23 Mar 2024, 07:50
Friendly Fights
Open to sectators once the dueling beginsSetting: Grounds during break; the boys decided to stay. The weather is good but cool.
IC date : March 25th
Spending over half a year away at the school, Ernest was getting very used to the peace Hogwarts brought. He had finally got his head wrapped around his classes and was turning in his essays easier and easier every day. When the Christmas break came, he decided to stay. Clark had started to ignore him and he still didn’t know what to even say to Octavious, his adoptive father. He began to notice the divide in his blood family and adoptive family closer to the holidays so it only makes sense that he stayed at the school. So he celebrated the holidays without them.
This break, he didn’t even have to think about if he was going ‘home’ or not. He hadn’t even thought of packing, though it did hurt to see the other boys laughing and joking as they talked about their break. He wondered if he’d ever be that excited to go home or if he would always feel better staying in the damp castle alone. Ernest figured only time would tell.
One thing that really was making the break better was the fact it gave him plenty of time to study for his end of the year exams; something he had been doing religiously at this point. First, he did history of magic, his love for the class was bittersweet because the history was fantastic to learn about but a lot of what they told him was different than his grandfather’s tellings. Who is right? Who is telling the truth? The one he put out of his mind until he couldn’t anymore was transfiguration. He got some of the concepts now but he was still very much struggling with the thought process of it all.
Ernest was happy to stay back this break, as his friend was also staying back; Reginald Drake. They had hung out more than his other friends, mostly talking about classes and whatever else struck their fancy. Even though they were friends, they rarely paired up in classes so when they had the time outside the classes, the boys would love to show off to each other, spell after spell. The time he spent with Reginald was getting easier and easier to spend, the boy’s presence making him comfortable where it had once made him confused.
Sometimes he wondered why the boy would even want to be friends with him, he was so grumpy and not even half as kind as the other boys Ernest himself had run into. He tried not to dwell on those thoughts often though, as self-deprecation would get him nowhere. Ernest tired to put them out of his mind when he was not around the boy, as when he was around him, it was easier to forget about those insecurities.
It was sunny; something that came as a surprise as the last couple weeks of spring that graced the grounds with drizzle and showers. He was actually having to watch his step as he wandered out of the common room and down to where they usually met. The sun shined brightly as he walked out to the small clearing, nearly every bench and table on the way was clear as students were not there to fill them. Usually one of them would have to rush out to snag a table if they were to meet, or they would be stuck leaning, sitting, or standing under one of the trees dotted around the grounds. Being less energized than Reggie, though, he often came last to their meetings.
Today was the same as always though, because he could not miss the other boy as he walked up. The other boy was taller than him, but still not too tall so Ernest did usually have to strain to see him, but with the grounds being mostly empty, he was easy to see. “You would not believe how irritating it is to have brothers.” He said as he walked up, throwing his bag down on the table as he sat down at their table.
“Sure, Clark is still ignoring me, but still, his existence alone gets on my nerves.” He said, digging through his bag for his charms notebook and a quill. He had been working on his charms study plan for most of the day, it being the easiest to figure out. “Alec, though, Do you know Alec? Well, he is better, but it’s still annoying. I feel like he doesn’t know what to do with me like he wants to treat me like a sibling but he is stuck seeing me as a stranger. .”
Maybe he was projecting or was misunderstanding it. It wasn’t like he was used to having this new dynamic in his life. He never had a mom, or dad, or siblings. This was all new territory for him. In the kindest way, but most depressing, Reginald was closer to him as a brother than any of the ones he shared blood with. Maybe that’s why he cared so much about the boy’s understanding of him, or maybe it was because he was his first friend. The first person who talked to him since his life changed so rapidly.
Ernest glanced over at his friend, trying to imagine if the boy had decided to go into a different compartment that day. Would they have become friends later on? Would they have been strangers? How about Enemies? Would Reginald have ever come up to him if he didn’t have to that day?
He looked away, at the lake, far away from them but it’s great mass hard to hide when you were on the Hogwarts land. It was hard to keep his thoughts from racing to the worst case, even if it could never come true, years of being alone with his negative thoughts hard to train out of him. “Anyway, you having a hard time with that spell in Charms, too? I am so lost every time I cast it. I took notes on everything but I think maybe I copied something down wrong.”
[1007 words]Private Thread for @Reginald Drake
Later adding: @Evelynn Decipio@Percival Gray
2 Apr 2024, 16:23
Friendly Fights
@Ernest Baird
Reginald took in the relative silence of his surroundings compared to every other day they met up as the perfect time to think. He needed an excuse to not study and thinking about his stay at Hogwarts over going back home was the perfect candidate.
He had many reasons for staying in the castle over the break, the most noteworthy among them being his mother gifting her wand to him and telling him that she was no longer a witch, no longer a real member of our community, no longer proud that she was loved by magic and chosen to manipulate existence with its power. That hurt him far more than he showed in his day-to-day life, The pain tore through his heart like an invisible dagger, demolishing the relationship he believed he had with the only real parent in his life.
Reginald loved magic. That much was obvious to anyone who saw him running wild in the dueling club while strafing a dummy that couldn’t even move before burning it to pieces, and the fact that his mother sent the conduit of her magic, the basis of her powers, to him as a gift of all things made the boy believe she was fully turning into a muggle. Turning into one of them.
Pulling him out of musings that even he thinks are going too far, he finally laid eyes on his friend. Ernest had been a nice companion. A good friend that Reginald enjoyed having in Slytherin, where everyone tried, and mostly failed, to adopt a cutthroat persona, Ernest was just a grumpy boy who needed someone to speak to before he could open up into quite a fun conversationalist; to him anyway.
“Sounds rough, buddy. Can’t comment. I’m an only child! It gets quite boring, though, I’ll tell you that much.” He said with a smile as he slid a bottle of water across the table towards Ernest, raising an eyebrow at the next sentence to come out of his mouth. “Alec? As in Alec Mason? What a coincidence! He’s helping me land a spot on the dueling team for the snakes. He’s awesome, but I get ya. He does get that far-off gaze like he’s not really looking at you when he's talking.”
Alec was an interesting topic for Reginald. Initially, he took his relationship with the older Gryffindor to be a simple one based on the fact that the latter was an Ex-duellist, someone who trained to do exactly what Reginald intended to do. But, as he trained and spent more time with the boy, he realized he genuinely enjoyed his company. He represented the bridge between adults he didn’t trust and most children whom he saw as incompetent. He wasn’t an adult, yet he was competent in the same field Reginald hoped for. Combat. The end all be all of every situation in the eyes of the young Snake.
His friend’s voice broke him out of that other rabbit hole. Wow, his mind was a mess these days. “You kidding? I hate this type of stuff! When the spell is interesting like making fire or water or something, I get it down in one or two tries. This stuff is so boring though!”
He said with an exasperated sigh as he threw his arms into the air in a show of annoyance before closing the notebook he was most definitely studying from. “Still, you want to play around a little with the spells we learned in these last few months? The school dueling circuit won’t know what hit em if we train just a little harder.” He says with a smirk as he twirled his wand with wide eyes filled with excited sparkles that promise pain to anyone that stands in his way in his dueling career. The thought of him and his friend ripping people apart with Slytherin holding up the dueling trophy filling his imagination.
Word count: 653 words
Notes: Early reply! Somewhat.
May your wand stay ever steady - Reggie
26 Apr 2024, 16:27
Friendly Fights
Open to sectators once the dueling beginsSetting: Grounds during break; the boys decided to stay. The weather is good but cool.
IC date : March 25thReginald was one of the few people that Ernest didn’t feel irritated by when he looked down on him, which was saying a lot because the boy had a good couple of inches above him. He didn’t mind because he knew Reginald didn’t think of him any less than a boy that reached a taller height. He could tell by the way Reginald looked at him when he slumped by him that he actually enjoyed his presence. The feeling was a nice one.
“To be fair, up until last August, so was I.” He said, thinking back to the emptiness of his Grandfather’s house and how his library was always packed with the best books. “We can trade, I can go back to being an only child and you can be all brotherly with the bunch.” He figured after Reginald met every one of them; both the Bairds and the Masons, he’d change his mind on seeing being an only child as boring. Maybe relaxing was a better word.
“Huh? Alec is helping you get on the team? That’s hilarious timing, Koko Riddle was helping me the other day. I figure I had a slight advantage but I guess we’re evened up again,” He joked, knowing either way they are in the same boat. Just two boys having to wait for a shot. Though He wondered if it would be funnier if he was practicing with his brother and not a stranger.
His brother was such a rough spot for him still, the boy had such potential to be worse than Clark, but. . . He seemed so much nicer, like he would have protected him from Clark had he had known. He felt weird thinking of any other boy as protective of him, but he figured if someone was going to fit that role, Alec would be a good candidate.
“Tarantallegra is really such a silly spell to learn anyway,” He mumbled as he looked back over his notes. A dancing spell basically even if it isn’t technically that fun. He didn’t see any practical use from it in his day to day, just another useless spell to take up his days until he got the good ones. He was thinking of which spells could be considered more practical when Reggie gave his brilliant idea. “‘ Play around a little’, why if I didn’t know any better I’d say you were suggesting a friendly duel.”Private Thread for @Reginald Drake