Long Days & Long Sighs

Finn stumbled into her dormitory after a long study session in the library in which she had desperately tried to help Ducky understand the importance of the goblin wars. His brain was just so resistance to dates and names, that they both left feeling a bit disappointed. He had thanked her profusely for trying, but she had seen the slump in her friend’s shoulders the moment they parted. She would have to try harder, have to find another way.

She slipped into the dorm, letting out a sigh.

“Long day?”

Ace was on her bed, a book opened in front of her, absent-mindedly working a moisturizing potion through her blonde locks. Finn wasn’t sure Ace had even looked up, had just sensed the exasperation dripping from the girl’s entire aura. Finn nodded feebly, but Ace was not looking. The blonde looked up arching an eyebrow. “Huh?”

“Right,” Finn said, blinking, realizing her mistake. “Yes, it… it was.”

She crossed to her drunk and slipped her shoes and stockings off, beginning to change out of her school uniform and into her comfortable satin pajamas. “Do you… Do you tutor, ever?”

Ace hummed for a moment, placing a thumb on the sentence she had just read, considering it. She totally could. She had offered. People never seemed to… enjoy working alongside her. Especially when it was her job to tell them they were wrong.

“Too busy,” Ace said. “Maybe  Francesca?”

"Occasionally," Francesca admitted, rolling her shoulders and looking up from her books for the first time in at least an hour. The girl didn't tutor often, finding it a mild inconvenience at best and a hair-pulling aggravation at worst.  The first time she'd done so, the Hufflepuff had been twelve, and was offered leverage on a classmate if she was willing to help a boy understand what the Professor had been on about in Charms for the past few weeks. The other student had, of course, been a Slytherin.

Cesca rarely got asked to assist a classmate with work, but every once in a while someone would approach her, saying that'd be willing to give her something in return for the assistance. Only once had she ever tutored a Gryffindor, at the request of a Professor the girl had thought would be vial to her receiving the Prefect potion the following year, and the Cesca had nearly cursed him out of sheer frustration.

Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, the girl added, "I tend to stick to Ravenclaws and Slytherins. For the sake of my sanity, if nothing else."

Only just now noticing the ache in her lower back from being bent over her work for so long, the Malfoy female slid from the position she had been in on her bed, to standing right next to it. Lifting her arms over her head, Cesca raised herself up onto her toes and arched her back. Feeling the ache diminish slightly, the girl let her heels drop back down to the floor, and took a seat on the side of her bed.

Swinging her legs up onto the bed beside her, Cesca looked over at her two roommates. Or rather, roommate and room-crasher. Years ago, Alice Longbottom had started spending a significant amount of time in the dorm room of the girls a year above her. One day, without any prompting that Cesca was aware of, another bad had appeared in their newly-enlarged room. At first, Cesca had though perhaps they had a transfer, but there were no new students. It didn't take long for Cesca to figure out that the bed was for Ace, who still had a bed in her own dorm. The girl wasn't sure if the change was a house elf trying to be helpful, or just the magic of the castle. Either way, Francesca had, surprisingly, not minded much. Ace was surprisingly undifficult to get along with. Not that Cesca would ever admit to that, mind. Besides, the girl had a sneaking suspicion that the Alice already knew.

Finn buttoned her pajamas, sitting on the edge of her bed as she reached up to begin unwinding the braids she had opted for that morning. There was a dull ache beginning to form in the center of her temple, making her realize how long the day truly had been. Her eyes fluttered and she paused in her work, letting out a long sigh. She quickly got back into it, and continued unwinding her hair.

It made sense that the Malfoy girl did not stray far from people supposedly in the same vein of her own personality. Ace, however, looked up at the words and pointed out, "Not always a guarantee though. Margo Richards is a Ravenclaw." She glanced down, clumsily flipping the page in her book while trying not to get her potion-soaked hands on the page, muttering, "Somehow." It was bull, really. The girl wasn't intelligent. The girl was a joke, really.

Her hair free of their confines, Finn began to carefully put away her things for the night, chewing on her lip, unsure if she wanted to share her difficulties. "I... I've been tutoring Ducky and-"

Ace looked up immediately. "Ducky Baker?" she repeated. She immediately flicked her eyes skyward. "Like there are two Ducky's at school but-" She looked back at Finn. "That's gotta be interesting."

Finn shrugged. "I don't know. I think I'm a better friend to him than I am a tutor."

Ace chewed on her lip, wishing she could volunteer her time. She had always thought that, while Ducky was a tool, he was probably a useful tool. He had influence, and the popularity that was so elusive to her, despite her good intentions for it. But she couldn't kid herself. "I don't know that I could do either," she said, shrugging.

Lucy held her breath right outside their dorm room.  If everything was as it should have been, she ought to have bunked with the fifth years in their dorm, but for some reason her things had never ended up in there.  Whether through misplaced sympathy or simply negligence, Lucy didn't know.  She'd been behind since second year and any hope she once held of catching up to her year-mates had long since past.

Over those years, she'd become adept at hiding the more visible symptoms of her attack.  Right now it was this.  If she held her breath, her heartbeat would slow down from its pounding pace that made her feel like she'd run a mile when really it was just the short walk from the Great Hall to the Common Room that had done it.  That, in turn, would make it easier to breathe.

When she entered the dorm and flopped carelessly onto her bed, she wasn't even out of breath and in this way, nobody would ever know.

But she had overheard them talking while she was outside, and from the smatterings she could make out, it was a conversation she wanted to be part of.

"What couldn't you do?" she asked, well, more like scoffed.

Lucy Weasley entered and Ace looked up, nodding to her. She felt comfortable around the Weasleys, even if she did not always get along with them. They were as close to cousins as she had, and she had been more or less raised alongside of them. There was a comfort in their existence, a certainty she could get from them, a promise that no matter what, she was acceptable in their eyes.

Lucy questioned what Ace had been talking about and it suddenly struck her that the statement could be a bit revealing, if unraveled honestly. She didn't need people to know how much she struggled with connection and friendliness. She already had so much going against her. And it was hard to fake-it-until-you-make-it (her current method) if people knew she was faking it.

She shrugged. "Talking about Ducky Baker. Whether or not we could be hid friend or his tutor. Said I doubt I could do either 'cause he's just so... y'know." She rolled her eyes. Deciding she would rather be pretentious and uppity than reveal that particular weakness.