Fear and Fire PV Kit Paine Closed

@Kit Paine

T O P

J E A N S / S H O E S

It was a new voice that answered to Ruka's accusations and if Ruka was surprised he didn't let it show. When Kit stepped out from behind the screen, he would still be sitting on his large cushion, lazily picking at a thread on his jeans. The word Metamorphmagus caused him to look up, a crease in his forehead as he studied the Caretaker carefully. This was the version Ruka had seen around before; tall and tan, curious swirls under differently coloured eyes. Ruka narrowed his own as if trying to figure something out, then adopted a pleasant smile.

"Metamorphmagi," he said slowly. "They can change their appearance at will." Of course he had read about them, but they were supposed to be rare so it certainly hadn't been his first thought. Looking at Kit now it did make sense with how quickly he had just changed forms. "I suppose that would be much more convenient than Polyjuice Potion, wouldn't it? No time limit, no need for anybody else's hair..." He hummed thoughtfully, leaned back a bit to watch Kit take a seat at his table as he talked about hags appearing as children.

Slowly, Ruka stood from his cushion to instead reach for a chair and pull it closer to the caretaker's desk so he could sit opposite him at approximate eye level. A small snort escaped him at the thought of his fellow students being keen. Not that there weren't some particularly smart ones. "Did you consider that maybe you're just more obvious than you think?" he asked, raising his eyebrows. "Might be that whole sneaking around in the shadows thing. If hags are prone to do that it shouldn't be too hard to recognise them." He shuffled forward to sit at the edge of his seat, pressing his elbows against Kit's desk and leaning towards the caretaker and into his personal space. "How do I know you're actually who you say you are?" he asked. "If you can change your appearance at any time, how do I know you're not just making yourself look like the Caretaker?" He pulled his bottom lip between his teeth. "Does it get you a lot of distrust, this ability to change like that?" He snapped his fingers for emphasis, then leaned back again.

The extended hand was regarded with a suspicious look for a moment before Ruka reached out and grasped it firmly to give it a shake. "Ruka Tân," he introduced himself, a small smile curling his lips. "So am I under Hag Suspicion, then?" he asked, stretching his arms out to the side and looking down on himself for a moment. "Is that why you lured me along in your nifty school boy disguise?" A small chuckle escaped him. "Because if that's the case you're looking the wrong way." He frowned. "If you really care for the kids here then hags shouldn't be your only concern anyway. Nor your immediate one." He held up a finger and circled it through the air. "Plenty of human monsters between these walls." He raised a challenging eyebrow, possibly too cocky to be talking to an adult. "Loneliness seems to be the biggest curse in this castle." Bitterness laced his voice. "Seems to be causing much more damage than hags so far, in my experience."

With another small chuckle, Kit waved a finger at Ruka's supposition. "You're correct about metamorphmagi, but I'd ask you to think again when it comes to the question of whether or not it's more convenient than Polyjuice Potion." The caretaker gestured with a hand as he spoke. "Say, for example, someone had a secret birthmark hidden under their clothes on their left shoulder. Polyjuice Potion may be tedious to make, but it could replicate that birthmark without the imposter even knowing about it. A metamorphmagus, however, would have to know of it in order to get it right. They'd have to make sure they knew the exact spot, size, shape, and so forth, too - and not just for that mark. Any number of identifying features could be used to find them out if they aren't careful."

He smiled as he spoke, his tone conversational, as if discussing a favorite hobby rather than giving a lecture. That smile only grew as he listened to Ruka in return, picking up a piece of parchment at his desk and scribbling on it a bit with a quill simultaneously. Every so often he would look up to meet the Irish boy's eye or nod or make some other small noise of acknowledgement to show he was still listening.

"It certainly could be that I'm more obvious than I think," Kit readily agreed, nodding again. "But you'd be surprised how many kids like to slink around in the shadows. Anyway, that wasn't the part I was referring to your fellow students being keen about," he explained, pausing to absently brush the end of his feather quill against the underside of his chin. "I meant the ones who notice there are certain given names not on class rosters and faces that aren't ever seen entering or leaving their respective common rooms. I've even been told some especially determined ones wait at the common room doors trying to spot students I've played as."

Beaming at Ruka's lean foward, Kit flipped his quill around to tickle the tip of the redhead's nose with it. Then he tucked the quill behind an ear and looked thoughtful. In a few minutes, the caretaker's hair had turned the bright copper color that Ruka's was, but Kit plucked one from his own head and held it out to the Gryffindor. The strand held between his fingers was wavy and black like Kit's had originally been. Instantly, he returned the rest to their original ebony.

"First of all," he began, "while I am woefully ignorant on the subject of hags, metamorphmagi hair reverts back to its original form as soon as it's detatched from its owner's body. Beyond a hag, I'm not sure who else you might expect me to be, but you can ask your brother about me if you like." Kit twirled the strand of hair between his fingers a few moments more, staring at it, before finally blowing it away. "He and I knew each other before either of us came to Hogwarts or realized the other was magical. We were pen pals of a sort." Another chuckle. "Not that he likely trusts me any more than you do. Perhaps less, even."

His grin returned when Ruka asked about him getting a lot of distrust, but there was a touch of melancholy to it rather than mirth. "Of course," he answered softly. "But there's a lot of distrust that goes around this school regardless, don't you think?"

Taking a long, deep breath, the caretaker let it out slowly and leaned back in his chair. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Ruka," Kit told him with a wan smile. "And you're not under hag suspicion. I apologize; I only wanted to have a bit of fun. I've known about you for quite some time, now, and how you've become adopted by the Burnetts. Nice to finally get to talk to you face-to-face, though." His gaze drifted down to the parchment he had been scribbling on earlier.

"Thank you for your wise words," Kit continued, nodding once more, "But I'm also quite aware of the other problems plaguing Hogwarts students. That's another reason I take on the shape of students - to get to know them better and let them know someone cares about them. It's a lot easier for kids to get along with peers rather than adults meant to be their authority figures." His smile became sad. "You're right, of course; about loneliness. Unfortunately...I think loneliness is half the reason hags may have been able to so easily infiltrate the school in the first place. And so many of them, too."

@Ruka Burnett-Tân

@Kit Paine

T O P

J E A N S / S H O E S

Ruka considered the Caretaker's words about the differences between Polyjuice Potion and being a Metamorphmagus with a thoughtful hum. "Apologies," he said, tilting his head to the side. "When I say convenient I mean it requires less resources. No real preparation time, no hunting for ingredients, no time restriction. If you're not out to trick someone up close then I doubt anybody would notice a missing birthmark unless it was really obvious." He crossed his arms over his chest for a moment. "But I assume it all depends on why you would want to look like someone else. Pros and Cons, and all that." His lips curled into a grin as he mustered Kit thoughtfully, watching him reach for some parchment and a quill to start scribbling away on it.

The thought that some students were actively keeping an eye out for the children the Caretaker posed as sometimes would earn Kit a slightly disapproving hum. "You mean they're now actively looking for you in disguise rather than... I don't know, focusing on school work, or on actual dangers? Sounds like you're enjoying being a bit of a red herring." His lips curled into a small smirk, which left his face again as the tip of Kit's quill tickled his nose.

Taking a deep breath, Ruka leaned back to stifle a sneeze in the crook of his left elbow, a grimace pulling across his face for a moment. By the time he had recovered again, Kit's hair had taken on a familiar copper shade, and Ruka watched curiously as he pulled out a single hair to show the way it instantly reverted back to an ebony colour. "What would happen to it if you were bald?" he asked eagerly, watching the hair between Kit's fingers in fascination. "Would it vanish? Turn whichever colour it would be if you had any?" The thought made him feel a bit giddy though the feeling ebbed away almost immediately, the second Kit mentioned Ruka's brother.

Drawing his bottom lip between his teeth, Ruka let out a low rumble of discontent. "It's nothing personal," he said quietly. "I don't trust anyone. Not really." Averting his eyes for a moment, Ruka folded his hands on top of Kit's desk.

At the Caretaker's mention of there being a lot of distrust around already, Ruka let out a dry chuckle. "Not nearly enough sometimes, and usually misplaced," he decided with a bitterness he tried to ban from his voice again by forcing his lips into a smile when he looked back up at Kit. "How would you know I'm the kid that got adopted?" he asked, raising his eyebrows. "What if you're talking to the wrong person here?" His gaze followed Kit's down to the parchment and he frowned at the lines forming on it. He thought he could make out shapes but the angle at which he looked at them made it hard to figure out what the end result was supposed to be. "What are you drawing?" he wondered, tempted to reach out but holding himself back.

Instead he focused on Kit's words, expression turning blank. The sad smile on the Caretaker's face made his breath catch in his throat for a moment, but it wasn't enough for him to shake other emotions. "These kids are lonely, and your solution is to offer them a temporary pretend friendship?" he asked, though there was no judgment in his voice. He looked at Kit like he was a book written in a foreign language. "Don't you think they'd feel even lonelier finding out that whoever they opened up to and trusted wasn't actually who they said they were?" He pressed against the backrest of his chair, curled his fingers around the edges of Kit's desk. "What does loneliness have to do with hags? Why would it be a reason for them to come here?" He stayed quiet, dropped his gaze to his hands. "Makes us easy prey, does it?" Green eyes flickered back up to meet Kit's. Heterochromatic. Curious. "Lonely, and too eager not to be."

Kit continued to smile, nodding at Ruka's further explanation about Polyjuice Potion. "No apologies necessary," he said, teasing. "I get what you mean."

The redhead's comment about Kit distracting students from actual dangers caused the noiret to laugh aloud. "It was just one or two students I discovered was doing this. Also, being on the lookout for me tells me they are on the lookout for actual dangers since it's true I wasn't who I seemed to be. But I won't deny that I've been enjoying myself," the young man conceeded with a sheepish sort of grin. It was the kind that somehow managed to be sorry and yet not sorry at the same time.

"Bless you," he said at Ruka's sneeze. Snickering at the many questions that followed the plucking of his hair, he scratched his head, shrugging. "You know, that's a good question," he commented with another laugh. "I'm thinking it would vanish, though. I'll let you know if I try it out."

Kit continued to regard Ruka, amused at the rumbles and hums he made as he thought. He retrieved the quill again and scribbled a little more upon being told that Ruka didn't really trust anyone, nodding slowly, as he considered the statement and what it truly ment. "Not even Jack, then?" he asked quietly, not looking up from the parchment.

The bitterness of Ruka's tone eventually did draw Kit's attention once again and the caretaker stopped scribbling. He eyed the tight smile, his own having faded already, but couldn't help a small sneer when asked how he knew Ruka was the kid who got adopted. Back to scribbling he went.

"I keep my eyes and ears open. Not just as an imposter student, but as the caretaker. I watch and listen to who calls who what, making certain before I jump to conclusions. And c'mon. Who else carries around fire fans like that?" He made a movement with his free hand as if opening a fan. "Not too many people at this school who can call themselves fire dancers. Word travels fast."

When asked what he was drawing, Kit paused, sat up, took one more look at the parchment and held it up for Ruka to see. It was a quick sketch of Ruka himself as he appeared sitting at Kit's desk across from Kit. Then he put it back down and returned his full attention to Ruka, setting the quill down beside it before crossing his fingers lightly over the top of his desk.

"My solution is to offer lonely kids a true friendship," the caretaker corrected, speaking seriously. "Even if they find out I'm someone other than who they first thought, it would only be superficially. In reality, I'd still be their friend. I genuinely care about them. I just have to get my foot in the door first to make them understand that." He briefly gestured down at himself. "Taking on different appearances and befriending them under those guises is my way of doing that."

Listening to Ruka ask about what loneliness had to do with hags, he was silent for a while. That silence was soon rewarded by the Gryffindor's answering of his own questions. Kit nodded once more and adopted a renewed grin. "That's right," he confirmed. "At least, that's the way I see it. So if I can befriend a kid or two here and there...I figure anything helps."

@Ruka Burnett-Tân

@Kit Paine

T O P

J E A N S / S H O E S

The sound of Kit's laughter made Ruka smile against his will. He wanted to hide or suppress it, but there was something about the grin the Caretaker accompanied his words with that kept him from looking away. Instead he raised his eyebrows and lightly shook his head as if though in disapproval. "You're sure you're not a kid posing as a grown-up, are you?" he asked, though he couldn't keep the amusement from tinting his voice.

His features brightened further as Kit entertained his question about the hair he had pulled out for demonstration, nodding eagerly at the Caretaker. As quickly as his good mood had come, however, it plummeted again.

Letting out a disgruntled hum, Ruka frowned at Kit, eyes narrowed. "I trust Jack to put himself into more trouble than he ought to," he said vaguely, crossing his arms over his chest. After a moment of silence, he untangled his arms again to instead brace them against Kit's desk, leaning forward to muster the young man in front of him curiously. "What did you do to make him distrust you? How do you know each other?" Ruka didn't think he had ever heard Jack mentioning the Caretaker before, not on a personal level. It made his stomach churn uncomfortably. "And why do you care whether I trust him or not?"

There was only a brief moment in which Kit looked at him before returning to his parchment scribbles, and Ruka found himself torn between amusement and frustration. "Anybody ever tell you it's rude to have a conversation and not really look at the person you're talking to?" The frustration was banned from his voice, but the amusement dripped from it as a small smirk curled Ruka's lips.

"If you knew what they are, why did you look at them like I was carrying sabres with me?" he asked in minor outrage when Kit mentioned his fire fans. He narrowed his eyes again, tilting his head to the side. "I think you were just guessing and got lucky. You couldn't be sure until I gave you my name, and I didn't even give you my full one, so..." He tapped a finger against his chin. "Did Jack tell you my name?"

He leaned forward again to get a good look at the parchment Kit held up for him, studying the drawing without being able to hide a small amount of awe in his expression. "Do you do that a lot?" he asked. "Just draw people you're talking to while you're talking to them?"

Slumping back into his chair, Ruka found himself frowning at Kit's words, a shake of his head underlining his lack of understanding. "It's not a true friendship if it's built on deceit," he pointed out, wagging a finger through the air. "You might genuinely care about them, but that won't stop them from feeling betrayed once they find out you're not who you say you are." He pulled his bottom lip between his teeth for a moment, humming thoughtfully. "And don't say it's just a superficial change. It's a lie. You gave me a different name when I asked for yours. The second you give people a name that isn't actually yours it becomes a lie. That's untrustworthy. You can't get people to trust you by being untrustworthy." He tried and failed to stop himself from rolling his eyes. "What about when they realise they've been talking to the Caretaker, rather than a fellow student and it makes them so paranoid they don't trust anybody to be who they are anymore?" Another thoughtful hum. "What if, by the end of what you're trying to do you're just making things worse for those kids? The road to hell is paved with good intentions after all." He averted his eyes for a moment, then locked them with Kit's again. "I don't think there's any feeling worse than thinking you've found a friend just for them to be gone all of a sudden. For whatever reason."

"Ouch, do you really think so little of me?" Kit asked when the ginger-haired boy asked if he was sure he wasn't a kid posing as a grown-up. Though his words suggested his having taken offense, he continued to grin as he spoke with the same amusement in his tone that Ruka had possessed in his own.

When the subject of Jack came around, Kit's brows rose at the change in Ruka's demeanor. He watched the Gryffindor lean forward, smiling sheepishly and looking away as if embarrassed when asked what he had done to make Jack distrust him.

"We met when he was younger and his family had taken a vacation in America where I lived at the time," the young man admitted. "I used to tease him sometimes. Use wordplay and loopholes to get the better of him in arguments. He became more wary of me after that, but we still kept on relatively good terms. Otherwise he wouldn't have still written to me and kept me as a pen pal once he'd returned home." Kit shrugged. "He stopped writing me eventually and I'm not sure why, but I don't think it was because of anything I did. I assumed he just got busy with school or his friends or something. Maybe he forgot about me."

He looked back up at Ruka. "I care because I think it's important to have at least one person in the world you can trust. It's terribly cold and unforgiving out there if you don't. Life's hard enough as it is to try to get through." The caretaker gazed back down at his sketch then.

His head jerked back up when the Irish boy asked if anyone told him it was rude not to look at the person you were talking to. Kit's lop-sided grin betrayed more of that sheepish guilt that suggested he didn't really feel all that badly. "Yes, I've been told," he confessed. "But it's easier to concentrate on what people tell me when I do this as opposed to staring at them while they talk. Or while I talk. The way people's faces change and their body language tells stories can be extremely distracting otherwise. Besides," he added with a chuckle, "I get the impression you don't seem to mind all that much what's considered rude and what isn't."

Deep-throated laughter erupted from him when Ruka asked about his reaction to the fire fans. "I wasn't sure that was what they were for until you told me. So yes, I was guessing. But it was an educated guess." Kit settled his knuckles. "And yes, Jack mentioned your name, but only after I asked about you. I'd heard briefly about a last name change in attending student rosters with the Burnetts adopting another Hogwarts student, see, so I'd got wind of it beforehand."

He beamed when Ruka seemed to appreciate his work. "Regarding drawing people while talking to them...yes, I do. Like I said, helps me concentrate on what they're saying. It also seems more official when people think I'm taking notes while they talk to me," he added with a sly wink.

Sitting back as the third year did, Kit contemplated what was being said to him, adding more to his sketch of the student as he did so. His brow corregated slightly as he thought how similar it seemed to be to what Kazuo Shimada had told him earlier that year. Then he heaved a deep sigh.

"I see what you're saying," he conceeded. "I suppose you think it'd be best if I just stayed myself instead of trying to befriend kids as peers, then...?"

@Ruka Burnett-Tân

@Kit Paine

T O P

J E A N S / S H O E S

Ruka let out a laugh at the Caretaker's mock-offence. "I don't really know you, do I?" he pointed out. "Still need to figure out what I think of you."

Watching the way Kit suddenly seemed to turn sheepish, Ruka's brows furrowed as he listened intently to his words about meeting Jack, about using loopholes and wordplay, and being pen pals until his brother had seemingly forgotten about the Caretaker, for whatever reason. "Was this before he started Hogwarts?" Ruka wondered, tilting his head to the side. Simply forgetting about someone didn't sound like Jack, he thought. Not without a reason at least. Breaking off contact out of nowhere, that sounded more like him, but again Ruka doubted it was for something as trivial as getting preoccupied with school. "Jack doesn't have friends," he added with raised eyebrows, snorting ungracefully. "And I don't take him to be the type to just forget about someone." He didn't want to, at least. The thought was more terrifying than he allowed to show in his expression. "Why did you leave America?" he asked before his mind could get stuck on the thought of simply being forgotten.

Locking his gaze with Kit when he looked up, Ruka pursed his lips in obvious disagreement with what the Caretaker had just said. "All of you and your trust," he said, a bitter aftertaste left on his tongue by the word. He looked away for a stretched out moment of silence. "In my experience, trusting people is exactly what makes life hard. The only person you can really trust is yourself, and even that's questionable at times." He took a deep breath, reached a hand up to ruffle his own hair. "Trusting people can break you," he decided firmly. "And I feel broken enough as it is already." Truly, it was better to do things by himself, try to keep an eye on the people he cared about rather than trusting them to take care of themselves, look out for his own needs and wants rather than trusting others to respect them. He was so sick of the concept.

Calling Kit out on being rude did little more than elicit a grin from the caretaker that betrayed how little guilt he felt over the matter. "Distracting?" Ruka repeated in a question, eyebrows furrowed. "I'd have thought body language and facial expressions would be more revealing than anything else. Help you figure out if someone is lying, feeling uncomfortable, nervous, scared, confident. Isn't that an important part of communication?" After all, wasn't it Jack who constantly pointed out how little spoken words actually contributed to a conversation as a whole? How much communication was happening in the way someone held themselves, moved? Was Kit really willing to miss out on that much just because he thought it was distracting? With a small laugh, Ruka shrugged his shoulders when the Caretaker pointed out that he didn't seem like he cared much for what was considered rude or not. "I didn't say I minded," he pointed out with a grin. "I'm not actually concerned with your manners, I was just curious."

Another laugh escaped him when Kit admitted to having made an educated guess on who he was. "Why did you ask him about me?" he wondered, leaning forward again, eyes narrowing. "If he distrusts you right now, maybe the reason he stopped writing to you was because of something you did. After all, if it was just that he got busy and forgot about you for a while, wouldn't you still just be on relatively good terms?" He pulled his bottom lip between his teeth and gnawed on it for a while. "Jack seems to put his trust into almost everyone and everything, so why not you? Can't just be that you're good with loopholes and wordplay, I'd think he'd enjoy that." He pressed the palms of his hands together and placed his chin on the tip of his fingers as he mustered Kit curiously. "You're not out to hurt him, are you?" And was that not what it always came down to? This constant fear, forever and always, who was trying to hurt his brother next? He felt sick.

It was a welcome distraction that he got to take a look at Kit's sketch of him, and he couldn't quite help the laugh that escaped him at the Caretaker's words. "Of course," he said, as if that made all the sense in the world.

Kit's demeanour seemed to change a little as he listened to Ruka's words about his attempts at befriending students by pretending to be a peer. It almost made him feel bad about having said what he did, but he stood behind his opinion. It seemed damaging more than anything else. "I don't know," he answered quietly, shrugging. "I know nothing about friendship. I just know I'd feel pretty awful if I found out someone I considered myself close to was actually someone else in disguise. People deserve to know exactly who they are talking to, don't you think?"