Finished Broken Trust PV Dee

Humming to herself happily, Dee picked up her satchel and started heading to the exit. It had been a good practice, the team had worked well and with focus despite the last stage of the year already being done. They didn't need to work this hard, they'd already won the championship. (Tied with Gryffindor, but Dee tended to cheerfully ignore that part.) Everyone who showed to practice did so voluntarily, and she was proud to see them. Apart from that, it had been an ordinary day

She was tired now, exhausted in a good way, and sweaty enough that she could feel the fabric of her robes sticking to her skin. Disgusting, she was in dire need of a shower, so she just waved at the other duellists rather than sticking around to chat while her feet already carried her towards the door.

Except one of them wasn't having it. Surprised, Dee paused and turned when a familiar voice called after her, then demanded to know where she was going. "Uh, up to the dorms," she replied, blinking. "I wanna shower before dinner, and I need to change, these robes are nasty." But she hardly managed to get the words in, Samantha just kept talking.

Sam was usually a friendly and happy presence on the team, and she'd recently made prefect, which was well-deserved in Dee's eyes. She was also a bit of a goody-two shoes who tended to see rules more strictly than was really necessary, but that probably counted for more than against her as far as the professors were involved. At the moment, however, she seemed far from friendly or happy. Was she glaring at Dee? What.

"We are friends," Dee agreed, bewildered. "At least I think we are? Why wouldn't we be?" Her confusion only grew with each further accusation that left Samantha's mouth, and she was truly aghast when the girl started crying right in front of her. Merlin. What was happening?

It probably wasn't the best time to crack a joke, but Dee couldn't help it. "Well, you can't really not look up to me, considering how short you are," she quipped, then paused, frowning. "Wait, when did I lie to you?" Not that it seemed too out of character for her, but she thought she'd at least remember it. She wouldn't tell Sam any bad lies, of course, nothing serious. Nothing that should make the girl cry. If anything, it would have been white lies to get out of trouble, or to make Sam's life better. To get her to not be such a stick in the mud- oooooh. Perhaps she did have an inkling what this was about.

@Samantha Salwis

Dee answered her accusations with a confused look in her eyes, like she had no idea what Samantha was talking about, something that made the young prefect even angrier. It was already bad enough that she didn't apologize and now she acted as if nothing had happened! The hurt was new to the brunette so she overlooked the fact that the trip had happened months ago and it probably wasn't on her dueling captain's mind at all.

While tears rolled down the cheek of one of the eagles, the other decided to make a fun little joke and poke fun at the other height. Once the second year realized the other was joking, she stared at the older girl for a few seconds in disbelief, causing a moment of quiet before Dee started talking again. "You don't even know when you lied? Do you lie so often to me that you don't know which time I am talking about?" she asked in complete distress and disarray.

"Let me help you fresh up your mind," she said as she crossed her arms and the look on her face hardened. "Second years aren't allowed to go to Hogsmeade, it is against the rules! And you told me, even after I said it was against the rules, that it was okay because you are prefect! Which was a lie!" The only people that could hurt Samantha's feelings were those she cared a lot about and Dee was one of them, so the little lie she told was like a stab in the back to the young girl. She didn't understand why the only girl had done it and probably never would unless Dee had an amazing explanation, which she highly doubted.

"What if professor Iwasaki finds out that I broke the rules!" she said devastated as the tears continued to roll down her cheeks. "I just became prefect, I don't want to be kicked out of the team right away!" she said dramatically. The idea of not being prefect anymore was something horrible that she had been horrified of happening ever since she found out she had accidentally broken a rule but she had never said it out loud. "What if I can't be prefect anymore because of you?" she asked, face buried in her hands so the other wouldn't see her red eyes.

If this wasn't Hogwarts which made the use of electronics impossible, Dee might have thought this was a hidden camera thing, a prank to see how she'd react. There seemed to be little other explanation for why Samantha was turning into a human water fountain before her eyes, twisting her words to something she'd never said. "Sam, that is not what I meant," Dee replied, a sliver of impatience in her voice. "I didn't ask which time this is about, I asked when I lied to you. Which, logically, means that I do not think I lied to you. Please, you're a Ravenclaw, aren't you?"

At least then Samantha finally deigned to explain what the waterworks were all about, and Dee sighed internally. She should have known, maybe, but it had been months, and she'd honestly almost forgotten about the whole thing. Obviously Samantha hadn't. "Technically I never-" Dee began, then stopped herself. No matter how insensitive she was at times, even she realised that possibly it wasn't the best idea to try and explain to someone as upset and rule-following as Samantha was that if it came down to it, she'd never claimed it wasn't breaking the rules, she'd just let Samantha believe what she wanted. At least not if she wanted to keep Sam as a friend, which... she did. She liked the younger girl, enjoyed teasing her, appreciated her straight-forward bluntness and honesty. People this honest and simply good were hard to come by, and she didn't want to mess up their friendship because of one incident that had, so far, been a good memory to them both.

So she tried a different approach. "Sam," she started fresh, trying for a soothing tone of voice. Not apologetic, she had no intention to apologise for something that had caused no harm and had made Samantha happy at the time. "Do you know what the purpose of that rule is?"

At least Sam's last concern she could do something about. "If he finds out, he's still not just going to kick you out," Dee assured, her voice full of confidence. "It was months ago, before you even became prefect, and really a minor rule-break. If they kicked out prefects for things like this they'd have to do the same to half of the others. And if he tries, I'll take full responsibility." And she would, not that she thought it would come to it. Not for any sense of guilt; she still didn't believe she'd done anything bad by taking Samantha to Hogsmeade. More out of a sense of protectiveness. Plus, she really was the only reason Samantha had gone there, so it was only honest to admit to it. "But he won't find out, so it doesn't matter. You'll be fine, I promise."

@Samantha Salwis

Not pleased with the point the other made, she looked away as Dee outsmarted her with logic and her voice carried a bit of impatience. "I am a Ravenclaw," she glared at the other girl, "I just don't know if I can trust you again." While saying the last sentence a glimpse of uncertainty could be seen in her eyes as she looked at her dueling captain. If Dee was able to lie about something and cause her to break a rule, what else did she lie about?

The unfinished sentence Dee started didn't help to calm Samantha down, as she just wanted to know what the other wanted to say, which was hopefully an apology. Impatiently, she listened to Dee who now decided to take another road and finally started talking again. "Yes," she answered shortly. Of course, she knew what the purpose of the rule was but even if the rule didn't have a good reason it was still a rule and it should always be followed. Even if the headmaster decided they all had to wear pink on Wednesdays just because he liked it, Samantha would obediently dress up in the color she hated.

Dee seemed pretty confident that she wasn't going to get kicked out even if their head of house found out she had broken the first school rule and it was slightly reassuring for the young girl, to whom being kicked off the team seemed like absolute hell. "You would?" she asked, looking up with puppy eyes to the taller girl. "It does matter," the brunette said as she looked away to the ground. "I broke a rule and I never break rules!" It felt like she had betrayed a little piece of herself, even though she hadn't known at the time so hadn't purposely broken the rule. Her barely breaking rules was something she was incredibly proud of and now it was just all a lie.

Despite Dee's promise, it didn't feel like she would be fine. Too much had changed since she found out prefects weren't allowed to take the younger students to Hogsmeade. Learning Dee had lied to her was bad enough, add the realization she broke a rule and the feeling she couldn't trust her friend and you had a crying kid in the dueling club. "I don't think I will be fine," left her lips softly as she looked down. A part of her wanted to wrap her arms around Dee and hug her for comfort but another part stopped her, telling her Dee didn't deserve it because she had lied to her and betrayed her trust, so she just stood there crying.

Dee winced as soon as the words were out of her mouth. While she hadn't been wrong, it hadn't been her intention to insult Sam, and it likely wasn't helping her case. "Sam, I know you're a Ravenclaw," she assured, then smiled. "Probably more of a Ravenclaw than I am. I've been told that I've been put into the wrong House." Whether the correct choice would have been Gryffindor or Slytherin depended on who you asked.

However, she was rather confident she could talk her way out of this, she just needed to find the right angle. If Sam would only give her an opening... She nodded encouragingly when Samantha confirmed that she did know the purpose of the rule, already opening her mouth to confirm whatever purpose Sam saw in it and then launch a defense based on it. The opening she needed would be in there, she knew it.

Except Samantha didn't explain her thoughts, instead leaving it as a one-word-answer, and effectively rendering Dealla helpless. She was stunned. Samantha Salwis, quite likely the single most talkative person she had ever met, for once in her life decided to not chatter her ear off, exactly when Dee would have appreciated anything and everything she had to say to use for her own gain. How inconvenient.

At least her assurance that she would take responsibility if their little excursion was discovered - although how the girl thought it would be discovered now, half a year later, was still beyond Dee - seemed to bear some fruit... for all of three seconds, until Sam insisted that it did matter, and Dee sighed.

"Look, Sam," she started anew. "Rules are there to protect people, right? To ensure that no one gets hurt or accidentally hurts someone else. To make lives better." The last one was a bit of a reach in her personal opinion, but what she wouldn't say for the sake of the argument. "If a rule didn't do that, would you still think you should follow it? If it kept you from helping someone who needs it, or if it only made people unhappy, is it a good rule that should be followed?" Her words had a flow to it now, the tone calm, persuasive, reasonable.

"Our trip... I saw how excited you were." And she had, that was true. Samantha had lit up like a Christmas tree at the idea that she could go to Honeydukes herself. "And you know I'd always have your back when it comes to it." Most likely. "So we were never in any danger," that she knew of, "no one got hurt," except her poor chocoball, "and I just wanted you to be happy." Really, she'd pretended it was alright for Sam's own good.

Dee paused, thinking if there was anything more she could say to drive her point home. "I'd never let you down when you relied on me, or do anything to hurt you," she finally said, then winked. "Except kick your butt in duelling practice, of course."

@Samantha Salwis

"If you know I am Ravenclaw, why ask?" she shot back annoyed. While Dee tried to assure her, the young girl tried to mask the pain she was feeling with clever remarks. "If there was a house for lairs you would be a great fit for it! Maybe you would even become Head of House!" she told the other. The anger, the disappointment, and the pain. It was too much for the young girl to handle and she had no idea how to behave toward the older girl.

The next few things that Dee said made sense. Rules were there to protect people and make lives better, there was no way she could argue with that. After the older girl asked if Samantha would follow a rule that didn't protect or make anybody's life better, the brunette nodded seriously. The calm, persuasive tone in Dee's voice was the only thing that made the young girl listen to her as she found her words nonsense. Honestly, Samantha didn't believe there were bad rules at her school. Adults always knew what they were doing and wouldn't make up random rules just because they could. At home, the young girl didn't like the rule that she wasn't allowed to stay awake to read until the middle of the night or the rule about not eating a whole pack of candy in a day. But her parents had made those rules to protect her and they made sense, so she followed them. The same thing she did at school.

"If there was a rule that stopped you from helping somebody or made people mad, it doesn't mean it is a bad rule! There are always reasons why rules are made!" the brunette said determinedly. "Besides, your little hypothetical situation doesn't have anything to do with this right now! The rule you made me break is a good rule!" The admiration that could normally be seen in her blue eyes when she looked at Dee had completely disappeared. Sure, she still cared about the older girl but she had broken her trust.

Dee's words about wanting to see her happy, made the brunette soften up a bit. Of course, Dee had meant no harm and she would have her back when it was needed. The harsh look on her face faded a little as Samantha took a moment to think about the words. They hadn't been in any danger but Dee had still lied to her. She had still broken the rules, well she had broken one rule. A little smile appeared on the young girl's face with the mention of dueling practice but she quickly hid it, not wanting Dee to notice she laughed at her joke.

"Nothing bad happened," she admitted, "but you still lied to me." She sighed as her eyes focused on Dee. "And you don't even care enough about me to apologize, to say you were wrong, to say you are sorry." The tears started to roll down her cheeks again but this time she didn't look away. Dee had to see how she had hurt her.

In Dee's defence, she really tried to not roll her eyes, it was just getting increasingly hard to stop herself. She'd thought she was dramatic about things (in all earnestness, she was), but what was the point in throwing such a tantrum about something that had happened half a year ago? Not to mention, nothing had gone wrong, and Samantha had walked away with a huge smile on her face and likely several pounds of chocolate in her pocket. How could finding out that she'd broken a tiny little rule, with no negative consequences, months later ruin that day?

So her patience was wearing thin, justifiably so in her eyes, and at the suggestion she should become the head of a house of liars, she finally couldn't hold back a snort. "Maybe I should," she agreed. "Then at least you can't blame me the next time you make assumptions just because they're the explanation that is most convenient for you. You wanted to believe it was okay, you just can't admit it."

Any sort of regret Dee might have felt was bleeding away quickly. She wasn't going to apologise for something that hadn't hurt a soul and, on top of it, made Samantha happy. Lord Merlin and his famous beard, she'd known Sam was a bit of a goody-two-shoes, but she'd chalked it up to innocence, not... this. Perhaps it was that Dee and Sam shared many similarities, but the fact that the younger girl did not share in her fondness of mischief and interpreting rules to work in her favour was hard for Dealla to comprehend.

This was, apparently, when Sam decided to abandon any logic whatsoever and just run purposefully into the realm of stupidity. Dee's eyes hardened. "Right," she replied, her tone cutting. "Because any single-sentence rule holds absolute truth and takes into account every single possible situation." The sarcasm in her voice was so clear she might as well have slapped Samantha in the face with it. Hopefully she'd recognise it, or Dee would have to reassess her opinion that Samantha belonged in Ravenclaw. "Here's a newsflash for you: If someone is in trouble, and you don't help them because there's a rule saying you're not allowed to, whatever happens to them is on you."

She shifted the bag on her shoulder, getting ready to leave. There didn't seem to be any point in staying, and she had better things to do with her time than stand here and listen to hysteric accusations. "I care about you," she replied, her tone cool. "I care enough that I'd break rules to help you any day. But I wasn't wrong, and I'm not sorry."

@Samantha Salwis

Dee's reaction to one of her remarks was a laugh. How dare she react like that! Samantha was being serious here, this wasn't a joke. At least, for her it wasn't. Dee didn't seem to care the slightest, she even seemed to find it funny. "Of course, I wanted to believe it was okay!" she said dramatically. "Why shouldn't I believe you? How could I have known you would lie into my face!" She hadn't known better, she had trusted her friend but now she knew she shouldn't have. Now she knew she couldn't trust her friend.

Being proven wrong was something the young girl absolutely hated, so when the older student gave her a reality check, Samantha crossed her arms angrily. With the most unpleased look on her face, she stared away, ignoring Dee's words. The only time she acknowledge the words was when she mouthed them mockingly. Here's a newsflash for you. Ugh, Dee should just shut up. They weren't even supposed to talk about this! Why couldn't the stupid girl just say she was sorry?

As soon as Dee shifted her bag on her shoulder, a worried look appeared on Samantha's face. She couldn't leave! Not yet! She needed to say sorry! A wave of panic hit the young girl, how could she keep the older girl here? Dee said she cared about her, but why did she lie then? If you care about people you don't lie to them! The chaos in Samantha's head only grew with every word her captain spoke. Dee was wrong! She should be sorry! WHY DID SHE SAY THAT?

"Please don't go!" the young prefect begged. Taking two steps forward, she reached for Dee's hand. If she held Dee's hand, she wouldn't be able to leave. She still needed to apologize, she wasn't allowed to go yet! "Why can't you just say you are sorry?!" She could feel her blood boiling as she was holding onto the hand for her dear life. "Is it so hard to admit you did something wrong?" Unknowingly, Samantha tightened her grip on Dee's hand. She didn't think she had ever been so mad at somebody in her whole life. "You say you care about me but do you really?" she glared at the other. "If you care about people you don't lie to them. You are just a little lying bitch!" she yelled at the top of her lungs.

As soon as the words had left her lips, she regretted them. Horrified by her own words, Samantha let go of Dee's hand and gasped for air. With both her hands she covered her mouth, her wide-open eyes were visible just above them. "No," she whispered. Why did she say that? "Dee!" she looked up at the older girl. "I am so sorry! I- I shouldn't have said that." The soft voice of the young girl trembled as she spoke. Locking her hands, she squeezed them tightly. "Please! Don't go!"

This time, Dee did roll her eyes. She was giving up. If Sam wanted to push her this far, she could damn well handle the consequences, even if she wasn't going to like them. "Oh please. You know that's not what I meant. I spared you the insult of playing on technicalities, but if this is what you want, have it." She poked Sam's chest in accusation, just below her throat. "You wanted to make yourself believe it, enough that you came up with a convenient excuse, because it meant you could go. No matter how flimsy it was, and honestly, if you'd thought about it for three seconds, you would have known it made no sense." Dee shrugged. "I just didn't burst the bubble you created yourself."

The conversation was clearly nearing its end, probably having outlived its usefulness several exchanges ago. They were getting into it too deeply, feelings were going to get hurt, and likely not Dee's feelings, all things considered. She didn't want to hurt Sam's feelings. It was time to go.

Except apparently Sam didn't agree, grabbing for Dee's hand as she turned to leave, and Dealla paused, looking down at her hand and then up at Sam's desperate face. "I'll admit I was wrong when I was actually wrong," Dee shot back. Truthfully, the prefect had always had a hard time admitting to her faults. Stubbornness, pride, all the things that would have made her a good Slytherin usually made her rather bite her tongue than apologise. Combined with the fact that she was usually able to convince herself that she wasn't wrong at all, it meant that I'm sorry were two words that only very rarely left her lips. It wasn't any different in this case. "You say you don't want me to lie to you, shouldn't you appreciate that I'm not going to give you an apology I don't mean?"

It seemed that Dee had miscalculated. Her own feelings were in danger, after all. Perhaps she had finally pushed Sam too far, perhaps this had been lurking closer to Sam's innocuous surface than anyone could have expected. Dealla stopped in her tracks, then jerked her hand away, her gaze icy.

"Maybe I am," she hissed back. Sam's attempts at an apology went ignored, Dee's own anger surging in hot waves. She'd regret it later, once she had a moment to think about it, but thinking was on pause when her temper surfaced. "But at least I'm not a naive, self-righteous bootlicker without any amount of backbone. I'm not sure how you even manage to stand up straight. I'm curious, were you born without one or did you have it surgically removed?"

Shaking off Sam's pleas, Dee turned on her heel. "Let me know when you've found your backbone, maybe we can talk then."

The stab of pain in her chest as she walked away went ignored, for the moment.

@Samantha Salwis