Rumours Closed

Nell watched Wyatt storm last her in the corridor without even giving her a glance. She couldn’t care less, though. Nell swiftly walked to her next class, eager to escape all these bloody rumors. She wasn’t sure how much more she could take, but she hoped it was enough until it was all sorted out. She hated when rumors went around and more so when they weren’t true, like Nell’s. She wasn’t quite sure about Wyatt’s rumor, but she had a strong feeling it might be true.

Nell entered the classroom and took her seat at the back. The room was filled with Ravenclaws like herself and Hufflepuffs. Great, that Autumn girl would probably be here. She hoped that Autumn wouldn’t recognize her in any way, shape, or form. During the class, Autumn happened to look at Nell who diverted her glare immediately. She didn’t want any more trouble to deal with than these fake rumors. Well, partially fake. Again, she wasn’t quite sure about Wyatt.

The class finally ended, and, as usual, Nell walked through dimly lit corridor. Couldn’t they make these any brighter? She took out her wand and incanted the Lumos charm for she could barely see a thing. Then, she happened to bump into a certain someone.

Interacting with @Nell Zoldak

Autumn was making her way from class to the library to find a book she had been recommended by some Ravenclaw student she had sat with during class. The Muggleborn had known a lot of Autumn's favourite Muggle authors, singers and bands. It was a shame Autumn had acted cold instead expressing her respect and admiration of the girl in a healthy manner. She sighed.

I'm bad with feelings? What's next? The planet circles the sun? Such a shocker there, really.

At least she was accepting of the fact. She reminded herself to write another letter to Naomi. Her younger sister was protective, although she wouldn't admit it, and had politely asked (read: forced) her sister to write her bi-weekly letters confirming that she was alive and well. As per usual, Autumn was alive, and not well, although she had no trouble lying about the fact.

She was not running, she was not in a rush, she was simply distracted, which was what led her to crash into Nell Zoldak, first year Ravenclaw, resident troublemaker. Zoldak, from Autumn's analysations and inferences made from rumours, whispers in the halls and corridors and small glances at her behavior and speech, was a Ravenclaw with both Slytherin and Gryffindor tendencies. She was reckless, yet calculated, direct, yet mysterious. Autumn both admired and detested her. She had many qualities which Autumn respected, such as her courage, her confidence, her lack of care for others' opinions of her, her ambition, her wit. Yet there were many traits to counter the good ones, inluding but not limited to her lack of control of her anger, her impatience, her impulse, her recklessness, her dishone-

Dishonesty? Hypocrite, much?

Never said I wasn't.

Finally, she gathered herself, reached down for the text book she had dropped and got back up.

"Zoldak," she greeted and acknowledged the other girl's presence with a nod before turning to leave.

@Wyatt Starkey @Lucille Williams @Meredith Ready

It was dinner time, and a very depressed Autumn was staring at her empty plate. She reached for a 5th cup of tea. Stress made her crave tea. She was stressed. She knew why. She had full capability to fix the thing making her stressed. She had not had any good reason to lie to Starkey, yet, she still had done so.

But what could she have said?

"Hi, hello, my name is Autumn and I've been stalking you for a few days because I lack amusement," certainly would have been a reasonable thing to tell someone, obviously.

She sighed. She had lied a million times before, so why was this time driving her up the wall? Was it that she was no longer the morally ambiguous one in this scenario? She was the antagonist. She had been quite basically stalking someone. She had lied with no genuine reason to, apart from secrecy for her name. "Raven Hupp" had been a mistake an a regret.

She chuckled at that, knowing that if you asked Mother, she would tell you that Autumn had also been both of those things.

Shaking off the thought, she sighed, cursed her morality for being so unbelievably obnoxious, got off of her chair and began walking towards the Slytherin table.

Autumn found Starkey eating dinner. It was not too hard locating the boy, since the seats next to him, as well as the seats next to those seats, and the seat in front of him were unoccupied. She sighed. The rumours seemed to be quite influential on the boys social life. It was sort of sad, yet Autumn refused to feel pity. She believed pity to be the absolute worst punishment.

She spoke fast and quietly, so that only Starkey could hear her..

"Salutations, my name is not Raven Hupp. What my name is is Autumn Artemia Ivy. It is a pleasure to meet you, Wyatt Starkey. Now, I would not be standing if it were not for the fact that feel like a horrible person, which is fair enough, because I am, but that really is not the point right now. The point is that I know who began the rumours. Obviously not going to let you know who it is, since your little goose chase is far too amusing, but I just wanted you to now. Oh, and, also, have fun trying to convince anyone that I lied to you about my identity. Nobody will believe you. I will give you one tip though; do not trust anybody."

She chuckled slightly.

"Least of all me!"

She turned around, not giving him a chance to reply, and walked back to her former seat. As subtly as she could manage, she looked back at the Slytherin and Ravenclaw tables, checking to see whether she could understand from Meredith and Zell's expressions whether they had seen their short,one-sided conversation.

@Wyatt Starkey @Nell Zoldak @Meredith Ready @Lucille Williams

Interacting w/@Nell Zoldak
Mentioning: @Autumn Ivy,@Meredith Ready, and @Wyatt Starkey

Lucille couldn't help but take an interest in this Rumor situation, and although she wasn't a stranger to being the actual subject of a rumor, simply sitting on the sidelines for this little problem was to good a deal to pass up. While she was still in the long corridor, Lucille remembered seeing that 'Raven' girl looking very unlike herself, which really wouldn't be hard to recognize, considering the real, 'Raven' was a Ravenclaw that Lucille had seen quite a few times in the common room . The impostor Raven, was a petite Hufflepuff girl who was now guiltily drinking tea cup after tea cup, seemingly looking right back at the Starkey boy ."I can't take this anymore!"Lucille mumbled as she lightly pushed through other Ravenclaw to get to the infamous Nell...something .Despite not knowing the girl's last name, Lucille was determined to figure out the reason to all of this 'Rumor' business, even if it meant questioning this 'Nell' until a break in the mystery happened .

"Soo.."Lucille began, as she took a seat right next to the other Ravenclaw ."Why's everyone talking 'bout you, Wyatt, and that Meredith girl? It doesn't even seem that interesting, so do you care to explain what's goin' on?"Realizing she forgot to be polite, Lucille added a quick introduction,"Right, the name is Lucille, Lucille A. Williams."She finished with a small smile, as if this was all a friendly meet up. Though unfortunately, while Lucille was interrogating Nell on the matter, she didn't notice 'Raven' begin to speak with the Wyatt boy behind her.
How lucky.

wc:260

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Mentioning: @Wyatt Starkey, @Lucille Williams, @Nell Zoldak and @Meredith Ready

Autumn still felt... bad. This was so, so stupid. It should not have been eating her alive, but it was. And with the stupid grin on Starkey's face, he knew it. Good grief, she wished she could punch tha-

Ha... Had he fallen asleep?

Huh, okay, interesting turn of events.

What do we do?

I don't know!

You can't punch him if he's asleep.

You realise that I didn't actually want to punch him, right? We're trying not to do that anymore, remember?

Liar.

Thank you, I try to be.


Autumn shook away the mental discussion since it was clearly going nowhere and tried to think about things more logically. Listing the facts seemed like a good idea. What did she know?

Well, first of all, this was a Slytherin boy named Wyatt Starkey. There had been whispers in the halls- rumours- of the boy supporting Voldemort, of his family doing so too. Autumn had followed him around, curious and amused. This had been extremely innocent and not stalker-ish. That was a lie. Lies. A lie had been told when Wyatt had questioned Autumn. She had lied; about who she was, what she was doing. She had felt bad afterwards and told Wyatt the truth. Wyatt was now asleep and dinner was about to be concluded.

What could she do?

Autumn did not know, but she ended up doing something anyway.

She left her seat and stood up again, making the fellow Hufflepuffs surrounding her look rather curious.

She scowled at them, and they turned back at their meals.

Inhaling and exhaling, she made her way over to the Slytherin table, again. Starkey only needed a single slap, probably, to wake up. Since clearly none of his fellow Slytherins were about to do it, Autumn was up for the job.

Maybe two slaps would be better, just as pay back for his earlier smirk and such.

Just maybe.

Having had arrived at her destination, she backhand slapped him across the back of his head, once.

Upon hearing a vague, sleepy noise, she spoke.

"Wake up, Sleeping Beauty. And while you're at that, maybe rethink your sleeping schedule."

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Mentioning: @Wyatt Starkey, @Nell Zoldak, @Lucille Williams and @Meredith Ready

“You’re back so soon. I was afraid you’d never return, thank Merlin it was only seconds.”

"Fuck you too," was what Autumn wanted to say. But she decided against it. It was not worth picking a fight, at least for now. For now she would listen to the greasy-haired bastard.

“If you’re trying to apologize for being a deceitful loser, you’re not doing it right.”

Ouch. Fair, but ouch.

“You’re a bored loner who has nothing better to do than watch people with far more interesting lives than you. Either because you’re avoiding your own issues or you’re incredibly lonely and sad. Possibly both. Still, it’s depressing and pathetic.”

That must have been a mouthful. However, it also gave Autumn something to think about. Was he right? Surely not.

This called for a checklist and logical analysation.

Bored loner? Check.

Watch people with far more interesting lives? Check. It was actually what had gotten her into this mess to begin with.

Avoiding her own issues? Double check.

Incredibly lonely and sad? Check and check.

Okay, so, he was right.

“Hit me again, if you want. Like many others, you’ll find you can’t beat anything into me.”

Many others? Interesting.

Autumn mentally noted it down for later and tried to pretend she couldn't hear the grin in his voice.

But now it was her turn to speak.

"Now, I understand you do not like me, and as I am fairly sure you have already realised for yourself, the feeling is mutual. Or maybe not, your sense of observation shows not to be too strong, what with one of the people you are relying on to help you solve this mess being maybe not the most optimal one for the job."

Wait, no, too vague, he's going to think it's Zoldak. You've already messed up enough. Clarify, clarify, clarify!

"And, no matter your initial thought, it is not Zoldak who I am talking about. She may be reckless, but she is not an idiot as to go behind your back."

She had to physically stop herself from adding "not like I was".

"Now, as correct as you are about the fact that I could absolutely hit you again..."

She paused there, just to let him worry about her next words. Suspense was always a delightful factor.

"I will not. As much satisfaction as it would grant me, you are right about another thing; I can beat you, but I cannot beat anything into you. You are too much of a stubborn prick for that. And by the looks of things, you are well aware. However, I will let you know that I did not slap you for the sake of slapping you. I slapped you because you were asleep and dinner was about to end. I thought that the "Sleeping Beauty" comment made that part clear."

She looked back to where she was previously seated. Multiple Hufflepufs looked back at her, whispering and staring. That was, until they noticed that she was looking back at them, which caused them to all stare back at their empty plates.

"And since I would rather not be interrogated by house mates for associating with the supposed Dark Lord supporter willingly, an interrogation in which I will be reminded of my grandfather, who I would much rather not remember, could I sit here? It's really not like anybody else will."

Before finally shutting up, she remembered that Starkey probably disliked her a lot right now, and would either flat out say no, or make an excuse. She had lessen the likeliness of the first one with her comment about her grandfather, probably, because the fact that Wyatt was also related to Voldemort supporters might earn his temporary pity and/or sympathy without making it seem like a grab for sympathy and/or pity.

And, as a bonus, she didn't even have to lie this time.

For the second possibility though, there was a fairly likely chance that Starkey would say something along the lines of "this is a Slytherin table, for Slytherins. You are not a Slytherin."

She had to get rid of that chance.

"Also, do not bring up the whole Hufflepuff thing. I already try not to think too much about the whole mess, and you do not seem to show any care for rules. Which would make using rules as an excuse pretty depressing and pathetic."