Haaaaave you met Cadmus? PV Jack Burnett Finished

@Jack Burnett

Jake hung his head slightly as Jack said he knew that Jake was smarter than a lot of kids their age. Was he...? Maybe...but he didn't feel like he was. Jack was of course...Jake knew that, because of how much he knew. It wasn't just that he knew a lot of words Jake didn't, though that was part of it. It was that no matter what the subject Jack had something to say about it. Jake didn't know if he was smart or if he wasn't. His mum always said he was (though she always said nice things about him), but he didn't feel like it at Hogwarts. How could he be when everybody else was better than him at magic? Sure, he did good at non-magic subjects like astronomy or history of magic - pretty good at least, even though astronomy was so late he could barely stay awake for it - but if he was smarter than a lot of other kids how come he didn't feel like it? And how come there was so much he didn't know? Jake didn't voice his doubts, but perhaps his face showed them. His face was always an open book.

Through this mild admonishment, Jack's tone had softened slightly, and as it did Jake's demeanor changed to match. The tension went away for the moment, and they were just talking again. Jack had listened to everything he was saying. It was something Jake liked about Jack. Sometimes it seemed like people didn't listen to Jake. Maybe it was because he was small, or maybe it was because he was quiet, but Jack always let him talk, no matter how much or little he knew about what he was talking about. This time he felt like he did know... and even though Jack and him thought different about it, Jack didn't stop him from talking.

"Oh..." Jake mumbled, as Jack explained what he had meant. That hadn't been how it had sounded before. "Well maybe..." Jake admitted. He couldn't say that every animal felt exactly like he did. It was probably that they felt sort of like he did and sort of not. And all animals weren't the same... He felt more like dogs than like cats, for example. "But isn't that the same thing...?" he asked confused. He had thought content-ness meant happy. And was it really different if you were angry or aggressive? Sad or uncomfortable? Either way it meant you felt sad, or upset, hurt. They might not have used the same words, but they weren't far apart either.

Jack continued explaining, using the anthro- word again... and Jake might have asked once and for all what it meant but there was no time, because Jack was telling him things he couldn't believe. That the jealous dogs weren't really jealous, they just wanted food. He squinted at Jack, not sure where he was getting all this from. That wasn't how it was at all... but while he listened mostly quietly, when Jack talked about how the dogs just wanted to avoid danger, Jake couldn't help but speak.

"No, not just that..." Jake said softly. "Avoiding danger and being scared is different." The Hufflepuff looked down at his feet for a moment. The way the dog's eyes would show his unease, the way his body language would tense up to show his caution, the alert way he looked around... it was all behavior that Jake knew well. Maybe it was why he loved his uncle's dog Bruce so much. Because he knew what he felt like when he was scared.

He waited then until Jack had finished speaking. Jack had said dogs might get happy for other reasons than food (they had to, cause if it was just food, how come they would care when their owner had been gone a year if they still had food when they were gone?) But owls...well...Jake had never met anybody who had a pet owl before Hogwarts, so all he could talk about were the school birds.

But...What did being a social animal have to do with anything? You didn't feel emotions because there was a use for them, right? You just felt them because you were alive.

"What does needing got to do with it...? Don't people just have feelings because they have them...?" he asked, not realizing how blunt the question sounded in his confusion. He wished that it WAS about needing. Then maybe he'd have only the feelings he needed and not the ones he didn't. Then his feelings would match better with everyone else's. He always tried not to make his feelings show on his face but it never worked. People could always tell when he was upset or bothered. He watched how easily some of his friends like George and Jack Warren could talk to anybody with a big smile on their face, and when it was his turn to talk he felt like his mouth didn't want to open. There were lots of feelings that didn't do anything but make him feel bad. How come he had to have those? "People have lots of feelings there's no use for..."

Jake looked at Cadmus again who was tilting his head and regarding him, perhaps wondering why they had stopped for so long to talk to this strange boy. His (possible) impatience towards Jake was not lost on the boy, and Jake wondered if maybe he should let the owl fly back to Georgie. After all, that way he'd be out of earshot in case Jack was very wrong about what animals could understand which Jake was quite sure he was.

"I dunno how to prove it with owls....I can't prove it 'cause I'm not an owl. It's just that....I just know he feels things...I know he understands me. Cause of his eyes. I dunno how to say it it's just...in his eyes. If he didn't understand me, wouldn't I know?"

Jack heaved a deep sigh. "Saying contentedness and happiness are the same thing is like saying someone who can see only in reds and greens can see colors the same as someone who can see the full spectrum of colors. It's a matter of intensity and range. Being content just means being satisfied; not happy. Does that make sense?" He tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Like...maybe whatever food you gave Cadmus, he would be content with it, but no particular food would make him happier than any other kind of food. Maybe to him, it's all the same and food is just food."

He looked at Jake and snapped his fingers at the mention of avoiding danger and being scared of it being different things. "Yeah, like that. That's not the same either, right? That's about as different as being content and being happy. One is about fulfilling needs or following instincts. The other is more about an intensity of emotions that doesn't really serve a purpose." Jack spread his arms as he spoke, gesturing matter-of-factly. "Personally, I think animals are smarter than humans anyway. It's why they don't have useless emotions that might make them try to die for another because they know it's survival of the fittest. They do what they can to survive; not worry about the weak."

The Slytherin winced when the Hufflepuff brought up the fact that poeple have feelings regardless of whether they needed them or not. "Yes...that's where I think we're flawed," Jack told him. "That's what I think is wrong with us. I mean, think about it. Dogs are way more reliant on their owners than cats are usually, right? They also seem to show a lot more emotion toward them. Some don't even eat until their masters get home because they're anxious. But what purpose does that serve except to be detrimental toward their own survival? It makes them reliant rather than independant. That's why dogs end up more domesticated than cats generally would have a harder time surviving in the wild if their owners turned them loose."

It was then that Jack noticed Jake looking at the bird on his arm again; the one that was tilting its head at him. He realized Jake's arm must have been hurting terribly by then after holding it out for so long and all Jack could do was blab on and on about his idea of animals, humans, and their capacities for emotions.

"I'm sorry," he apologized, visibly drooping. "You shouldn't have to feel like you need to prove anything. We just have different opinions, that's all. And unless we become scientists sometime soon, that's probably all they'll be." He regarded Jake. "If he didn't understand you, Morris, I doubt you'd know unless your mail wasn't delivered properly. You can say you can tell from his eyes all you want, but...I just don't see how bird eyes like that would change whether he understood something you said or not. If they understand us well enough to deliver mail, all I can chalk it up to is Wizarding World magic." He gestured vaguely. "But that's just what I think. You're free to think what you want, too. It's not my place to try to change your mind."

He nodded toward Cadmus. "He must be getting hard to hold up, huh? Maybe you should put him back."

@Jake Morris

@Jack Burnett

Jake squinted up at Jack when the older boy asked if what he was explaining made sense. "I guess so...." Jake answered, though his tone suggested that maybe he wasn't totally sure.

It did sorta make sense. So content was how you felt when you had just eaten a really good lunch or something, and happy was how you felt when the Hogwarts express was pulling up to the station and you knew you were about to see your parents again....But..."But that's not true though! He does like some foods more than other foods! You just gotta spend enough time with him to know. Lots of animals have favorite foods..." It sounded like that wasn't really the point though...and Jake trailed off and went quiet for a moment.

"Um....but so what if his feelings are a little different from mine? It's not all different, right? So...then there's some stuff that's the same. People are animals too, right? So...so people and animals can still understand each other if we try. We just gotta find the ways we're not different." Sure, owls had owl feelings, and humans had human feelings, but there had to be some of it that overlapped. Maybe Cadmus felt happiness different from Jake did, but it couldn't be from another universe. Why else would it look so much the same?

But it turned out Jack didn't think animals were worse than humans. He thought they were better...and for one of the strangest reasons of all.

"Do ya really think that...?" Jake asked, frowning a little.

"If we have feelings and we don't need 'em, and dogs have feelings and dogs don't need 'em...maybe other animals are the same way. But...um...but I don't think we're broken...Feelings...well....they're what makes everything special. If you didn't have 'em, you'd just be like a robot and you'd never be happy again. That seems even worse than being sad sometimes..." Jake said softly. He had always known that Jack had way different thoughts about feelings and friendship than he did, but it never stopped seeming strange.

The young Hufflepuff looked up, peering deeper into Jack's eyes to try to find some meaning in them. The reason that he knew he could understand Cadmus was because eyes sometimes spoke better than words did. Sometimes that was a problem...sometimes Jake had no idea what to say but people took one look at his face and knew exactly what he was thinking. Jake was getting a little better at understanding the faces of other children...but Jack was one that was always a little bit of a mystery. Jack talked about how human and animals feelings were different, but sometimes Jake thought he was as different from Jack as humans were from owls. He wondered what Jack would have thought about that, if he told it to him. He wondered if he'd think that was a good point.

But Jack had said he wasn't going to try to change Jake's mind, and even though Jake still wanted to try to change his, he was right that Jake's arm was starting to hurt. Though Jake didn't really want to admit it, when Jack said it must be getting hard to hold Cadmus up, it was like it got willed into existence and suddenly it felt twice as hard as before. For a moment the small boy was still quiet. It felt like there was still so much more to say. But then he gave a look of admittance, and finally nodded his head. "Okay...." he said, a little disappointed. For the first time, he had been so sure that he was right but he hadn't managed to change Jack's mind at all.

"I'll go bring him back to Georgie. But um...well even though we think different...I bet Cadmus can still see that you're nice so...even though I know you don't think he knows better, I still don't think he minds." Jake shrugged. The boy gave a small wave goodbye to Jack, and turned to head for the Hufflepuff table. It seemed like every time he talked to Jack, he always left with a lot on his mind.

While Jake might not have been able to provide proof that animals had favorite foods or that their feelings overlapped with the kind of feelings humans had, Jack couldn’t prove Jake’s beliefs wrong, either. And if Jack couldn’t be sure of how Jake, as another human being, felt and experienced emotions, how could he be any more sure that animals didn’t feel the same way? Jake was right with the fact that people were animals, after all. These uncertain thoughts caused Jack’s resolve to waver in his arguing which was another reason he had wanted to drop the subject.

Even if he liked to act like he knew a lot, Jake had probably given Jack at least as much to think about as Jack had given him whether he knew it or not. Like the notion that human emotions were special, even if Jack preferred to think of them as detrimental to human survival and that humans would be better without them altogether. Some part of him felt that maybe that might not have not been true. Emotions were how people fell to despair, but they were how they overcame obstacles as well. His negative and bitter views on the subject probably just stemmed from the suffering he’d had to endure due to caring so much about others whether he wanted to or not.

The disappointment in Jake’s voice almost got to Jack, but his pride wouldn’t allow him to cave. He smiled weakly when the Hufflepuff explained that he would bring the owl back to his owner but that he still bet that ‘Cadmus could still see that he was nice even if Jack didn’t think he knew better’ and that he didn’t think Cadmus minded. To that, the redhead simply nodded and waved in response to Jake’s before returning to his own Slytherin table, his mind still reeling with possibilities.

@Jake Morris