Closed Yankee Doodle PV George Henry

George typically slept in during the summer, but Jack skillfully compensated for that by arriving in mid-morning rather than at the hour a proper young man might wake up. The sound of yawning and grunting came from inside the tent as the boy rose and stretched, not bothering to get out of his pajamas before he stepped outside. He stopped in place and furrowed his brow at the sight of Jack sitting there reading. It was a surprise to see him again so soon - evidently waiting for him, he assumed, as none of the other inhabitants of the tent seemed like quite his cup of tea.

"Jack?" George said, blinking and rubbing his eyes. While he was upset at the use of the unsavoury term the day before, it was outweighed by the comfort that Jack had given him. The extra push to be brave made all the difference when it came to reconciling with Jake. "Oh, uh, good morning."

George glanced up and saw the sun high in the sky. "Good noon," he said uncertainly, with a smile and a shrug. George took a seat right beside Jack, crossing his legs and leaning over to take a peek at just what Jack was reading. It didn't look like any of the books that George had read in the library - maybe there was something special the boy wanted to show him... "What have you got that for? Doing some studying early?"

Jack jerked his head up at the sound of his first name, startled at first since he wasn't used to being addressed by it at school. "Good morning, Henry," he greeted. "Hehe...you can call me Burnett if it's easier so you don't get me mixed up with Warren. Did you sleep well? How did your gift-giving and birthday-wishing with Morris go?"

He followed George's gaze to the sky and chuckled softly as he changed his greeting to 'good noon'. When the Hufflepuff seated himself next to him, Jack moved the book in his lap so it was easier for George to see.

"I was wondering...have you ever heard the story of Yankee Doodle? That one song that the British thought up to make fun of Americans? And then the American's liked it so much that they took it and made it their own, singing it with pride?"

He gestured at his history book where the story was mentioned. "Well, that was what I wanted to do with the term 'mudblood'. That's why I use it so often. I figure if we use it and make it common enough, no one will be able to use it as an insult toward us. I mean, it's difficult enough to even know it's an insult since most muggle-born students have never even heard it before. Speaking of which, mind me asking how you first heard about it?" He turned to the other teen, curious. "Did someone try to insult you with it?"

@George Henry

"I would need to be blind and deaf to mix you up with Warren," George said promptly. Still, he respected the preferred form of address. He yawned before he continued speaking, still waking up from his late lie-in. He seemed a bit worn out from the day before. "Burnett. Yeah... slept well. Was fairly tired after that ordeal of a day. Gift-giving and birthday-wishing went good... probably hang out on the train ride back to Hogwarts. In the nick of time... else we would have had to share a bunk bed with all that going on..."

The mention of the story of Yankee Doodle seemed to completely baffle George, as he stared at Jack unblinkingly for a few moments before cocking an eyebrow up. "...Yankee Doodle?" he said softly, reaching up to rub his eyes. George had never held any curiosity at all about the historical conflicts between the British and the Americans - it was much more popular where he was from to resent the English. He shrugged, seeming quite uninterested in Yankee Doodle. "Good for the Americans, I suppose."

George squinted, eyes adjusting to the sunlight as he scoped out the history book. It wasn't anything he'd seen in the library because he had never looked into the Muggle side of history - it just felt sort of irrelevant, now that the secret world of magic had been revealed to him. But then Jack got around to his point, and George's narrowed eyes met the other boy's, his smile dropping again.

"Mudblood isn't quite as catchy as Yankee Doodle," said George sourly. In truth, no one had ever directed the insult at him, although he hardly gave them opportunity. While anyone would be able to tell that there was no pure-blood Henry line, few students went through the effort of memorizing the names of prominent purebloods as George did. "I know you like using that term... I remember your little club."

Judging from his tone, he did not remember it fondly. Still, he couldn't find it in him to resent Jack too much. The other boy had just done him a huge favor, and was at least doing him the courtesy of explaining himself, rather than just pushing on with using the term. "It's difficult to even know it's an insult? Really, Jack? Mud for blood? Perhaps they just mean you've got a green thumb, then," George said, deadpan. He was speaking near a whisper, not interested in being overheard. "It's still an insult... besides, it's not exactly something I want to wear on my sleeve, here. It wasn't too long ago that they would have rounded us up and kicked us out of Hogwarts. You can have your fun with it. Just don't make me hear it."

The comment about needing to be blind and deaf to be mixed up with Jack Warren caused Jack to clasp a hand over his mouth to avoid from laughing too loudly. He didn't want to wake anyone who could have potentially been sleeping in the tent beside them. "Y-yeah, I guess you're right," he chuckled when his laughter died down. Still, he appreciated George's change of address. It made him less anxious about the whole friendship thing since to Jack, calling people by their first names was quite intimate. To have been called Jack, especially by George who had another friend named Jack, worried the Welsh boy due to the fear he would be looked at as another friend by George.

That cleared up, he listened eagerly to how the rest of George's day had gone, nodding in acknowledgement every so often. He was glad George and Jake seemed to have worked things out. Aside from the trouble they might have had with sharing bunks, the fight had probably made them both pretty lonely while they hadn't been talking to each other. At least now they had each other to ride back to Hogwarts with once the end of summer camp came around.

Jack hadn't expected George to get all excited about the bit of history he'd shared like Jack did; not everyone loved the subject as much as he did, after all. Still, though, he had hoped George might have understood a little better why he used the term 'mudblood' after hearing the story. Instead, Jack wasn't quite sure George got the point at all.

When George mentioned 'mudblood' not being as catchy as 'Yankee Doodle', Jack opened his mouth to say it was catchier than the term 'muggle-born' but quickly decided against it. The taller teen still seemed as off-put by the word as ever. "Er...that club wasn't so much my idea as Wren Caster's," he said a little sheepishly. He had, however, come up with the name which he was fairly certain was what bothered George most about it.

"Okay, so maybe it's easy enough to figure out as an insult, but it still sounds like a two-year-old came up with it," Jack replied. When George went on, though, reminding the Slytherin that not too long ago they would have rounded them up and kicked them out of Hogwarts, he was silent for a couple of minutes. The conversation was starting to remind him of the one he had had with Professor Galim in his first year. She had insisted that the history of the insult couldn't have been erased so easily. When Jack had tried to understand why, she had told him he would probably find out when he was older. Was this what she had meant? Encountering students who took offense to it like George did?

"Okay, I won't say it around you," the redhead said. "It just...as someone who likely shouldn't have been placed in Slytherin if Salazar Slytherin had had anything to say about it, I like to use it because it make me feel like I can defy them with it - the ones who might have otherwise used it against me. To avoid using it or saying it just seems to me like giving it more power - kind of how wizards and witches wouldn't say Voldemort's name back in the days when he was feared."

He paused, remembering something. "You didn't tell me how you first heard about it, by the way. Did a pureblood say something to you?"

@George Henry

George caught that brief opening of the mouth as Jack considered making a comment, an icy glare melting into a look of approval as he thought better of it. When Jack placed blame for the club on Wren, George shrugged. He had no idea who that was. "Whatever you say," said George coolly. Whoever came up with it, Jack obviously approved of it. The boy's tiredness and bitterness with the subject mixed to give him a very lifeless air. "Sure, it sounds like a two-year-old came up with it, yeah. Maybe you can think of something better. Wand thieves, maybe."

He let the silence linger, looking down at his feet. He picked idly at a thread on the hem of his pajamas, twisting it until it tugged free and began to unravel properly. A soft whine of displeasure could be heard as he dropped the thread and looked instead up at the clouds. When the silence broke, and Jack assured him he would not say it - George gave a tiny, forced smile. "Thanks," he said, trying his best to sound sincere. He listened to Jack, nodding as he spoke about Salazar Slytherin. Having read Hogwarts: A History several times on the Express, George knew that the founder of Slytherin was a really, really nasty man.

The appeal to the rebellious side of using the word did have a certain appeal. After all, if even the mudbloods were saying mudblood, it couldn't be that dirty of a word, could it? "Helga Hufflepuff wouldn't have wanted me in Hufflepuff, either," George said with an overlong sigh and a dramatic slouch of his shoulders. He looked sullenly up at Jack, confessing the reasons why. "I'm a lazy git and I used illegal spells in the broom race."

It took only a moment before he broke out snickering, hiding his smile behind his hand. "Different from your reason, obviously. Helga liked mudbloods," he said. He said the word just to see how it would taste in his mouth, and evidently, it was sour. Sitting quietly for a bit, he looked down at his feet again, picked at the thread on his pajamas, and shook his head in answer to the silent question. He still didn't like it. A few moments passed in silence before he finally answered Jack's question.

"I don't know if they were a pureblood. I don't remember who said it. They might not have even been talking to me. It just... I just don't like it. I'm sorry," he said softly, bowing his head. Maybe he should have been a brave little mudblood like Burnett, but he couldn't do it. He at least respected Burnett enough to cough up his cowardly explanation, although he couldn't bear to look him in the eye while he did it. "I don't... I don't want to be different from them. And I don't want any of them to know I am. It's easier to hide now that I know a few things. But still... you see everybody shopping at Diagon Alley every summer, and none of their parents are wearing jeans, and they've got all the galleons they need for whatever they want..."

The taller boy trailed off, looking sullen. The thread on his pajamas had split off into a few more loose ends, which he twisted between his fingers still, thinking of something. The summer sun beat down on him between the clouds as he shut his eyes, feeling quite pitiful. "I must sound like a loser. At least we both look like one." He opened one eye to glance at Jack and tried to smile, but quickly returned to having both eyes shut and a rather solemn look on his face.

Jack turned to gape at George when his peer mentioned he was lazy and that he used illegal spells in a broom race. "You did what? But why?" he asked, almost laughing again. And then he couldn't help but laugh when George broke out into his own snickers. "I don't think you're lazy. Not when you go to all the trouble of doing all these things you aren't supposed to and knowing you'll get detention for it. And keeping up with studies on top of that. If you were lazy, I don't know why you'd make all that extra work for yourself."

He snorted in some amusement when George tried the word out for himself but it soon dissipated as the brunet shook his head. "No good, huh?" he asked with a sort of half-smile. Well, at least George had tried. They both had.

When it got quiet again, Jack started to think George wasn't going to answer his question, but then he did. "You don't have to be sorry for what you feel," Jack answered when George apologized. "If you don't like it, you don't like it. Simple as that. Thanks for hearing me out, though."

To his surprise, George wasn't finished. He began to explain how he didn't want to be different from them - other magical children who weren't muggle-born, presumably - and Jack thought he understood where George was coming from. He had had similar concerns when he had first started at Hogwarts.

"You don't sound like a loser," he told the badger, swatting the hand splitting the threads of his pajamas, "But if you don't stop playing with that, you're going to end up in your underwear and then you really will look like one."

He leaned his whole weight against George in a playful manner, turning his head to whisper in his ear. "If you ask me, though, I think we have more advantages over them than they do us. I mean, the other day I think I managed to convince a couple of purebloods in my dorm that 'pikachu' was an advanced magic spell."

@George Henry

George beamed proudly at Jack's shock. "Well- they used it first! Mine backfired anyway... I froze myself 'cause I got distracted," he grumbled, looking sour about the whole ordeal. It was unlike his mind to wander while casting. The target may have had something to do with it. George absently reached up and started to fix his bedhead, combing through with his fingers. "I mean, it's hardly trouble to do things you aren't supposed to. I find it to be substantially more trouble to do the things that are asked of me, personally, but that just might be my natural inclination."

A bit of warm blush coloured George's cheeks, his grin fading to a smug smirk as he basked in the other boy's praise of calling him... not lazy. It wasn't much, but still. He looked at Jack, maintaining eye contact with substantial effort as Burnett assured him that he needn't be sorry. He gave a nod. "You're worth listening to sometimes," he said softly, that little smirk creeping back. It looked for a moment like he might say something more, but instead he went back to picking at his pant leg.

When Burnett slapped his hand, George retaliated immediately, pulling a face and slapping at the Slytherin's hand. "I'll strip the threads from my garments as I please," George said haughtily, following up with a few hand-slaps that were wholly unnecessary. He did stop picking, however, and leaned back into Jack, so that if either one let up on leaning they would tumble over.

"Ugh," George said, rolling his eyes and turning his head slightly to try and look at Burnett, although it was difficult to do so while having his ear whispered into. "If I never see another one of those things again I'll die a happy man. Jake had a whole phase where it was all he would draw, and he kept telling me about them, and it's like - this is not going to help me on the Care of Magical Creatures exam. I got an A... I think he got an O. The little bastard already knew everything about them and spent all the study time distracting me. I was convinced a Diricawl was a Pokemon by the end of it... I didn't dare put it down on my exam."

He let out a frustrated groan as his head slid down Jack's shoulder, falling away and landing on the grass behind him before the badger picked himself up and dusted some of the grass off his back. "I guess so. But... you know, being able to call a cab never really seemed like all that compared to... you know..." He reached out and grasped at the air. "Really... getting it, you know?"

He chewed his lip as he tried to articulate what he meant to say, before shrugging and turning his head to look at Jack again. "I'm so, so glad I get to go to Hogwarts... and see everything... but it's like a death sentence sometimes. Me and my brother used to do everything together. Now we're lucky if we do anything together over the summer. And he's lied to all my old friends so they all think I'm going to owl training school to become a circus magician."

A little bit of laughter accompanied those final words. His brother was a lot like him, but they seemed less alike every day. The laughter died down, and George went back to picking at his pajama pants. "I wish he were a wizard too. And my parents."

Jack laughed aloud at George's elaboration of what had happened during his broom race, shaking his head. "You are one crazy Hufflepuff," he declared. "I wonder how much of your 'natural inclination' is a rebellious phase and how much is you just being contrary."

He snorted when George told him he was worth listening to sometimes and smirked back, the smirk growing into a full-on grin when he was slapped at for his efforts to keep George's garments intact. Contrary indeed. He made a mental note to check in the future how George responded to reverse psychology when he felt the other boy lean back against him. The warm, solid support was nice.

"If you never see another one of what things? A pokemon?" He clutched his sides as if they would split when he broke into another torrent of laughter as George explained Jake's pokemon phase. "Oh, man...yeah, I can see how that could end up getting really confusing," he said as his laughter finally died down and he was rubbing away the tears at the corners of his eyes.

He glanced over at George when the badger groaned and slid down to the ground before picking himself back up again. "I was thinking the internet and television and movies and all the other stuff we have that they don't," Jack said, "But yeah, the grass always seems greener on the other side. Still, we're getting there! By the time we graduate, we'll probably know as much magic as any other wizard or witch. I mean, you're in broom racing and that's amazing! Not just anyone can say that. I think it's a little too intense for me."

The Welsh teen listened as the Scottish one tried to express how going to Hogwarts was like a death sentence sometimes. At first Jack didn't quite understand, but when a brother was mentioned and how close they used to be, he thought he could start to get it.

"I think...I know what you mean," Jack said quietly when George was finished. "It's hard being the only one. I wouldn't have known what you were talking about before because I grew up an only child, but when Ruka became my adopted brother and then he dropped out of Hogwarts..." He shrugged.

"I know it's not the same situation, but I can imagine how it could get pretty lonely. You don't have much to talk about anymore because you don't have much in common and the things you do want to talk about, they wouldn't understand..." The Slytherin gave a deep, exasperated sigh. "I mean, Ruka and I used to use telepathy through our binding marks all the time when we first got them, but now we don't even have anything to say to each other anymore."

Jack got to his own feet and brushed his own pants free of grass blades. "At least you still have people like Jake and Jack, though, right?"

@George Henry

"I've gotten bold a few times, but nobody has said crazy before now," George said, taking it as a compliment. He liked shocking people with his eccentricity - saying outlandish things, wearing makeup, getting in trouble so much... maybe this really was his rebellious phase. If it were, it was lasting an awful long time. "Those all sound like natural inclinations to me. You're probably right. I'm slinging banned spells because I'm just a little rebel these days. Speaking of, do you know any good gangs I could join?"

He brisked past that question like it was the most natural thing in the world. His head bobbed back and forth thoughtfully as he weighed the internet and television and movies and all the other muggle amenities that he took for granted when he was home over the summer. "I do miss television," George admitted, though he shrugged at the rest. Despite his muggle upbringing, it was clear that George's exposure to the internet was minimal. "But I never really used the internet much except for homework. I don't really know what all the fuss is about it. Apparently you can sell stuff on the internet. Willow was telling me about it... Etsy!"

Did the grass always seem greener? Maybe. But it was hard to imagine his would ever get that green, no matter how long he sat there watering it. "I guess so," George said. "I'm not worried about knowing magic myself. I tutor a few pure-bloods in charms, so it's not like it's inborn knowledge or anything. Same as me not knowing anything about the internet, apparently, even though every other muggle-born seems to."

Done complaining about his lack of integration with even the muggle-born community at Hogwarts, George turned and listened to Jack in return. He blinked in surprise when he heard that Ruka had become Jack's 'adoptive brother' - in truth, he had dismissed that as a rumor, and never bothered to ask either boy for confirmation.

"It's close enough," George said with a frown. He reached out to give Burnett a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder, though again his brow furrowed with an expression of puzzlement as Jack mentioned his binding mark. "You've got a binding mark in your third year at Hogwarts? No one could ever tell you that you're afraid of commitment, Burnett. Closest I've gotten is a friendship bracelet."

He laughed a little and let his hand drop away from his friend's shoulder, clearing his throat to address what the boy had said more seriously. "That's awful, though. That's..." George struggled to find the words for a moment before shaking his head and shrugging. "I'm sorry. I think you do know what I mean."

George stared at Burnett for a few moments, hesitating just a moment too long to lean in for the hug. Instead, he transitioned into a stretch, lifting both arms high above his head and yawning as Jack rose up from the grass. "Yeah. They're the best. We even argue all the time, just like a real family! It's the whole deal," he said, with a smirk. George's eyes wandered off over the campground for a minute, thinking about his friends, before his eyes settled on Jack again.

He wanted to ask if Jack B had any friends like that - George had imagined Ruka was that, for him, but even worse. They were real brothers, Jake and Jack W were only George's brothers in Badgerdom. George didn't imagine that Jack B would want to admit if he didn't have any friends, now, though. "Do you - Are you going somewhere?" George wondered, still sitting "Only penciled me in for a brief argument today?"