A Rainy-Day Bet Open 𝙲𝚕𝚘𝚜𝚎𝚍

Shawn McCarthy

Interacting with: @June Selwyn

A rainy day was a blessing to Shawn. This gave him more time to spend with those he was close with. Shawn himself actually didn't much hate the rain, a little rain could be a nice environment but too much, like today, meant he had to stay inside. And of course, he was spending time with his first friend and good friend, June Selwyn.

Today, though, the two were having a little debate, nothing hostile, just some sort of bet you could say. A debate that Shawn was clearly correct in, mind you.

"June, you're my closest friend but right now, you are very wrong." Shawn smirked to himself, he knew how this would eventually end. "You know very, very, well that our fellow Slytherins cannot keep their noses out of someone else's business, if not them some Ravenclaw annoyed at the interruption of studying time well be over here to give us an earful."

"If you really want to carry my books around for an entire week, be my guest." He shook his friend's hand with a smirk plastered across his face. Shawn was a bit impressed by June, he knew she wasn't always the most outgoing, so he was happy to see a few of his own traits being rubbed onto her.

When his friend finished her countdown, the young Slytherin laughed as hard as he possibly could, which hurt a bit, to be frank.

Leonard Oaksworth

Interacting With: @June Selwyn & @Shawn McCarthy | Mentioning: @Maggie Hawkins | Dialogue Hex: #143314

Boredom was something that, for all his frequent faults and flaws, Leonard Wendell Oaksworth had the utter pleasure of rarely experiencing. Indeed was it akin to finding a needle in a stack of identical needles in a silo’s worth of hay stuffed in the core of a planet of needles that Leonard Wendell Oaksworth was either pleased or wasn’t ceaselessly sustaining his spirit in the most negative way possible. Nonetheless, there he was, flicking through a worn-and-torn textbook and drowning out the sound of skittish students gossiping among themselves about the downpour’s magically corrosive properties or Bethany Something’s ancestry test being an absolute scam with his own thoughts. Weary and restless the boy may have constantly been, but such was exactly the state that rendered him immune to groaning and moaning and making it everyone’s business that one was uncreative enough to let their head rest for a moment. His own mind, after all, was a well-oiled machine on good days and a junkyard of self-made smoke and mirrors on the worst, and either was guaranteed to keep him conscious with concern for any number of threats for then. Also, he had an essay due the coming Friday that had a grand total of seventeen paragraphs. Surely the snake wouldn’t let anything so short be on his academic record, no?

Ignorance could not last forever. Interruptions always came in one form or another, and despite his most fervent promises to make the most of it and accomplish his personal goals, he often spent the bulk of breaks breaking his own brain to bits. Only three chapters of herb-related history and forty-four embarrassing daycare incidents managed to be reviewed when the Slytherin’s ears had rung with the most horrid sound of them all: laughter. Swiftly, he snapped his neck about with a deep frown, attempting to arrest the culprits based on expression alone. Out of the crowd, he could make out an incredibly suspicious two. The first was someone he recognised without fail. The second was…blonde. There. Perhaps a shared hallucination between vaguely genetically linked million-times-removed cousins.

“What in the bloody world are you two on about?” He asked the question with equal parts curiosity and concern, staying a seat’s length away from them after his initial approach. “The prefects are going to lock you up in the dungeons, laughing mad like you are. Or think that you’re the most hysterical duo in the castle, which actually sounds quite nice, but I would like to know what’s going on.”

His interrogation tactics had neither end nor beginning, as he set on to siege the mental fortress of one Shawn McCarthy. Familiar as their faces may have been to one another, they hadn’t quite met the quota of time and talk together in order to be recorded as friends. Still, he had faith that the other boy had formed an attachment strong enough within the boundaries of their first meeting to toss any semblance of explanation his way.

“Shawn, come on. It couldn’t have been that funny. What was it, then, a knock-knock joke? A pun that’s just blasted through your esophagus?” The third year’s hands enjoined around his throat to form a gesture of exploding, though he hadn’t any tangible demonstration of what a blasting esophagus would look like. There was sarcasm dripping from his syllables, certainly; yet, there was no true venom behind it, unwilling as he was to scare off a boy approximately handsome as he was and his presumed personal comedienne. In fact, he plopped down next to the pair, awaiting an answer to his questions with tented fingers and a tentative position as to whether or not he’d be willing to brave acid rain should the prefects mistake him for a perpetrator of displayed happiness.

No. No no no no no. Someone from the Slytherin table was the first to respond. It's fine, June thought. I said the first person to come over, not respond. All he needs to do is to stay right where he- damn it.

The older Slytherin had left his seat to move closer to June and Shawn. June groaned as she tried burying her face into the table.

"This is what I get for having just the slightest bit of faith in our housemates," she muffled into the table, blindly extending her hand to Shawn in concession. This was fantastic, ever since deciding to try and make more of a social effort, June had embarrassed herself on a broom in front of Maggie, landing in the hospital wing, and now she had lost a bet after being much louder than she was comfortable with. Wonderful.

June closed her eyes and took a deep breath before sitting upright again, looking the older boy dead in the eye. "Locking us in the dungeons wouldn't be so bad, I'd finally have time to finish my parchment for Astronomy. Honestly, I don't understand why we have a page limit, I don't know how Professor Horne expects me to pack to much into such little space..." June chuckled to herself for a moment. Space. Perhaps she was part of the most hysterical duo in the castle. "And as a matter of fact, it was quite funny. Hysterical, in fact. A very witty, clever personal in-joke. It'd take far too long to explain..." June pursed her lips together, knowing her lie probably wasn't very convincing. She probably would have been able to come up with something better if she wasn't trying to conceal that she was seething with anger. June hated losing. And she especially hated losing when she realized that she was wrong. Disgusting.

She cleared her throat, hoping to change the subject. "Shawn, you know him? Merlin, you are much more extroverted than I am. Sorry for disturbing you." She stuck out her hand for the boy to shake. "Selwyn. June Selwyn, pleasure to meet you. Any friend of Shawn is a friend of mine," June smiled. "So far, at least."

She looked at the Slytherin for a moment. He looked tired, but composed. Elegant, even. June noticed quite a few other people around her were staring. Some out of curiosity, a few were shooting daggers towards the Slytherin table. June noticed a pink-haired Gryffindor angering near their table. June's face flushed slightly, embarrassed. She wasn't quite sure her spontaneity in the name of reputation had been worth it...

Dear @Shawn McCarthy, @June Selwyn, @Leonard Oaksworth, & @Kim Sato,

May 18, 2022

xxxxxxxxLast night had been Maggie's first encounter with the elusive Shawn McCarthy, who, by all of Maggie's counts, was quite skittish. That was just her impression, the first one he'd made on her. The fact that he'd just shown up at the rehearsal room (after Maggie, mind you), freaked, and awkwardly tried to fumble over words because apparently, he'd never spoken to a girl before. So imagine her surprise when she was sitting at the Slytherin table, trying to stare at a charms textbook (how did people study? Her head was already hurting!) in a lame attempt to absorb the information, then looked up to see Shawn talking to her friend.

A flare of possessive energy sparked in her stomach. Obviously, she hadn't known June as long as she could have, but seriously? It went as fast as it came, though, when Maggie remembered that oh, yeah, she liked Shawn. Mostly just confused, you know, because she thought Shawn lacked the ability to talk to girls at all. Whatever. Whatever.

The two were laughing loudly about something, barking out loud guffaws and squealing laughter. Obviously, who was having fun without Maggie Hawkins?

So she stood and rounded the table, plopping right down in an empty seat right beside the giggling two. Like a pack of hyenas, loud and screechy in her ear. Good lord. "What's funny? Hey, June," Maggie glanced at Shawn. "Thought you couldn't talk to girls, Shawn. Got all cold and awkward. Or 's that just the response to pretty girls like me?"

It was a joke, another one, from her arsenal of pickup lines that Shawn had gotten a glimpse into last night. This one wasn't as funny as the last. "Not that you're not pretty, June. That's not what I meant. You're very pretty," she began to explain, only to stop with a little groan. "That was a horrible joke. My bad, guys, my bad."

Then, to Leonard Oaksworth, who seemed like a total loser and all-around lame guy, Maggie tapped her fingertips against the tabletop. "Who peed in your cereal this morning?" She sat up, propping herself up over the table and leaning forward to look at Leonard more closely. "Actually, really, though. What was so funny?"

Where June was embarrassed by her loud display, Maggie was uncaring. More attention was being drawn to the table. She didn't care one bit.

Shawn McCarthy

Interacting with: @Maggie Hawkins @June Selwyn @Kim Sato @Leonard Oaksworth

Shawn was, to put it simply, very excited. Not only had he won his bet, he was surrounded by people he considers to be friends now. Shawn smirked to himself at June's situation, not only had he won, he won convincingly. The first two people had been Slytherins.

"Hello Leo. Sadly, what my good pal June has said is true, it was a great joke that got my sides splitting but, it is much too personal and much too long to be reexplained. He smirked to himself contently and confidently. "And yes June I know him. This is my very similar looking friend Leonard, and to be fair to you, Leo introduced himself to me, not the other way around." Shawn was happy to see June introduce herself, he knew she had been struggling a bit and despite his...unique qualities, Leo was a good person and fun to be around.

"And hello to you Maggie! Do you always join conversations with an insult? But clearly I am comfortable around pretty girls seeing that I'm sitting here talking to you and June with no problems." His smirk grew wider, if Maggie wanted to make fun of Shawn in front of his friends, Shawn could play that game too. "Sadly, you must be misremembering events that took place last night." He knew exactly how that sounded and while a tiny part of him cringed on the inside, a much, much, larger part was excited to embarrass his new friend a little bit. "It was you who couldn't form any sentence when we first met, besides I believe 'you come here often' if my recollection is correct?"

He decided to leave Maggie alone for now, he had something a bit more important to address. "Anyway, Leo and Maggie I suppose I owe both of you some thanks, because of you two, June here will have to carry my books for a week. See we weren't really laughing at anything, it was a bet on which house member would approach us first if we laughed very loudly, and you nosy snakes just couldn't mind your business huh? No complaints from me, I'm the winner of out little bet." He wrapped his arm around June after this last sentence.

Oh man was Shawn feeling good his confidence was sky-high, sitting here with his friends, a winner, nothing could ruin this moment for him. Although he did feel a bit bad for June, he didn't want her to have to carry his books, she was much smaller than Shawn was, he wasn't sure she could take the weight of all those books. He considered calling the bet off, but didn't want to appear soft in front of the other two, he would do it later, in the common room with June.