at Hogwarts would ever be forced to make such a decision. As particular as that situation had been and as much as the redhead would have liked to know the answer, what right did he have to ask Victor to even just imagine himself in such a dilemma? After all, he had already found himself in enough of them over the past few weeks as it was.

The more Victor spoke, though, the weaker Jack felt his resolve growing. Oh, right...this was why he'd wanted to just be left alone to sleep before. His personal reasons and self-spun logic were easier to eat away at when he was this exhausted both mentally and physically. Yes, there were the cuts on his body, but...the lump in his throat, the tightness of his chest, the stinging of his eyes, and the knot in his stomach were making it that much harder to keep everything together while he had company. Emotion began to well up inside him as he did his best to hold it in. He was just so...tired. And he hurt everywhere. Jack knew he should have just stayed in the abandoned toilets. Maybe he could have crawled into a stall and locked himself in so at least no one else would see him as sorrow and regret slowly consumed him. Maybe a change of subject would help...?

"Oh...Speaking of those cards and candies from February..." he tried, "If you've been friends with Vlad as long as you say you have...do you know where he got those things? Or why they were so much more dangerous than the ones that could normally be bought at Hogsmeade?"

If Jack had been aware of Victor's beliefs on taking someone's will away being unforgivable whereas simply hurting them was just a crime, he might have been confused as to the other boy's stance on what had happened between himself and Selim. Jack saw himself as having taken away Selim's will by having subjected him to the amortentia-soaked card and, in return, simply been physically hurt in retribution. Wouldn't that have meant, then, that by that logic, Jack's actions would have been considered unforgivable in Victor's eyes while Selim's actions would have only been considered a crime?

"...Not my friend..." he muttered for what he felt was about the hundredth time when Victor began to ask him questions. They were rhetorical, but they did their job in making the first year think nevertheless. He balled his hands up into fists, glaring at them as his eyes stung worse than ever. Victor was right, of course. Jack had wanted to think he could never fear Selim or think badly of him, but after what had happened between them - even after seeing the Japanese boy cry so often in self-loathing and pain - his body would still tremble when his dorm mate was in the same room. He was almost grateful that the pureblood preferred to spend most of his sleepless nights trying to read past curfew in the common room rather than to linger in their dormitory.

Was this feeling to never go away, then? No, his will had to be stronger. He would overcome everything with time. Maybe Victor didn't know what he was talking about in that regard.

"I don't get it," Jack claimed with some minor contempt sneaking into his tone. "How can you tell me I won't be able to forgive Fangs about something I asked him to do when Vlad probably just set you up to get pummeled in his place and you still call him your friend?!"

Aw, shit. In his passion and enthusiasm to speak, the lump in his throat distorted his voice while his over-bright eyes threatened to spill over. The younger boy quickly glared down at his feet. As if that hadn't been enough, Victor continued on, unwilling to relent. He spoke of pain, death, and cruelty; things Jack especially disliked associating with bonds and friendship. And...did he really have to go into 'people he left behind'?

Even though he only witnessed it out the corner of his blurring vision, it was Victor's sad smile that was the final straw breaking the proverbial camel's back. The eleven-year-old gasped, withdrawing his hand from Victor's to shove his face in his palms.

What did he mean 'death hurts the people that I leave behind'? Wouldn't a normal person have said 'death would hurt the people he left behind? It sounded as though Victor had experienced it before. But maybe Jack was looking too much into things. He didn't really want to dwell too much on the idea of Victor's death right then. Or being left behind.

They weren't even friends. This wasn't fair! They weren't even friends and yet still even the mere idea of such a kind, brave, and stalwart boy dying had him slowly falling apart; breaking down. He should have never let him help him to the Hospital Wing. This was so much worse than the agony it had been just to get there. He almost wanted to grab the precious potion bottles he had been given earlier and to chug them both down on the slightest chance that either of them might have been able to quell the feelings that were eating him alive, but...no, why would there be a cure for anything like that?

"...Stop...Stop it," Jack barely whispered, probably inaudible to Victor but not willing to raise his volume any higher lest a sob slip past instead. He wept silently into his hands, eventually grabbing one of the pillows from the head of the bed to stuff his mess of a face into. However, that didn't keep him from hearing what else Victor had to say. Eventually, it was too much.

The redhead turned and swat Victor as hard as he could with the pillow, his unsightly countenance red and wet. "STOP IT!" he screamed, the words breaking as he launched them into the air. "You don't get to tell me that Fangs was cruel after what Vlad put you through! What do you know?! You're loyal to a fault! You're willing to get beat up over something that you had nothing to do with just because you don't want suspicion to fall on anyone you might care about! Why do you think I hate the idea of friends so much, huh?!"

He made another effort to hit his upperclassman with his weapon of cloth and feathers, not seeming to care anymore if his stitches were tearing or not. It didn't seem to matter any longer; a few pin-pricks amid the sea of emotional turmoil raging in his heart and mind. They were almost welcome as a physical manifestation of his torturous misery.

"Don't smile like that! Don't laugh like that!" Jack begged, his pain quite obviously audible now to anyone who knew what a pained voice sounded like. "It's because of people like you! I can't stand it! I can't - " He broke off again, collapsing partially on Victor in his half-hearted attempt to attack the third year before sliding off him back onto the bed. With his face once more hidden in the crumpled, thin, clean sheets of the cot, he curled into a ball of sorts, pulling another sheet over his back to hide the stitched-up wounds there from plain view. Even so, the shaking of his body was evident through the cloth as his damaged body continued to be wracked with sobs.

"A bit more complicated than that, man," Victor had said when Jack had tried to joke about ghosts and undead people. It was only really then that the words had begun to sink in, though; only when the Welsh boy understood just how much the thought of Victor's loss would hurt him.

No. No, it can't be. His thoughts drifted back to the night of the spider attack before the arachnids had shown up. When wondering why Victor had been so cold and light, the first beings that had come to mind were ghosts. And now...now Victor was speaking as though he knew what it was like to be dead. It couldn't have been a coincidence. There was no such thing. What...what's going on here?!

Jack sat up instantly. He lunged for the gold-colored potion he had first set on the bedside table before turning back toward the other Slytherin. His face was still tear-stained and shining with wetness, but his voice was surprisingly steady when he used it to speak next.

"Victor," he said, quiet but commanding, with his face inches from the other's. "Victor, what is this? What do you mean, 'the people you leave behind'?" Jack took a second to swallow his growing panic, trying to collect himself once more as he heard his pitch and volume had begun to rise simultaneously. Once he thought it was under control, he tried again.

"When were you cursed? When and how?"

@Victor Moore

"We're not. Friends."

Despite his insistence that they were 'not friends,' Jack's actions suggested otherwise. Make a business partner vulnerable, you can capitalize on their uncertainty and anguish. Hurt a 'friend' and you might as well thrust that stake into your own heart. "Okay... fine," he conceded. If he needed to lie to himself. Actually, no. He was right, they were not friends. Friends don't do that shit to each other he reminded himself.

He gave him some lines about wanting to understand his friend more.

"He felt vulnerable, powerless, and at my mercy because of what I had done to him without warning or permission. The least I could do was offer to be vulnerable and powerless at his mercy in return." ...Wasn't it? "I mean, what would you have done?"

"Would have been sorry. Would have stopped myself from hurting them as soon as I could. I would have hoped that they forgave me... and know that I would not make the same mistake twice." It was not much. Not in comparison to letting someone torture them for a day because he embarrassed them but perhaps he was reasonable. No sane in comparison. "If you mean it and they're your friend. I mean associate," that was the right word for it? Close enough. "They'll come around." Fatalistic, trusting that they would find their way back to each other if they were truly sorry. If they were truly friends partners. To risk and live with the fact that everything might fall apart and accept that as being okay also. Something that Jack did not seem capable of.

"Heh..." He let out a laugh. It unsettled him. "You're really...something else... The guy basically sets you up and sells you out, probably betraying you by framing you, and you still consider him your friend."

"Maybe" a feeble defense really.

"...What has he done to deserve that kind of devotion from you?"

He proposed a question that required an answer he did not have. Not really. Relationships were not tit for tat. There was no hidden score board that tracks favors done and withstanding. "Even if the worst case scenario is true. He decided to share where I was located," Victor hoped not and there was a knot in his stomach as he considered the possibility that it might be true. Not that he was any better, without proof of any kind he sent the angry mob his way. There was a sinking sense to his soul, a feeling that he did wrong. Perhaps to someone that did not deserve it. That bothered him, following an impulse like that for the purpose of retaliation. He was not really better than Selim, not that he was certain of the boy's name yet. He let out a sigh without context as he wrestled with his own personal demons. He was better because it was a 'heat of the moment' sort of thing. He would have stopped. He regretted it now, despite knowing that there was little they could do against him. "He was not the one that cornered me in the bathroom. That threatened me. That would have terrorized me indefinitely if they had the want and opportunity." He was not going to hold Vladimir liable for House Slytherin's trespasses.

"So...you say 'no'. But do you mean no, you wouldn't hurt them, or no, it wouldn't be painful or difficult for you?"

"I would not hurt them," he clarified. His voice has an unforgiving strength as he made that assertion. He was certain, at least in his mind, that he was not going to hurt the people he cared about. Of course circumstances change. People change. But the context here is -- they were his friend. They wanted to be harmed to alleviate their guilt. To satisfy their curiosity. As a sick means of better understanding the one that they asked to victimize them. That would be a hard no from Victor. They would have to live with what they did, learn from it and make things up to him by being better. It was not as if Vladimir's decision, if he was indeed the one that sent the angry snakes to him, did not make Victor feel vulnerable, exposed and terrified. He felt those terrible things and even if Vladimir sought to make amends by asking Victor to hurt him, it would do nothing for their relationship and trust. Vladimir did nothing, he just endured. "I would rather gauge the content of someone's character on what they do and what they choose when there is nothing to lose to gain."

Hardly a conversation for barely teens...

"Oh...Speaking of those cards and candies from February... If you've been friends with Vlad as long as you say you have...do you know where he got those things? Or why they were so much more dangerous than the ones that could normally be bought at Hogsmeade?"

Victor's mouth cocked to the side. "Cards and candies?" He repeated. "Honestly, not sure," he shook his head. He had heard of some tainted valentines day candies but he had not been directly involved. "He does a lot of weird stuff," he admitted with a shrug. Was he dismissing the fact that Vladimir was selling tainted candies to the student body. Oddly enough, yes. "If I recall, they were candies that he sold as something that caused the consumer to 'fall in love'... well, lust with the first thing that they saw." Presumably the giver. "Forcing someone to act out of character with them for a short time to satisfy their want," hardly altruistic or romantic really. "But these candies had a side effect... their 'lover' did not want them as expected."

Did Jack see what Vladimir was trying to do? It was rather twisted if it was the truth and it was how Victor explained it. But it really did not answer his previous questions, he just re-worded what they did and the scenario. It was easy to look at things from a sterile perspective - he gave students some candy that had a dangerous effect. They did not really want to consider the other perspective - he gave students who wanted to so something deviant, against the will of their peers the stated means to do so only to have it blow up in their face.

"He probably had Mary help make them. Or one of the night sisters," he guessed. He honestly had no idea how they were made. It was way over his level. "As for the why? Curiosity," a cold rationale but an honest one. "I like Vladimir, he is a lot smarter than me. But his curiosity can be dangerous," he added. He felt guilty saying that as soon as it left his mouth. People like to think the worst of people, Vlad included. "He has an uncanny skill in reading people. Knowing what they will do and he likes to test their... them." It was hard to explain, he lacked the vocabulary for it. If there was even a 'right word.'

"I don't get it."

Jack sounded scornful.

"How can you tell me I won't be able to forgive Fangs about something I asked him to do when Vlad probably just set you up to get pummeled in his place and you still call him your friend?!"

"Because..." he inhaled. "I don't know if he even did. And even if he did, I do not know the why." There might not have been any reason. It might have been a decision that had no logic, merely an impulse decision. A mistake. Of course that was just him being hopeful. "And even if the reason why is because he intended to hurt me. To scare me," a possibility he considered. "The weapon he chose was people. People who chose to do what they did. People that Vladimir has warned me to avoid because they were dangerous, demanding, demeaning..." Indifferent to his or anyone's plight but their own. Considering the 'curious' nature Victor had explained, it was starting to make sense. The sort of person Vladimir was and what made him so 'scary.' It was not a passion that drove him, but rather clinical curiosity from Victor's perspective. The unfortunate outcome of an experiment, one that proved Vladimir's hypothesis. Of course, Victor was wrong in believing Vladimir lacked passion, if anything he suffered more from it. What he chose to ponder. Who he tested it on. What he ultimately theorized and the variables he had placed came from a place of passion and want.

"...Stop...Stop it."

Victor did not hear him.Not at first. Had he, he would have stopped. He had not noticed until Jack buried his head in a pillow that his heart sank into the knots in his stomach. A tumultuous place. 'Shit' He thought to himself. He did not mean to make the first year cry. He just wanted to get him away from an obviously abusive relationship before he got himself hurt even worse or even killed.

Next thing he knew, a well-used and slightly soggy pillow would bash his face and sent the third year flying. Not that Jack was particularly strong, just Victor was frail. He would have felt the pillow hit something, but it did not feel like a boy. It felt like he had hit another pillow suspended perhaps on a spider's web. A clatter and a crash, Victor hit a nearby cabinet filled with potions and bandages. The glass did not break, however the doors swung open and several bundles of gauze would fall out, bounce on the floor once and then roll away.

"Ugh," he grunted.

"STOP IT! ...You don't get to tell me that Fangs was cruel after what Vlad put you through! What do you know?! You're loyal to a fault! You're willing to get beat up over something that you had nothing to do with just because you don't want suspicion to fall on anyone you might care about! Why do you think I hate the idea of friends so much, huh?!"

Victor rose to his feet, using the cabinet to get his balance and bearings. "He aint that bad," a hollow-sounding defense. Of course Jack was not wrong, he was willing to take whatever blame was sent his way for the most part but from the looks of things he was the innocent one in this scenario. "I aint perfect either--"

His fluffy weapon would descend upon him again. This time hit him in the shoulder as he came too close too soon. "Ah shit!" Victor yelped as his left went to brace his right., "Dude... Dude! Stop!" He grimaced, if another one hit him he would be knocked onto the floor again with an obviously dislocated shoulder. "You're gonna hurt yourself more!" And arguably Victor as well, but he did not mention himself. It was just a joint out of place and a few landings on him bum. He was weak and incredibly fragile but he would not going to suffer a death by bludgeoning from Jack's weapon of choice -- a pillow. Just a few bruises perhaps. He snapped his shoulder back into joint with his free hand and swayed where he stood.

He was fine. He smiled. Everything was going to be fine. Everything was okay.

"Don't smile like that! Don't laugh like that!"

"It's fine. You're fine. Everything is going to be fine." Hardly poetic. Simple really.

"It's because of people like you! I can't stand it! I can't - "

He caught Jack this time in Jack's half-hearted attempt to attack the third year a third time and patted his shoulder before Jack slid off him back onto the bed. He curled up and retreated, leaving Victor confused and not sure what to do. It was like dealing with a girl, all the emotions all at once all the time. He was not even entirely sure what Jack was upset over, he somewhat followed but in trutgh the poor boy was at a loss. He sat on the edge of the cot, the mattress springs hardly groaned.Victor was eerily light.

"A bit more complicated than that, man."

He just sat there after saying that. He did not want to upset him anymore and had no idea what the safest response would be. He considered getting Vladimir. The Ravenclaw always knew what to say and what to do when Marion got emotional. He thought better of it, Jack was rather fixated on Vladimir. Much like Victor was focused on Jack's friend. For different reasons in both their cases. Victor saw Selim's actions as abusive, as dangerous. Jack saw Vladimir as... a bad friend maybe? A bit of an overreaction if that was all it was. Still, he was allowed to be worried. There was nothing Victor could say that was going to change that in Jack's present state.

Suddenly Jack sprung from his ball of misery and lunged for the gold-colored potion. "Careful!" Jack was determined to leave this hospital wing a dang bloody mess. He would try to catch him, to slow him. But likely to no avail.

"Victor... Victor, what is this? What do you mean, 'the people you leave behind'?"

"Thick golden potion," he thought he had said that before. "Used for its healing properties and to quarantine curses." He eyes flickered from the bottle back to Jack. "And I'm probably going to die soon," he admitted. "Because a quarantine aint no cure." It was spreading, albeit slowly at this point, there was a constant dull pain at this point even after he took his dose.

"When were you cursed? When and how?"

"Two... almost three years ago," he admitted as he started to pull his robe over his head. It was difficult, his shoulder sore but mobile he pulled off his robe. Beneath he was wearing a simple T shirt with sleeves a bit long for their purpose, this shirt slightly over-sized. Perhaps his parents bought him a shirt too large or perhaps he lost a lot of weight. There was something funny, a trick of the light perhaps around his neck and his upper arms.

It was no trick of the light.

He would pull the simple shirt over his head, exposing his back to Jack.



"Me and Mary were in the woods. I was interested in her," he let out an embarrassed laugh. They were just friends now, really good friends and nothing more. "I talked her into entering the woods," the forbidden woods "in the spring," right after the Huffle Camp Out. "The woods were partially burnt down, thought it would be a neat place to explore. Impress a pretty girl with how brave I was," yes he had eyes. He knew she was pretty. He turned around, the markings covered most of his torso. His flesh resembled black and white marble. "Blanket. Dinner. Picnic," pretty cliche set up. "Things were going pretty good, until we saw something. This little girl." His hand reached for the side of his head and he grimaced. "I think," remembering was hard. "She was like six maybe. She had to be lost, so we followed her. We lost sight. I thought I heard someone calling for help, Mary heard something else I think. We kept going. Then we got lost, I have no idea where we came from but I swear the forest was alive. Mary got hurt, something bit her. Me too. In the back. Hurt like hell. I just remember screaming, passing out from the pain eventually."

He had already said it didn't he, how it took 2 days to finally know respite. That was how long it took for the nurse to know what to do. How to make it possible to live.

"The poison spread a lot in those two days, the potion is slowing it down" he shrugged. "But it is no cure. We blood-let and Vladimir has been trying to help us," he let out a cough and a wheeze followed. "Doing favors, not sure what... bringing us stuff." It was complicated. He let out an awkward laugh. "But that aint yet or hopefully any time soon," he tried to dismiss the topic with a smile. "I just don't want to see you or anyone hurting for no good reason."

"If you mean it and they're your friend. I mean associate," the third year corrected himself, "They'll come around."

"Fangs wouldn't have been able to tell if I meant it or not," Jack retorted, though he knew by now that his efforts were likely in vain. "He's been alone all his life; he doesn't really know how to interact with anyone outside of his family and even they don't really show him much attention. That's why I had to make sure he knew I meant that I was sorry. To prove it by accomplishing something that wouldn't likely have been possible if it wasn't; if I didn't trust him. I wanted to show him he could trust me - as his associate - because I trusted him. And don't they say that actions speak louder than words?"

By this time, Jack wondered if he was trying to reason everything out more for himself than Victor, as Victor seemed to have a different set of morals and values that would have supposedly caused him to take different actions than Jack had. The first year was under no illusions he'd be able to convince the older Slytherin of anything, but he felt obligated to try to explain himself nevertheless.

"Besides," he found himself continuing, "I had to do it quickly. if he didn't have at least me around to trust, he would have secluded himself again and made himself even more sick than before. Tân found him practically dying by the lake at the end of last month before he tried to carry him inside and to the Hospital Wing by himself himself. To give you an idea of that, Tân is smaller than Fangs and he was nearly just as malnourished and self-neglected, so it was even more difficult for him to carry a nearly-unconscious Fangs than it was for you to bring me here."

He shook his head vehemently. "I can't just leave these idiots to fend for themselves! I can't just turn my back on them or they won't bother caring for themselves enough to stay alive. So, essentially, I'm not doing this for 'friendship'. I'm doing this to avoid being accused of indirect murder, abuse, and/or neglect in the long run."

Jack snapped at Victor again when he defended his so-called friend. "Vlad may not have been the one who cornered you or threatened you in the bathroom, but he might as well have been. He led people he knew would do all those things to you straight to where you were loyally waiting for him and gave them even more reason they already had to be suspicious of and fear you. For all he knew, they could have killed you, but where was he?! Not there! That's not what friends do!" He exhaled sharply through his nose. "You want to gauge the content of someone's character on what they do and choose? What does Vladimir's deeds and choices tell you? Because they don't sound like the behaviors or choices of any friend I know of."

The first year was quiet for a spell when Victor explained what he knew about Vlad's cards and candies. That he did a lot of 'weird stuff' because he liked to test...something about people. Their wills, perhaps?

"What the hell are 'night sisters'?" he muttered, automatically picturing the 'Weird Sisters' from Shakespeare's play, Macbeth.

When it came to Victor saying that Vlad's curiosity was dangerous, however, Jack had no need to ask the upperclassman what he meant by that. Selim shared the very same dangerous curiosity, as did Jack himself. It had gotten him into a great deal of troubles over the years, but he had yet to learn how to become immune to its siren's call. Therefore, he couldn't have expected anyone else to.

Still, though, what Vlad had done to Victor was not what Jack abided someone doing to someone else who they called a friend. Sure, Vlad might not have been the culprit, but the fact that Victor was willing to forgive him so easily even if he had been trying to hurt him alarmed the first year.

"Yes, people chose to do what they did. But the fact that Vlad put you at their mercy, especially if he knew what they were like, is not the behavior of a friend," Jack practically spat. "I may have tried to teach Fangs a lesson by exposing him to that card and temporarily altering his will. However, I took responsibility for it. I watched over him the whole time he was affected to make sure he was safe. The least Vlad could have done for you was that."

In the pillow assault that later followed, Jack was so consumed by his emotions, sight blurred by salty, streaming tears, that it was a while before he saw the unintentional damage he had been doing to Victor and recalled how ridiculously light the older boy was. He gasped once he witnessed the taller Slytherin hit the floor, something definitely wrong with his shoulder, but continuing to warn Jack against hurting himself nevertheless. Hurting himself. Him. Not Victor, the kid whose shoulder he had just dislocated.

Hazel eyes were rubbed to temporarily clear their vision just long enough for Jack to see Victor snap his shoulder back into place, swaying, and smile. When he was told not to smile or laugh like he was, the third year simply insisted that it was fine. That Jack was fine; that everything was going to be...fine.

A shuddering whimper escaped him at the sight and sound, but he sucked up as best he could his horror and despair at what he had unintentionally done to the poor blue-eyed boy. The pat on his shoulder did little to pacify him until he sat up a short while later to ask Victor about the golden potion. What his senior student answered took a few minutes to sink in.

Jack stared so long at the dark-veined, marble-looking skin that his tears dried from his eyes due to mere exposure to the air. What Victor was saying had happened to him and this Mary...it sounded like it had happened during their first year at Hogwarts. Their first spring there. It had happened because Victor and Mary had been kind; had wanted to help what they must have presumed to be a lost little girl in the woods. It was so similar to how the compassionate pair had each been drawn to the sounds at the door of the Slytherin Common Room during the night the spiders had attacked. Could it have been a spider then, too, that had bitten them in the woods? Or...something else?

It was like Victor was proving everything Jack had ever suspected of being true. Friends were dangerous; kindness, caring, and love more so. While potentially painful, prolonged exposure to any of them assured certain death; a death that Victor expected to take him very soon and yet still managed to smile and laugh in spite of.

So...was this, then, why they trusted Vladimir so much and viewed him as their friend? Because he had supposedly been doing favors and bringing them stuff in the name of trying to help them?

Victor's final smile paired with his last sentence caused the tears to start rolling down Jack's face again. The trickle of the salty streaks into his exposed and healing cuts caused him to return to his senses as a result of the physical pain. It wasn't long before the emotional storm struck the center of his mental awareness.

The boy slid off the bed and desperately sought refuge under the sturdy shelter of its frame as he took his pillow with him and screamed into it. He screamed and screamed and screamed until he was so hoarse, he couldn't make another sound. He didn't look up; hardly even lifted his head enough to breathe. With the way he felt right then, he could have happily just suffocated to death without regret if it meant being rid of the agony that reminded him what it meant to care so deeply about another human being.

"And I'm probably going to die soon," the third year had said. But also...

"But that ain't yet or hopefully any time soon."

So which was it?! Was he just lying to try to make him feel better? Jack didn't know, but it didn't much matter to him at that point because the way it seemed to him right then, if they hadn't found a cure in three years, what were the chances they still would before Victor and Marion were dead?

And yet, that hadn't been the heaviest blow.

"I just don't want to see you or anyone hurting for no good reason."

Yeah, right... Jack thought wretchedly as he continued to scream and cry, voiceless, into the pillow as he hid under the bed. If you told me that story to keep me from hurting...then you're lousy at knowing what qualifies as a 'good reason' for me.

Maybe...if he was exceptionally lucky...Victor would give up on him and leave the Hospital Wing while Jack passed out from exhaustion. Then, later, when he woke up, he'd find out it was all just a terrible, heart-rending dream. One that he had no reason to worry about coming true whatsoever.

@Victor Moore