he who waits ft. zara

[sigurd bastien asgaard]

 

[classy=writesig]it's not hard to see why things are the way they are now. the owls may be few and far between, but unlike other students his age, the asgaard is unhappy to see the snowy owl land by his side and gently peck on his index finger during breakfast. his gaze usually turns hard, and with narrowed eyes, he sends the bird home without a written reply or allowing it to rest in the owlery. he doesn't like seeing the bird, or having news of his family -- as the days pass, his father has steadily grown colder towards him.

trapped between a life he no longer wants to lead and a life he could potentially have, sigurd has been reconsidering his stance towards his family. the more they want him to ignore the family fortunes, the more he will pursue it. the matter has been weighing rather heavily on his mind; at times, he lays awake at night and stares at the ceiling, wondering, thinking. is it wrong to be a pure-blooded wizard? the sorting hat clearly didn't think it was -- he still remembers what it said during the sorting, telling him that slytherin would suit his true colors.

he never once doubted the hat's words. he is no different from the other pure-blooded students his age; the asgaard family may not be well-known in great britain, but his relatives have all carved their names in durmstrang and beaubaxtons. he, too, comes from as pure a wizarding family as the blacks and malfoys. his lips pull back in a quiet snarl as he walks into an abandoned classroom, the brown envelope from his family owl crumpling under the force his fingers exert in his grasp.

dear sigurd. he reads the first sentence of the letter aloud; his flinches from how neat the handwriting is, the decisiveness of each written alphabet striking his vision. he nearly tears the letter in half, but like the time before this and the one before that, he keeps himself calm. sigurd walks over to a desk, sits on it, and starts reading the letter; he tries to keep his breathing even, his emotions flat.

if there is one thing in the world that can break his practiced face of general indifference, it is his family. his eyes move along the lines of handwriting. he reads and rereads a few lines; on more than one occasion, he loses the calm mask his face had easily put on. he hardens his expression once again. there would be no more rereading of the sentences, of the neatly-planned paragraphs of writing that tell him what to do next in his education at hogwarts.

gregorovitch's hawthorn creation is rough to the touch, and he pulls the wand out from the pockets of his robes easily. he spins the wand in his hand once, twice. he doesn't need to read any more. he remembers everything, all that they have to say. it's always the same sentences, those sentences that he never liked to hear yet never let hurt him.

but hearing his father speak them - almost, because he is the one who wrote this letter - by his ears is the final straw. he swears under his breath. incendio.

[/b] sigurd presses the tip of the wand to the edge of the paper, and watches as the tendrils of flame lick the parchment. the fire captures the parchment's dryness with vigor and overt interest, and it is a matter of time before the paper is reduced to ash.

his emerald-hued eyes harden. he curses under his breath; with a flick of his wand, sends a desk flying across the room, only to hit the opposite wall with a loud crash.[/div][/center][/classy]
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[Zara Girard]

Zara was bored out of her mind. She was running out of things to do to entertain herself, neither Lily nor Sirius were anywhere to be found, and her other friends have all mysteriously disappeared. No doubt trying to practice the most recent charm they've learned, since there was going to be a small practical quiz the following monday.

She sighed. Since everyone were working hard practicing so hard for that one, pathetic charm, she shall practice too. She got up from the armchair she was curled up on, and made her way down to the fifth floor, where, she realised, most of the old and abandoned classrooms were situated. zara always went to such places to practice magic. She always needed a quiet environment to practice a new spell, and to eventually master it. She needed to focus. And as usual, when surrounded by her friends (or anyone else for that matter), she was easily distracted. Which was why Hogwarts' abandoned classrooms served her well all the time.

As she continued to make her way down in a lazy stroll, her mind wandered of to the conversation she had had with Sirius. One of the most pleasant conversations of recent times, honestly. Things were back to normal with the both of them, which pleased her more than anything. It was kind of hard to ignore the fact that the both of them had been miserable at the somewhat abrupt end to their relationship. As it turned out, it actually wasn't the end. Things had worked out perfectly fine after her explanation of just what the relationship between herself and Chris was. At least Sirius had been reasonable at the end.

She had just reached the fifth level corridor, and would almost have walked into the closed door of an abandones classroom, if not for the loud crash of something huge banging against the wall. Zara was shaken out of her thoughts, and panicked. Was someone hurt? Was there a fight? She immediately drew her wand out of her robes and threw the door open, only to find a blonde staring at a crushed desk that was lying in front of a little damaged-looking wall.

Zara took tentative steps forward, unsure of who it was. She only realised that the person standing there was Sigurd when she was about half a feet away from him. She'd recognise him, she had dated him once. Well, date would not be the word. Fling? Yep. She had been happy, and Sigurd was definitely easy on the eye, but...meh. Things hadn't really worked out too well, especially since she realised that he kept going back to Callie Rivers. And that was why she hated it so much that Sirius was close to her. If whatever that had happened with Sigurd happened with Sirius....Callie would face her wrath. Somehow, Zara had fallen hard for Sirius, while Sigurd...he was just a crush.

"Sigurd?" she asked in a soft voice, knowing that he was angry. The desk against the wall was an obvious indicator. "You...you alright?" she voiced her concern. They might not exactly be the best of friends, but she did care for him. At least, enough to make sure that he wasn't going to throw himself out of the tower.

[sigurd bastien asgaard]

[classy=writesig]he takes solace in the loud crash that came from the moment where table met wall. for a moment, everything returns to silence, and he shuts his eyes. breathe, he tells himself. how hard is it to breathe? his breath catches in his throat before he forces it down; breathe, sigurd. he pushes the pocket of air down and into his lungs; his mind clears, and he feels that he can think better now.

his fingers are still twined around the wand's handle. all it takes is a flick -- another flick, and he can relax in the brief, sudden sound of destruction. sigurd manages to concentrate on a second incantation of the same curse, his wrists twists, ready to flick another table, but he turns. as soon as his eyes fall on the girl, he knows he shouldn't have turned.

logic. he reminds himself. being rational is probably one of the best things that he can do; as long as he keeps his mind straight, he can handle everything just fine. rationale has served him well over the years; he sees no reason for it to suddenly desert him and leave him in the cold. (unlike people, family. he thinks of the word, and it leaves a sudden, horrid aftertaste in his mouth.)

he doesn't like it when people fail to notice the obvious - or the subtle - either. zara wasn't exactly known for being subtle or particularly sharp-witted; if anything, she struck sigurd as brash and reckless, without a head for being, well, level-headed. briefly, he toys with the idea of lying to her -- it seems to be the norm to lie through one's teeth in hogwarts, but at the same time, he wondered if she deserved that kind of treatment.

what do you think? his baritone echoes in the empty classroom as he walks towards the broken table. he'd applied more strength to the flick than he thought he had. he notices the bitterness in his syllables as soon as he uttered them; he ignores his slip, and continues speaking. and what are you doing here?

merlin knows she has better things to do. a gryffindor rarely has a reason to be in the same room as a slytherin; the reverse applies to the slytherins as well: they rarely are seen together with gryffindors for fairly obvious reasons. sigurd isn't a fool; he's heard that she was on good terms with sirius black, and by extension, it meant the rest of his ragtag gang of bullies.

he doesn't want to get himself in trouble for fraternizing with one of their girls. he knows better than that.

you should be off before potter claims i've tried to assault you with a table. sigurd's voice is barely above a growl now; he stands before the table, and gives it a good kick. the teenager stamps on it too, for good measure. i can't trust gryffindors as much as you can't trust us slytherins. he stops moving, his foot on a table leg that has entirely broken off the body. and then he glances over his shoulder and stares at her, the same piercing gaze he gives people who tries to pull a fast one on him.

[/classy]

[Zara Girard]

Zara couldn't help but frown at his harsh tone. She had barely talked to him since they had 'parted ways' about a year ago, but even when she did, she was careful enough to sound polite. Her harsh tones were meant for people during a verbal argument. But no, apparently Sigurd wasn't bothered in treating her the way she was treating him, which clearly bothered her. "You don't own Hogwarts, I can do whatever I want, wherever I want," she replied sharply.

"you should be off before potter claims i've tried to assault you with a table. i can't trust gryffindors as much as you can't trust us slytherins." Zara narrowed her eyes, wondering if he had hit his head somewhere. Sure, their relationship - if you could even call that one - had lasted short, but honestly, he talked like as if he didn't know her at all. Perhaps that was what he was aiming at? To pretend as if he never knew her? Fine by her.

"Huh? I believe we have never met then. Hi, I'm Zara Girard, and I'm neither judgemental nor dumb. And I don't go running to anyone complaining, certainly not Potter," she replied calmly, sarcasm evident in her voice. She felt insulted that Sigurd would say such things. What did she look like to him, a defenseless bimbo?

"I was just wondering who was dying in here, hearing all that loud crashes. You know, damaging the school property is going to earn you a detention and cost you house points," she added in a patronizing tone, smirking. She stood there, her arms crossed as she surveyed the damage he had done, before sighing. "Come off it, Sigurd. What's wrong with you? You don't usually do...that" she said, nodding her head towards the desk. "Unless you're extremely pissed. Or disturbed." She never claimed to know him well, but she was rather observant.

[sigurd bastien asgaard]

[classy=writesig]he turns his head back to the broken table as soon as he feels that he is being given a lecture. sigurd's soft sigh masks a snarl. verbal games were never his forte -- the last thing he needs right now is for someone to point out his faults, everything that is wrong with him. for a moment, he lapses into the foolish belief that the world is against him; his emotions rush into his chest and he kicks the table again, but his movement is significantly weaker, less furious than before. (he is still angry, but not at her, not at the world -- at himself. it is his fault for letting his feelings get the better of him.)

nice to meet you, girard. i am asgaard. he returns the favor calmly, and walks away from the table. his wand has returned to his grip by now; one of the desks is now levitating a few feet off the ground. he jerks his wand lightly, and the object follows the movement of his wand. his gaze has never once settled on her again since that brief moment minutes ago. he turns to her, and his concentration slips -- that is enough for his charm to fail, and the table falls to the ground again rather clumsily.

he shrugs his shoulders, eyes boring down at her expressionlessly. his mind has nothing but his family, faces he wants to pass by and never remember again. whatever people say to him is of secondary concern and priority. he is no stranger to detention, and many other housemates have had points deducted from them as well. the punishment has no effect on him; he is not a seventh year for nothing. he has seen much of what hogwarts is like.

i'm not happy, the child in him says, and sigurd realizes that he has found yet another thing that keeps him eternally-bound to the asgaard family. you know. he waves a hand in the air. the wand slips back into his pocket, and he moves to sit on the edge of a desk, arms crossed before his chest. ... he exhales rather heavily, and for the second time, he shrugs. sigurd knows what he can and cannot tell to someone else; he tries to filter his story to an acceptable sentence, which he aptly sums up in one word:

family.[/classy]

[Zara Girard]

Zara watched on with curious eyes as Sigurd continued to make his anger evident by kicking the tables, though it didn't seem to be too harsh compared to his previous kicks. nice to meet you, girard. i am asgaard. She rolled her eyes. "Pleasure," she replied in a dry tone, raising an eyebrow as his lost o concentration caused the desk he was levitating to crash to the ground noisily again.

She felt his eyes on her, and she was a little shocked at the...nothingness in it. Sure, he used to be pretty quiet and expressionless even back then, but something had definitely changed. He was extremely disturbed by something, though Zara couldn't exactly put her hand on what it was. The both of them had broken off even before things could get to the point where they talked about their inner most feelings.

you know. His tone was nonchalant, which made Zara only raise her eyebrow further. "No, I don't." She could see he was battling in his mind about what to say, to not give away everything, and in all honesty, Zara was fine with it. She wasn't there to provide him with a counselling session, no. She had just coincidentally bumped into him, and he seemed to be in such a bad shape that she couldn't just leave him there.

And then she heard him sum it all up in just one: family. Family? So he had family problems, then. Sighing, Zara walked to a table and propped herself up on it, allowing her legs to dangle lazily. "Family, huh?" She didn't have much to say about family. Hers was a broken one after all - no mother, father who worked really hard that she barely got to talk to him.

"That's what you have friends for," she said, she a small shrug. She sure kept that in mind - her friends were her second family. They made her happy, kept her company. "Besides, you're 17 this year. If you honestly have that many problems with them, you can just...poof. You know. Disappear." She wasn't sure if it was that good of an idea to just get away from one's family, but if he was this affected by them, then she didn't really see a problem. In fact, she'd be surprised if he hadn't already thought of that.

[sigurd bastien asgaard]

[classy=writesig]he has friends? his first course of mental action is to doubt her words, and he realizes how horrible those words are to him. that's what i have friends for? he thinks to himself, and the edge of his mouth is pulled upwards in a wry smirk. why, yes. of course, friends. he does have a few friends but most of the times he keeps his enemies closer than his friends -- lucius malfoy easily springs to mind. it isn't hard to imagine half the house of slytherin against a half-blooded wizard like him. keeping his enemies close, check; his friends are in faraway ravenclaw tower, check. his life is something of a bitter irony and he wonders if things would have been different had he been a ravenclaw instead.

in the beginning, he blamed himself. now, he doesn't blame anyone else -- he still blames himself. if he'd been smarter, if he'd been a little more wittier. (he wouldn't be in this situation with his family, then.) i turned eighteen, girard. he glances at the ceiling and exhales. eighteen is the point where he's legal in the world now, free to go his own way; he remembers what he wished for when he was fifteen, and he thinks it foolish. for a broken family to repair itself was indeed possible, but like a nail pulled out from a wooden wall, the scars remain.

if disappearing were as easy as disapparation. he lets his words hang in the air as he hops off the desk. to think that he will one day return to the asgaard family to seek recognition and acknowledgement as a pure-blooded son of the family ... the smirk on sigurd's face deepens as he thinks of his grandfather and father. laughter slips out from his throat, and he glances back to zara. graduating's quite important, too.

he walks towards the other end of the classroom, determined to put some distance between the two of them. he stops by the window, and stares down at the grounds. i'm fine now. you may leave. his breath condenses as mist on the glass; he watches the giant squid thrash in the lake, and realizes that its one of the things he's going to miss when he leaves hogwarts, hellbent on a path of revenge.[/classy]

[Zara Girard]

"Ahh, right. Forgot about your age for a moment there," she told him, realising that Sigurd was indeed 18. "Well, all the more you should start looking for your own place then. And I wasn't talking about going off on your own right now. I meant after graduation, when you actually have some qualifications to fend for yourself," she said, her eyes carefully following him.

He was putting as much distance away from her as possible, which offended her. What, did she smell? Or did he just not want to be within a metre's radius of her? And it wasn't like as if she was going to punce on him - her feelings for him had long ago disappeared. She would never bother going for someone like Sigurd, who repeatedly kept going back to Callie. It had annoyed the hell out of her.

i'm fine now. you may leave. She narrowed her eyes when she heard that, and jumped of the deak she was sitting on, crossing her arms. "How respectful of you to chase me off. I guess Rivers' rudeness is rubbing off on you after all this while?" she smirked.

It wasn't her intention to anger him, but she couldn't help but let that comment slip out of her mouth. It was hard to control such remarks when the thought that Callie Rivers had somehow spoiled her relationship was deeply embedded in her mind.

[sigurd bastien asgaard]

[classy=writesig]he laughs, and a hint of bitterness slips into the quiet sound of his laughter. qualifications -- what a great joke. he knows his own situation better than anyone, or anything. his grades are ailing; most professors are worried he is going to be held back another year, or not graduating with anything beyond acceptable. the one he has the most promise in was surprisingly transfiguration, but even then, he isn't the most impressive student. his grades are laughable in general; he scraped by with bare o.w.l.s, and hasn't even considered n.e.w.t.s. to achieve something great in the wizarding world, ultimately, was still measured by academic qualifications to some extent.

but does it matter? his eyes follow the large ripples across the surface of the lake. once he is done with the asgaard family, he is sure he would feel lighter, happier than he is now; his family has gradually grown to become a burden on shoulders who cannot yet carry the weight of the world upon them. if i can graduate. he doesn't intend to sound sore, or bitter over his grades -- he has tried his best, and that is all that matters. i might have to stay another year.

the idea of another year at hogwarts is more unbearable than humiliating. it would mean another year of family issues, and linus will be off towards destinations unknown. there's still callie, and zara, and a few others, but he doesn't feel compelled to stay another year to graduate properly. maybe he'll leave, maybe he'll sta -- he glances back at zara, having been forcibly pulled away from his thoughts.

what now? he says, evidently not in the mood for a verbal fight. ... i just need some time alone. he tries reasoning with her, telling her the logic behind his thinking. there's a lot i need to think about. lots. he ignores the comment about callie despite an inner urge to defend her -- he cannot afford to lose his composure. he stares at zara, emerald-hued eyes intense, pained. he doesn't want to fight this battle.

he's tired, tired of it all.[/classy]

[Zara Girard]

Zara was carefully trying to judge his reactions, honestly confused as to what he was feeling right then. He had never been easy to predict. But at least back then he was fun to be around with. now he was just all broody, and the worst part was, he wasn’t telling why he was broody. He must’ve had a bad experience with his family. With a startle, Zara realised that it wasn’t her place to know. The two of them weren’t exactly close now, were they?

if i can graduate. i might have to stay another year. Zara raised an eyebrow. Was he honestly doing that bad? Was staying back a year at Hogwarts even possible? It did come off as a shock to her, she had never thought Hogwarts would make one stay back. But then again, it did make sense that Hogwarts staff would retain a student if he or she did really bad. What else could the student do with bad grades? Wander around the wizarding world searching for a job for the rest of his or her life?

what now? i just need some time alone. there's a lot i need to think about. lots. She sighed at the tone of his voice and when he made eye-contact with her, the desperation and pain in them caught her off-guard. She didn’t know whether to feel bad for him or just get angry. She was usually stuck in such pathetic situations where her emotions were all over the place, and it tired her.

“I was just trying to help, Sigurd. I’m sorry,” she apologised in a defeated tone, and started towards the door of the classroom. She turned a little to face him when she stood before the door. “You seem really disturbed, and I really do hope you find a way to solve your problems. If there is anything you ever need...you know I’m not that much of a cold-hearted bitch to turn you away,” she gave him a small smile.

She was just about to turn the knob of the door and leave, when she heard a sudden crash against the door from the outside, which startled her enough to move away from the door immediately. After a few seconds of silence, she moved closer to the door again, and tried opening it. It was locked.

“What the hell?” she cursed, drawing out her wand and trying to unlock it. And the door still wouldn’t budge.

From a distance, she heard Peeves. She groaned in frustration. “Damn you, Peeves!” she shouted, before angrily tucking her wand into her robes and turning to face Sigurd. “Uh...Look, I really did want to leave you alone, but Peeves had other plans,” she shrugged, defending herself.

[sigurd bastien asgaard]

[classy=writesig]she's just trying to help, he tells himself, just trying to help. good intentions, nothing more than that. he still has his gaze fixed on her, the pain gradually being replaced by a quiet sort of calm in his eyes. he quickly finds logic to be a good avenue to turn to; it tells him to not find fault in the girl but in something else, the source of turbulence -- he doesn't need long to find what exactly it is. yet, her words hit him twice as hard as it should.

maybe he should start admitt -- no, never. he shakes the thought away and with it, his attention. he focuses on something else, the faraway trees in the grounds, the lapping water he can't really see from the foggy window. anything, anything but her face and the words that hit too hard. he doesn't want to think about it.

him, disturbed. a way to solve his problems. not a cold-hearted bitch. not turning him away. he wants to laugh, laugh as if she's not really acting that she knows what's going on. there's nothing that she knows of the situation -- just one word, one word that - in hindsight - he thinks he foolishly let slip because he failed to look past his emotions and look after himself.

yet, he finds it funny how there's nothing more that people can do other than apologize, or feel sorry for what someone's going through, or at least, they do verbally. he doubts if she would go to great lengths for his sake -- doesn't she have the infamous marauder to care for? doesn't she have other more important priorities than a disturbed slytherin she happened to meet in an abandoned classroom?

by now, sigurd's walked to the other end of the classroom and sat himself firmly on the floor, against the wall as he looks at zara. he feels that he needs more time alone -- but fate has an uncanny way of twisting things around. it turns out that peeves did something to lock the two of them in. he resists the urge to roll his eyes, but he quickly finds himself at the end of an unprompted defense.

that was unprompted. he let the previous comment pass, but this one ... he can't. did he strike her as so clouded by anger - or disturbance, as she kindly worded it - that he would start biting heads off for no apparent reason? an unprompted defense is as bad as an accusation. he glances at the ground, at the cracks that he never bothered to notice all this while. he doesn't do well with people, and it is especially apparent when emotions get into the mix.

that is why he relies on logic; that's why he wants to keep feelings away from everything.

[/classy]