Not Nice Seeing You Again PV Ruka Tân Closed

@Lydia Cooper

Ruka wasn't in the Owlery very often, but decidedly more often than he had been at the beginning of the school year. It was strange, in a way, that he was able to measure the time passed by the amount of people he now had to send letters to. After his dad's passing he had resigned himself to being alone in the world, that he had nobody to talk to or write to, knew no names or addresses, was simply going to stay by himself until the inevitable end of his time.

However, now that the school year was coming to an end, Ruka found himself with more people to send letters to than he could have ever imagined, even outside of Hogwarts which was... new. With the approach of summer holidays, Ruka had found himself increasingly more nervous by the day about actually leaving the school for the home he'd been offered, so he had wanted to send one last letter to the Burnett family with his gratitude for their already far too kind hospitality and the amount of help they had given him, as well as letting them know just how much he was looking forward to meeting them in person.

He omitted to say how absolutely terrified he was.

Dressed in a causal attire, Ruka was still standing by the window in the Owlery a long while after his chosen school owl had already left to deliver his letter, staring at the sunny blue skies. The Grounds seemed so peaceful, even with the crowds of students having gathered to enjoy the weather by the lake or just reading under a tree. It was such a disconnect to the way Ruka usually felt throughout his days, but in a way it still helped to calm his mind down, collect his thoughts, take on a relaxed posture and expression. Life was more than survival; It was sunny days and paper folding, self made tea bags and pleasant company. He was done wallowing in misery.

With a slight smile pulling the corners of his mouth upwards, Ruka turned around eventually after what felt like hours of just standing there to look through this little window to the world. He was ready to go, return to his dorm to pack up some of his stuff already just to make absolutely sure he wasn't going to forget anything once the time to leave was actually here. Ten days were nothing in the grand scheme of things, and time seemed to pass far too quickly anyways so it was better to be prepared in advance.

Just as he was going to make his way to the exit however, a familiar face came into view, making his smile spread even wider, an amused expression lighting up his features. "Why, if it isn't Punchy the Badger," he said, a teasing tone to his voice but nothing hostile or betraying anger or resentment towards their last encounter. Ruka wasn't one to dwell on things people he barely knew had done to him in the past, and if he was being fair he had actually hoped for the outcome of his provocation to be for her to punch him. He had no reason to be mad at her for doing exactly what he had wanted her to do, did he?

"Sending home a list of people you've punched this year?" He chuckled lightly as he took a step to the side and started a light-footed twirl down the stairs until he was standing across from her at the bottom of the short staircase. "Probably not, though," he added thoughtfully, smile not wavering from his face as he mustered her for a moment, taking in the summery outfit she had thrown on. "It'd be arrogant of me to assume you'd waste any ink on talking about me." He hid the laugh that escaped him behind a scarred hand before straightening up and letting his expression drift back to something more neutral. "Don't let me disturb you, I was on my way out anyway. Unless you needed me to fix any more magic mishaps for you?"

-Interacting with: @Ruka Tân -

There was something in the way that Ruka smiled the moment he saw Lydia, that made the girl stop in her tracks. From the last time she had seen him, he looked the same and somehow different; it wasn't necessary in his looks, even if his hair was now quite long, but rather in his behaviour. The Ruka that was in front of her looked better, healthier, happier even, his smile spread over his face, where Lydia would have expected to find resentment or anger towards her.

Almost as if to confirm her theory, the boy walked- no, twirled, down the stairs and stopped in front fo her. Punchy the Badger he had called her, and Lydia didn't even bother hiding the little smirk that appeared on her face. It was a funny, and well deserved, nickname, after all. Ruka's voice was void of any resentment, and that made Lydia feel better; right after she had munched him, she wanted to apologise, but the boy had gone away before she could do that, so it was nice to see that he - at least apparently - wasn't too upset about it.

His next comment made Lydia roll her eyes, as she tried her best to hide the slight amusement the boy's nickname gave her. Now that he was closer to her, Lydia got to look at him better; his face looked healthier, and his scars on the arms looked slightly better. "As if I'd ever tell them that I punched someone," Lydia shook her head, amused by the eventual reaction that her mother, and her grandma, would have had if they ever knew about her punching people. "I think my grandma would die; it's a miracle I haven't given her a stroke during the last semester"

It was true, what she had just said; if her first term at Hogwarts had been pretty calm, the second one had been the complete opposite: at first, she skipped the traditional Easter Holidays, then she organised a secret Ball where students almost died, and now she apparently was into a punching-people phase.

"Nah, I think I'm good for now. Nobody decided to mess up my hair this time, but thanks!" she said, her tone of voice playful as she made her way towards one of the school owls. She gave it her letters, making sure that he would deliver them in the right order (the one for her Grandma first, followed by the one for her mother) and then walked back to Ruka.

"Listen, regarding the other day..." Lydia wrapped her arms around herself, as her eyes locked on the ground. She felt slightly stupid apologising now, after more than a month, but she would have felt even worse if she never got the chance to do that. "I wanted to say that I'm sorry I punched you, I really am. If it's of any consolation, my thumb got pretty hurt as well. Had to keep it bandaged up for quite a while," A chuckle left her lips, as her eyes moved up to meet Ruka's. "You seem in a better mood today, compared to last time. Are you happy to go back home?"

Lydia had tried to resist the urge to know why Ruka seemed so excited, but in the end her curiosity got the better of her; it was just so different, talking to this boy while he was in a good mood.

@Lydia Cooper

Just like Ruka's own, Lydia's face didn't seem to hold much resentment over their past encounter. That was good, he could definitely work with that; Ruka had no idea how to deal with grudges so the fact that she didn't seem to hold one was nothing but positive. Quite on the contrary, she seemed at least kind of amused by the nickname he had given her, let a small smirk play on her lips without any attempts at hiding it.

There was a spark of amusement even, but she didn't seem quite as comfortable to let him see it as she covered it up quickly by talking. Her words did bring a small expression of surprise to his face, a curious tilt of his head revealing that he hadn't really expected an answer like that. "I figured that would be the kind of stuff you'd write to your parents about," he pointed out with a little hum. He would have definitely written to his dad about punching someone, had really written to his dad about everything he was doing, but maybe that wasn't quite as common as he had thought it to be.

Maybe growing up under more normal circumstances made you more selective about what exactly you'd tell your parents about.

The words about Lydia's grandma only elicited a small chuckle from Ruka. He'd never known either of his own grandmothers and had no idea what they would have been like, but he figured grandmas were the types of people to be scandalised by their grandchildren stepping out of line. "Right," he said, tapping a finger against his chin thoughtfully. "You had a part in organising that Ball from Hell, didn't you?" Ruka wasn't very involved in gossip, if at all really, but word at Hogwarts spread like wildfire and this was a rumour even he hadn't been able to ignore. "I especially enjoyed the part where giant wasps started attacking students all around." He let out a vaguely amused chuckle, waving his hand around as if to make light of the situation.

Nothing about that Ball had been particularly fun or amusing but what good did it do to dwell on it? At least nobody had died!

At least not as far as he was aware.

Watching her send off her letters, Ruka straightened his back a little before putting his hands in the pockets of his trousers for lack of anything else to do with them. Their conversation could have come to a natural end at that point, but Lydia turned back to him once her letters were out the window to offer him an apology that only made him laugh lightly.

"Don't mention it," he said with a small shrug as he eyed her hand to search for any signs that it was still hurt. "Why didn't you go to the Hospital Wing about your thumb?" Saying she had needed to keep it bandaged up for quite a while gave Ruka the impression that Lydia had decided to let the injury heal out the Muggle Way, which was just very unnecessary considering they had an infirmary of magical nurses at their disposal who could have probably fixed up the Badger girl's thumb in no time at all. "Would have saved you some pain for sure."

Her question about his good mood threw him for a loop, his smile wavering for only a second as he let his gaze drift out the window. Happy to be going back home? There was no home for him to go back to, nothing familiar waiting for his return, and Hogwarts had probably become the closest thing to a real Home he had ever had, but still...

"I'm staying with someone else's family for the summer," he explained, removing a hand from his pocket to sheepishly scratch at the back of his neck. Despite the fact that Jack's mother had offered him to call her "Mom" or anything similar, he couldn't say he was very comfortable yet with thinking of them as his family. He'd never met them personally after all, and there was still a big chance that Jack's parents would end up not liking him and regretting their decision to invite him to stay with them deeply. It wasn't something he wanted to consider but having grown up like he had he was hardwired to expect the worst possible outcome. "I'm..." He stopped himself for a moment, an uncertain laugh escaping his lungs as he shrugged his shoulders a bit helplessly.

"I guess I'm looking forward to that." He was, was the thing. Probably more than was really good for him. Expectations tended to lead to disappointment but he couldn't help feeling giddy at the thought of having a place to go and people to help take care of him the way they had already been doing by getting him new clothes and checking up on him with letters anyway.

He could only hope they were looking forward to meeting him as much as he was excited to meet them.

-Interacting with @ Ruka Tân-

Even though she had reassured Rafael that she wouldn't have talked with Ruka again, now that they were talking like civil people and nobody was trying to provoke the other, talking with the red-headed Gryffindor was actually quite pleasant.

There were still some things, little comments the boy would make, that sounded slightly off for Lydia; something about Ruka was bothering her, but she could not understand what that was.

"I guess some people do tell their parents about these things... but for me, I think maybe only my dad would find the whole situation funny," her index finger was tapping over her chin as she tried to imagine her father's possible reaction to her punching someone. Chris, even though he was a rather pacific man, had his fair share of fights -as any teenager would- and he most likely would have asked her if she had managed to hit her target.

When Ruka mentioned the Ball from Hell, Lydia frowned slightly as her eyes travelled to the floor. "Yes, I was part of the team," there was no use in denying that, not when the professors already knew about it anyway. "I guess that for someone that was not stung, the whole scene must have looked surreal. But trust me, you don't want those stingers anywhere near you, they hurt like hell," she added as she thought back to when that mosp had sunk its stingers in her thigh, the way not only the sting per se hurt like hell, but the way the venom made everything worse. The bright side of the situation was that at least nobody had been allergic to them, otherwise Lydia feared how many students might have lost their lives that night.

His reaction to her apology made her feel better, the gult of her action lowly fading away as he accepted the apology. When Ruka asked her about her thumb, she looked down at her healed hand and shrugged. "I did't want any Professor to ask how it got hurt; I could have gotten another detention, and well, I really did not want that to happen. But it's alright, it healed slower, but it got better anyway,"

The way Ruka's smile slightly went away when she asked him about his summer, plus the way he didn't say he was going back home, made her frown a little. He seemed unsure about something, and then, all of a sudden, the realisation hit her.

During their previous talk, Ruka had said his parents had been too busy to notice his scars, but what kind of parent would not notice them? Then, just some minutes before, the boy had said that he figured that punching someone was what one should write their parents about, and even if some kids might do that, it was more the uncertainty of how it sounded, plus the fact that he was not going home, that put everything in place in Lydia's mind.

The doubt that Ruka might not have had any parent at all got stuck in her mind. She wanted to say something, but she didn't know what; afterall, she couldn't just ask him if he had any parents. The laugh that left his lips sounded slightly nervous, and Lydia gave him a small smile.

"Will you come to the Summer Camp? Or will you go to your friend's house?" she asked him, as she crossed her arms. That wasn't exactly what Lydia wanted to ask him, the question "Won't your parents miss you?" was really what she had wanted to say, but it didn't feel right. She didn't know Ruka, and a subject like that was incredibly delicate.

"I won't be going back home either this summer, maybe for a week before the start of the school. I'll be stuck in London with my Grandma after the Summer Camp; no sea or beaches this year," a sigh left her lips, as her eyes trailed towards one of the windows, before setting back on the red headed Gryffindor. "I'll miss my parents and my sister as well. Do you have any siblings?"

Biting on her bottom lip, she kept her eyes on Ruka, trying to see how he would react to her question. He clearly wasn't the type of person that liked to talk too much, especially with people that didn't interest him, so the Hufflepuff girl knew that her question was a little bit of a hazzard.

@Lydia Cooper

Ruka mustered Lydia with a small smile as he watched her considering the possibility of writing home about having punched someone. It wasn't quite clear to him why exactly she thought it would be more logical to tell someone about her experiences just because they would think them funny; Weren't parents supposed to guide you through your mistakes, even if they would scold and punish you? His own dad had occasionally responded to Ruka's own stories with disappointment or even slight anger, but that had never stopped him from wanting to share his experiences with him anyway.

Still, he decided to let the topic go. Assumably every family was different, and maybe Lydia just didn't want to deal with their reactions to her story. Who was he to judge?

"You got stung?" Ruka asked in response to her words about the ball, wincing a little in sympathy. He had seen the size of those stingers and he wouldn't have wanted to be on their receiving end. "They left me alone, fortunately. Must have been my good karma." He snorted ungracefully in a way of communicating that he knew full well that he had not done anywhere near enough good deeds to warrant good karma protecting him from monstrous wasps. "Or maybe the fire." Most likely the fire, actually. The creatures had probably been too smart to get close to something that could have potentially been harmful to them.

Either way, it didn't matter, they had all managed to escape from the Hell Ball, more or less unscathed.

"Does that mean you went to get healed up again back at the castle?" he asked, a curious head tilt accompanying his words. "Did you... Did you happen to see that boy? The one who'd been on fire? Uhm, Victor?" Ruka had spent a huge amount of his Burn Healing Paste on the boy and then didn't even stick around to make sure he got to the castle alright. The presence of a teacher had made him feel comfortable in assuming he was in good hands, and Jack had arguably needed more attention, or at least so he had thought, at that point. Still, Ruka felt bad for not at least checking in on whether Victor had survived without too much lasting damage or not.

Maybe Lydia had seen him and knew how he'd been doing.

Moving from one Injury topic to the next, Ruka found himself hiding a small laugh behind his hand. "I don't think they would have cared much about how you got your thumb hurt at the Hospital Wing," he pointed out, waving his hand dismissively between them. "And you wouldn't have needed to talk to a Professor in order to get to a nurse but... I suppose, as long as it healed alright. I don't take enough advantage of magical healing myself either." With a small shrug Ruka took a step to the side to make room for an owl that had decided to take a short flight from one end of the room to the other. For a short moment he eyed the scars on his arms before he shook his head to himself. He was doing better now, was taking more care of his injuries, even with some magical aid.

The small smile that Lydia offered him upon his statement that he was going to spend summer at someone else's house wasn't lost on Ruka and he wondered, for a second, if maybe she had been able to connect the dots. He had never actually described his circumstances to her but he had certainly given enough hints for her to start making some assumptions.

"Heavens, no," he said quickly when she asked about whether he was coming to camp. "I can't wait to get away from people for a while. They're exhausting." A small chuckle escaped him although he didn't necessarily think it was a funny thing to say. Recent conversations had made him excruciatingly aware of how much he kept people at a distance, how little faith he had in any of them, and something inside him was longing to work on that flaw, but that didn't mean he thought company to be any less boring and tiring than he had so far. "A couple of months will hopefully be enough to refresh me enough for next year." With those words his voice brightened a bit, spirits rising to a point at which he even offered Lydia a small wink.

Two months spent with a whole new family, no fear for his survival... Maybe it would do the trick and prepare him for further social interactions in the upcoming school year.

He was about to ask Lydia about her own summer but she was quick to answer that before he could, explaining how she was going to go to London to stay at her grandma's for the summer. "Sea or beaches?" he asked curiously. "Where do you usually live then? And why won't you go there this summer?" His voice was tinged with curiosity but with a small shake of his head he showed that she didn't have to answer the question if she didn't want to. For all he knew the reasons she wasn't going to spend summer with her parents could have been extremely personal.

Her question about whether he had any siblings made him falter for a moment, eyes moving from side to side as if to try and find something to focus on. "I-," he started before taking a deep breath and humming thoughtfully. "I guess I do now," he said, a fond expression crossing his face as he let himself linger on that thought for a bit longer. "Or will have, I suppose. Practically do already." He was stumbling over his words, nervousness mixed with excitement as he was unable to keep his face from lighting up, lips stretching into a smile that spoke of adoration. He couldn't help it, it was just the way his body seemed to react to the chance to talk about his soon-to-be brother.

A small blush crept into his cheeks as he turned his head away and cleared his throat. "I mean, yes," he said a little more calmly, though his expression remained soft and fond. "As of this summer I guess I have a brother."

-Interacting with @ Ruka Tân-

Lydia nodded at Ruka's question, her hand going over her right leg, where a scar was hiding under her skirt; Sometimes she thought she could still feel the excruciating pain of the double stinger passing right through her leg. A shiver ran down her spine as she shrugged, returning the boy's small smile. "Yeah, I almost managed to escape from that nightmare untouched, but then one of those giant bugs came out of nowhere. I was lucky enough that Professor Karr was close by and started healing me right there,"

She couldn't help but smile again when Ruka commented on his good karma and the fire, finding herself nodding along. Then, when Ruka asked her about Victor, the Hufflepuff's face darkened a little, as the memory of the smell of burning flesh came back to her, the images of Victor and Ana burning forever imprinted in her mind. "I- yeah. I mean, once I got to the Great Hall the wound was basically healed, so I wasn't in need of immediate help, they treated the venom once those still bleeding had gotten some help. I think- I did see him, but for a brief second. There was a lot of chaos, and I assume they brought him immediately to St Mungos," she wondered, knowing that his burns were most likely way too serious to be treated in the infirmary. She had no idea if him, or Ana, were alright now; after the ball she had closed herself so much that she never went to visit any of her injured friends in the Hospital wing.

"I know but- what if then the nurse would have said something to Professor Browne?" Lydia replied to the Gryffindor's comment on the infirmary. Her eyes then trailed over the boy's scars; they looked definitely better than the last time, healthier, just like Ruka. "I guess I'm so used to handling things the muggle way, that magic is not yet my first choice for things," her voice had gotten more monotone, as she averted her eyes from the boy, and instead focused on the birds flying outside of the window.

Whether she liked it or not, she knew that, once she would have reunited with her family - her mother or her grandma, or anybody else- she would have needed to tackle the fact that her mother was a witch.
Recently she had gone back to the trophy room to look at the picture again, almost as if to make sure that she did not make a mistake back in April; her mother's face stared back at her once again, smiling for the camera, and this time - when Lydia had walked out of the room- she was not sad, only determined to find out the truth.

Realising she had gotten a little lost in her head, she looked back at Ruka, scratching her neck with one hand. "Sorry I- never mind," she sighed "Are you Muggleborn, is that why you don't use magical healing that much?" her eyes were fixed on Ruka's face, as she tried to put together the pieces of the puzzle that the Gryffindor boy was. She still could not believe that she was having a civil conversation with him, especially after Rafael's warning about him; he had described him as "not innocent", and made him sound dangerous, but in Lydia's eyes he looked anything but dangerous.

A little lost maybe, but not someone to be feared.

"I think people can be interesting, and full of surprises. I like them, well, most of the time" she chuckled, adding the last part almost as if to agree with the boy. People could be extremely exhausting sometimes, that was true. "You really don't like being around a lot of people, do you?" the smile Ruka made at the prospect of being away from people for two months convinced the red headed girl that he did not enjoy the company of people at all, his reaction to her talking to him for the first time in the great hall making way more sense now.

Lydia's face brightened as she thought about the ocean and salty air, almost feeling it on her skin. "I'm from Brighton, born and raised on the beach," she said proudly, a grin plastered on her face. "I learned to swim way before I learned how to properly talk. I guess water just- it just makes everything better, it takes your problems and sorrows away. Like, one time my parents were arguing with my Grandma and-" She stopped herself mid sentence and shook her head.

"Sorry, I was getting a little off topic. Anyway... I'm not going there cause I'm grounded," she rolled her eyes at that, wishing she was joking. "I stayed here during the Easter holidays, and missed both Easter and my Grandma's birthday. Apparently everyone got quite upset about that, cause one can't just simply skip a good, old, family easter lunch, and as a punishment I'll have to spend the rest of the summer in London with her,"

The way Ruka's eyes were moving left and right when she asked him about his eventual brother, his fond expression and his answer gave the girl the impression that his brother must have been someone he really cared about. Lydia smiled warmly at him, as she kept looking at him full of curiosity. If what she assumed was true, that Ruka had no parents, then his words and face assumed and incredibly "happy-ending" vibe. "I think you'll like having a brother. It doesn't matter how exhausting or annoying siblings can be, they definitely brighten up your day," she said. "Does your brother know about magic? is he younger than you?" she asked, unable to stop her curiosity. "Either way, it's clear you already really like him. Your whole face just brightened up as you talked about him,"

@Lydia Cooper

Ruka's gaze followed the movement of Lydia's hand for a moment as she talked, just a gentle brush across her skirt the same way he sometimes reached up to touch the scar on his forehead whenever he was thinking or talking of it. He thought it was safe to assume that that was where she had been stung so he didn't question it any further than that, smiling lightly instead at her words of how she'd been lucky, had even been mostly healed already by the time she'd gotten to the Great Hall.

As for Victor, Ruka found himself humming softly in contemplation. That he'd been brought to St Mungo's wasn't really a surprise, wasn't really the kind of information he'd been hoping for. Even with that fact it didn't shed any light on whether the boy had made it through the worst, if he'd been conscious by the time he was brought away, if he was going to survive. It wasn't Lydia's fault, however, that she wasn't able to provide those kinds of answers; How was she supposed to know? Clearly she had been dealing with a whole set of her own issues after the Ball, and understandably so.

The frustration that would have normally come with not getting the information he was looking for stayed concealed within him and he almost felt proud for the way he managed to smile at the other girl, nodding encouragingly as she talked.

"I thought as much," he just said with a dismissive wave of his hand but a grateful spark in his eyes that he hoped she would recognise. She wouldn't have needed to go into all that but it was clear that she had tried her best to give him all the information she had anyway and he was thankful for that.

Snorting ungracefully at her worry that one of the nurses could have possibly told her Head of House about her broken thumb, Ruka shook his head. "They get so many weird injuries all the time," he pointed out. "I doubt they'd have questioned something like that, much less deem it important enough to bother a teacher with it, so in case you're out to throw some more punches, for future reference, I think you'll be fine going to the Hospital Wings for any other broken bones." He chuckled lightly, trying not to show that he had noticed her eyes trailing across his own scars.

As if the sight had sparked a different thought in her, Lydia had turned her gaze away and Ruka tilted his head to the side, watching her curiously for a moment. It took a while before she returned her attention to him again, apologising - probably for having spaced out like that - before asking about his upbringing and whether that was the reason he wasn't used to magical healing yet.

"My dad's a Muggle," he confirmed. "And he raised me, so it's been the Muggle Way or no way at all my whole life." A little laugh escaped him as if that was somehow amusing when in reality it almost made him feel a bit sad. That way of life he had been so used to was gone completely now; even if he was going to spend his summers with a Muggle Family, nothing would really be the same as what he had known his whole life.

Shaking his head to himself before he could actually show any traces of melancholy, he offered the girl in front of him a smile and a little shrug. "What about you?" he asked, genuine curiosity on his face. "Sounds like you haven't known much about magic before Hogwarts either." The way she'd talked about magical healing not being her first choice yet made that an easy deduction, but he wanted to give her the chance to go into specifics about her family anyway as she had done the same for him.

When Lydia offered her own opinion on people, Ruka regarded her with an appreciative nod. Of course people were full of surprises, it was one of the reasons he didn't trust sticking around them most of the time.

"Not particularly," he answered her question about not liking to be around people. "I get frustrated easily. Bored too. Exhausted." But as Jack had told him just the day before, people would never be able to surprise him if he didn't give them a chance and it was obvious that it was about time Ruka started giving people the benefit of the doubt. "I'm trying to be better though," he added with a little shrug to show he wasn't sure exactly how much progress he was making.

At least he was doing his best.

Once the topic turned to Lydia's home, a town called Brighton right by the sea, apparently, it was clear to see the girl's face brightening immediately, like she couldn't think of anything better than living right by the water. Her words confirmed as much, and Ruka couldn't help the small smile that spread on his face as he listened to her. He'd always liked when people were happy or amused or excited, had always thought it to be one of the most contagious things even if he wasn't particularly good at evoking those emotions in others.

"Don't be sorry," he said immediately when she apologised for drifting off topic for a moment. "You can talk about your parents and grandma if you want to, I don't mind." Nodding encouragingly he raised his eyebrows for a second as if willing her to continue her unfinished thought if she would have wanted to, but a little shrug was supposed to show her that she didn't have to. He'd already realised with Flash that people weren't always happy to be told to finish their thoughts, so he wasn't going to make her talk if she preferred not to.

Humming at her explanation about why she had to stay with her grandma for the summer, Ruka gave Lydia a sympathetic look. "So they're making you... Make up for lost time?" he asked for clarification, head tilted to the side. It didn't really sound like a punishment more than adequate compensation. "I suppose I can see how that makes sense. Boarding school doesn't allow for much quality family time, does it? Sounds reasonable that your parents would want you to spend as much time as possible with your grandma while... while she's still around." Life was too fleeting after all, Ruka knew all about that. One missed birthday to Lydia could just as well have been her grandma's last birthday at all; Sometimes it was important to put those things into perspective. "At least you'll have camp to be able to stick with your friends a bit longer, right?"

With the conversation moving on to siblings, Ruka found himself stumped for a moment in which he just stared at Lydia a bit incredulously. Her words about having a sibling were so contradictory to the way Flash had talked about his own younger brother, but they were also a lot more encouraging, made Ruka's face brighten even more at the thought.

"I, uh," he started, eloquence be damned, when she asked questions about his future brother with an expression on her face that said she was genuinely curious to know more about the situation. "He goes to Hogwarts, actually. Slytherin. First year, so he's... a bit younger." Not that it ever really felt like that. Most times Ruka was the one feeling like the little brother in their relationship to one another. The notion that his face had brightened up once he had started talking about Jack made Ruka blush furiously, cheeks tinting a bright red colour at being called out for his plain adoration.

"I do," he said sheepishly when she pointed out that it sounded like he already really liked his brother, lifting a hand to scratch at the back of his neck. "I mean, I care about him." A useless correction maybe; Didn't liking someone imply that you also cared for them? "He's smart. Clever. Funny too." Mentally scolding himself for not just closing his mouth and stopping the words from spilling out, Ruka found that once he had gotten the chance to talk about Jack to someone who didn't seem to know about the extend of their relationship to one another, it was difficult to stop. "Infuriating sometimes but..." His expression turned soft as he shrugged his shoulders. "From what I've heard so far, siblings are supposed to be infuriating sometimes, right?" He smiled brightly, green eyes sparkling fondly. "I don't know what I'd do without him, really," he admitted quietly, averting his gaze for a moment before rubbing a hand across his face and turning to face Lydia again.

"Sorry," he mumbled, letting out an embarrassed chuckle. "You don't want to hear all that, I must sound ridiculous." Pathetic, even, swooning over his soon-to-be-brother to someone he barely knew. "What about your sister?" he asked, curious to learn a little more about sibling relationships than the small insight he had gotten from Flash. "What's she like?"

-Interacting with @ Ruka Tân-

The grateful look that Ruka gave her made Lydia smile at him, as she slightly nodded as if to let him know that it was no big deal.

She couldn’t help but roll her eyes a little bit when the copper haired boy snorted at her worry, and said that the nurses wouldn’t have thought her injury to be weird. “I bet they would think that of your scars though,” she thought, and even almost said it out loud, before she managed to stop herself.

His explanation to why he also didn’t use magic healing as well, made Lydia tilt her head, slightly confused. Did he just talk about his father with a present tense? Did that mean that he was actually alive? “Well, I think he raised you well, teaching you that; this way you don’t rely on magic for everything. He is quite smart...” she said, her eyes focusing on the floor as she finished talking.

Ruka’s question took her slightly by surprise, and for a second she was really tempted to lie and say that she came from a normal, unproblematic family. “My family is... quite complicated. To be completely honest, I have no idea,” shaking her head, Lydia forced herself to look at Ruka, before continuing talking. “I thought my parents were muggles, and that I was the first one with magic in her blood; but this spring I accidentally found a picture of my mom in the Trophy room.” A sigh left her lips, as her eyes got slightly sadder, “My parents have no idea I know about this... I’m kind of dreading the moment in which I’ll tell them,”

She chuckled when ruka said he was doing better, with the whole talking with people. “I have to say, you’re doing really well. The last time we talked I had already punched you,” she offered the boy a smile, and then shook her head, declining his offer. “I just- I don’t feel like talking about them too much right now cause... I kind of feel like I don’t know them anymore?” She probably didn’t make that much sense to the Gryffindor boy, but she didn’t know how else to explain it.

“Sounds reasonable that your parents would want you to spend as much time as possible with your grandma while... while she's still around."

These words made her tilt her head, a confused and concerned expression written all over her face. Had Ruka just... implied that her grandma might have died at any moment? “I- I mean, she’s still young...” she murmured, before she shook her head; she imagined that Ruka didn’t mean that in a bad way, so she tried not to take it too bad.
“I’m really looking forward to the summer camp. I have the feeling it will be a nice experience!”

As the topic changed and Ruka started talking more about his brother, and said he was a first year, the girl’s curiosity grew even more. “Really? So am I! What’s his name? Maybe I know him, or I had classes with him,” she asked, and her mind thought, for a brief second, if the brother might have been Flash; he was a first year, and a Slytherin. “Wait, is he Flash? Holmwood?”

As Ruka continued to describe and talk about the brother, Lydia couldn’t help but notice the way the kid’s face lightened up, how his features turned softer and how his voice sounded incredibly adoring. If he hadn’t told her he was talking about his brother, she would have thought he had a crush on this guy. Shaking her head, she gave the boy a smile. “You don’t sound ridiculous at all! It just means you really care about him. You can talk about him as much as you want, don’t worry! And as for my sister well...” she said, and a fond expression appeared on her face. “She’s a pest. She’s still young, and sometimes I wish I could just press the “OFF” button to have some peace, but my life would be so boring without her. She might be annoying, and not know any boundaries sometimes, and even though she makes me so mad a lot of the times, I would still want her by my side, no matter what,”

@Lydia Cooper

Ruka's statement that his dad had raised him the Muggle Way seemed to elicit a confused head tilt from Lydia, and for a moment he wondered what about his words had brought it on, but then she started talking again, praising his dad for being smart in teaching him how to take care of himself. It made Ruka let out a vaguely bitter laugh which he masked quickly by clearing his throat. "Suppose so," he said with a little shrug. "Smarter in some things than others, but then again that's probably the same for everyone." He waved his hand through the air dismissively. "I guess he was smart enough." Up until the point he had decided to rather die than ask for help. Ruka didn't feel like going into that.

Instead he listened in interest as Lydia answered his question about her own family, an intrigued glint lighting up his eyes when she said that she had seen a picture of her supposedly Muggle mother in the Trophy Room. "If your mum's a witch I'm sure she had a reason for not telling you," he said, trying to sound encouraging, a smile accompanying his words. "Don't be scared of the confrontation, look forward to the explanation. It'll bring you closer to each other in the end for sure." At least that was what he had taken away from his most recent confrontation. By having run away from it for so long he had just fuelled the fire, but once everything had been sorted out he had just felt better in every aspect.

When Lydia commented on how at this point in their last conversation she had already punched him, Ruka couldn't help but let a laugh bubble from his lungs and he lifted a hand to run it through his hair, messing it up a bit with a gentle ruffle. "True. Some might call that progress." Maybe talking to people normally wasn't all that difficult anyway. Maybe he could do it, he'd just need to practice.

"That's alright," he assured the other girl when she admitted to not wanting to talk about her parents and grandma. "Just don't want you to think you shouldn't talk about them for my sake." Shrugging his shoulders a little he moved towards the closest wall so he could lean against it with his right shoulder while still keeping his attention focused on the Hufflepuff.

Just as he felt like he was slowly getting a hang of holding a conversation, Ruka could see the vital mistake he had made in insinuating that Lydia's grandma might not be around as long as she thought. The thought clearly filled the other girl with anxious confusion and Ruka quickly shook his head. "Of course, I'm sorry," he just said in response to her pointing out that her grandma was still quite young. Of course most kids his age were not as comfortable and familiar with the concept of death as he was so he took a mental note not to bring it up in relation to their friends and family anymore.

Social Etiquette 101: Keep Death-Talk to a minimum.

"I hope you'll have fun," he said genuinely in regards to the summer camp. He wasn't really sure what the plan for camp was, hadn't exactly looked into it, but for people like Lydia who clearly enjoyed being around her friends it was most likely going to be a nice event. "Maybe stay clear of any secret student organised events though," he added with a chuckle and a wink as he pushed his hands into the pockets of his trousers and pressed his shoulders against the wall as if to straighten his back like that.

Talking about how his new brother was a First Year had Lydia immediately intrigued in finding out who it was exactly, and Ruka froze a little at her words, eyes wide as he just stared at her like she had made the most ridiculous suggestion he had ever heard of.

"Flash?" he asked incredulously, forehead pulling into a frown as he repeated the name.




Maybe he had patched things up with Flash to the best of his abilities, but for him to be his brother? They still had quite a long way to go to get to that point, and up until then Ruka would vehemently deny such a thought. He was nothing if not overly dramatic. "Heavens no, what gave you that idea?" He let out a little laugh, rubbing the back of his neck almost stressfully. "Flash and I are more like... Reluctant third cousins twice removed." He waved his hands between them, swallowing down the laugh that was trying to escape him. He didn't want to make Lydia feel too ridiculous about her suggestion.

"But if you know Flash you might also know..." He sighed, a little bitterness starting to lace his voice but he quickly caught himself and shook it off before it could take over him and dominate his mind. Again. "It's Jack. Burnett. My brother, that is." A fond smile snuck back onto his face and he locked eyes with Lydia to observe any reaction to the name. Jack did have quite a reputation so it wouldn't have been surprising if the Hufflepuff had heard of him at least. Heard nothing good most likely.

Shaking his head at her offer for him to keep talking about his brother, Ruka let out a strained chuckle, shoulders tensing a bit. He had certainly embarrassed himself enough for now so he was going to let Lydia talk about her own sister instead.

"Sounds like the two of you are close," he pointed out with a smile. "How much younger is she?"