Too Much Closed

Kaegan left his Charms classroom, a satisfied smirk on his face. He hoisted his leather satchel higher on his shoulder, the smug expression not faltering as he strode down the hall. The soft, willowy tip of a white feather stuck at an angle out of one of his pockets, reminding him of his triumph every time he looked down. Top of the class- again. Kaegan's typically snide mood felt a good deal lighter as he walked towards the common room, one hand reaching out to push aside the hanging tapestry of the Fat Lady.

Before he could manage to get out the unnecessarily complicated password, however, a giggling girl stopped in front of him, twirling a strand of hair around one finger. Kaegan raised one eyebrow, looking down at her and then to her group of friends, who were standing in a clump to the side and half-suppressing their laughter. "I saw you casting those spells in class. You did really well," the girl teased coyly, her eyes shining.

"Well, did you expect anything else?" Kaegean said, flashing her a complacent grin. The girl and her group of friends let out high-pitched titters, some of them even blushing a pale shade of pink. The girl leaned closer and rested one hand on his shoulder. "Do you think you could help us out? We were struggling a little in class."

Kaegan's pleasant expression fell away immediately, and he let out a short, arrogant laugh. "I hope you didn't really think this was going to work," he said cooly, shrugging off her hand in one motion. The girl stepped back a little, her eyes darting over to her friends, who had all fallen silent. "Uh- uh, I-" she stammered out.

"Ineptitude isn't a crime, so you're free to go." Kaegan gave her an unfriendly smirk as she began to laugh awkwardly, before turning red and spinning around to rejoin her friends. When the girl had reached the group, she glanced over her shoulder to look at him one more time. Kaegan waved his fingers in a satiric 'goodbye' towards the bunch, and they moved quickly off. Forgetting momentarily about the common room, the boy let out a short laugh and began to walk in the opposite direction, stopping soon after as a girl he recognized from his Charms class crashed into his front.

Caught off guard, Kaegan continued to move on, only half realizing that he'd just been collided with when the girl's stuttering apology reached his ears a few moments later after he had already passed. He came to a halt momentarily, the abrupt stop just violent enough to send his feather floating out of his pocket and down to the ground. Any thoughts of the girl were replaced with the memory of the Charms homework looming tomorrow, and he started to walk briskly to the nearest classroom, pushing open the door and setting his satchel on a desk.

The sound of a soft whisper in the corner by the window alerted Kaegan to someone else's presence. He scowled, resenting the lack of privacy, and turned to snap at the other student, when he realized it was the girl who had bumped into him. She was leaning up against one of the windows, and it looked like she was... crying? Thank God, for the first time it's a girl that isn't in a fit of giggles, Kaegan thought, the relief of not having to deal with another one like that outweighing his contempt at not having the room to himself.

Turning back to his bag, Kaegan began to unpack his feather and wand, deciding that this girl seemed like the least of all evils that could otherwise be in the room. His demeanor, though slightly irked by the encounter with the group in the hallway, was still well-pleased from his performance in class, and without looking up at the girl he said sarcastically:

"Don't worry, the first forty years of childhood are always the hardest."

Kaegan watched as the girl quickly wiped at her face in an attempt to conceal her tears. She spoke to him in an unsteady voice while she turned to go, leaving the boy mildly surprised. For some reason, he felt different towards her, less disdainful than he would have been to the rest of the student body. Perhaps because he was comparing her to the girls in the hall, and she wasn't acting like a total fool around him, or because she seemed smarter and more sensible than most of the others he'd met so far?

Then again, it could just be because the girl was willingly leaving the room, allowing him the quiet he had been looking for.

Still, however, Kaegan wanted to make her feel better.

"No, it's alright. Don't trouble yourself with leaving," he said stiffly, focusing an indifferent stare at the papers on his desk. Ah. This would be harder than he thought. He glanced scrutinizingly at the girl out of the corner of his eye, wondering what could possibly be making her so upset. Just bumping into him in the hallways couldn't have sent her into a whirlwind of tears, could it? Maybe he should rethink his notions of her being sensible.

She didn't seem physically injured, and he hadn't seen anyone near her in the halls, so he doubted she was being bullied by another person- a mischievous poltergeist, maybe? Then, all of a sudden, it hit him as to why she'd looked oddly familiar when he'd entered the room, besides the passing glimpse during their collision.

Yes, he could vaguely remember her from Charms class, but only that she was one of the few that hadn't been able to lift their feather, though he'd heard her say the incantation a multitude of times, in several different ways. That was probably the cause for her dejection- Kaegan had yet to be unable to perform a spell, but he tried to convince himself that he would feel poorly in a similar fashion if that were the case.

The boy muttered an incantation under his breath, flicking his wand upwards with a self-satisfied smile as his feather drifted lazily to the ceiling of the classroom. The student sitting beside him let out a quiet curse, forgetting their own wand to watch Kaegan's. "Nicely done, Mr. Chase," the professor said, looking up at the floating plume. "I see someone's been doing their homework. I expect you all to be this adept by classes next week." The teacher beamed broadly at the boy, not catching the snide undertone when Kaegan mirrored the grin.

The feather still lay on the desk, seemingly limp now that it was no longer in flight.

"If you're really struggling with Charms, I wouldn't mind helping you," Kaegan said distantly, still not looking up at her. If it was this hard to be aloof, he found it difficult to imagine attempting to be genuinely nice.

"It's not quite that difficult, once you know the proper technique. In class you weren't doing any of-" Kaegan cut himself off, scowling. "What I mean is, I'm sure you'll be able to get the hang of it after a while. And you're not impeding on any of my plans- my favorite party trick is not going," the boy said with an ironic smile.

He was pretty sure this was a mistake.