Evil PV Levi Closed

Banner By Winnie Harper

@Gideon Athanatos

With October's arc came the eye of autumn, summer finally drifting off to rest until the year circled around again, thereby molding a space for a chill to brew in the fresh air and kindly bite those who wandered about the weeds in its wake. It was a time to hail and worship, succumb to fate and mortality in the little things by watching the Earth’s reminder of the slow death that not only they were born for, but everything else as well. Trees, letting go of their loved buds once they curled into fetal position and crumbled with the gentlest touch, their lively green tint draining into the gravel and leaving a bloodless broken residue and jagged, bare branches. Hogwarts, alongside whatever magic defended its stone, was not exempt from the verbal law of mother nature, and the Grounds never looked more alive than when they were half-dead.

Something about death’s promise when it was so beautiful as piles of dead leaves ready to drown you in a gory splash, or pumpkin guts scattered about to leave a selfish candlelit shadow in another’s demise, it drew the students of Hogwarts to a common area. There were a few cliques meeting beneath various barren trees or sprawled in yellowing and growing grass, violent giggles like melodies to the ears of Levi Drakos. The brunet walked along a vaguely muddy, narrow pathway, breathing silently to let their hisses become words, their words become truths meant only for the canals of swirling scarves that fluttered in the wind with orange flakes, ash from the burnt remnants of spring and summer. Wrapped around their necks, warm and tender but dangling limp once the breeze occasionally fell, he had to wonder if he was the sole one to see them for what they were.

A thin smile graced the boy’s lips, pretending the trunks in which they carved were cadavers and they, just pellucid souls trying to learn what was beneath the layers of flesh and bark. How much of this was imagination and how much of it was a glimpse into a world he was not yet ready for, there was no time to decide, as he was suddenly jolted back into the realm of purity and childhood by a blaring voice ringing over the harmonic hum of a funeral march. That moment was like being woken from a dream, flashbacks of corpses and lifeless turf flickering behind his gaze but their images becoming colorless blurs before fading to black. His feet stopped abruptly, shoes sliding an inch ahead of his body with the sudden break check.

"Hey, hey you!"

Levi glanced in the direction it had come from, a nearby blond boy with a carefree demeanor proceeding to invite him over for chocolate tea—whatever that was. Against the grass, his teal sheet was blinding, as though the sky had surgically slit a hole in the ground to fit the chunk of its wonder that was hidden by the mountains on the north horizon. The blond was surrounded by a young girl’s muses, an eyesore of a unicorn and a rather charmingly worn teddy bear, plus an array of decorative dishes half-empty of the apparent “chocolate tea” as though the stuffed animals had actually been sipping from the cups. Despite the borderline absurdity of it all compared to the too-big-for-their-britches attitude of his peers, his grin hadn’t evaporated, instead widening as he nodded and stepped forward to take a seat on the vacant side of the party.

“It’d be my pleasure,” He sang, sinking into the spot and shooting a curious glance in the direction of his host. Something buzzed by his right ear, provoking an alarmed swat with some useless insect dropping alongside him. Surely drawn by the delicacies? For a split second, his glare lingered on the plate of food before deciding bugs would always swarm the dying seasons. “Quite the party you have going on here. Levi Drakos. Could I be introduced?” Not only to the fancified, slightly shorter boy himself, but whatever… friends, these stuffies were joining them for the meal.

Banner By Winnie Harper

@Gideon Athanatos

It didn’t take a year to notice that everyone here had grown up too quickly. Be this the result of catastrophe, of their magic blood, of the inexplicable rope of trauma that bound itself around the student body and staff, it was doubtlessly present. If this teal blanket had been situated in the damp autumn grass of a muggle playground, and not against an angsty backdrop, maybe it wouldn’t carve a rumbling cavity in his stomach, a feeling of deep-seated wrongness. Like a child’s shoe laying pristine in the wreckage of a stricken town, something that indubitably had a story behind it. It doesn’t provide a sense of safety or innocence; it only makes onlookers question what such a pretty thing is doing wilting away in a heap of soot.

Ignorance wasn’t the problem, nor was a faulty near-sighted perception bred by a life drenched in carnations and fairytales. Levi never had that pleasure, or at least not of the feelings it was meant to spin. It was narcissism, the same thing it always was, an air of sureness that whatever was wrong with this boy and his display of girl’s toys couldn’t be worse than what was wrong with him, so where was the harm in entertaining it? Perhaps the brunet thought of it as a charity, giving back to the world which so kindly gives nothing to him.

"I have chocolate tea, cookies and biscuits,"

Levi cocked his head to the right, gaze trailing over again toward the assortment of food and half-empty cups. What the hell was chocolate tea? He couldn’t ask, that would make him look stupid in front of someone who dressed like he’d have something to say about it. Instead, the boy merely nodded, combatting concerned wide eyes with a hard blink to wash away another overly transparent façade. “Appear quite sweet,” Levi reached out and grabbed a baked good of some sort, twirling it in his fingers before placing it down in front of him.

When the blond confided his name, there was a distant light bell of what could be recognition had Levi paid more attention to people that weren’t him. For a moment, a surreal state, stretching his fingertips for a gaseous memory that evaporated into nothingness before ever reaching his grip. It left him curious with a cold wind brushing his flesh, yet not enough to vocalize should it all be the work of an unconscious mind. “Pleasure’s all mine,” He mused to fill the setting autumn silence, rubbing his knuckles as though their raw texture would dig deeper in his head for answers to the wrong questions.

Giddy might as well have asked “would you like some tea with that sweetener?” The older student hadn’t quite shaken that childish sweet tooth, the very same one that left him occasionally eyeing the dessert he’d placed in front of him only seconds ago, but the small cup the other boy had poured for him was now soaked into a slew of fluffy tea-flavored marshmallows. Levi raised it to his nose, wary of taking a sip—if that were possible given the state of the “beverage”. He may have to absorb whatever “chocolate tea” was from said marshmallows one at a time.

“Why thank you, what a considerate host,” His words were accented by a slight chuckle, one meant to convey genuine gratitude but that came off with a tad of condescension dripping from the laugh.

Associates, he’d said. Not friends, stuffed animals, or toys. In that moment, the rubble they’d spawned in became all the more clear. Finding a bit of debris scattered over the pure thing crushed in the vacant street, then beginning to understand why it was there in the first place. The tragedy hadn’t missed it, there was nothing divine of its existence but that its damage was on the side you couldn’t see, or the wind had blown it here when fate deemed this the fitting setting. And he introduced them, these associates and their adorable names, speaking in oxymorons. Faithless faith had gotten them this far.

“They make good company I see.” It was difficult to know what to say, whether to play into the delusion or let him know their surroundings were no coincidence.

“Yes, please.” If Giddy was offering the cookie, that erased any guilt of eating it. Levi would take it appreciatively before taking a small bite, a reckless move, but he currently had no reason to question the treats rather than build what could be valuable alliance. Or association. Violent delights had violent ends, and either way, he’d know more in due time.

"Certainly my brothers don't hate you enough to inflict me upon you."

A lot of people hated him enough to inflict a lot of things. Leonard Oaksworth, Marshal Mozor, but perhaps none to quite the extent of “Mathias” Pride. Between their kiss, the pepper spray, the multitude of injuries faced as a result of their rivalry even if not always inflicted by the bloodied hands of the other. He’d willingly cast a dozen hexes on the red head, but nothing to ever fully chase him away, because with him would go his only source of entertainment. His last, weak thread dangling him over a year of boredom. Levi glanced up at the blond, looking for similar traits. No. They were too different, right? It couldn’t be. He resisted the urge to spit out the cookie.

“Well, I sat because I’m intrigued, but you’d be surprised. Who might your brothers be?”

Banner By Winnie Harper

@Gideon Athanatos

There was a very thin veil between the scrape of Levi’s teeth and the patch of grass behind where he sat on the teal blanket, both in the fact that his mouth had formed an unamused hard horizontal line and that the only thing keeping this treat melting on his tongue was narcissism. It always was his major fault, the quality to drive the inevitable, the day he swallows arsenic. No gentlemanly man would spit a kindly delivered delicacy from a boy girl-scout into the autumn mud. Surely, that man would have a damn good reason, but no reason was proper enough to make a little girl—er, boy—cry, now, was it? Even if he did let the half-chewed snack out, it was likely too late to deter the poison, and the uncontrollable urge to then violently stomp on the food would do further damage to the black-tie aura.

The wreckage the two sat in for this pleasant picnic suddenly became much more personal. His face plastered to the bits of wall still standing, melodramatic dripping x’s covering the hazel hue of his eyes, several disjointed rips in the lower half of the photograph, an inexperienced yet angry hand’s take with a dagger. Levi swallowed, a metallic taste buttering his throat, a smooth slide coated in bloodshed and powdered sugar. Involuntarily, he’d cough into his elbow, met with no sight of his injury. Likely because the scraping down his neck was psychosomatic, yet that pale left hand would still raise to ensure his veins remained as closed as his emotional fortress. His gaze glided upward, meeting the blond’s, perhaps a dash of worry set into the pupil.

Different surnames. Gideon hadn’t needed to say it, he’d already confirmed his own as Athanatos, and whether Mathias’ was Gray or Pride was irrelevant in comparison to that heap of syllables. Was this the copper-haired boy’s attack? As his anxious mind began to settle and the waves of shock dispersed over the top of the sea, he decided no. Mathias was much more physical, thriving on that look of bewildered horror that Gideon had seen for just a fleeting second. They were still alone in their bubble, even wilted falling leaves were discouraged from entering their heat, crumbling on the grass nearby. If he was telling the truth, that their brotherly love was only as deep as what Levi knew, then this could be a service to him.

There was something wrong with this kid. Levi had decided that already, the sole question remaining was how it competed to his own shortcomings, whether they fell in harmony, or one pitch supported the other with its lowness. Stuffed animals and the evidence layer of youth both cast aside, Giddy was astoundingly strange. A broader vocabulary than even Levi, one who passed the time trying to be the best, learning from his idols on the wrong side of history books. Something about their conversation came so effortless to the first year though, and the air of childlike lightheartedness lingered in his cadence. A microexpression of admiration, perhaps with a green tint beneath.

“Mathias,” He toyed with the name on his tongue, so foreign. Rapidly, he choked it back down and shook his head, cleansing himself of any lie he may have bought into. “I know him. Doesn’t surprise me you find him boring; he rather likes playing games above his level.” A bluff, but a deliberate one, testing the knowledge of his supposedly innocent brother. No, not innocent. There was a guilty shade to his complexion, just not in the crime of torturing Levi.

He did enjoy people who were interested in him, including those who plainly feigned to be. A byproduct of also being abundantly interested in him. “Fair expectation. We could do so much more than we do with only a flicker of an adult eye to see,” There was a dreamlike quality to his voice, as though mayhaps he had conjured up many ideas and not the guts to act on them. “Sadly, we don’t live among opportunists. I say that’s a chance to brighten up the place. Though I can tell you when they do get interesting, they get very interesting.” The quiet of the day-to-day basis, the innocence of the average Monday’s tomfoolery, they were terribly deceitful. When the first thing fell, taking its sweet time to collapse and resound, so did a thousand things more. One tree moves, and someone is skewered in seconds. One boy is kissed, and another is stripped to the mark of his patriotism in a heartbeat’s time.

Banner By Winnie Harper

@Gideon Athanatos

The iconoclast, declared as though each disciple of this noxious bloodline bore a certain role, blackened branches on a much larger dead tree. Jarring, the way his words bizarrely coexisted with the blithe melody of his voice, a spoonful of sugar to soften the bitter blow of unneeded cough syrup. Yet, it was so befitting; not only was his eloquence the characteristic oddity of his genetics, but once that word was put to the face of the supposed Mathias, all other descriptors were rendered moot. He burned the world not to bask in its warmth and thaw himself, but just to watch it disintegrate. Not quite a schemer, shunning methodical madness or a code of any sort, but often pretending to be one of them.

“Iconoclast,” He’d repeat again, today a damp cave reverberating the truths of a first year, perhaps with the slightest tinge of respect coating his accent. While a tired night thrashing beneath a sweat-drenched comforter would likely reach the same conclusion, to hear it from someone who shared in his taste solidified it. He'd allow himself to indulge in something so human as self-doubt for no more than a millisecond.

Obsessive personality. That rang a muted bell, perhaps a term he’d heard from his designated watcher, the pair of benign labels that thrust upon him the "healing" logs. To share anything, even an umbrella term, with Mathias gave Levi the urge to stand in the rain. When his clothes became too heavy to trudge any further in the storm’s mud, then and only then he would strip himself of that identity and search for a new shelter. Giddy would be able to see Levi’s face fall in contemplation, restored the moment his god-complex kicked in. Anything of another could be fixed, and nothing could ever be wrong with Levi. Should he ever say something that defies the laws of physics, may his divinities purge the world of its bedrock and reconstruct those fragmented elements into whatever he spoke into judgmental existence.

“Valuable insight,” He breathed through the pressure of the bruise, cocking his head to the right with his eyes fixed upon the chocolate tea. He’d risk a hesitant sip before carrying on, a silent affirmation of the blooming emerald trust. At least Levi wasn’t ruled tone deaf. “We really needn’t further taint this afternoon with more discussion of him, your blood and what of it others have isn’t your responsibility.” The brunet would readily agree with Gideon’s insistence in turning the camera, as his emotive imagination formed that wretched visage in the swirling colors of his drink. He’d weighed his words carefully and still they were peculiar; this spoke more to his intentions than his wisdom.

What rather than who, a purposeful swap that would not go under Levi’s radar. He raised a brow, tapping his fingers against the blanket in threes, adamant in maintaining eye-contact. To establish what he was, he needed to distinguish it from who. Levi, shortened of course. Second year, son of Evan and Kat, Gryffindor, a diamond among gravel. “You could say I… take many forms.” This, possibly misconstrued as a mere introduction, was an allusion to something more to be put together by his audience today, the most integral part of what he was.

He raised the cup to his lips again and devoured Mathias. “I like to call myself a collector.” Stamps and coins, no, but paper and metal were not the sole toys worth displaying in a trophy case. “And you are?” While he didn’t specify, his willing answer would hopefully convey his interest in not who Giddy was, but the complex crossed wires beneath his skin—the what.

Banner By Winnie Harper

@Gideon Athanatos

He had wit to him, and an intriguing depth, one that lay just beyond the capabilities of Levi’s perception. Giddy was somewhere lower than the silhouettes of the shallow water, farther than you could go with a couple lungs full. These predefined notions, he called them, a constant among any family with a reputation, a life the brunet himself may be familiar with had his own parents not fled from their adoring fans to avoid flash photography. As it stood, however, the unknowns were an idealized life to him: blood of gold, skin of satin, teeth cut from diamond and ropes of DNA twisted like a silk web. What didn’t change was their brains, no more immune to outside forces than anyone else. In fact, Giddy was at a distinct disadvantage despite the rich way he twinkled in sunlight. He was Pride’s brother.

Sure, he went without the whims of his predecessors, a poor follow-up to an otherwise impressive bloodline, but what screwed up pair of parents created Pride? And even if one were different, how much better could they perform another time as teachers toward the youngest? Influences made us. Each person was simply a mosaic of all they ever loved and knew, with daddy’s eyes and mommy’s lips, daddy’s moral code and mommy’s insecurities. Knowing this, Levi still grasped at the shadows of purebloods, desperately trying to transform his own malfunction into the esteemed kind, the sort you respected and sought no answers for. The sort you wrote off, nurtured even. To come from a family where the wrong thing became just another thing sounded like a daydream.

The blond went on with the variety of things he was not defined by. The way he spoke, the grim eloquence, a very elegant sort of evil, it was the very reason he wouldn’t buy into Giddy being a separate entity from his family. With his own experience to back it up, a certain distaste for the traditional interpretation of happiness seemed to be genetically predisposed. Walk away all you want, but some things were always going to be your parents’. Giddy seemed more like an upgraded version of sorts, his craft, whatever it may be, was perfected whereas the rest were more impulsive, perhaps politically or emotionally driven. This one, sipping on cold chocolate tea and surrounded by stuffed animals, was the next generation’s wicked.

Then, they’d circled back to the real question. Of all these things he was not, what did that leave? His confession did not prompt Levi to flinch, nor even look up from the treat he was picking at with his fingers. His brow quirked, interest further piqued, but there were questions swirling in his foggy brain which he would not voice. Was it the enjoyment of other’s pain that drove him? Self-awareness wasn’t something the Gryffindor boy was particularly fond of, as that meant acknowledging nothing, and it was much easier to pretend there was no nothing. Did he enjoy pain, or did he enjoy fulfillment? Nonetheless, his gaze lifted back toward his peer, suppressing his queries with the one answer he had.

A subtle nod. That was the blatant agreement, the rest of his communication went back to riddles and hints, an important question. Perhaps they aligned in tactic. Neither boy was particularly intimidating physically. “And your tools for doing so?”