Night Owls PV Griffith Finished

Long, strides made muffled thumps on the floor of the castle as the professor walked towards the library. The thumps were accentuated by the intermittent flapping sound his long coat made, and he was in fairly good spirits. He was in search of nothing specifically, just a good book to read before he winked out. Wizards didn’t have very good taste in literature, and there were no fantasy novels that he knew of lining the shelves of the Hogwarts library. It made sense, he knew the worlds had to be separate, although it bothered him immensely that the students’ sentiment seemed to be leaning towards trying to coexist in the same world. What were they thinking?

But that wasn’t going to dim his mood. His hands were deep in his pockets, one was rubbing a large, brightly colored bird behind the head, and the other was busy feeding a large rat he had found the other week that had hurt it’s paw, and needed some time to recuperate. When he opened the door to the library, he knew that no one was going to be in there. But it had always paid him to be paranoid. Just because he was paranoid didn’t mean a large wizard with a killing curse wasn’t hiding under an invisibility cloak about to make him decidedly not alive. And although that was a bit of an exaggeration, he still noticed the woman reading the book pretty quick.

And it hurt him, a lot. Like a dagger thrown by a particularly skilled marksman piercing his heart and ego at the same time, pin-cushioning them to his stomach. He was tall enough to clearly see the book she was reading. It was about phoenix’, and it meant she was actually worried. Sure, he could be wrong. Sure, she could just normally spend her nights in the library looking up phoenix’ simply because she was an insomniac and that’s what she liked doing. But she had actually cared the last time in the stables. He had hoped her anger at him was enough. Had hoped it had made her not care about both him and his bird. That was how it usually worked. People would think something along the lines of ‘screw you and your bird’ and then forget about it, maybe seethe for a few days before deciding that being upset would give Griffith too much pleasure.

She was a genuinely, truly good person, under all the haughtiness and outfits. And he had messed up. The man stood there staring, too shook to do anything. If he could, he would reverse things. Show her the stables, put her mind at ease and then just explain why he didn’t want her to be around. He could have done so much better, because she realistically deserved better than what he had done. Assumptions had gotten the better of him, and he had truly impacted the life of someone who had been trying to help. He trained with animals, and knew behaviorism well. While it wasn’t as relevant for people as it was for animals, he still knew what he had done. Taken a good person with good intentions, and made it clear that good was not appreciated.

“I… messed up.”

It was lame, and it sounded lame. It hadn’t been thought out and it was more of a reaction than a statement. Something he was telling himself, less than something he was trying to tell her. What the heck was he supposed to do, at this point? Creatures forgave, they forgot and allowed for new beginnings. People didn’t. They remembered exactly what you did to them and never let go. The professor’s mind started to race, but he knew that there was nothing to be done. He didn’t really want to fully apologize to the head of house. He just wanted to undo his damage, give her peace of mind. Show her what he didn’t show her before and allow her to go about her life free of him and everything he did.

She was going to stand up, and leave. Or tell him to. It didn’t matter, either way. Griffith hated doing damage. That was why he wanted people to hate him, after all. Or at least it was one of the reasons. He spent so much of his life trying to undo damage, so much of his life spent trying to help creatures that no one else was willing to help, that didn’t have a chance. It went against his principles to actually impact someone.

She didn’t look worried, or especially tired. But he had done exactly what she was doing so many times. Finding a problem he didn’t know how to fix and then spending so much time reading, trying to find a solution. Sometimes it worked fine and he found what he was looking for. Other times, it didn’t, and he ended up losing a friend, or just ended up feeling unsatisfied.

He could offer her a book he had on the subject, it was a rare copy, and might not be found in the common section of the library. But there was no point. She was going to refuse it. She may be a good person, but she was human. He wasn’t scared of being shut down, wasn’t worried about a blow to his ego. He wanted to man up and admit he had done something wrong but it wasn’t going to help. Why do something if it wasn’t going to help? And besides, if he tried to talk she would probably just leave. And he didn’t want to bother her.

You never go up against a sicilian when death is on the line, and you never go up against a woman so soon after you make her so worried she reads books about the pet she thinks you’re abusing at 2 am. He wasn’t going to give her an excuse, she didn’t deserve excuses. But he was going to apologize. That much, at least, he owed her. She was going to go off on him, there was nothing he could do about that. But he was going to take it, anyway. He wasn’t going to run away from this, although it worried him how often he was telling himself that he was going to do it.

“I’m sorry.”

Absentmindedly, Hjørdis tapped her finger on the page after tracing it. Her long nails made a soft patting sound as they hit the wad of paper. She was lost deep in thought, putting her mind to work as she read up on the anatomy of the magical creature and reflected on the knowledge she already had when it came to healing magic. Glancing up as a figure caught her attention, Hjørdis spotted the entrance of perhaps the person she would have least liked to appear at this given time. There were plenty of people she would have enjoyed spending time with now but this man was just insufferable, to say the least. It was too late to hide what she was doing, he was already staring at her. She would have pretended that the book was someone else's and she just found it or flip to another section if she had the chance but it was too late. There was no point in even attempting a bad lie.

The Slytherin did, however, quickly tie up her hair again. She pushed it off her face, tying it neatly and swiftly into a bun. This was her choice of hairstyle as it was a little more professional than her loose hair and it was a lot faster to do than styling it in any other way. She turned away from him without so much as a nod or greeting, uninterested in talking to him. Hjørdis simply did not actually care as to why he was there. That was until he spoke to her. She quirked an eyebrow a little as she heard his voice, claiming he messed up. It was a pathetic attempt at what appeared to be an apology but Hjørdis was not exactly one to forgive, especially not that easily or for such a lame excuse. Of course, he messed up, that was obvious. There was no point in telling her that he messed up and agreeing with her. She was always right and she already knew that. "I know." She replied, in a matter of fact tone, still looking at the textbook in front of her.

She could not say she was surprised that he came to the realisation that he messed up. That was obvious. Without even looking at him, she picked up her quill and dipped it into the ink as she jotted down a few notes that she had just read from the page. His presence did not affect her. It had no impact on her. She was not angry or mad at him, she was apathetic towards him. He existed and she simply did not care for it. At this point, she had no idea if his existence benefitted the magical creatures that he was supposed to care for or not. And the truth was, that was all that mattered. As long as his presence benefitted them in some way, he would be permitted to stay. She would tolerate him if she had to.

"Ok." She replied as his apology went in one ear and out the other. It was not sincere. There was no explanation, there were no words more than a simple 'sorry'. She had no idea what he was sorry for nor did she care, quite frankly. Hjørdis would normally have asked what the apology was for but this time, it did not really matter. They were just empty words coming from him and they had no impact or bearing on her. Turning the page as she got to the end of the paragraph, Hjørdis continued to read. Her eyes never once left the textbook she was reading and the book she was writing into. Despite his presence, her attention was focused entirely on the work that she was doing.

She read over the words, adding a few notes down into the book before putting her quill down as she came to the end of the sentence. Glancing up at him with a stoic expression on her face, Hjørdis finally actually acknowledged him being there properly and questioned him as politely as she could. She was civil, at the very least - well to an extent, "Is there anything else I can help you with, Griffith? I'm a little busy, as you can see." Her tone of voice heavily implied that she did not actually want to help him. If there was anything else she could help him with, she would much rather not know. It was impatient and irritable, focused heavily on the fact that she was busy. She was trying not to show her worry to him but there really was no point in hiding what she was doing. Perhaps, just perhaps, she could play it off as her doing her own research. She did, after all, always do research into things that she could use to improve her potions or alchemy with. It was research material, after all.

He felt a little better when she said that she knew he had messed up. The supreme confidence that radiated from her made it all seem a lot better, like he was justified, at least a little bit, by her snobbishness. He did have to admit, however, that she was pretty justified. Although how she knew he had just meant to make her mad but not actually care was a complete mystery to him. He was adequate at Occlumensy, he had to be. She probably hadn’t just gone and read his mind, unless her power level was ludicrously higher than the ludicrous levels he currently thought they were resting at. That kind of confidence didn’t just appear out of nowhere. There was reason behind it, validation. Empty confidence felt different.

She didn’t care about him, at all. She didn’t even seem mad. That was either because she wasn’t, and had just decided Griffith was a burden that she had to deal with but didn’t have to like or care about, which was ideal, or she was extremely angry, and just very good at hiding it, which was less than ideal, but still doable. It was pretty decent, actually. Nothing to worry about. He didn’t want to make up with the head of Slytherin, but he didn’t want to do this to her, he didn’t want to have caused this. And if he was perfectly honest with himself, he didn’t know how to fix it, at all. To say Griffith wasn’t a people person would be stating the extremely obvious.

This didn’t change his opinion of her. He still thought she was a good person. Someone who didn’t deserve to worry about something like this. Besides, Perthyn Wendigo liked her. That meant more to him than he was willing to admit. To have his friend like someone was one of the highest recommendations the professor could think of. He had his friend with him, coincidentally, in his left pocket. He could say something like ‘You’re not wrong about me, but you can check him, if you want. See if he’s fine’. But that was copied right out of a movie, the ‘You’re not wrong about me’ line always led to the two eventually making up and developing some romantic subplot farther down in the series. And that was not something he was interested in.

And so he stood there, and did nothing. Until she asked him if he needed anything. There were actually a few things he had been meaning to talk to her about, but hadn’t had the time. Students in Slytherin he was worried about, students he wanted someone to keep an eye out for when he was busy, which was most of the time. And it was her job to do that, wasn’t it? To watch out for Slytherin, protect them and keep her house safe? But that could wait. He wanted to fix what he had broken first, even though he didn’t know how.

A little voice told him to just hold out his friend and let the pheonix take care of it all, but he didn’t want Perthyn Wendigo exposed to this much negativity. It couldn’t be good for him. But he had the distinct feeling if he left the room and left the Slytherin head of house and the bird in the library together, they would get along fine. There had to be a way to get her to not feel the need to worry, but she was so indifferent, she would probably just say she didn’t care and ignore him, then worry about it privately later. The welshman was at a complete and total loss.

“You don’t have to worry about him. I don’t have all the answers, but I have enough to keep him safe. I’ll be gone this weekend, I have something to take care of in london. If you want to go in the stables and see what there is to see, I won’t know you did it. Just please be careful.”

And with that, he turned around and left the library. He had no business intruding like that. It was 2 am, and she deserved some space. The need for solitude away from people you didn’t like was a need that he felt often. He may have been taking a risk telling her he was leaving, but he was praying he was right about her. His stables were clean, they were nice. A good place for creatures to stay. If she saw that, then maybe she would forget about his friend, but stay mad at him. If he was lucky, anyway.

The longer this man stood there quietly, the more Hjørdis seemed to dislike him. She was not sure why. There was just something about him that she disliked. No, correction, there was a lot about him that she disliked. He seemed to be keen to just irritate her and his very presence worked wonders in doing just that.

Hjørdis waited for a few moments for him to speak. He seemed to be contemplating his reply to her. Though she could not fathom why. It was probably something ridiculous, in any case, that would be uninterested in hearing. Turning back to the books in front of her, she continued to read the page.

However, the man did something completely unexpected. The Head of Slytherin raised her head, quirking her eyebrow slightly as processed his words. Despite all of the security he had placed on his enclosure and the fact that he liked to keep things hidden away... He told her that he was not going to be in Hogwarts over the weekend. She did not question what he was going to do - she did not care. However, it intrigued her a little as to why he would even tell her that when he was originally so busy trying to keep her out of there.

He seemed intent on keeping her out, come to think of. The former encounter required her to force her way through the door and now, essentially, he was inviting her in. But he did not seem to want to know whether or not she was there. It was a strange way of inviting someone in. Hjørdis sat there silently, trying to understand his actions. She could not quite understand why he had a sudden change of heart. Her initial suspicions instantly went to the whole thing being a trap. But it did seem rather foolish to attempt to trap another Professor whilst in Hogwarts grounds. It could definitely be possible, however.

She had not actually decided what she would do. Whether or not she would go. If she ever came to a decision, she would certainly not tell him. There was no point, anyway. All she said was "I'm not interested in your weekend plans, Griffith." before turning back to continue her notes as though she did not care about his words and with that, ended the conversation. He turned around and left just as quickly as he had entered. Not once did Hjørdis look up or acknowledge his departure.