Paper Badger PV Lydia Errand Finished

Time: Early Afternoon
Day: May 10, 2020
Attempted Origami: Lion

It was kind of funny, how time seemed to have stopped lately for Lydia: since before the Blossom Ball, the days went by so quickly, the little grain of time slipping through her fingers as the date got closer and closer, but after that night, the sand of time seemed to have come to an halt. The different days had kind of morphed one into the other, and without even realising it, April was gone and May had taken its place, bringing both the nice weather with the hot wind, and the stormy clouds with their lightning storms.

Since that unfortunate night, Lydia had tried her best to just blend in with the crowd of students, trying not to draw the attention on her as much as she could, but she could only do so much; people knew that she was one of the organisers, and the fact that she appeared to be stuck with blue hair made it even more difficult for her to just disappear in the background. She hated that colour on her now, too bright and flashy, so different from her natural red hair that she loved so much; but it wasn't like she could just ask Aurelia to change them back, she also didn't know that many older students so it wasn't like she could solve that problem anytime soon.

That Sunday though, Lydia decided to walk down to the Great Hall to look for Alan; she knew he was a third year student, and hopefully he might have been able to help her with her hair. The moment that she stepped into the Great Hall, she noticed that some students were busy doing some kind of arts and crafts with paper, and if she would have been the same Lydia as before, she her eyes would have probably light up at the idea of taking part in such an activity; but not this time.

She sighed as she walked along the Gryffindor table, her eyes skimming over the faces of the students intent into their projects, as she tried her best to ignore some stares that she knew some of the other students were giving her. As she had walked past the first half of the table, the red blue haired girl felt the little hope of finding Alan there completely vanish, since the students got fewer and fewer the closer she walked towards the end of the table.

Feeling defeated and even sadder than before, Lydia sat down at the Hufflepuff table (that is next to the Gryffindor one), her back resting against it, as she let her eyes skim over the red and gold house's one. There were no familiar or friendly faces as far as she could tell, and she couldn't help but frown. To anyone that was not familiar with Lydia and her usual manners, she would have appeared like a rather grumpy girl, even though she was usually completely the opposite; but lately her usual smile had left space for a perpetual pout, her eyebrows knitted together, her face proven by the insomnia and not too healthy eating habits that she had lately developed. Someone close to her could have noticed these changes about her, but for people that did not know her, she might have looked completely normal.

She had almost given up on her search, when her eyes met a mass of dark red hair belonging to a rather small Gryffindor boy, and Lydia's hope came back a little: it was Ruka, the second year kid that was also at Willow's birthday party, the one that at the Blossom Ball had created those amazing torches as he had casted a rather powerful Incendio; if that Charm was an indication of how skilled the boy was at doing wand incantations, Lydia imagined that a simple colour change spell would have been quite easy for him.

She got up from the bench and slowly walked up to him, sitting then right next to him, as she gave him a small courtesy smile. "Hi, you're Ruka, aren't you?" she asked him, before looking at the different paper spread across the table. There was everything necessary to create pretty Origami, with instructions included, and Lydia decided that since she had gone all the way down to the Great Hall, at least she could have done something with her time; she took the instructions to create a paper lion (it was the first animal that had gotten her attention from the ones on the list) and the paper necessary to do it, before she looked back at the boy sitting next to her. "I'm Lydia, a friend of Willow and Alan..." she added, hoping that maybe this way, if he knew her, he would have not immediately connected her to the disastrous night of the Ball.

Word count: 803 words

@Ruka Tân

@Lydia Cooper

Lydia watched closely as Ruka kept working on his origami as she sat next to him, the instructions to create a paper lion right in front of her; her face twisted in a shocked and kind of horrified expression when the boy, startled by her voice, broke his creation, his bottom lip trembling. "I- I'm so sorry," she murmured, looking down at her hands as she frowned. What had she thought, walking up like that to someone that was clearly deeply concentrated on their task? That would have startled anyone!

Lydia sighed and started working on her own origami, since Ruka appeared to concentrate again on his own (and with every right, since she had just destroyed his dragon). The first few steps were not that difficult, and she managed to reach step 6 without any problems, but then the little parts to flip and fold started becoming smaller and more frequent, and it looked like Lydia had a difficult time concentrating on the next step.

When Ruka finally talked to her, she put down the half-lion and looked at him; she wanted to ask him to change her hair colour back to normal, but for some kind of reason - most likely because she felt guilty for accidentally breaking his origami - she couldn't ask him that out of the blue. "Well, I was looking for Alan, " she said and then noticed how Ruka, instead of looking at her as she talked, simply went back to his paper creation. That left Lydia a little bit surprised, and she wondered if he was even listening to her as he folded his paper; she figured that he was, otherwise he wouldn't have asked her a question, would he? "I wanted to ask him a favour, if maybe he could have changed my hair back to their original colour, since he is a third year and probably knows the spell to do that, but I couldn't find him; "

As she talked, the Hufflepuff girl went back as well to work on her origami, and finally managed to proceed in the steps, reaching the 10th quite easily, before she continued talking. "I was actually sitting at my table, when I saw you. I know that, since you're not in any of my classes, you're not a first year, and since at the Ball you had casted that powerful Incendio..." Lydia said, her face and voice emptier as she talked about the events of the Blossom Ball, "well, I figured that maybe I didn't need to ask Alan for help, but maybe I could have asked you,"

Lydia knew that her request was completely random and came out of nowhere, especially since that was the very first time she had ever spoken with the Gryffindor boy, but she tried not to think too much about that; all she wanted was for her hair to be a normal colour again, for every trace of that stupid ball to disappear and leave her alone, once and for all.

She nervously bit down on her bottom lip, as she tried not to talk to much, but then she just couldn't hold back her words. "I'm sorry that this is so random, I just- I need this freaking blue colour gone." after that, she decided to finish her origami, and she concentrated back on the final steps. She carefully folded the paper, creating the leg and the paw, and once she was done, she drew a cute face for the lion. As she looked at it, Lydia tried to make a little bit of small talk with Ruka. "So... do you like Quidditch?" she asked him, as she set down her finished origami. "I started liking it only recently, but just because I have two friends- Oh, I actually don't know what Rafa and I are right now..." Lydia said the last part quietly, more to herself than to Ruka, as she frowned slightly. "but yeah, I kind of like it now, since my best friend Aaron is on the Hufflepuff team,"

Word count: 803 (1st post) + 677 = 1480 words [Errand complete]

@Ruka Tân

@Lydia Cooper

Lydia hadn't expected Ruka to simply, well, change her hair back to their normal colour right there, so she was surprised when the boy simply performed the spell, her hair going back to their natural lovely red. She gave Ruka a small smile just as she reached with one hand for her hair, lifting some up just to observe the strawberry shades she had missed so much. "Thank you, I- that was really nice of you," she said, and for a brief second, Lydia felt like everything would have been alright.

It was only for a second though, because then a voice in her head reminded her that things would have not gone back to normal, that she would have not been the same anymore, that the only thing that wouldn't have changed was the fact that she was a disaster before the Ball just like after. Lydia frowned and looked down at her hands, her head filling up with negative thoughts; she should have probably just walked back to her dorm now that she had gotten what she wanted, but still, there she was, trying to make small talk with a boy that didn't seem that interested in talking in the first place.

She had almost gotten up, not wanting to bother Ruka anymore, when the boy answered her. It wasn't the answer she was expecting to hear though; on the contrary, Ruka's words hurt her more than she actually allowed herself to admit. Lydia looked at the boy, slightly confused, as she clenched her jaw; how dared he talk about her relationship with Rafael, when he didn't even know who Lydia was, or what exactly was going on between them? Hell, she didn't even know what was happening with the Gryffindor Captain, so how could Ruka possibly know?

She let him talk though, wanting to see what else he had to say, and she found herself slightly rolling her eyes when he warned her about Rafael breaking her heart, just like Aurelia had done back in the changing rooms. "First of all," Lydia said as she turned her whole body towards the boy, her whole face glaring at him, "Rafael is not my boyfriend. Second, how can you speak of him this way, assuming what he will do as if you just know him so well?"

The red headed girl took a deep breath, the muscles in her neck tense from her getting angry again. She had never been the kind of person to get angry and upset easily, but lately more and more things annoyed her and upset her, making her snap the same way that she would snap at her little sister during an argument.

"It is true that Rafa wasn't... particularly chivalrous at the ball, and I admit that his behaviour had hurt me. But at the same time, we had- he never said it was a date, so it was my fault," Lydia said, even though she didn't sound too sure about the last part. Had it really been all her fault?

Ruka's next words left Lydia more upset than before, and if that wasn't enough, his stupid smirk made it all look like as if it was big, fun joke to him. "You think it's fun, talking badly about other people and trashing over someone else's relationship, as if you are better than them?" she asked, her voice hard. She almost didn't recognise herself as she spoke, but she didn't care anymore. It was as if all of the emotions she had tried to bottle down, all of the feelings that had kept rushing over her in the past couple of weeks had come back all together, all of a sudden, and she wasn't able to control them anymore. "You think you know who Rafael is, just because he started a fight at a ball, or because he has a bit of a temper? Have you ever actually taken the time to get to know him, before judging him?"

Lydia knew that the fact that Rafael had a temper was not good, but she also knew that he was way more than that, whether she was upset with him or not she knew he wasn't a bad person. "Because if you did, then you would realised that he is a good person and he cares about the people he loves. Also, what is it that everyone just assumes that he breaks people's hearts everywhere he goes?"

Lydia stared at Ruka, her eyes fixed into his as if to challenge him. If he wanted to talk badly about Rafael, then she would have made sure to defend him. It didn't matter that she was still hurt by how he treated her that night, he was still someone that she cared about, and she wouldn't have let anyone talk badly about him in front of her.

@Ruka Tân

@Lydia Cooper

Lydia clenched her jaw at Ruka's comment about her being so Hufflepuff, almost as if it was a bad thing to be a decent human being and care about other people's feelings. She never understood the hate and almost disgust that some students had towards her House and fellow Badgers, after all there were worse things than being friendly and hard workers. But she figured that Ruka didn't care about that.

Actually, from what she had the opportunity to notice, Ruka didn't seem the kind of kid that would spend time with friends, chatting around and socialising. On the contrary, at first he had looked kind of annoyed with her and bored, and only now that the conversation topic had shifted towards the Gryffindor Captain, Lydia saw a tiny bit of interest (or was it simply a spark of un-boredom?) in the boy's eyes.

"I’m not taking the blame for his actions, but for mine. I assumed it was a date, without even checking first. I don't see anything wrong with that, and I definitely don't get how that would be so Hufflepuff of me." she said, her voice still hard. As Lydia answered Ruka, she took her time to properly study the boy. The first thing she noticed was that he was tiny; they were probably the same age, but Lydia was at least five centimetres taller than him. His hair were long, messy and without a proper cut; a scar was quite visible on his forehead, just like those that were scattered across the boy’s arms and hands.

Lydia frowned at the sight, wondering what even happened to Ruka to be covered that much in scars; the one on his forehead was clearly different from the others, it looked more like the kind of scar one might get when they bump into something. But those on the arms? They were everywhere, covering the skin and creating a labyrinth of patterns that made Lydia uncomfortable. She had an idea of what might have caused them, her memory triggered by the image of an old lady with similar scars: she was a friend of her grandma, and she had told her that when she was younger she had found herself in the middle of a fire.

A shiver went down the girl’s spine as she imagined what might have happened to Ruka, and she had to look away from the scars, her eyes fixing on a necklace in the shape of a lively flame. It looked incredibly pretty, the different coloured gold parts blending together so well. It looked kind of funny on the red headed boy, the contrast between something so elegant like the necklace and the messy, uncut hair strong. Another detail that stood out? Ruka’s shoes were clean. But not in a normal way; they were spotless, as if the boy had passed a lot of time taking care of them, almost maniacally even.

Lydia was taken back to reality by Ruka’s voice, and she couldn’t help the cold stare she gave him as he, yet again, snorted as if the whole conversation was the funniest thing in the world for him, stirring up the urge in the red headed girl to just punch him in the face. Maybe that way his stupid smirk would have gone away.

Or he might even like that.

She randomly thought; after all, who knew how the boy had gotten those scars? Was there something incredibly wrong going on inside the Gryffindor kid?

The more the conversation continued, the more Ruka laughed, and the more Lydia just wanted to make that stupid laugh go away. She clenched her fists on her lap as she bit down on her bottom lip, the faint taste of blood meeting her tongue. It was better that way though, otherwise she might have punched Ruka right there in the Great Hall.

When Ruka started talking about Rafael's temper, and how he was way worse than Lydia thought, a little detail caught the girl's attention. Ruka had suddenly, but subtly, stopped himself mid sentence before continuing, something that the girl had not seen him do yet. She raised an eyebrow as a lot of questions filled her head: Rafa had punched someone Ruka cared about, someone that the red headed boy was not able - or allowed- to label properly; was it a friend, a boyfriend, a family member?

This time it was Lydia's turn to snort as Ruka said that Rafael had no reason to punch that person. "Oh, I'm pretty sure that Raf had his reasons. After all, how can you be so sure that this... friend of yours had not provoked him, and maybe omitted to tell you? It seems like, since you can't even find the right words to define who this person is to you, you might want to reconsider what they tell you. How can you trust them, if you can't even call them your friend, or anything really?"

It was as if this change in Lydia's whole person, this shift that had started all the way back in March when she had discovered the truth about her mother, had properly shown itself now, after the disastrous events of the Ball. She didn't feel sad, only upset and kind of numb, as if she had something cold growing and expanding in the middle of her chest. Lydia's voice was cold, hard, so unlike her; her face was set in a weird smile, it wasn't warm, or inviting, but cold and kind of mean, but nonetheless still beautiful.

But, after all, everything beautiful is ruined eventually.

Ruka's next words kind of shocked her, sending the smile away from her face for a second. She had never considered herself a violent person, quite the opposite; she was calm, friendly and always thought before doing anything. But at the same time, there was something inside of her, some kind of urge to vengeance that always came up whenever she had an argument with someone that upset her; it was as if a voice in her mind - it usually sounded like her grandmother- told her that she needed to get revenge for how they were treating her, that she needed to make sure to hurt them like they hurt her. Or course, up until now nobody had ever hurt Lydia, the worst that someone had ever done was telling her that they didn't want to be friends with her.

But Ruka? This boy was just able to pick at all the right strings to make the part-vela girl upset.

"You know," she said as she put on a fake smile, not backing away when Ruka got closer to her, but actually getting slightly closer as well. "Maybe I do. I wouldn't say that it's exciting, but at least he can defend and take care of himself. she said and then pointed towards Ruka's scars with a finger "Also, I'm not the only one that should talk to someone about unhealthy behaviours. Your scars alone should make any teacher or, you know, parent worry, with how many of them you have. Judging by the amount and the fact that some look more recent than others, I'd say you have a really unhealthy habit going on Ruka. That and your subtle obsession over clean shoes,"

With that, Lydia winked at him and moved back a little, her eyes going back over the necklace that hung from the boy's neck, a sudden realisation hitting her. "Or maybe it's not an obsession, the one you have for the shoes, not completely at least..." she said, mostly to herself, as she kept staring at the necklace. Maybe Ruka took good care of the shoes cause they were somehow important to him; he didn't seem to care too much about his hair, or his skin judging by the scars; the only other thing that stood out was the shiny, clean and well taken care of necklace hanging from his neck. Was there a connection between it and the shoes? If so, which one?

"Nice necklace, by the way,"

- @Ruka Tân -
-Mentioning @Rafael D'Spacito -
(Permission to slightly godmod Ruka was given)

@Lydia Cooper

This whole conversation with Ruka was not going as Lydia thought it would. When she had approached him, she had imagined some small talk, him hopefully helping her out, and then, once she would have been done with her origami, she would have gone back to her dorm room, leaving the boy alone. She definitely didn’t think that it would have turned out to be some kind of argument/psychoanalysis session.

The words of the red headed boy regarding Rafael’s behaviour at the ball hurt Lydia; it wasn’t though the fact that he had omitted to tell her wether it was a date or not, but rather him leaving her when she had clearly told him she needed to speak with him. That, and Ruka’s freaking chuckle, of course.

What was even his problem, how could he find that funny?

Lydia had never liked rude people, mostly because she never understood them; how could someone be rude to another person, how could they just treat someone else badly? She had tried imagining herself in the shoes of someone that was acting rude, but she always felt too bad for the other imaginary person. So the fact that Ruka, a boy that she didn’t know and that didn’t know her, was laughing at something that, clearly, was bothering her made the red headed girl upset even more.

The more he talked and chuckled, the more his words hurt the young girl; they were as sharp as blades, digging into her mind and making her feel even worse than how she had been feeling lately.

What made everything worse as well, was the fact that Ruka was right. Lydia was being extremely hypocritical, but at the same time she felt as if she wasn’t: she knew that she was friends with Rafael - she just didn’t know if the boy liked her as much as she liked him- while Ruka apparently didn’t even know if they were friends with this other person.She had almost told him that, but his next words made her stop in her tracks.

“Do you know how to take care of yourself, then? Or do you need him for that?”

Well that- that hit right home.

To anyone that knew Lydia a little bit, the girl that had been walking around the castle’s corridors lately was not the same person, but an empty, gloomy shell of her. She was clearly unable to take care of herself, even if she had been trying so hard, ever since that day in the Trophy Room; going to classes, eating meals, sleeping, socialising, she had been doing everything that any other student would do, but being only twelve, the amount of stress she could manage had reached its limit pretty soon, culminating during the night of the Blossom Ball.

Lydia didn’t think too much of Ruka’s comment about his parents; she kept looking at him, the small, fake smile now gone from her face. When the Gryffindor boy spoke again, his face showed again an arrogant smile, and Lydia clenched her fists hard, the urging need to punch him just to see that irritating grin gone stronger and stronger. "I don't want any expensive jewellery," she said, her voice harsh as she looked down at her fists. Ruka's comment about Rafael possibly giving her flowers in the future brought back the memories from the ball, when the Quidditch Captain had given her an extremely pretty bouquet of roses, right before he started ignoring her and going after other girls.

As she thought about those moments, Lydia was flooded again by all the anger and frustration that she had felt back then; those feelings added to the present ones, making the girl's muscles tense up, as angry tears started forming in her eyes. All she wanted to do was let out that resentment -towards Rafael, towards Ruka, towards herself- and hopefully fell good again.

Lydia forced herself to look back up again at Ruka, ready to say goodbye to him and just run away from there; she didn't want him, or anyone else, see her cry, so she had no intention of staying any longer in the crowded Hall. The moment her eyes landed on the smirking boy, Lydia felt the intense urge to punch him grow bigger and stronger; how freaking dared him, smiling and having fun over her problems! She imagined clenching her right fist hard, moving her arm and bringing said fist all the way towards the boy's nose; she could see it clearly, almost in slow motion, and she mentally scolded herself, that was so not how Aaron had showed her to keep her thumb while trowing a punch. Just imagining doing that brought so much satisfaction to the girl, but then-

Then she felt a sharp pain in her right hand, specifically her thumb.

Lydia widened her eyes in shock, as she realised that she didn't just imagine punching Ruka on the nose, she had actually done that - and potentially broke her thumb in the process.

- @Ruka Tân -
Mentioning @Rafael D'Spacito , @Aaron Jones