A Dying Patch of Ivy PV Burkhart closed

Eleanor readjusted the books in her arms. She had just come from the library and hadn't had the time to run down to the dungeons before class. So instead, she carried four textbooks in her arms, with an additional three in her tote. If she couldn't be a Ravenclaw in name, she'd study like one to compensate. By the time she got there, most of the seats were full. All the Slytherins were huddled together on one side of the room with no open spots amongst them. She sighed and looked around, deciding to try her luck with the least offensive looking Hufflepuff in the room. From what she could tell, the girl had her head down, writing something undecipherable from a distance.

"Here goes nothing." Eleanor thought to herself as she made her way through the classroom. "Hopefully she's not the world's first Hufflepuff psychopath."

As she sat down her books, dropping her heavy tote on the ground in relief, she reconsidered mentally. "On second thought, I think I'd be very interested in seeing that." She chuckled lightly to herself as she pulled her History of Magic textbook out of her bag and waited patiently for class to begin. Her grandparents had filled her head with all sorts of historical knowledge and facts in preparation for her schooling, so she was fully prepared to ace this class. You know, if she didn't continue her streak of ruining everything she touched.

She had been all alone, not surprisingly either, until a girl sat next to her. Shifting her eyes sideways Jesse caught a glimpse of the Slytherin crest. From what she'd heard they were supposed to be the most vile, bothersome, and ruthless group in the school, but so far Jesse just felt slightly intimidated. She avoided eye contact, taking sudden interest in reorganizing her papers and fluffing the feathers on her quill.

Not long after the class began and they seemed to be covering the witch burnings of the 14th century. The teacher was somewhat pleasant to listen to so Jesse paid attention for the most part but it became hard. She was not use to the sound of scratching quills, writing with a quill, or being in a room full of witches and wizards, or magic in general. She gripped her quill a little harder as she wrote, trying not to disturb the girl next to her, when—SNAP.

Jesse stared at the ink that splattered across her paper and the broken quill that now lay in two pieces in her lap. Embarrassed, she quickly scooted closer to the desk and folded her arms on the desk and pretended to be focused on the professor while her face heated up. Great, now I can't take any notes, just great, she thought. And the subject was pretty interesting too. She could always just look it up in her book later but...she just felt so dumb. She heard someone snicker nearby and felt herself shrink.

It was fairly obvious from the time Eleanor sat down that her presence was unnerving for the girl next to her. Especially since she caught her sneaking a glance at the crest on her robes. While it hadn't been her first choice, she had to admit that being a Slytherin had its perks. The assumption that everyone in her house was either a dark wizard or a dark wizard in the making was a valuable tool. She smirked as she watched the girl begin to furiously mess with her belongings before the lecture began.

While the topic of witch burnings was one of the more interesting points in magical history, she was more intrigued by the girl sitting next to her to focus on her notes. Eleanor was fascinated by her intense note taking and wondered why she seemed unable to focus fully on the task. It all seemed to culminate in the sudden snap of a quill and the spilling of ink. She heard the sound of someone seated near them giggling at her misfortune and she snapped her head around, leveling her classmate with a dangerous looking glare that shut them up fairly quickly. Turning back to her desk partner, Eleanor deftly pulled the ink stained piece of parchment out from underneath the girl's arms and replaced it with a fresh one from her bag. Placing a fresh quill next to it and pushing her ink well between them, she whispered, "Let it not be said that a Slytherin never got someone out of a sticky situation." She paused. "Literally."

Out of the corner of her eye Jesse noticed movement next to her and braced herself for an insult. Instead, though, she felt the parchment slide from underneath her and in came a fresh one. Her faced flushed but not as much as when she saw the new quill placed right besides her. The Slytherin girl whispered, "Let it not be said that a Slytherin never got someone out of a sticky situation. Literally."

Just that little bit of kindness was enough to send a wave of relief through Jesse, or at least half a wave. She unclenched her teeth enough to whisper a thank you back but she felt that it wasn't all that the nice girl deserved. Jesse was a very hardworking girl, and usually responsible with her belongings. Her brother would be shaking his head in disapproval if he knew how badly she was shook. She felt jitters rush through her. Usually she could calm herself by doing something laborious, like studying or physical work, but taking notes only seemed to make it worse. At least now she had something to work, fresh supplies given by a Slytherin.

This positivity encouraged her to get back to writing, although she could barely read her handwriting still. Before it was absolutely terrible chicken scratch but now, after long nights of practice it was more like 'decent, Grade Z chicken scatch', and the ink on her hands made it look worse. She wasn't really embarrassed anymore, the girl didn't seem to mind her nervousness too much, but she was still weary, and it worried her. She was nothinime this back home. Heck, she was considered the cool girl who did daring things and didn't let anyone, or anything get in her way, including her own emotions. But look at her now.

A frown played on her lips as she kept writing. Her mind wandered over to thinking about the girl and she glanced at her, biting her lip. "Your qill...you shouldn't have gave them to me," she whispered, trying to smile but instead made an awkward grin. "Someone else probably needed them more than me, but thank you again." Jesse quickly peeped at the teacher, then back at her own writing. "Do you like this subject, witch burnings? I mean, not actually burning witches, but...I guess the history of it?" She glanced at the girl.

Eleanor’s eyes were drawn back to the girl as she bit her lip. She was a little taken aback at being thanked for what she had done. It was a purely strategic move, she tried to rationalize. Better to be friends with the person she’d likely be stuck with in this class than to not. Besides, she had done it out of habit more than anything. The fairly maternal act she had performed for this girl was similar to things she had been doing since she was able to walk for her own mother. Changing the dressing on surgical wounds, cleaning up bodily fluids, comparatively a little spilled ink was nothing. And if she had never been thanked for what she had done for her mother, being thanked for this was a bit of a shock.

“It was nothing.” Eleanor murmured. “You deserved it just as much as the next person. Besides, now you owe me a favor.” she whispered teasingly as she turned her eyes back to the professor lecturing in the front of the room. Thank Merlin she had been reading books on this subject since she was able to read, otherwise she might be concerned about how much content she was missing because of this girl.

“I don’t like it, per say. But it is interesting.” she admitted in a hushed tone. “Especially the stories of the ones that got away and lived to tell the tale. I can’t imagine what that must’ve been like.” Her voice was caught between a reverent awe and sympathy for the witches that had come before her.

Jesse gaped at the girl for a moment at the teasing remark but then turned back to her paper, both curious and suspicious. She solemnly glanced at what had been her beautiful, in length, notes before to what she could barely catch up on now. She had merely written four lines, but she knew that the subject was interesting enough that she wouldn't forget for a while.

She agreed with the girl, she could barely imagine living sanely after what those poor people went through. Getting punished for the simple crime of being yourself angered Jesse, and that's basically what bullying was. While playful teasing like the girl done was alright, laughing about a broken quill was ignorant and dumb. She took that moment to cast an evil eye in the direction of whoever had giggled, although it was probably a bit too late.

Sighing and rubbing her arm, Jesse eyer the girl, growing more and more comfortable with her. She was usually very extroverted and friendly but Hogwarts seemed to only bring out the worst of her around people, and luckily no anger yet. The girl was fairly pretty, with her brown hair and eyes. Jesse's own hair was black, like her father, and midnight blue, like her mother. Usually, though, she'd compare herself to her siblings when talking to anyone.

"I'm Jesse...but you can call me Jay." This made her blush. She didn't let anyone call her that except her brother, so why was she allowing for this Slytherin girl to do so? She almost took it back but life wasn't a big undo button. She puffed out her cheeks and then blew out slowly, nervous. Jesse just couldn't seem to think straight these days. "What's your favorite part of history?"

Eleanor let out a light chuckle at the girl's gaping expression before she turned away from her. It was nice to know she hadn't lost her edge despite all her missteps. She tried to turn her focus back to the lecture, but quickly found herself bored by the presentation and back to looking at what the other girl was up to. She watched from the corner of her eye as she attempted to pick back up where she left off, eventually giving up just like she had.

She felt her skin heat up as the black haired turned to look at her and attempted to look as though she hadn't noticed. How she could go from cold hearted and intimidating to a overly emotional mess of a human being was beyond her. Thankfully her slightly darker complexion disguised the blush better than most of her classmates with their lily white skin. She finally allowed herself to meet the other girl's eyes when she began to introduce herself.

"Eleanor." she said as smoothly as she could manage. Her mother used to call her "Nora", but she hadn't heard anyone call her that in a very long time. "Nice to meet you...Jay." A slight smile appeared as she watched the girl blush and puff out her cheeks endearingly.

Careful, Nora. Eleanor heard the voice in her head warn. Even cute Hufflepuffs can be dangerous if you let them be.

She banished the thought from her mind before responding to the girl's inquiry with her characteristic cheekiness. "All of history? Like, everything that's ever happened ever?" she giggled before answering seriously. "I don't know, though it is fun to trace through time and see all the intricate puzzle pieces that had to fit together for everything to be the way it is now, if that makes any sense."

Jesse practically wanted to die right now. She was still on the fact that she had let someone else call her Jay. It shouldn't have been that big of a deal, but Eleanor calling her that sounded so...strange, but in a good way. And she felt bad.

In frustration Jesse clenched her fists and then flexed them, trying to release tension in her body. Too much was going on, and this girl was...a lot. Both in a good way and bad. She was pretty sure she liked her, and she didn't want to think about in what way yet, but...Jesse sighed deeply. She felt like getting up and jumping, twirling, anything to release the energy.

But she couldn't, she had sit down. She tried to feigned being calm, but her feet tapped the ground. She crossed her legs and stared at the table, biting her lip once again. One day her lip would bleed and she'd be sorry.

"Eleanor is a pret—a beautiful name. I like it a lot." This time she looked her in the eye calmly with her midnight blue eyes, smiling. Jesse was pretty sure this girl was thinking she was either weird, annoying, or something equally disdainful but the least she could do was show kindness.

"All of history? Like, everything that's ever happened ever?" Then Eleanor giggled.

Oh, gosh, groaned Jesse mentally. She was clearly not thinking straight at all. She sunk even lower into the seat but after feeling like she was about to fall, she sat back right up, slouching forward. She ran her fingers through her hair, mumbling to herself, "Unbelievable..."

"I think, she began, wishing very hard that her face wouldn't be so pink. "I think I meant, uh, that...I think about magic history...my parents—" She glanced at the girl hesitatingly, but the continued. "M-my parents are muggles a-and I just don't know anything about the wizarding world, except for what I've learned so far at Hogwarts. I just wanted to see if you knew anything..."

Jesse snapped her mouth shut. That was it, she was done talking. She sounded like a bumbling fool. But... Eleanor was nice...she didn't seem like a she'd care about her nervousness.

Eleanor watched Jesse’s body tense and relax with great interest, wondering what had her so wound up. She could relate to the tensed shoulders and balled up fists of the other girl. Her own palms were marred by little half crescent scars from where her nails often dug into her skin. The consequences of too much pressure placed on the shoulders of someone much too young to cope with the weight of it.

She met Jesse’s gaze as she complimented her name, noticing for the first time just how blue her eyes were. She wanted to immediately take back her quip as Jesse sunk lower in her seat, but before she could say anything, Jesse was telling her everything.

It was a lot to process and Eleanor took a moment to think about how to respond.
Did she want to open herself up to this relative stranger or did she want to keep her cards close to the vest instead? Impulsively, she decided upon the former.

“My mother’s a muggle.” Eleanor said quietly. “From America. We aren’t...we don’t....” she sighed. “I haven’t seen her in years. But my grandparents taught me everything I know, including,” she nodded towards the presentation going on in the front of the room. “this. Amongst a great many other things. I can’t guarantee that I’ll know the answer to every question, but you can ask me if there’s something wizarding related that you want to know. Of course, that’s if you want too.” she offered.