Unhealthy Obsession PV: Tory

Tory’s day had been very boring, to say the least. Her morning had been awfully usual, her classes had been sleepily standard, and her lunch had been disappointingly habitual. And now, she was doing her routinely library visit.

At this point in the year she had already read half of the history area (including Hogwarts: A History about 15 times) and all of the potions section, and now she was catching up on fantastic beasts while sitting at her favorite table in the whole place- an old dusty one placed as far away from the windows as possible. She always sat there because she seemed to like the library best in the dark, and reading just felt diffferent when you were all curled up in the very back of the room with barely enough sunlight to see. It was always very tranquil in the Hogwarts athenaeum, and even though she did adore the Gryffindor common room dearly, sometimes it was just too noisy and distracting for Tory to actually be with her thoughts.

Speaking of tranquil, Tory had been so peacefully deep into her book that she hadn't even noticed the boy sitting across from her, and when she finally had, she had almost fallen out of her chair in surprise. When the brunette had finally managed to get back into her chair, she peered over, suspicious, at the boy. He had silver oval glasses, and looked about Tory's age. He was similarly a Gryffindor as well; Tory had seen him once maybe twice in the common room, but she wasn't familiar with him.

He was obviously occupied with something, and his hand was busily moving back and forth across a piece of paper. She leaned forward to see what it was, but then mentally slapped herself when she realized what she was doing. What in flobberworm's name are you doing?! Your not supposed to just creep up on people and spy on their personal art! One side of herself scolded, but then another very crude urge washed over her to spy on him.

After all, nobody except for Tory ever sat at this table unless they were doing something so private or mischevious that they couldn't sit at other tables because people would surround them and question them and they would end up getting detention for a long time or losing all their friends. So, slowly, she fought against her actually reasonable and sensible side and, just like a spy, glared at his pictures over her book.

It was a pretty girl with a very intense, irritated almost look spread across her beautiful face. She had long hair that looked to be pulled back in a plait or ponytail. Tory's spying suddenly seemed very absurd as she saw this picture, in fact, more than one picture. A whole stack of pictures, only of that girl. Tory started breathing heavily, and not because of the heavy dust in the library, but because she felt very creeped out by this perverted person. I mean, who in godric's name keeps a stack of sketches of one girl. "Who is this? And why do you have a gillion pictures of her?" She blurted, with a very small smile of worry for this boy's mental health plastered on her face.

@Jackson Valentine

@Tory Williamson

Who is this?

Valentine wasn't the sort to object when approached. He wouldn't pass on a well-mannered conversation, and sometimes even went along with maliciously intended ones just to see how they would play out. However, there were times when his patience waned, mostly as a result of his own overthinking. This time, in particular, it was because he was embarrassed.

Who wouldn't be upon being caught with dozens of sketches of the same girl? One might have assumed he had an obsession. It was natural, though, right? What with all the hormones kicking in at the tender age of eleven when boys first began to gain their attraction for the opposite gender. Or perhaps it was something else entirely.

He turned to face the girl who had come up alongside him, scanning her expression for a recognizable face. Only brief recollections came, passing moments in the Gryffindor common room where he had noticed her vanishing into or emerging from the girl's dormitory. They were from the same house, that was the most he could ascertain.

Evidently, she looked disturbed by what he was doing, as if she had caught a robber in the act. Except, he wasn't a robber, and there was nothing in the rules that prevented him from doing what he did. Who was she to stick her nose into his business anyway?

"It's a Slytherin girl. What's wrong with having a gillion pictures of her?"

“Uh, well, it’s a bit...” Tory searched around for a word, as if it weren’t obvious, then eyed the drawings again and finished flatly, “...stalker-ish.” She knew having a crush was fine, and although it still disgusted Tory, it was perfectly normal. This, however, she could tell was not just a meer crush, but something much more. Something more worse or fortunate she could not yet tell- and she didn’t know if she wanted to.

Honestly,Tory understood that it was offending (and also extremely rude) to just point fingers and think people were weird and intimate, but she couldn’t really help herself in this situation. She really, really, really, wanted this to be a misunderstanding, but it unfortunately looked exactly what it was, or at least that’s what she thought.

Anyways, the boy quite clearly did not realize what was wrong with this, so Tory took a breath and attempted to explain.

“Plus, imagine yourself in her position. You wouldn’t like it if somebody had billions of drawings and pictures of you without your consent now would you?” Tory never actually found out if he had the mysterious girl’s consent or not, but she was going to assume not because who in the world would say “yes” to getting a billion pictures of them with an angry face drawn? She glared down at the pictures again- trying to comprehend who it was. She didn’t know any Slytherins, but she could still attempt to recognize the boldly annoyed looking face. She racked her brain, but nobody had ever come to mind. Throughout all the Slytherins the Gryffindor had passed in the halls and had classes with, the girl matched nobody’s appearance.

This was turning out to be a (very abnormal) mini-mystery, one that Tory was willing to solve.

@Jackson Valentine