shod or branded?

Christmas was looming, and that was how Damien thought of it. It was not that he did not like Christmas, he merely liked his words phrased with a sense of dreary darkness. Whatever it was, Damien was usually one who would look forward to Christmas simply because he could return to where he could really rest his dreary mind at after a long term of hating people and himself. This year was a bit different, though. Recent years have seen his presence at the D'Eath Residence rather than partake in Christmas at his mother's. While, admittedly, the Knights are a far more powerful family than the D'Eaths, Damien did not yearn to see his mother. His childish grudge was ever present. He wondered, too, at his mother's attendance at the Knights, especially after her muggle marriage which ensured she was banished from the household. He, however, was still welcomed, and Damien was glad for that, even siding with his grandparents for their decision.

For someone who should be accustomed to the temperature of the dungeons, Damien certainly did not possess a body equipped for the cold. There was not a time since his birth that he did not have to wrap himself in more layers than the average person. He hated the weakness he saw in himself, that and every other thing about his body and even his mind that screamed out his inadequacy. His self-esteem could only take so much, but his self-esteem was too weak, to begin with. There were so many fences he had constructed to protect it, with efforts so tiresome that he preferred to idle his time away alone rather than face the world, so the weight of having to defend himself could be less. While some have chosen to wander out of the castle to greet the cold of December, and many others have huddled together in imploration for companionship for supply the warmth, Damien had wandered alone to the Trophy Room, snugged in a thick sweater under his robes as he sought just the comfort of solitude.

Thankfully, the room granted him that -- the lack of people. Damien took deliberately slow steps as he let his eyes travel the contours of the trophies and the plagues that littered the room. At every name, he paused with an added commentary to it. It was not the first time Damien had himself in this idle self-activity, but everytime the comment was different, even if they were usually not too respectful to the names they targetted. But, see, everything about the boy was about thought and words. He would shy away from action, as much as he hated the lack of bravery that plagued him. Really, he was hiding in his lack, even if he convinced himself that it was where he could set himself apart from the taint of the majority of Hogwarts.

Roxanne was so over the cold. She hated not being able to wear her shorts and skirts and flip flops. Sure, she liked the others, but she had bought some lovely chorduroy shorta that were just begging to be worn. Her friends had become frosty after she kept complianing and she decided to go on a walk on her own. She could pout to herself.

It was hard to pout during the holidays though. She was going to be around her big family and she did have a lot of presents coming. She walked onwards, not really planning a destination, as she sipped from her mug of peppermint hot chocolate. She had on a loose Christmas sweater and black leggings. Her feet had those fluffy boots on as well as a knit beanie cap, and a scarf protected her neck. She could make frumpy stylish any day.

She hummed a carol to herself as she went, and then stopped outside the trophy room. Why not? There were shiny plaques to stare at and she liked reading the names aloud and hearing the way they sounded. She slipped inside and began reading the names off. "Marguerite Regan. Louis Callahan. Eddie Macman." She giggled. "Macman. Mac-man. Macman." She skipped into the next section of the room and read, "Alice Garving, Marvin Little, Candice-" She stopped.

She wasn't alone. "Oh." Her hair sort of whipped around her as she skidded to a halt. "Damien D'Eath."

If weakness was what Damien had intended to shy away from, he was certainly going to be doing that in vain now. For a split second, he thought that the names he read in his mind were suddenly equipped with a narrator that was as perfectly audible as the sounds of his heavy breaths that attempted to generate heat for him from their miserable effort. In that split second, though, the voice that he could oddly identify in an instant made him freeze at his spot. Damien had no idea what irked him more; the fact that Roxi had once again intruded into his private space, or that he recognised her voice as easily as the back of his hand, or the tip of his nose, or whatever else he was incredibly familiar with. Damien did not even bother with trying to avoid the girl. No amount or size of shelves or display was going to let him escape meeting Roxi once again.

Things would have been a lot easier if Damien could simply resume the animosity he had maintained against Roxi. He wanted very much to return to that shell, but the regrettable night at the Astronomy Tower left the boy in a state of immense confusion. Who would have thought he would embrace her, and then leave without a word from the shame of having done that. Really, though, the hardest part of dealing with that night's consequences was coming to terms with the fact that he had allowed himself to act upon a lack of self-control. Essentially, he thought, he had ruined himself. Damien had adamantly maintained in his mind that he was going to refute all of Roxi's claims if she was going to let his foolish emotional gesture be a topic in any conversation. He had, oddly, not considered how she had greater claims than a mere hug, if she really wanted to tell on him.

"What're you doing here?" Damien managed to speak after a long moment of silent glaring, of which he had tried to settle the confusion in his mind, but instead tried to fill the long silence after he decided it was not going to work. There was not even an initial attempt of sarcastic insult. The level of smugness required for that was hardly what he possessed now in the face of Roxi. Simply, Damien was embarrassed. The feeling only enhanced itself in the girl's presence, and he met his eyes with the objects behind the glass instead, even if the lines between his eyebrows were deepening with every second.

Roxi felt her body sway a little bit. She did not feel solid. Roxanne Weasley felt like everything but a solid being, she felt flimsy and paperlike. She had always felt that way and that was why the phrases 'weight of the world on your shoulders' and 'stomach full of lead' were so foreign to her. She had never felt that sort of pressure on her. Besides, everyone knew, paper beat rock, right?

She knew that came was bull. Rock crushed paper in real life, and she always felt the looming, crushing feeling of a rock above her as she faced off with Damien. His presence meant confusion and hurt. He was nothing like the other boys she dealt with. Most of them made her feel unconflicted and thoughtless. Byron, her closest friend, made her feel free and happy. But Damien brought a weird tangled mess deep in her stomach that she couldn't sort.

She tried to stand firm, and she reached up, pulling the tassels of her hat and pulling them downwards, still swaying ever so slightly. She bit her lip and then shrugged, looking past him at the trophies. "I dunno," she said noncommitallly. "Exploring."

Damien felt himself having to still turn his eyes away from the meaningless trophies now, and back to Roxi, as he stood and watched her in silence for yet another moment of uncertainty. The obvious question in his mind was trying to figure out what he really wanted, or rather, how he was going to handle himself with Roxi now after the last time. For now, at least, they were alone, which meant that Damien had less of a fight or a wall of defense to keep up against her. He relaxed a little, exhaling as his scowl loosened, despite his eyes still trying to find a place to fix themselves on. Adjusting his scarf in a slightly awkward manner, Damien scanned the rows of gold, silver, and bronze before pointing randomly at them.

"Fancy making a name for yourself too?" Damien had often wandered through the names, not remembering much of them despite doing so, but really dwelled in daydreams of his name attaining some sort of importance. He remembered how meeting his father had felt like a sort of life-changing moment to him. Damien had expected his father to be important, that the older D'Eath would lend him some weight or knowledge or power, just anything to let people around him agree with his self-importance. Years at Hogwarts, and growing up, however, began to blunt his confidence in that anticipation. The majority of Slytherin came from families wealthier and more powerful than his. Lorcan D'Eath was just an entertainer, really, who made it big. He was a ladies' man, and still is; something which counts for nothing in the eyes of more important families. Even Damien's maternal family possessed a lot more weight than the D'Eath name. At this point, it would seem, Damien was a ready pawn for anyone who could offer him more. He was bored to the point of frustration.

"So ... wha-" Damien paused and cleared his throat. "What've you been up to?" He maintained a rather vacant expression upon turning his attention back to Roxi.

Roxi could not help her swaying and rocking, but she wrapped her arms around herself and saw that Damien was not going to go bipolar on her, at least not yet. She took a few tentative steps toward him and turned to look at the trophies he was looking at. She was bothered by how dusty the trophies were. It was like all the things the people did really did not matter.

She took out her wand and pointed it at the row of trophies before them. With a quick flick, the dust fell off into a neat line on the ground. She had found she was actually gaining an increasingly competent knowledge of magic. Typically, she would have blown something up, but she was getting a lot better at performing the task she actually intended.

She glanced over at him at his words and shrugged, looking at the trophies. "Not really. When your dead uncle in law was the Chosen One and defied Voldemort at every turn, you sort of lose the ambition to try and make a name for yourself." She shrugged. "It's like when a tree is in a big shadow. Really no reason to grow to great heights. I'm fine down here," she said, smirking.

She leaned forward and wiped away a smudge on the trophy in front of her with her thumb, rubbing hard until it disappeared. She glanced behind her and straightened up, answering. "Oh, not much. Joined the Gryffindor Quidditch team. I'm a Chaser," she said, grinning. She coughed and asked, "You?"

The sight of Roxi's wand made the muscles at Damien's neck tense up. Surely, the girl was not about to hex him, not when he had settled himself down into an oddly comfortable stance, one that was certainly not guarded against any unexpected attacks that his strange companion could inflict if she should wish to. The split second of paranoia fell as quickly as it shot up, at Roxi's direction of her wand to the trophies on display. Damien blinked as he stared at the dust that fell from the trophies, then slowly turned his eyes to Roxi, an evident raise of an eyebrow in response to her confuddling action. The boy did not have to dwell on that mild confusion for too long, since Roxi was suddenly talking to him again, and it took just a moment to realise what she was responding to. A proper conversation, it seems, was something they were capable of. Perhaps. Damien was still rather cynical about it, eyeing her with incredulity, even though he had started it in the first place.

"That's too much reverence for a wizard who simply performed better than average wizards of his time," Damien began in reference to Harry Potter as the Chosen One. "Voldemort simply lost his touch, little by little. I mean, after all, the greats have to be human after all. Nothing gold can stay. Harry Potter got lucky." Damien shrugged, obviously believing a rather skewed version of events. "Losing your ambition, however ..." He paused and thought about Roxi's words. " ... is going to be one of the biggest mistakes you'll ever make." Crossing his arms at his chest, Damien eyed the girl in a contemplative fashion. "Being under a big shadow is certainly the world's most ridiculously depressing feeling. Still, I can't wait to get out of it. And it must happen." Damien frowned hard. His impatience had made him increasingly moody and disillusioned over time.

"Chaser? Don't get knocked off your broom then, Weasley." Damien smirked, picking up on something he could try to be mean about to Roxi. Still, the bite in the tone of his reply was rather lacking. He was not his usual self. Damien shrugged again before replying, "Oh, you know. I've been doing what I do best ... not hanging out with Gryffindors."

She listened to Damien, noting his obvious venom (see, even her vocabulary was slowly but surely become larger and more eloquent) when he discussed Harry Potter. She knew there were those who had not liked him, but having never really gotten to know her uncle, she only felt a bit short changed for never getting to come in contact with him.

She shrugged as he began to wrap up his critical monologue regarding Harry, and added her own little supposing rebuttal. "Well, that's why people are so reverent of him, I guess. Who has that luck? Who get's lucky time after time after time? Who has people willing to sacrifice themselves for them that often? That's the thing people will see his relatives don't have- his luck."

However, Damien could not stop there, and added his scathing report about her lack of ambition. She shrugged again, saying, "For now, I'm okay to wait to find my own way out." She did not say more to him because, honestly, why did she have to explain herself to him? As far as she knew, he hated her anyway.

He told her not to get knocked off her broom. She rolled her eyes and said, "I won't." Truth be told, she would probably be the first too. She was athletic, but she took risks, and usually ended up on her back, looking up at her teammates zoom down to make sure she was alive. However, this comment was not his worse. He continued on and she felt a coldness set in her, and a hardness enter her expression. "Ah. Well. Wouldn't want to stop a good thing. I'll get going." And she began walking down the aisle, away from the Slytherin that so obviously wanted her to leave.