Hogwarts Graduation--Atrium

As he began to speak, Jack's eyes bulged into a glare, sharply jerking her head. Abort, abort, ABORT! She might not have been so mad.. had she been told she was going to be speaking. Thaor was a tricky one though wasn't he? She was slowly, but difinitively, jerking her head, trying to tell him that she would refuse to walk up to the podium.

He suddenly announced that she would be joining the Ministry and she stopped. She had not applied.. She had told many people what her plans were, so she was not surprised he had known. But how had she gotten the job was the real question. She vaguely remembered him being the Deputy Minister and realized.. Thaor had just offered her a job.

Her name was announced and she was in the middle of continuing to shake her head when she felt eyes slide onto her and she sighed, glaring up at Thaor, her lips pursed, as though to keep herself from publically 'thanking' him. She glanced at Ari, giving him a look that said 'if you wanted, you could shoot me. I would not mind.' She muttered, "'Scuse me. Apparently I'm requested."

She walked forward, not so much nervous about speaking in public, but trying to figure out what to say to these people. She barely knew anyone, she had been bullied in her earlier years, and then had become sort of a bully- or at least, a rude prankster. She sighed, feeling eyes boring into her, most of which were unfriendly, and she stepped up to the podium, shooting Thaor a look and mouth a sarcastic 'thanks.'

She turned back to the group and stared at everyone. She cleared her throat and heard someone snicker. Jack repressed the urge to glare at them.. and then gave in, shooting them a death glare, not caring whose parent it really was. She turned her attention back to the speech she was about to pull out of her arse, knowing that the beginning of the speech was always important. She opened her mouth.

"Hi."

Okay, not great. She continued, "So.. I'm Jack. I.. I never imagined I'd be here- and I'm not being cliche. Growing up in an orthodox muggle family-" Fenrir would love that, she was sure, "convinced me I was a freak for turning the dog green when I was young. I got my letter and I was so excited, yada yada. You guys don't really care about my story. You were there. You were apart of it. Kind of. I don't know most of you.. nor like a lot of you," she conceded, seeing her old dormmate Cecily smack her head sympathetically. "But we were all here."

She chewed on her lip. "The Hogwarts years.. They.." She struggled for words before resigning herself to the truth, "Okay, they sucked. It's understandable, because of hormones and all that glorious teenage whimsy. Personally, I dealt with bullying, and pressure from the team, the school.. other groups." She did not need it on blast about Potter's Army. "I also dealt with having the reoccurring need to prank you guys.. and to talk back to teachers.. and routinely disobey rules. Hogwarts really taught me.. as long as your clever, you can bend a situation to break the rules in a way that benefits everyone." She shrugged. Had they expected her to learn?

"Um," she said, struggling for her words, and she found her eyes look down to the ground. Those names began to repeat over in her head, the names of the dead, that haunted her. She stared at her feet, and began, "I'd also like to take the time to mention the Battle of Hogwarts and I'm not going to lie. It was terrible. And.. I regret my involvment in letting it occur. I feel my hand lie heavily in it, and to the parents and family of the deceased.." She looked up, her jaw tightening as she saw one woman begin to cry, no doubt the parent of a fallen. "I never meant for your children to die," Jack said heavily, a small strain in her voice. "I wish I could personally go back and stop the battle. Show them what would happen, that it was not worth doing what they did.."

Jack took a deep breath. "Hogwarts taught me that too. We learned how to slow things down, what could be done to memories, how to read into tea leaves.. But ever since the Time Turners were destroyed, they've never been replaced. Because our place isn't in the past. And we can never really know what lies ahead.. There's not enough tea leaves in the world. And that.. sometimes, we can't always be happy. But we do what we do to survive.. so we can try to be happy."

Jack felt the need to finish this stupid speech, sure that no one cared what she had to say anyway. They had a right to look disgusted with her. She sighed. "So.. that's what I wish for you guys. If you can't find your happiness now, just.. survive for now. We've made it this far. Survive.. and then we'll work on happiness. That's all we could really do, I guess." She glanced around. "Right. Bye. Erm, thanks." She turned and glanced at Thaor, shrugging, and then stepped off the podium, not wanting to stand in front of the audience.. She walked quickly down the aisle and sat back at her seat next to Ari, staring back at the stage, refusing to look at anyone.

Louis was looking as Thaor had gone on about the fact that tthe battle was horrible.

Louis couldn't get the images out of his head, young kids on the ground dead, dark followers and the the order and potters army shooting curses and jinxes and killing people. Louis himself had done something that he regreted deeply, he had shot an unforgivable curse at Lucius Malfoy. Louis had the image in his head.

"Avada Kedavra!" Louis thought about him saying it back then, he didn't like it one bit, and he had tried to kill his friends as he was in the unforgivable curse. Louis didn't know if he was a speaker or not, but he didn't really want to be one.

As Jack finished, Louis was the first one to start clapping.

Amelia stood perfectly still as she concluded her speech, and after a brief pause, the audience began to clap. She could see a few people in the atrium crying, some were leaning toward their friends and family members for a quick embrace or a few shared words. Although she had been the one giving the speech, Amelia felt worlds away from them. Her eyes were dry, and she was dulling her own emotions by trying to think about anything else.

Near the left side of the atrium, Amelia could see her parents clapping along with the others. Her mother was giving her a “I-didn’t-know-you-had-it-in-you” look, approving but surprised, but her father was beaming. He was clapping much more enthusiastically than Antoinette, who was politely tapping her hands against one another, but Frederick was looking at her as though he had been waiting for this moment for years. It made a corner of Amelia’s mouth twitch up into the slightest of smiles to see her father’s reaction.

Before Amelia could escape the podium and return to her seat, Doyle stood out from the crowd and laughed, looking up at her. Amelia was taken aback by this reaction, and looked down at him with trepidation, but as usual, he ignored her signs of distress and played off his reaction before stepping beside her at the podium. Amelia nodded minutely when the headmaster asked her about her parents’ reaction, wishing with every fiber of her being that he hadn’t said that.

The headmaster then launched into his own speech, though he did take a small aside to mention the potions professorial position, winking knowingly at Amelia, as though he expected her to feel something specific relating to that information. Amelia was careful to keep her face blank as the professor made a spectacle of her, especially since her parents were watching. Antoinette had probably already told most of the room about the position Amelia had been offered with the London Symphony Orchestra, and if the headmaster had other ideas, it wasn’t anything Amelia could spare any thought for. She had enough on her plate without him running interference in her life.

Amelia bore up through the rest of the headmaster’s speech, only half-listening as the panic of standing in front of so many people started to creep out of its box. She was standing stiffly as Doyle patted her on the back at the end of his speech. She inclined her head in a show of respect as he dismissed himself from the podium. Although Amelia made an attempt to follow him, the next speaker was on the stage before she could escape, and she ended up being ushered just slightly behind the Deputy Headmaster as he began his speech.

Breathe… Breathe… it’ll be over in a minute…

Amelia’s mind, already overwhelmed by the charged and public nature of her situation, was thrown into overdrive when she began contemplating not only what Elldir was saying, but also that he was saying anything at all. Over the past few weeks, she had been hearing from every direction that the man had been killed, that Jaquellene Dyllan had had something to do with it. Amelia was never one to believe anything without concrete proof, and from what she had heard there was very little of that to go on, so her opinion of her fellow Gryffindor graduate hadn’t changed. It still hovered somewhere between annoyance and begrudging respect.

Elldir’s speech was long and, Amelia thought, somewhat self-indulgent. Thoar spent a great deal of the speech talking about himself, and although he used it to inject some humor into his speech (Amelia hadn’t even tried that; she was not funny), Amelia still found it a bit self-centered. Still, when the speech was over, and all the clichés doled out, Amelia clapped along with the rest of the room.

This time, Amelia didn’t hesitate at the end of the speech. She had already been caught on this stage twice now, and she wasn’t going to make that same mistake again. Instead, she more or less bolted for the edge of the stage and disappeared back to her table while everyone was concerned with reacting to Thoar’s speech. She sunk silently into her chair at the table where Peter was still sitting, inhabiting a chair that did not belong to him. She didn’t know what his reaction to the speech would have been, and she didn’t feel she could ask without sounding as though she were fishing for compliments. She was surprised to realize his was probably one of the only opinions in the audience she would actually have wanted to hear.

But instead, she merely gave him a half-hearted smile before turning her attention back to the front of the room, where Elldir was announcing that the next speaker would be… Jaquellene? Amelia hadn’t known there would be another student speaker, and judging from the Gryffindor’s face, neither did Jaquellene. She did, however, take the stage, and after a rocky start, her speech began to flow.

It was drastically different from Amelia’s planned, rehearsed, and perfected speech, but it was almost comical how much the two speeches foiled one another, almost the way Amelia and Jaquellene’s personalities did. Jack was basically saying whatever came to mind, but as usual, Amelia found herself oddly impressed with the girl’s charm in spite of her lack of formality. Jaquellene and achieved a speech equally poignant if not more so as her own speech had been, and she had done it all on the fly. It sort of made Amelia want to hate her, but Amelia was too busy surpressing her emotions to feel one that strong. Instead, she shook her head, as if to say, ‘I give up’, and as Jack descended from the stage, Amelia began to clap. She didn’t have the emotional capacities at the moment to allow herself to reflect fully on what Jaquellene’s speech meant to her, but Amelia knew she would think about it later.

For now, she would just do as Jack said, and survive.

It really was a spectacular night... Her parent's hadn't come... People spoke.. and the audience listened.. listened as they said basically the same thing... over, and over, clapping poltely at the end of each speech. The first speech was long, and Selene had been distracted during it to really get much of it. But the night had become that much more interesting when someone who was supposed to be dead came back to life, and then called up the person who had supposedly killed him to speak. The girl looked like she could have killed him, but sure, who wouldn't... Selene watched on appreciatively, but there was something different about Dyllan's speech. She spoke in a way that actually caught in Selene's throat.. like she was about to cry, but couldn't..

She looked around the audience, people were crying... families were turning to each other, but Selene refocused on Dyllan... there was something different about this girl... and when the speech was finished, there was a moment of complete silence, before one person started to clap, then two, then everyone. And Selene found herself clapping along, thinking hard of what had been said. This woman... was just barely out of school, but she had probably gone through more then any of the other people in this room combined. More then the aurors, the Headmasters, the Minister, the workers, everyone hadn't gone through nearly as much as Dyllan's voice betrayed she had gone through, and Selene couldn't help it. At the end of the speech, she stood up and applauded.

At first she was the only one.. but then more people rose and applauded. She felt the need to show Jack that the world wasn't against her was great in this situation.. so when parent's of children lost stood up, tears still on their faces.. she felt that maybe that might help.. just a bit. Selene had known Jack only briefly, during the Tri-Wizard tournament, never near enough each other to speak, but still.. this girl... Selene slowly sat back down and clutched the table.. she said remarkable things that would keep Selene thinking for days... she needed to get somewhere alone and think these things over..

Lucy sat beside Louis and clapped her hands as Jack finished her speech and shook her head chuckling for Jack was always something else. As she reembered the events that happened during the battle she sighed to herself. It was a horrible day, it was a day Lucy would never forget for a long time for so many people died that day. As she sat beside Louis she squeezed his hand for she remebered the evenet that happened between him in Malfoy in the Headmasters office. As Lucy sat beside Louis she wondered who was going to be next to meet out of the graduates. Lucy knew that probably the start graduates and the one that wre leaders of groups would probably speak but she could be wrong.

Faylen sighed boredly as the graduation continued. He didn't know much people here nor did he care very much for any of them. He took a look around recognizing some faces vaguely but none really popped out at him of any importance. Sighing, he shifted in his sit trying to see more comfortably but it felt impossible in such a stiff chair. He listened to everyone speak yawning and every once in a while, clapping at the approiate moments. Faylen grimanced as people were called up and talked then another was called up to talk, it was like a never ending thing. He was now regreting on coming, he was going to end up falling a sleep if he wasn't careful.

Byron was stunned. Sure, he had less noble motives on showing up for a graduation that really did not require his presence. But his curiosity and of course, greed for food, was sufficiently rewarded. As soon as the boy procured a drink, the Minister began his speech. It was a rather predictable one, and Byron's eyes idled their way through the crowd of graduating students, paying attention especially to their parents. Of course Byron had never seen the parents before, and obviously he was amused to see so many of the student faces being replicas of their parents.

Byron's idle scanning of the crowd was soon broken when Amelia Lyons began her speech. He appreciated her well-planned speech, and thought it fitting to serve as a sort of inspiration for the graduating students. The atmosphere of in the Atrium, unlike other graduations, was very morose. Well, it was his first attendance at a graduation, and he had assumed that. Graduations were always supposed to be happy, but the graduating students this year certainly did not enjoy such a privilege. It seems as if every speckle of dust in the air carried whispers of the memories of the dead. It was enough to compel Byron to lose his appetite for the sadness of the situation.

Byron did not exactly know how Hogwarts graduations really go about. Or perhaps his memory failed him at them. So it did not come as a surprise to him that Jack Dyllan went up on stage for a speech. Sure there were rumours circulating about her, but Byron did not bother himself with them. True or not, it was not his place to judge. Besides, he had always admired her when she was in school. He had thought her a very fitting Gryffindor, and her stories of rebellion only served to intrigue him. He wished he had time to get to know her better, but of course, it seems unlikely. Byron heard the announcement of Jack's posting to the Ministry, and wanted to clap, but kept his hands to himself because he had looked around and saw that he would be alone at that. Byron frowned.

It was obvious that Jack did not prepare her speech. And since Byron did not know that she was not supposed to be making a speech, he found the act a rather brave one. Byron had always been faulted for his public speaking, for speaking words without thinking through them. He certainly could never pull it off. The speech, though not as divinely coherent as Amy, was from the heart. And Byron felt proud and silent approval at this Gryffindor representative. It merely supported the fact that Gryffindors had heart and bravery. Besides, it made him excited to face another school year, although he knew it would be awhile before Hogwarts could retain his former glory, seeing that many parts of the school had been destroyed.

Byron had contemplated possibilities in the coming school year, and soon, he realised that there were no more speeches to be made. Or at least, the long pause made him believe so. There were, however, very little movements around him, and so Byron merely proceeded to get himself another drink. Having gotten his drink, Byron made tiny swirling movements with his glass and then remembered that he wanted to at least have a small chat with Jack before he might not see her at all, for good.

Fuelled by this intention, and despite his uncertainty of her reaction, Byron made his way to Jack. He found himself near where she had sat herself at, and cleared his throat in the most polite manner possible. He would make this quick and clear.

"Miss Dylan?" He thought it best to greet in the most courteous way possible. Byron played Quidditch, but he never went further than mere acquaintance. "I just wanted to say, before you leave, that you have been an inspiration. And I hope to read about you one day, being an inspiration again. I wish you all the best." He smiled, genuinely. Byron had thought to raise his glass to the older girl, but felt silly on that thought, and decided against it.

Thaor smiled at the end of Jack's speech, as she left the stage, he decided it was his time to take a seat. He spotted an open spot at a table with Jess, and Khaat. He walked off stage and wondered over to the table. He took a seat and waited for the rest of the graduation to take place. Jess, Khaat. He said, nodding to each of them. How are you feeling Khaat, you're do in about a week right? Thaor asked, trying to make small talk before everything else got started.

Peter listened to the other speeches, though he was still reeling from Amelia’s. Maybe he was biased, or maybe her words just seemed to touch him more than the other’s did. Those other’s were loud, they were known for doing these things. Amelia spent a lot of her time ensuring she did not have to deal with other people. And here she had stepped forward and allowed herself to be put on blast, to be presented in front of her peers, and spilled a little of her heart.

And Peter could not stop being amazed by her.

The others spoke, and he tried to look interested in what they had to say but his eyes kept moving on their own accord, moving to rest on Amelia’s features. To look at her strong willed expression, her dignified manner. Amelia was beautiful. Really beautiful. Not because she was pretty. But because she was a caged bird and he had just seen her sing. And Peter had never heard a more beautiful sound, really.

Elldir finished his speech and Amelia made her escape moving to sit next to him once again. He turned to look at her, to tell her how amazing her speech had been, when she gave him a quick, small smile and turned back. He glanced up to see Adam’s old friend Jack take the stage. He had trouble listening at first, too distracted by Amelia. When he realized she was paying careful attention, he took her cue and listened to Jack. She was not nearly as eloquent as Amelia, but felt she meant her stuttered words. He clapped, glancing at Amelia to see her shaking her head and clapping. He was still thinking about her speech, about throwing your heart out there and hoping the rest of you followed. He reached out and covered her hand with his, looking forward for a few moments before turning to look at her and give her a small, reassuring smile..

He had thrown his heart out there a little. He only hoped the rest would follow.

Amelia continued to clap for Jacquellene until the applause died down, which took a significant amount of time, further signifying how impressive she had been on the fly. When the room began to descend again into quiet, the deputy headmaster descended from the stage and there seemed to be a lull in the program, Amelia let her hands fall to the linen-covered table top, one right next to each other. In the silence that followed the end of the Gryffindor girl’s speech, Amelia’s mind was no longer occupied enough to keep from wandering, and in her idleness, it wandered right back to the dark, dreary place it had been inhabiting for the last month.

The beautifully decorated ministry atrium started to fall away as Amelia was transported back to that tower, pitch black and echoing with the laughter of the woman who had apparated just fast enough to avoid the curse Amelia had sent hurling desperately in her direction. But she hadn’t been fast enough, just like she hadn’t been smart or quick enough to protect Simon from the killing curse that had left him lying frozen on the floor next to her, his empty blue eyes staring up at the ceiling of the owerly.

And the first thing Amelia had thought when Simon had collapsed behind her? This was the part that always brought on the waves of guilt she couldn’t shake. It was the part of the memory that made her wonder how she could have responded so inhumanely then, and be swallowed by such human emotions every day since then.

One less liability.

That had been the first thing Amelia had thought when Simon’s life was extinguished. It had been a fleeting, impulsive thought brought on by her body being in full logic mode in order to fight werewolves, acromantula, and and Death Eaters, but still, it had been her thought. It had been followed quickly by internal shock at having thought such a thing, and then the human emotions of loss and failure, but in that first split second, Amelia had seen herself for what she really was, and she was ashamed of what she had seen. Her subconscious mind had classified Simon as a liability in battle before identifying him as a victim whose loss she would mourn.

I’m a monster… Amelia thought for what had to be the hundredth time since that night, staring straight ahead from her seat in the ministry atrium, though not actually seeing anything. But as she was closing her eyes against the tide of emotion that always followed that recognition, Amelia felt a warm weight cover her right hand, and the sensation was enough to force her to open her eyes and look for the source of the perceptive change.

At first, Amelia failed to register the fact that the ‘warm weight’ she had felt was a hand, covering hers on the table with a familiarity Amelia could not identify. For a few seconds, Amelia had the bizarre notion of wondering to whom the hand belonged, although it was completely obvious that it had to belong to Peter, the only person who had been sitting next to her tonight. After a moment or two, Amelia’s mind caught up to the situation enough to register her with surprise at Peter’s gesture.

With genuine surprise, Amelia turned to look at Peter, hoping to find some kind of explanation written on his face. Stepping out of her battered memories and into this reality had been too large a shock for Amelia to speculate what Peter’s hand gesture could mean, so she was looking to him to find out what reaction she ought to have. It was disconcerting how often she had to look to others for that kind of direction ever since the battle, no longer trusting herself to respond appropriately ever since her mind had shown itself in such unflattering light.

And when she looked over at him, Peter gave her a reassuring smile. Amelia didn’t have to wonder if it was genuine, because with Peter, it always was. He was extending a hand to her in… what? Friendship? Camaraderie over the shared bond of graduating simultaneously? Something… else? Amelia couldn’t bring herself to try to tackle that question right now. She felt too lethargic to navigate all the twists and turns of that internal debate.

So instead, Amelia just responded with the only thing she could think of doing. When she was younger, she remembered her grandmother once doing a gesture somewhat like this, grabbing Amelia’s hand under the dinner table when her parents whispered fighting over the fine china had started to overwhelm a younger version of the redheaded girl. And at this moment, Amelia recalled the response she had given then, and mirrored it now. She turned her palm up to face Peter’s, and turned her hand perpendicular to his, curling her fingers lightly around the side of Peter’s hand and giving two quick, tight squeezes. The appropriate facial expression was more difficult to predict from memory, but she hoped offering Peter something intended to look like a grateful smile would be enough. In actuality, her smile was tight and withdrawn, stretched out over thoughts of whether or not she even deserved whatever it was Peter was doing here, but at the moment, she would take it either way. If nothing else, it could be an anchor to root her in the moment, instead of drifting off into the turbulent waters of her memory.