The Tales Of Terror Closed

She was a person quite used to the hospital wing. The hospital wing was used to her, rather. Eris nearly expected there to be a personal bed reserved for herself, but she was fairly certain she was staying in the bed that Dorian had slept in after Ami P's kneecap breaking moment, judging by the faint smell of chocolate and the chocolate stains in the brown chair that the nurses hadn't cleaned off yet, maybe because they hadn't noticed them.

The sterile smell was also normal to Eris, but even so, she wrinkled her nose and tried to breathe. Attempting not to think about the last time she was in the hospital wing, lying down with a burnt face and a death threat lingering over her head. She was in the hospital wing this time for having run into the ground of the Quidditch training pitch, having decided to train for the new Quidditch season without a team or a spotter. To be fair, Eris had gotten bored of waiting around for the team to be created and had decided, secretly, after seeing the quidditch world cup. She was small and fast, she could be the best seeker ever! It was progress on her path to becoming the next Harry Potter, but a girl with freckles and red hair.

She had been kept in the hospital wing for about an hour to make sure there was no concussion to fix, and now Eris was painfully bored. Swinging her legs over the side of the white bed, crinkling the disgustingly smooth paper that felt strange on her skin. Leaning down to scratch at the faint burn marks on her arms that felt so abrasive against the soft fabric below her, Eris' expression was one of faint amusement and faint concentration.

Her eyes lazily scanned the familiar room, pausing to give a menacing grin at the nurse, who seemed to be scowling at Eris for a minute longer than necessary before turning away to tend to another child. Instantly regretting having to be waiting in the hospital wing with people who disliked her, including the nurses who were quite used to the antics Eris and her friends pulled.

Studying a small slytherin boy whose legs were shaking and swinging in a fashion similar to the way that Eris often swung her legs around when impatient and bored, Eris let out a little smile and turned her body towards the boy.

Even though she was bored and lonely, that didn't make Eris any less prone to talking to people. "What'd you do to get in here?" She grinned earnestly. "You don't seem all that sick or hurt."

The boy inspected the place, his eyes jumping from the pretty architecture to the beds and all the stuff that the nurse had hoarded. He wondered if the nurse was already used to the disgusting smell of this place. Wasn't it depressing, working in here and only meeting people who were injured? Just as he was thinking about the nurse, she seemed to appear from behind the corner, deciding to scold another child next to him. Remy had not paid attention to the people around him. He followed the nurse with his glimmering eyes, blinking slowly with curiosity as he listened to what she was saying.

Unlike the kid next to him, he was unfamiliar with this place. Remy was a first year who was still getting accustomed to the ways of Hogwarts. It was hard to adapt but he truly tried his very best to make his experience as enjoyable as possible. 'As enjoyable as possible' translated into messing around and pulling pranks on others. This time it had backfired. Karma had gotten her hands on him after he had been escaping skillfully for days.

The nurse turned her attention to him, tending to his wound. He didn't let any squeaks of pain, to him they were the good ol' signs of weakness. But the discomfort and dismay were easy to pick up from his face. Some people wore their feelings on their sleeve, Remy wore his on his porcelain pale face!

He heard a voice talking to the walls, someone had finally made the leap and started talking to themselves. How unfortunate... It took the younger boy a few seconds to realize that no one here was going insane. They were directing the question at him! He picked his eyes from the floor and slowly shifted his gaze at a girl. She seemed to be in a bad condition too. Somehow, she still remained calm enough to chatter around. Remy took notice that she was a Gryffindor, not that it mattered to him. All people were equal under the eyes of the nurse who'd scold anyone...

"I tried to have fun. That's all," the boy shrugged but stopped immediately as it proved that shrugging hurt. She questioned why he was here, even if he looked pretty okay. Remy turned himself slightly, showing her his back full of the consequences of 'having fun'. He then turned to look at her again, raising his brows and tilting his head to question what brought the redheaded girl in here.

Eris wasn't the best judge of size. She, herself, was a whopping 4 feet five inches tall and was getting used to being asked if she was a first year or if she had found herself in the wrong classroom. Honestly, someday she was going to make herself taller with magic, but the idea of changing a fundamental part of her appearance didn't sit easily with Eris. Unless she was mad or dressing up for Halloween or a prank, that was. Apparently notorious for growing taller when she was mad, Eris was currently nothing but melancholy and bored.

Feet still swaying, as she kicked her feet back and forth, watching the black leather of her mary janes dart between her eyes as if caught in its own pendulum. The exact shape and size of her shoes blurred as her feet swung faster and faster. It almost seemed like she was going to fly off the bed, with the speed of her shaking legs. Evidently, if the boy hadn't guessed already, Eris wasn't the type to sit still. Ignoring the faint throbbing in her head and passing it off as some kind of headache, she turned to study the boy.

He looked to be in his first year at the school, from the wide-eyed way he studied the hospital wing, and from the way the nurse didn't seem evidently disgusted by his presence. At the very least, she couldn't tell from the size, because she was the shortest girl in the school and knew better than to judge by size. Though, if she was attempting to guess, she would say first year. From the way his eyes didn't search the room with fear, rather wonder, Eris could only assume he had either missed the troubles of last year or was a first year.

Maybe he was an extremely short seventh year or something. Who was she to judge? Still running her hands through the fabric of the bedsheets, Eris stopped the frantic kicking of her legs and frowned. Studying the boy and his Slytherin tie, Eris carefully leaned down to pull at the laces of her shoes. They had come untied during the fervent storm of kicking that Eris had occupied her time with, while the boy seemed to gaze around, assuming there was someone around talking.

Blinking at the sight of his back and his wince of pain when his shoulders were hurt, Eris tensed up. He was fine, there was nobody off to hurt the boy. No, he had just gone to have fun. Eris had done that her first year and ended up in the hospital wing one too many times.

Trying to soothe the pain in her head and the fear at the sight of pain on another human, Eris beamed from ear to ear and let out a little laugh. "What kind of fun? I'm in here for trying to practice Quidditch on my own. Apparently, I'm not quite as good a seeker as I thought I was."

Finally, the nurse left him alone and he could relax. Letting out a relieved exhale, he might have shot daggers at the poor nurse. Scratching his temples, he closed his eyes and moved towards the end of his bed. He wanted to rest for a little while before the nurse would come again to pester him. Gluing his eyes on the girl before him, he wasn't shameful of staring at her at all. The curiosity shifted from the walls of this building to the redhead before him.

He took notice that she was quite short. Debating in his head whether she was a first year or a second year, Remy slowly lifted one of his brows. She could be who knows how old, but she definitely was short no matter her age! He drew another conclusion, she couldn't have been a first year. He might not have been the best at memorizing names, faces stuck really well with him. This girl he hadn't seen before anywhere around him. Besides, she was a Gryffindor and he a Slytherin. He couldn't possibly meet her in his common room for obvious reasons.

She revealed to him how she had been practicing Quidditch alone. To Remy, it didn't make much sense. Who would practice a team sport alone? Besides, it was much more fun with your friends. Not that he had many! "Oh...I see," was his short and compact answer. His thoughts traveled somewhere else for a little while. He wasn't the best at Quidditch, nonetheless being a seeker in all honesty. He was ignorant of his surroundings and loud.

"Do you play in the Gryffindor Quidditch team?" he smiled and asked before continuing again. "Sorry, I haven't been too invested in the Quidditch team assembly," he smiled and dodged her own question about what kind of fun did he have. Why'd he tell her, that was not important! He was certainly more interested in talking about her than himself. There was much he knew about himself and so little about her. Remy's eyes trailed to her legs and shoes. He noted the leather shoes with a strap. Mary Janes, weren't they called that? All the girls had a pair of those fancy shoes.

Eris nodded her head, mind lost in thoughts of soaring on broomsticks and touching the clouds themselves with her hands. She had heard a rumor that clouds weren't actually puffy and that they didn't feel like cotton candy. They were just condensation or whatever, according to science and the smart Ravenclaws. That seemed stupid though! There wasn't exactly a point to life if everything was all science-like and boring. This was a world of magic and doing things according to science seemed awfully stupid.

Stopping the nodding of her head and tucking her hands under her small body, the little girl grinned from ear to ear again. In a world full of magic, dragons, and spell work, there were few things she loved as much as flying. There was an evident thrill to soaring above the world, a thrill that was even more important than passing classes or learning a new spell with disastrous effects. For someone so short, she felt important flying above the world. She felt gargantuan and larger than life, with the wind in her hair and the breeze flinging robes around her body.

That was the reason she fell, really. It had been an awfully bad idea to fly in her school robes when they were decently big on her small frame. The billowing robes had wrapped themselves around her face and quickly made vision in the sky impossible.

"I do play for the team! At least I did last year. I was a chaser, but my friend Sabrina stepped down as a seeker and moved schools, so I want to try out for being a seeker this year. I don't know when Professor Wright will have team tryouts though. I think I'll have to try out again if I want to be a seeker."

She spoke fast, rambling on and on in the typical way of a child who hadn't spoken in a couple of hours and wanted to talk more. It would be nearly impossible to tell how old she was from the excitable look on her face, but the strangely diminished gleam in her brown eyes that hinted towards some kind of tragedy seemed alarmingly mature for one so small and so over animated.

"I'd think for all that troubles I've been through, they'd let me onto the team. I don't blame you for not following the quidditch assembly, not with the other troubles at school."

He could see her slowly lose her grip on this moment and fall back to her own dreamland, the boy soon following her example. Remy stared at her for a while before slowly turning his head away and staring at the ceiling again. What did he dream about? He had always loved attention, that was for sure. There was nothing as delightful as being on the stage, the spotlight shining on you and people screaming your name. Of course, he himself hadn't experienced that feeling. However, watching his mother perform made him enamored with the idea of following her footsteps.

As a child, he got acquainted with his mom's guitar. His paternal grandmother insisted that he took the traditional route. Play the piano. Of course, what would you expect from a snooty pureblood elitist Slytherin woman that probably had never had fun? Not that he didn't love grandma, she was quite funny, even if her sarcasm sometimes bit really hard. At least Remy knew where he had gotten his brutal honesty. He found classical music to be boring, the boy just wanted to rock on! Maybe that or he just loved to tick others off and rebel.

She was a chaser, huh? That must have been fun. Remy would much rather keep his legs firmly on the ground. He was still a bit afraid of heights, not really sure why, but they made him feel dizzy! The idea of a seeker blasting through the air after the snitch in rather dangerous surroundings was a foreign idea for him. Why the heck would anyone want to do that voluntarily? He shrugged, people had different kinds of interests. Something he'd like someone else would detest, the same logic worked the other way. He couldn't deny that her excitement was very contagious, he too showed a small but visible smile tugging the corners of his lips.

"I think you can get in. If you're passionate about something, it'll show. Besides, people find it admirable I guess. Not that I know much about how quidditch try-outs even work. I'm too scared to even mount a broom," he made fun of himself, his small smile turning into a full-blown grin. He turned to face her again and resumed the swinging on his legs. He still didn't know her name and wondered if he should introduce himself first. Then again, she was the one who opened the conversation with the abrupt question.

"I'm Remy, what's your name?" he carefully tilted his head, filled with curiosity.

If Eris was aware of his smile, it didn't show on her dreamy face. Her goal was not to make friends, even though her chatty demeanor seemed to say another story. No, she was just a lonely girl unable to stop talking when there were words bubbling and churning around in her gut like miniature butterflies fluttering in place. Blissfully oblivious, she seemed still caught up in her own world. Eris hummed softly for a second, grin on her face, as she imagined racing through the air again. In fact, she almost debated getting out of the bed and rushing outside to go on her broom again, even if she was still recovering from the after-effects of jumping onto her broom with no regard for safety.

There was something freeing about flying, which Eris longed for even more with every second she spent stuck in the hospital wing with the boy, who seemed rather shy. The nurse still seemed loathe to come over to Eris, probably dealing with bigger problems than the resident idiot who always seemed to be injured in one form or another. Remembering the last time she was in the hospital wing, Eris ran a finger down the side of her face, tracing the nearly invisible lines of burns. They weren't large enough to obscure her whole face, but in certain lighting, the pale pink raised lines on her arms and face could be seen with a vengeance.

Scared, of flying? Eris' smile faded into a frown, as she studied the boy. How was it possible to be scared of something so awe-inspiring and so amazing? Flying was a reprieve from sadness and a reprieve from life for a faint moment. Sure, the first time she had been on a broom, Eris had been a bit scared, but the excitement of flying on a broom like a witch from olden times had thrilled her. Most of Eris' best memories were on brooms, like how Adam and Eris had spent a day sneaking around on brooms during their first year.

Lost for words for only a moment, Eris shrugging and kicked her legs back onto the bed. Absently picking at the dirt and grime caught under her nails from her tumble from the air, Eris sighed. "Quidditch is amazing! Try-outs are a bit weird, but you should get over your fear. I mean, I was scared of some things, but you ought to have flying classes. They'll make you fly there, and then you'll get over your fear!" She said, in the content voice of one who had absolute faith in her own words. Fear was not an option, not when she was a Gryffindor without an acute understanding of what fear did to people besides herself.

Lazily noting his name was Remy, Eris flashed a smile. "I'm Eris Fawley."

He couldn't help but note her frown the moment he mentioned that flying really wasn't his thing. He offered a sheepish smile in return, something that was not common from Remy. His face was usually pretty flat if it didn't have a grin plastered over it somehow. He raised his hand to nervously fiddle with his hair. There were two habits he liked to indulge in to signal his discomfort. Either it was fiddling with his hair, curling it with his first finger like some enamored princess. If he didn't do that, he'd lick the corners of his mouth and chew on his lips until they'd painfully sting and bleed. Needless to say, lip balm was his best friend.

His best memories had little to do with anything in the air. In fact, those were probably his most traumatic and terrible memories ever. He loved the clouds and the freedom but just one look down and he'd feel his eyes rolling back. It was one of those things he really had to work on to enjoy his life to the fullest. Flying and Quidditch were supposed to be fun, right? So it seemed, at least what her body language was telling him agreed with that too. She kicked her legs back and seemed to fall into her own worlds again. He mimicked her and did the same, leaning his head against the pillow. It was taking an awfully long for someone to heal just a wound. Wasn't there some kind of a spell for that?
Remy really hated the hospital wing now. Probably because of what he associated it with. However, Eris Fawley had made it slightly more bearable.

She seemed so confident in his ability to get over his fear. He wasn't a Gryffindor like her. He was much more cautious about the new, unknown and scary things. They intrigued him, but feeling dizzy on a broom was a deathwish. "I'll try harder I guess," he lied through his teeth. Remy did not want to seem like a coward of some sorts. He'd have to change his whole mindset and even biology if he wanted to succeed in his flying classes. Besides, it would just worsen everything if someone tried to force him on a broom again. He'd probably run away faster than their brooms could fly.

As she flashed her smile and introduced herself, he knit his brows a bit closer together. Eris? THAT was her name? "Like the Greek Goddess? Of, you know, discord. Or the dwarf planet?" he smiled softly upon realizing that he had remembered the name. Contrary to flying, astronomy was kind of interesting. All the planets, stars, and moons and how they worked. Besides, it wasn't much of a stretch from what he had learned in muggle school!

If she saw through his feeble bluff about trying harder in flying classes, Eris made no comment. Her eyes were focused outside the windows towards the trees and the barely visible sight of the Quidditch pitch, but her eyes darted back to his in apprehension when she realized how ideally she had burst out her name. Crimson lips parted in an O of shock, as Eris' carefree attitude faded away and the sudden expression of lucidity grew on her face. For someone with a possible concussion, she looked serious and possibly a bit confused. Scratching at her head with an expression of muted panic, Eris stared at Remy.

He was a Slytherin, and most Slytherins were pureblood or knew something about the pureblood world. What if he knew who she was? Why was she so stupid and impulsive to constantly greet herself with her last name? This was not the Fawley manor, and this was not the pureblood world. Eris didn't want to hide who she was, and having the last name to introduce herself with felt nice, after years of being lied to and denied the secret of a last name that was real. She had been under the illusion her last name was Elcan for years, and saying her real last name out loud often fixed Eris with a sense of self that invigorated her and an even smaller sense of pride.

So maybe it was worth it to state her last name out-loud, even if it would invoke stares and possible judgment from those who understood her story and life. Nonetheless, it wasn't the time to worry aimlessly about possible outcomes. Eris wasn't that great a judge of character, but there seemed nothing malicious about the look upon the dark haired boy's face. Rather, he seemed a bit forlorn. Perhaps, and hopefully, it was about his aversion to flying and the horribleness of missing out on such an amazing feeling like soaring through the air that caused such a look on his face.

Excitement nearly vanished, Eris' look of shock and horror turned to one of adapt amusement. So he did know her name, seemingly. Yet, not for the painstaking reasons that most wizards knew her name for. Face turning towards one of delight and amusement, a soft smile began to form on the corners of her lips. Her name was based on the Greek goddess, as her mother had taken a serious interest in the Greek fables of past. Mythology seemed to interest Jane Rowle, even when other magical interests sent a chill down the spine of the seasoned woman, whose interests seemed repulsive and odd at best and insane at worst.

"Yeah, like the Greek goddess! My mum was into Greek mythology before she went insane and all that jazz. Or maybe she was insane at the time, I don't know exactly what happened. Nonetheless, yeah, my mum liked Greek mythology and that's what I'm named after! I've not heard of the dwarf planet though. Kind of funny, considering I'm nearly a dwarf myself.