ᴠᴇxᴇᴅ PV Ami Procoppio Closed

Ami was 'bout to punch someone. Or something. Either worked. Her fingers were just itching for something to happen, already. Maybe she could build a dummy out of apples and oranges, and then run it through with her butter knife... or maybe that wasn't socially acceptable? Her hunger for action was unrivaled by anything else, and the disappointment that set in after she realized that nothing happened in a school for magic was great, indeed. All they did was read, and study, and do boring things that she would've done at a normal, No-Maj school. 

Instead, she was here... certainly, it was the opportunity of a lifetime, to someone else. To her, it was a prison shrouded in grandeur, keeping her locked up and away from the life she'd rather pursue. But it was fine, she'd stick through it, like she always did. She was the queen of perseverance... right? It wasn't like she was a quitter... no sir, Procoppios weren't quitters. Her parents, least of all. 

Her father was the bravest man she knew, pushing through challenges that would've brought any average Joe down to his knees. Her mother was, undoubtedly, a genius, and was brave enough to let her husband go to hell and back... truly, she didn't have any better role models to look up to. She could only hope that she might, one day, make them proud.

What had she been thinking about, again? Right, punching people.

Oh look, here came a suitable subject. Ami stared at the silver-haired girl who came into the Great Hall, the first year who sat down next to her with a book in her hands. Who did that? Shrugging her shoulders, Ami turned back to her own plate, poking at the empty surface with her fork. It wasn't her business, why should she care about some lowly first year? 

Except, for some reason, that strange little fact just stuck itself into her brain, lodging itself into the crevices of her neurons like an annoying song lyric she couldn't get out of her head. Neurons? Was that right? Well, she would never know, because Hogwarts didn't seem to care much for science, or basic reading and math, for that matter. Before she could think too much about it, Ami opened her mouth and words came out.

Thinking before speaking was a much better way to go about it, wasn't it? Pity that she didn't like to think.

"Books? Wouldn't the librarian get mad at you for coming to the table with a book?" A normal question, sure, but the malicious tone behind it suggested that society would've been mad at her for reading at the table. Setting her spotless fork back down on the table, she pushed her plate away, giving the first year a weird look before flipping her hair over her shoulder.

She knew it, someone had to raise their voice and even cared to spice it up with a hostile tone, leaving little imagination to what the stranger's opinion was about Ophelia's book. A sigh escaped her lips as face turned towards the redhead, eyebrows frowned a tad stronger, lips parted slightly as eyes squinted a little, gaze observing the fellow Hufflepuff then slowly turning back towards the book.
"It is my book actually, so I think it shouldn't be a problem. Does it bother you?"
A somewhat disinterested tone decorated the spoken words, hinting that the librarians might not be the ones bothered here.

Yes, the older girl appeared aggressive, but Ophelia knew better than to judge by first impressions, many factors could cause such malicious behaviour, such as a bad day which was no stranger to the first year. That's why one decided to always take her time before forming an opinion about someone, a smaller circle of friends suited her interests better anyway.

The freckled girl didn't seem to feel like reflecting kindness at the moment, one could be compared to the snake illustration in front of the baby blue gaze, except a Basilisk would probably pick a slightly more sly approach instead of blurting out intentions and opinion directly.

Silence dared to rest between the girls for a moment, voices of other figures mixing in their bubbles as Ophelia waited what the girl's following words shall be, expecting one will express her dissatisfaction towards the book.

Everything about this girl reminded Ami of that one, insolent little squirt… what was his name, again? Elijah? Brilliant in every way, she would have to admit, but why couldn’t he just keep all of that brilliance to himself, rather than it spilling over the brim and making her feel bad, too? Every single stupidly brilliant syllable that fell from the other Hufflepuff’s mouth made her feel like a kid sitting at the grown-up’s table, desperately trying to keep her head above water as she treaded through the deep waters of extensive vocabulary and complex topics she didn’t quite grasp completely. The way she didn’t waste words, either, made Ami feel stupid, too.

Or maybe it was the accent. Anyone with a British accent sounded like Albert Einstein compared to her, even when it was her and Scott goofing off by the Lake, or her mother trying to make her laugh by reciting Shakespeare, but in modern English. With her sharp American accent, all she did was sound angry all the time. For the first time in her life, she felt a pang of sadness at the fact that she knew she would never truly fit in with this massive castle filled with brilliant potential, knowing that where she came from was just a small part of it.

Well, there was, of course, Celynne. But the Californian was expected to be brilliant, she was in Ravenclaw. And what house did Ami end up in? Hufflepuff. Hufflepuff, where all of the misfits who didn’t fit in anywhere else ended up; Hufflepuff, where all the students were good at was getting into shenanigans involving fire and being nice all the damn time. Who had time to be nice? Certainly not her, not Ami with her ferocity and vivaciousness. Was she not bold enough to be in Gryffindor? Was she not absent-minded enough to be in Ravenclaw? Mean enough to be in Slytherin?

“Sis,” Ami muttered under her breath, shaking her head slightly. “At this point, even the sound of a book opening bothers me.” Her hands twitched again, much more visibly this time, as if she were itching to hold something. A knife? A match? … or an apple. Reaching for the juicy red fruit from the fruit bowl in the center of the table, she turned the fruit around in her hands, as if she were examining it for flaws.

Setting the fruit down on the table, she reached again for her knife, as her mother’s lecturing voice could be heard in the back of her mind. When she had first chosen to go vegan, she had received a lengthy email from Abella, in which she was taught about the foods she should be eating in order to be getting all of the nutrients, especially the protein, that she needed in order to function. Sometimes she forgot how uselessly brilliant her mother was, although the seven paragraphs about fruits were vaguely interesting to read about.

According to her mother, apples were part of a family called pome fruits. Most pome fruits provided nutrients like zinc, potassium, sulfur, phosphorus, iron, calcium, and boron. Most importantly, however, they were an absolutely awful source of protein- most of its weight was made up by water, and water had no calories in it whatsoever. They were sweet, though, and at this point, Ami didn’t really care about her health anymore- she would eat when she was hungry, which at this point, was always.

Another thing she hadn’t mentioned was the smell of books. The smell was… well, it wasn’t a skunk, per se, but it also shouldn’t have been at the table when people were eating. The smell of knowledge and intellect was nauseating, and Ami nearly shuddered at the thought of the open book, which the girl was presumably reading for fun, being right next to her. The knife grazed the skin of the apple, and it soon became apparent that Ami wasn’t going to eat the apple, but rather carve it into… well, that remained to be seen.

The girl appeared pissed off, her mood made any of the kind aura near her wilt as she expressed her bothers about Ophelia's book. One decided that quarrelling with the redhead was no use really, dragging attention to herself was the last thing on one's mind as slightly tinted lips released a sigh, hands gently closed the book, blue orbs rolled slightly.

Ophelia wasn't in the mood to exchange disagreements, her already ruined mood decided not to get worse but it appeared as if the fellow Hufflepuff was complaining to the grey-haired girl with an intention to anger minds. Her appetite got a little worse thinking about it so one shook head gently, she never let others affect her, deciding to let the trivial matter go.

Sliding her book to the side, vision observed as the sitting neighbour grabbed an apple, pale hands itched to grab a fruit themselves. Reaching for a small bowl, one filled it with blueberries and placed it next to her now-pushed-away book. Blueberries were one of her favourite fruits, she was surprised they were serving them at this time of the year, but it didn't matter really, lips gently accepted the sour-sweet taste as the pale fingers were now slightly tinted purple from grabbing the tiny berries over and over again.

She remembered her mother used to make blueberry cheesecake for her, knowing it was the girl's favourite food. The tastes always collided in one's mouth so beautifully when eating it, it didn't appear as if the Silverton daughter could ever get enough of such lusciousness. And she didn't.
It was still her favourite dessert, only now there wasn't any mother in the picture. No more echoing voice, mumbly singing when preparing the table, no more graceful movement, waving white locks, the elegant figure which rocked even a smudged apron, no...nothing. Just a crying daughter and her father, trying to enjoy a once sweet dessert, now turning sour.

She was absolutely unflappable, and although it impressed Ami, it also infuriated her. How could someone just not get mad at people? She, herself, had an awful temper that just couldn’t seem to be tamed, no matter what she did to try and reel herself in. Last year, she had certainly tried to hide her explosive nature beneath a facade of rebellious silence, but that had ended in catastrophe and payback- payback evident in her shorn hair. This year… this year was different. This year, she didn’t care about the trouble she got in or the number of detentions she got. She was a fireball this year, a flaming shooting star, and nothing was going to get in her way.

The Hufflepuff set her book to the side, slightly lessening the smell of knowledge stinking up Ami’s nose. It most likely wasn’t because of her words, but more that she wanted to actually eat, a hypothesis backed up by the girl’s next actions to reach forward for a bowl of blueberries. Raising her eyebrows, Ami said nothing openly about her choice of fruits, instead choosing to keep her hands busy and occupied with her knife and apple.

She couldn’t lie, Ami knew how to use a knife better than most kids her age- maybe not Kaegen, who was just an all-around psychopath. She started to shave off the sides of the apple, one side sharpening just slightly. The girl next to her had made no move to continue their cold and rather choppy conversation, and Ami had no inclination to start something else, either. Carving little divots into her apple, Ami leaned over, plucking a blueberry out of her neighbor’s bowl, rolling it in between her thumb and index finger, before squishing it.

"Sorry," she said with a smirk, clearly not sorry at all. "Had to borrow one." Sliding the peel off her thumb, she smeared some of the sections of her carved apple with the dark purple fruit juice, before picking up her knife and going back to her carving.