Dance 'Til You're Dead FIN

@Aly Salinger

Becoming an animagus had taken years of psychological preparation, and by the time he achieved it, Pericles lost track of how uncommon it was along the way. The ability had absorbed so much of his daily thought that he had forgotten most magic folk weren't also considering it. Aly's reaction lured out a coy smirk, and the Ravenclaw shook his head, murmuring a line of demure thanks. There was a lilt of laughter to his tone as he reassured: "No, not a taboo at all. My animagus is an eagle." The tilt to his head was distinctly avian as he admitted, "Bit on the nose, isn't it? I could show you some time, only I'd rather not do it here. I don't like shifting where I can't see the sky."

Aly had a distinct charm, the kind of cheer that carried one on its wave, uplifting in its buoyancy. When her mood dropped, it was viscerally felt. Pericles became keenly aware of the way it dipped to talk of father-son bonding. Her voice softened and her eyes lowered, wholesome in her reminder that it really was sweet. The teenage heir was entering that particular age where as much as he loved his father, he wanted to be left alone by him, unwittingly taking his presence for granted. "Well I... suppose it is," he awkwardly admitted. His father could be sweet, though it was almost funny hearing someone describe him as such. He half wished she could meet him. That uneasy expression settled into gentle surprise as Aly went on. "Now that's quite a coincidence. I was thinking of going to auror academy, you know. My da was one, for awhile at least, before the family business."

While Aly appealed to a life at sea, Peri was drawn to the intrigue of Auror life. He crinkled his nose as he remembered out loud, "Granted I'll have to go through the Transfiguration N.E.W.T.s to get there...." Which reminded him. "Aly, can I ask why you chose to take Muggle Studies?"As the son of a seer, Divination he could understand. His mother had implanted the value of oracle skills in him early on. But lest he wind up sounding like a typical judgmental pureblood, he held out his palms as if to ward off assumptions, adding "Not that it isn't an important study. I'm only curious as to how you'll use it. I don't think any occupation I go into will have much to do with muggles."

Hex Colour:
#8C94E9

Someone seemed quite proud of his achievement - as he should be! Aly could only stare in awe as Peri admitted his eagle status, and suddenly, she could totally see it in him - the way he quirked his head, the distinctly birdlike stare, even the way he held his arms, as if they were wings ready to spread and take flight at any given moment. Aly had always heard that becoming an Animagus suggested tiny behavioural eccentricities into one's human form, too, but she had never met an Animagus before, so this was the first time she was actually able to see it in person. What a truly magical world this was. "I'd love to see it sometime," she gasped, breathlessly, still unable to truly grasp that the boy in front of her could turn into a bird at will. Last year's interest in unaided flight reigniting in her mind, she suggested, "Maybe you and I could go flying. I'll need my broom, obviously, but..."

Trailing off, Aly listened to Peri talk about his dreams with a sort of apprehensive disgust on her face, one side of her lip curling into a very unlike-her sneer. Perhaps this distaste for Aurors came from the fact that it was the very career that had stolen away the possibility of Aly ever having a real mother - not just a woman who birthed her, but someone who cared, someone who was around and who loved her. In a way, despite being an only child, the young eaglet had always had a sibling rivalry - with the Ministry of Magic, that which had taken not only her mother but her father as well, in a more literal sense. From a young age, she'd vowed to never go into a Ministry career, a promise that had only strengthened with time - and it just seemed... odd that anyone would choose to follow that path that had caused her so much pain. "Well, to each their own," she muttered, a sardonic lilt to her low voice, so drastically different from her earlier enthusiasm. "Don't ever tell that to my mother. She'll want to adopt you on the spot."

Between the Auror dream and questioning Aly's choice in electives, Peri was reminding Aly more and more of her mother by the second. She shook her head to clear it, cautioning herself internally that Peri was not Hesper - that this was just a casual conversation between friends, a peaceful moment of learning more about each other. Peri wasn't the kind of person to challenge her like that, as his follow-up sentences so deftly showed, and Aly relaxed slightly back into her chair. You don't have to defend yourself. He's just asking. Curious, like you.

"I get asked that a lot," she said, finally, after a long pause and an equally long think. "I think a lot of people are in Muggle Studies because they're at least part Muggle and it's an easy class for them, but I... well, I dunno. It's a challenge for myself because I didn't know anything about Muggles before I started, and I like a challenge." That was the reason she'd given Hesper and Benjamin, her parents, upon starting her third year at Hogwarts. But was it the real reason? Gnawing on the inside of her lip, Aly considered literally biting her tongue, but eventually let herself continue, admitting the following with a nervous, stilted tone: "I also grew up just outside of a Muggle city, and sometimes I could even hear the Muggle children laughing as they walked home from school near my house. Couldn't see them, of course, but I always knew they were there." Swallowing down her nerves, Aly let herself look up to catch Peri's gaze across the table for the first time since he'd asked. "I guess it was just interesting to know there was this whole other world out there, so close to me, but I couldn't even reach out and touch it. I wasn't really thinking about a career at the time. Nor am I now," she added with a dry chuckle. "I can't believe they make us pick our careers basically at sixteen. I've no idea what I want to do with my life."

The confession slipped out, completely against her will, and Aly wished immediately that she had a Time-Turner, that she could go back just thirty seconds and tackle herself off of her chair before saying that. It seemed, lately, that every one of her classmates knew just what they wanted to do - just what O.W.L.s they needed to pass, just what N.E.W.T.s they were going to take, just what careers they'd call home for the rest of their lives. And then... then there was her, still reeling from the realisation that life wasn't just a career and it could end so suddenly and without warning. Why was she expected to be thinking about a job at a time like this?

@Aly Salinger

Pericles visibly brightened at the proposal of sharing the skies. While one would go with wings and the other by broom, it was all the same, bringing out an easy grin that embodied his love of flight. As usual his words came more mildly than his feelings, a quietly uttered (albeit no less authentic): "I'd like that very much." Yet just as Aly could light a room with her joy, a cold spot seemed to form- independent from the frigid atmosphere their ghostly neighbors put out- specifically when he spoke of pursuing an Auror occupation. If he'd started to suspect something was off from her expression, her tone made it unmistakable. "Well, to each their own. Don't ever tell that to my mother. She'll want to adopt you on the spot." Two blinks, a creeping raise of the eyebrows, a softening of the mouth. He wouldn't ask on it outright, but anyone capable of perceiving the mellow wizard's micro-expressions could see she'd snagged his curiosity.

Proper as ever, instead of prying, Pericles eloquently turned the topic to the often overlooked choice of Muggle Studies. He could understand those who chose it for an easy grade, just as he could admire Aly doing the opposite in choosing it for the challenge. "I guess it was just interesting to know there was this whole other world out there, so close to me, but I couldn't even reach out and touch it." When she looked his way again, she'd find him leaning with a forearm on the table, hanging on her words. His silvery stare was dulled with the mutual understanding of one raised in isolation. At Aly's dry chuckle, Peri hummed an equally unenthusiastic note. It was what followed that finally shattered the pretense of subtlety between them. "I can't believe they make us pick our careers basically at sixteen. I've no idea what I want to do with my life." It was the look she wore in the wake of her truth which stood out to him most of all: regret, as if she'd committed some irredeemable blunder by being honest. Between Pure-bloods, he supposed it made sense. Expectations ran high in their culture. Names to uphold, legacies to fulfill, destinies to be met and all that. Heirs were supposed to want what was expected for them. To admit that the future was uncertain was to confess one's own aimlessness in the grand scheme of things. Some bluebloods would call it weakness, but Pericles found it made Aly all the more interesting, and relatable.

Regrettably, Aly might be left to fear she'd crossed some line in this "easygoing reacquaintance-ment between long estranged friends". Her fair-haired companion eased back into his seat, finally breaking his intense absorption to glance around the room, withdrawn into thoughtful silence. He thoughtlessly observed as a duo of young ghosts snatch the decapitated head of a friend, playing keep-away as his echoey voice carried protests through the hall. Pericles was notoriously a Ravenclaw of few words, yet when he did speak, he took his time to find the right ones. They came as gently as they were genuine. "My father stopped being an auror after he was, hurt, on a mission. I'd grown up with his stories. They made me want to follow in his footsteps, and before the incident, he always supported that goal. When I was little, he'd build these sort of..." Peri scoffed and shaped his hands into a loose box "...obstacle courses, to test me. We would camp out in the wilderness, or travel out on mock missions. All of that stopped after the injury." His grief was thinly veiled. A part of his father had never returned from that mission, and the rosy childhood Peri once knew went with it. He wasn't willing to dwell on that particular truth.

"Since I've finished my first year at Hogwarts, he's only ever gone on about the family shipping company. He's got me tallying ledgers and tracing nautical maps on vacation." The teenager's voice had dropped to a drone, the drawl of an adolescent who found their parents' guidance tiresome, if not altogether tedious. It lowered to a secretive mutter as he asked, "Can I tell you a secret...?" Pericles seemed to search Aly's face, trying to find reassurance there. "I don't want to be a commodore. I'm not even confident that I want to be an auror anymore, either." With a weak smile and a half shrug, he let the complexity of their situation sit between them, anxiety for the future amplified by the path-forging O.W.L.s looming just ahead. "Seems as though we're in the same boat. Is your mother trying to push you down an auror's path?"

Hex Colour:
#8C94E9

It seemed the two Ravenclaws had the skies in common, a mutual love for the freedom it allowed. Of course, Aly's way of flight would never have quite the same level of liberty as Peri's - the requirement for a broomstick, the impossibility of true independence - but at the very least, it was something they shared. Aly made a mental note, then, to go flying with him sometime. Being an Animagus seemed an impossible goal, and even then, her own form having wings wouldn't be guaranteed - but they could at least soar together somehow, and the very idea warmed her heart. When was the last time she had simply had fun with a friend for no reason? Better still, when was the last time someone had seemed excited to spend time with her in such a way?

Luckily, at first it seemed like the present friend would move on from the topic of Aurors, for he propped one of his arms on the table and leaned ever-so-slightly forward, clearly hanging onto her every word. Aly offered him a wistful smile. It was sweet, really, how interested he was in this, though of course a little voice in the back of her head couldn't help but chime in with an anxious opinion that perhaps he was just pretending to have an interest in Muggle Studies. After all, what other pureblood had Aly ever met whose interest in the non-magical folk even so much as paralleled her own? Her Muggle Studies class was usually full of half-bloods and Muggle-borns looking for an easy O, rather than those like herself who truly knew nothing of the subject. Sure enough, Peri leaned backwards in his seat, a thoughtful look on his pointed face, and Aly's heart twinged in her chest; there it was, she'd lost him to the pureblood tradition.

The silence swelled between them like a board game in second-year Charms classes, and in Aly's head, her fight-or-flight response kicked in. She was no Peri, but her wings spread, and she began to shift uncomfortably in her chair, finally putting both feet on the ground and beginning to move her weight into them. What excuse would she give for running away from the palpable awkwardness that had arisen between the pair? Late for dinner, too cold, or just the standard "got to go"? But before she could even begin to stand, the boy across the table began to speak, a low drawl with careful words, painting a picture of obstacle courses, injured fathers, and a parental relationship for which to gain Aly would have slaughtered legions.

She sat, quietly and attentively, and listened.

The father-son bond had grown darker, recently, it seemed, and Aly tried to remember if her relationship with her mother had even ever been so pleasant. As far back as she could recall, Hesper Livingston-Salinger had only ever been cold and distant, as if she regretted the life for which she had abandoned so much. Well, no - that much was not true, for Aly had watched the love between her parents as a child, seen the way the corners of Hesper's pursed lips always so slightly quirked up at Benjamin's terrible jokes, something that never happened with anyone else. So maybe it was just Aly she regretted, and the now-fifth-year wondered if Peri felt the same about his father, or just the job. A job that sounded so intriguing, at that. To travel the world with nothing to stop you - well, was it not the same freedom that rode upon an eagle's wings?

"You don't want to be a what? A - a com-mo-something?" she repeated back, having never even heard the word before. Clearly, it was something nautical, a life with which she was so wholly unfamiliar. "Honestly, Peri, I've no idea what that is. But your dad's job sounds so... freeing. Maybe not the ledgers part, but the rest of it." An escape from Britain - Aly would happily have swabbed a hundred decks just for a day in an unknown somewhere where Hesper could never get to her. "If he's ever looking for an intern, let me know," she cracked, dryly, only partially joking.

And then, the loaded question: if Aly was being shoved into an Auror career. Here was where they differed. "Well, to be honest... no," she admitted, somewhat sheepishly; here Peri was, being forced into a life on the open sea he clearly didn't want, and Aly technically had the freedom to pick any job she desired. In fact, she was quite sure that Hesper wanted nothing to do with her, familiarly or professionally, and would be nothing short of thrilled if Aly never joined the Auror office. "I mean, my mum just wants me to get a good job, I think. Something respectable, like a good pureblood would do. But she doesn't particularly care if it's an Auror job, or at least she's never told me I should become one," she added. "She's more focused on my grades than my career, which is probably why I've not really thought of what I want to do yet. Well, there was the Healer dream, but..." She bit back a sardonic comment about not being able to save everyone, and instead finally went with, "I've sort of lost interest in that. Thinking of dropping the internship soon, too." Aly tried to shrug it off as if it were nothing at all, because, truly, now it was nothing at all. A dream she simply no longer had, with no real reason as to why. Was it not their right as teenagers to be confused about their lives? "So you're not alone. I think we're sort of all questioning our futures right now, and honestly, it's ridiculous that we have to start thinking about it so soon. I'm pretty sure Muggles don't even have to pick this quickly."

@Aly Salinger

"A - a com-mo-something?"
"Commodore- senior captain of a shipping line," Pericles elaborated through a smile, though an indifferent tone undermined the title's significance, showcasing just how little he wanted it for himself. But Aly offered an outsider's input. Freeing, she'd called it, turning his dismissive smile into a thoughtful frown. Peri wasn't one to settle for a tradesman's desk. He balked at the idea of spending his adulthood plotting routes and crunching numbers, though the bird across the table from him shed light on the lighter aspects. He didn't mind being at sea, yet an auror's path seemed so much more spontaneous.... "If he's ever looking for an intern, let me know," she'd said. His smirk grew wry as he offered, "Maybe you and I could consider trading parents sometime."

Pureblood experiences varied, but many shared universal truths: finding a respectable occupation to please their parents, letting loose personal wants along the way, these were things Pericles could comprehend intimately. Aly had sacrificed her healer dream for the sake of meeting her mother's expectations. So you're not alone. I think we're all questioning our futures right now. His stare softened. Peri propped his elbows onto the table, hands folded together and braced beneath his chin, pensive with a pinch of pity. "It's only simpler for muggles because they live in a world apart from ours. Any of them can work on-" he shrugged, plucking occupations out of the air "-televisions or rocket ships. Magic sets us apart. Curses to be broken, wix criminals to be caught, arcane components to be transported for sale and study. We live aware of the mundane and magic sides of our earth, so it's more difficult- and more urgent- to find our place in it. You have a good temperament for a healer," he affirmed, "though a personality like yours could go anywhere."

The record came to an end, leaving Aly and Pericles immersed in the sounds of a crackling gramophone, the echoes of ghostly chatter, and the chill of a blue-lit dungeon. He paused to examine her in the wake of his praise as if belatedly re-assessing her. It had been a while since they spoke last; whatever happened in Aly's absence had changed her, imbuing the former flower girl with some kind of melancholy wisdom. In spite of it, her presence was just as Charming as before, if not more so. "I'm glad you're here." The spontaneous second compliment was ambiguous; glad she was back at school, or glad she'd specifically found his hiding place? Both, really. Pericles had spent his starting months more or less self-isolating, this unexpected company was more enjoyable than anticipated. Tentative as he was to break his hermitage, he acted on a strong sense that Aly was worth it, suggesting "We should meet like this more." His smile was apologetic as he admitted "It can be somewhere warmer, next time. You're welcome to keep the coat for the walk out, and later tonight, I'll look for you in the Common Room. If that's alright?"

Hex Colour:
#8C94E9

The curious little bird filed away the definition for a commodore in her mental dictionary, right between "commodity" and "common room", give or take. The captain of a ship, able to go wherever, do whatever, live on trades and goodwill from others and the views from the front of the ship, whatever that was called... Merlin, it did sound tempting. As such, she almost laughed when Peri suggested they switch parents sometime, though it wasn't quite enough to eke out more than a soft, halfhearted smile from her. "That's... quite a suggestion," she murmured, with no more to add to the conversation on that front.

But she did have more to say about being a Healer - a correction, rather. "Ah, don't tell me that," Aly said in reply to Peri's comment about her Healer temperament, waving him off. It didn't exactly smart to hear it out of her old-acquaintance-turned-new-mate's mouth, but there was a dull ache there nevertheless - the kind that stems from knowing that other people have this feeling of your own shoulds, and they never end up being dos. "People have said that my whole life, you know? Probably in the same way people have expected you to be a... commodore, right?" Green eyes found his blue, a groomed brown eyebrow quirking up to ensure she got the pronunciation right, which it seemed she had. "And I dunno, I think Muggles might have it a bit easier than us sometimes with all these options. The Wizarding World seems so small compared to the non-magic version of it, sometimes. They have everything on the planet at their fingertips... and off the planet, sometimes." Her last comment to make before everything would begin to wrap up, Aly gave a wistful sigh, cupping her face in one hand and staring upwards at the leaky roof with its mold-tinged stones, almost as if she could see the stars beyond it. "Wouldn't that be a dream?"

The dream, though, only lasted a few moments: soaring through the stars she'd always so loved to see, a rocketwoman in her own right. The music stopped, and no ghosts came to ask if they would replace the record, having apparently drifted off to their own goings-on with nary a thought as to the dance. Still, the silence was broken by a genuine compliment from her white-haired friend, one that brought a sort of flush to Aly's freckled face, though whether it was from embarrassment or pride, even she couldn't quite tell. Was that the sort of compliment one said thank you to? Eventually, she settled on, "I'm glad I found you here, too. Thanks for the coat - and for the company." This time, the smile she offered her fellow Ravenclaw was far more genuine and much brighter. "Yes, I'll see you around. I'll be in one of the window nooks in the commons, and I'll have this all folded and ready to give back to you."

Aly pulled the coat a little bit tighter around her, its oversized warmth enveloping her in what was essentially a hug from her Housemate, and glanced back at the record player for a fraction of a second; when she looked back to Pericles, he had gone. Soundlessly, with only the door swinging softly shut behind him, as if he had never been there at all. The ghost of a smile still touching her very much not-ghostly lips, Aly leaned back underneath the table and began to sort for another record. It was a lovely little hiding spot, despite the chill... and the dead people. Perhaps she would have to come have a bit of a dance with death more often.