Collateral Damage PV Serena Towers Finished

26 Mar 2018, 16:36

The fun part about being alone was that Serena could have a nice peaceful day, with no silly boys in her life and their ridiculous drama. She could sit and overlook at the lake from a spot that was hidden away from view - and from other people. No one would be around to disturb her. More than that, no one would be around to hurt her. Two of her closest male friends had caused her so much pain, though it was usually never on purpose.

One, for example, was the reason she ended up with burns on her arms and chest, a fireball in her face and lots of cuts and bruises... All just to save him from getting in trouble with the Transfiguration Professor. Well any, professor but that particular friend had managed to half transfigure something and in their attempt to untransfigure it, Serena took quite a few injuries. It was worth it, to help her friend though. But sometimes, you just need things to be a bit calmer. Things were less hectic when she was alone - they were, in fact, pretty boring and she loved every second of this normalcy lifestyle. The other... well, let's just say he's no longer a friend after everything that has happened between them.

Leaning up against the tree, Serena sat with her knees up and a pad of parchment on her legs. She was sketching out a drawing on the corners of the paper. Little flower doodles. It was going to be used for a letter but she thought she would decorate the edges of the paper with some quick sketches before she wrote the letter portion itself. To her surprise, it was turning out pretty well. Well that was until she heard a loud snapping noise, followed by a scream. Jumping, her hand flung itself off the page, leaving a line over the drawings and pretty much wrecking it. The girl instinctively turned her head, leaning out from behind the tree to face the noise.

Before she could see anything, however, she felt something. Something scraped past the side of her forehead. It took her a second or two to actually feel the pain but as soon as it hit her, she hissed, "ARGH!" She exhaled sharply, clutching her hands to her forehead, letting her quill and paper pad fall onto the ground. She was crouched over, holding her head with her eyes screwed shut.

It took her a few more seconds to register what was happening. Her body had reacted by pure instinct, in the evolutionary sense. She slowly opened her eyes and peered over the tree again, this time far more cautiously. Her palm was still pressed tightly against the side of her forehead with the other one on top of it, holding it down to help reduce the pain. There was a boy there. He looked familiar- Wait- "Reid?!"

29 Mar 2018, 00:22

Merlin's beard, that was the most pain he got in a long time. He nursed his hand, it stung slightly from the kickback of the slingshot. Maybe that wasn't the best band to use, it seemed too elastic. But he still was glad that the rock actually took off. The only real issue was that the projectile he sent off into oblivion had ended up hitting someone. The scream and his name being called caught his attention quite quickly, causing him to look around for the source. "Oh man, who did I ...?" Who did he hit now?

He squints against the sunlight to see a familiar face not too far from him, oh no. His features fell as he scrambled to head over to his victim. "Serena! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hit you, truly." he apologized as he got closer. There was a look of embarrassment and shame on the young boy's features, slightly annoyed that he hit another person with the slingshot. He might as well tell everyone to avoid him because he might just end up hitting them with a rock.

Reid pulled the slingshot from his back pocket, showing it to her as proof. "I was just trying to test this out, I probably should be more careful though." He beamed rather crookedly, hopefully she'd forgive him even in the slightest bit. "You're not the first, I hit a boy named Alecksander - unfortunately. Maybe I just have really bad aim." he mused, lightly frowning.

"Trouble usually finds me."

31 Mar 2018, 01:10

The pain Serena felt right now was definitely nothing compared to Reid's. It was a lot worse, probably. Her hands pressed tightly against the forehead, helping to reduce the pain drastically. She groaned slightly as she looked up to see the Head Boy had rushed over to her. Serena blinked, observing his face for a second before smiling, "It's okay, I'll survive," She replied to his apology. It hurt, a lot. However, seeing his look of shame hurt her even more. Serena forced herself to smile, trying to bring him some comfort that maybe she was not actually dying. Can such injuries cause internally bleeding? Because dang, her head really hurt.

Slowly removing her hands, she looked down at her palms. She frowned at the sight. The one that was holding the wound had some blood on it. Not a lot so she wasn't too worried. It was more likely to just swell up a little. It felt like the pebble had scraped her forehead. Most likely, she had some scratch marks, with a minor cut somewhere on it that had bled a little. It would probably swell up soon and heal in a few days. She couldn't see her injury, even though she looked up and tried to see if there was any dirt on it or blood dripping down. Of course, it was impossible for her to see but there didn't seem to be any blood droplets falling down her face, which was always a relief.

The girl actually had a tiny bit of dirt on it, some scratches and a very small cut that had bled a bit. It was fine. It just stung, a lot. Serena placed her fingers back onto the injury and rubbed it roughly as she listened to Reid talk. She hissed a little as she rubbed it a bit too hard and it stung a little more. Serena scolded her own stupidity and then changed it to rub it softly so it felt a bit better.

A laugh escaped her lips, unexpectedly. She looked at his slingshot and nodded, "I'm not the first person you hit? You truly do have terrible aim," She criticised, in a playful voice. She was not actually mad at him. It was perhaps her fault for sitting behind the tree that he might have been aiming at. Or looking out unexpectedly. He had no idea she was there. This was not his fault. It was her own. "Luckily for you, I think I'm the only one here so how about you try it again but like, in that direction?" Serena continued before raising her spare hand to point in a direction away from the school and other people.

10 Apr 2018, 12:47

Despite the stinging in his hand, he felt greatly responsible for the wound on her forehead still. He didn't exactly worry about anything but that cut on her forehead at this point. His hands came to fiddle with the slingshot's band, nodding at her question rather meekly. "Y-yeah, not the first." he spoke. His hands were a little red and one finger had the shabbiest bandage job done in the history of bandage jobs.

But it did the trick, he didn't know how to get a splinter out and he was frankly too afraid to actually try. It hurt too, he didn't want that annoying stinging but he was told that it would be pushed out by his skin. His hand came up to scratch his head, glancing in the area that Serena was pointing towards. He weakly laughed and nodded at her suggestion, "You have a point." He needed to be more careful, there were times where he was careless and a little unbecoming in his behavior.

But even still, Reid was surprised he hadn't been yelled at by Serena by now. In more ways than one, he often looked for the approval of his peers. Serena was definitely the one person he always wanted to be in good standing with, especially since he had ended up making such a mess and noise in the commons. Every time he has met her so far, something terrible had gone awry. First it was the commons and now this, his other friends didn't fare any better around him.

"I'm still really sorry about hitting you Serena." Reid grimaced. "Maybe we should go to the hospital? The nurse can probably fix that right away." He didn't know how deep that cut had gotten and his mum said that they could get infected if it wasn't cleaned. Reid tucked the slingshot in his back pocket, he should have carried a handkerchief around. Perhaps it would save her hands from being dirtied by the blood. He couldn't help but stare at her forehead, still frowning out of worry.

"You should probably get that cleaned though, I had a cut infected once, it was so gross." He had scraped himself and had let it fester, causing him to get sick in the process. It was at that point that he always ran to his mum for help. He should just send rocks into the lake next time, there was no way he'd hit people there. But he might just hit that giant squid that everyone talks about.

"Trouble usually finds me."

16 Apr 2018, 20:28

Serena blinked at her fellow Hufflepuff before laughing softly, "Wow, either terrible aim or just very bad luck," She joked playfully, completely teasing him - though it was probably also partly true. The other option was that he had intended to hit both of the targets in the first place, giving him fantastic aim. Let's hope that that was not the case, however, shall we? She continued to rub her head a little as she did this before looking down at her hand. There was still blood on it. Ideally, she needed something to stop the bleeding a bit. There was not a lot of blood, however, so she was not exactly worried.

Reid, however, seemed to be more worried than she was. She frowned at him as he continued to apologise, "It's fine, seriously, don't worry about it," She dismissed it, instantly forgiving him. There was no need for more apologies. She held no grudges or bad wishes towards him. The fact that she could see how genuinely sorry he looked was definitely a factor in the forgiveness. The other reason was that he was unlikely to even know she was sitting there. She had not seen him - how would he have seen her? It was only because she chose to poke her head out that she got caught in the crossfire. If she had minded her own business, Serena would never had gotten hurt in the first place.

"I don't think it's that serious... is it?" She asked him, slightly more nervous now as he claimed that he had a wound that had gotten infected. Serena got hurt often. Mostly because she was careless and reckless. However, her wounds were always very superficial. They did not get infected and she had no reason to think this one would - that was until he claimed it would. It was definitely a bit more worrying. "It doesn't hurt too much... It's not bleeding a lot either so it's probably quite minor... It is but a scratch, my friend!"

Pausing for a moment, she suddenly realised she could use some basic muggle remedy to fix this situation. Serena stopped rubbing her forehead and reached for her bag. Pulling it closer, she opened it up and pulled out a water bottle from it and some tissues. She proceeded to wash out her wound, as best as she could. It did not help that she could not actually see it... However, she sort of just threw some water on her forehead, whilst tilting to the side so it would drip off into the ground and used some wet tissues to clean it up. It was mostly to remove any dirt that had been left on her face from the pebble. However, this definitely helped to clean up the blood droplets too.

Serena took out another dry tissue and dried her face a bit. It probably did not remove a lot of the mess but she had tried. It would have helped if she carried around a mirror or something but why in Hogwarts would she do that? It was not like she planned to actually look at her face or anything! Sitting back up straight, she tried to looked up at her own forehead, "Did I get it all?" She asked him, failing to see anything herself because she did not have weird eyes that could see her own forehead. With a wet tissue in her hand, ready to dab it if he said she had missed some, she waited for his reply.

7 May 2018, 12:10

Reid was a little mortified to see her wound, in fact it was quite the head wound from such a small pebble. But the boy didn't push any more of the apologies on her, she was tough and he could see that. It just made his second guess her with how guilty he still felt, she was really sweet. He found her one of the nicest Hufflepuffs around and possibly the nicest student in Hogwarts. But he also looked up to the prefect, he's heard a lot of things about her and knows that she was more than capable for the job.

He was head boy, but he often took notes from the girl with how she did her duties and just overall work. Reid wasn't the best, but he learned from copying the girl when he could. Their contact was minimal, but word of mouth was a great way to keep some sort of 'closeness' to his role model. He squinted and leaned forward slightly to see if it was gone, the young student threw her a thumbs up and smiled ever so slightly.

"Got it all, cap. I gave you some war scars it looks like, kidding, kidding. I doubt it would even become a scar." he tapped his forehead jokingly. Reid relaxed as he settled down, she was fine and that was all that really mattered. If she passed out, well he would just fret like no tomorrow till he knew she was fine. It was tiring and quite frankly terrible with how he could obsess over the most minuscule things.

Yet he was glad he was still able to function without a crippling guilt holding him down. This was a good time to maybe chat with her, if she wasn't too busy of course. With a meek expression, he asked, "What were you doing before I rudely interrupted you?"

"Trouble usually finds me."

13 May 2018, 16:25

Serena laughed, rolling her eyes playfully at the boy's words. Cap. "Scarred by the General? Ouch, I must be doing a terrible job as Captain." She joked in return. In truth, she had no idea exactly how the muggle military roles worked. She just remembered a few random roles and she thought that the General was near the top of the ranks, well above the role of a captain. He was, after all, Head Boy. She followed his instructions and rules. It was her duty to as one of the Prefects that were under his command.

On his command, she nodded and screwed up the dirty tissues into little balls. She placed them on the side of her, as a few were wet with the water and others had a bit of blood or mud on them. It was definitely not littering as she would pick them up before she left. However, she just did not want to put the dirty items back into her bag right now. Serena cleared up her rubbish, moving her things a bit so Reid could sit down. "We really do need to work on your aim though," She teased him lightly as he relaxed near her.

The Hufflepuff boy sat down, asking her what she had been up to. It was only then that Serena remembered her letter. "Ah-" She started, reaching out for the paper pad and quill she had dropped. She looked over it. The parchment had drawings she was doodling around the edges of the paper. She was planning to write the letter on the inside. However, there was a big line going through some of the drawings and off the paper. Ah, whoops... Serena realised that she had messed it up when she had been hit. "Nothing important-" She quickly replied, grabbing the objects and pulling them towards her. Serena flipped to a new piece of parchment, took the quill and ink pot again and started to doodle onto it. "I was just doodling..." She replied honestly, there was not really much else to it, "I thought I'd try to write some letters..." She continued. In truth, she did not want Reid to feel worse. He already seemed to feel bad that he hit her. This was not necessary. It really was not all that important.

She was fine. Her forehead throbbed a little but it was a light injury. At most, it might have a little cut on it that would heal up in a few days or be a little bruised for a while. She was lucky the pebble skimmed past her head. At the rate it was going, it could have been a lot worse if she took it head on. "First going around causing disturbances in the common room, then going around hitting people with pebbles? You're not setting yourself a good reputation!" She joked. She was not mad at all, it was just kind of amusing. Most of their interactions had been weird. The first was when Reid had been playing with a deck of exploding cards without realising it. They exploded in the common room, waking Serena up from her nap. And tired, sleep deprived Serena was not a fun girl to be around. If there was anything you wanted to avoid, it was waking her up from her sleep or talking to her when she was really hungry.

Sighing softly, she looked at him. Perhaps this was payback for the time Delilah kicked the poor Hufflepuff boy next to her, because of her. It had been an accident but Serena took full responsibility for it. She could not apologise enough for it. "I'm sorry you got kicked, by the way... Perhaps this was karma for that?" She continued, a sad expression crossing her face as she apologised. He did not deserve to be kicked, not at all. If this was karma, it was well deserved. Serena deserved to be hit back in return for hurting him, it was only fair. Though, in truth, that kick was always meant for Siege and Serena had absolutely no idea that Delilah was planning on kicking him in the first place. Reid just got caught up in the middle of things.

A bit like how she got caught up in the middle of his bad aim and her bad timing. It worked perfectly to serve as karma. Serena felt so bad for it all though. She really ought to have controlled herself better. That entire week was just one she wish she could forget about. It drove her crazy.

26 Oct 2018, 17:35

KICKED or not, the young man shot her a short a timid smile with how she was handling things. Without a doubt, Serena Towers was a good sport about it and he couldn’t ask for any more of her. It wasn’t an ideal meeting, definitely not one that he would ever want to repeat again to someone else. But he was glad to even have the chance to talk to her, she was a prefect who he found himself looking up to and one. Not only that, he hoped to make a friend out of her somehow. With the talk of reputation, he definitely set himself up for something no more than a troublemaker from the house of badgers. Certainly, the young man knew better than to be doing this.

“HONESTLY, it's all okay! No harm and no foul, yeah? What’s happened already did. I’m just glad nothing else became of it.” He was physically hurt, but it seemed worse with what came after. He vaguely recalled the slap, the yelling, and some things he didn’t exactly would make a Professor happy. “I’m sorry about what happened though, whatever was going on at least, sorry about that.” he blurted. Reid always found it hard to talk to about the difficult things, the conflict. To deal with it was difficult and he figured that it had partially to do with the fact that conflict in Derby ended in nothing but bruises.

BUT the students at Hogwarts were more civil, more refined in some sense, he was still trying to fill that mold in some ways. But in times like this, where he makes a slingshot to shoot with, he just fed his rebellious nature. Out of the blue, he said, “It’s not fun dwelling in the past, makes you mad and kind of sad. It makes me hungry though for some reason, did you want to go get some lunch in the Great Hall?” Remarkably simple, Reid had a method to his spontaneity and oddness.

HE wasn’t fluent in the art of conversation, but it was easier to talk to someone over a plate of food and a drink in hand. "They're having soup today, I think." Perhaps she would accept and they could just let bygones be bygones, he could talk to her more about more pressing things to a young eleven-year-old. One of those things was probably going to be Quidditch.

"Trouble usually finds me."