A letter to home .. ((Open))

Elijah ran a hand through his hair and looked down at the floor. He didn't know what to say, she had hit the nail on the head. He had some horrible replies from them and he didn't want to dwell on any of the curses or offers of spells to use. The things his mother said, despite not caring for her in the slightest, still hurt him and he had wounds deeper than those inflicted by the use of the Sectumsempra curse.

"I expect that, even though you have frustrating letters, the person your receive replies from is someone that cares about you." Eli said quietly.

He didn't want to divulge more than he had to but it always helped him to talk about his problems. He had been working hard for months to take money from his father's bank account and hide it away so he could buy an apartment in Paris. He wanted out and he had, had enough of his parents. Despite never seeing them, the harsh letters from a self-writing quill was enough for him.

Elijah looked visible defeated by Amelia’s comment, though she knew it wasn’t her words that had hurt him but rather the emotions and memories they had evoked. The hand through his hair, the way his eyes moved away from hers, the way his shoulders lost their rigidity and instead allowed his arms to hang limply by his sides – all of these were sure signs of an unfortunate series of thoughts. Amelia had seen these traits in herself when she allowed herself the time to reminisce, and she saw them now in Elijah.

His voice was quiet when he spoke and the impact of his statement was greater than the number of words he had used. The sincerity of his words was unmasked by pretenses or walls as hers nearly always were; he was being completely and bitterly honest. Amelia did not even attempt to mask the frown which turned down her cupid-bow lips, her eyes wide with a mixture of fright at the boy’s sudden honesty and sympathy toward his plight. She could not understand completely the story behind his angst, but she knew it must have been important to affect him this way. He had seemed strong when they first met, resilient. He still seemed that way, but now that he had shown a more vulnerable side of him Amelia could see the ways the pair of them differed.

“Yes,” Amelia agreed quietly, keeping her distance from him to allow him the space to escape if he wanted to, “Yes, the person who replies to me cares about me. He always has, even if he hasn’t been around to show it much these past few months. I am sorry the person on the other end of your owl’s journey doesn’t feel the same way about you.”

Since when did you become a therapist?

Shut up.

Amelia brushed away the rogue thoughts of another part of her mind, springing from the darker places of her mind where her sarcasm and caustic wit resided. This was not the place for that side of her, nor did she want to show that part of herself to Elijah. He had done nothing to her to deserve one of her “put-you-in-your-place” rampages. He actually looked like he could use some company, someone to share his problems with. Amelia wasn’t sure she could be that person, the person who could make him feel better or give him something to believe in. She didn’t really think of herself as someone who possessed the kind of “warm and fuzzy” personality that gave people hope. Still, she stood beside him quietly, offering nothing more than her presence in the hopes that it would provide something, if not the thing that he needed most.

Elijah patted his now thoroughly fluffed up hair back down and smiled slightly at the mess on top of his head. He squared his shoulders and took the defeated look out of his stance. He was stronger than that and he knew that.

It was just little pieces of writing or things someone could say that would break down the walled defences around the memories and all of them would rise to the surface like a candle floating in water. It was raw at times and he was unlike when it was. Voices would ring in his ears and scenes would run through his head like an old broken movie reel.

"It does not matter." Elijah said after some thought. "I am being foolish and it means nothing to you or to me. I should not care about the person on the other end of that piece of owl post at all but words can be harsh, especially those from a self-writing quill." Elijah chuckled darkly and glanced at Amelia before raising an eyebrow.

"Tell me a little about yourself.." he suggested. "I suppose you have gathered up all evidence that I am ruled mostly by emotions and not so much rational thinking so what about you?"

It didn’t happen immediately. Elijah took to silence Amelia gave him and drank it in, his hair looking a mess but Amelia barely bothering to notice. She was more concerned about the crumpled look on his face and the way he slouched against the wall. She did not speak more, though, choosing to let the boy mull through his thoughts and come to his own conclusions, which he eventually seemed to after a few silent minutes in the owlery.

Just as it had been visible when Elijah’s thoughts had gone down a stormy path, it was equally visible when he came back out of the tunnel and into a lighter, albeit still cloudy, place. He regained the stance Amelia had seen him in when she came in: shoulders more rigid, hair patted down in a more refined way, the planes of his face set into a stronger position that seemed to fit him better. His eyes looked less hollowed, although they had taken on a steeliness Amelia recognized from the reflection she had seen many times in the mirror.

His tone matched his recaptured indifference, all traces of vulnerability forgotten. If she hadn’t been there to witness it, she never would have believed Elijah capable of breaking down in front of her, in front of anyone. He didn’t look the type who wore his emotions openly, but it seemed even the greatest defenses had cracks in the walls. It was a pitfall of guarding your emotions that Amelia hoped no one would ever expose about her.

As unexpected as Elijah’s break from character had been, what he said next threw Amelia more off-kilter than an army of reminiscent students would have. Tell me a little about yourself. It was the prompt she dreaded most in conversation, the suggestion she knew least how to answer. Her difficulty rose from many places: her inability to define herself outside the realms of her parents’ expectations, her uneasiness with revealing much about her past, her inability to trust others. These and other factors made this question exceedingly difficult for Amelia, which is why she found herself avoiding Elijah’s eyes by averting her attention to the owls on the highest rafters of the towers, not really taking them in but using them as an excuse to remain detached.

“Well you already know my name,” Amelia began slowly, filtering sentences that presented themselves in her mind to determine whether they were appropriately vague, “and you know I was sorted into Ravenclaw. I am in my sixth year, hailing from Birmingham, England, where I grew up with my mother, father, and one older brother.”

An older brother who is now Merlin-knows-where and whom you haven’t even seen in nearly six months.

Pushing a few curls back from her face to prevent this break in her concentration from showing, Amelia pushed forward, quickly running out of Amelia-approved things to say about herself.

“I am a classically trained musician, I speak three languages, and my best course is transfiguration,” she finished, only now looking back to meet Elijah’s eyes, trying very hard to read a reaction in them.

“Would you care to reciprocate?” Amelia prompted, hoping to quickly leave the subject of herself and move onto Elijah, “I hardly think the scene I witnessed earlier qualifies as a proper introduction to your personality.”

Elijah listened intently and smiled when she mentioned where she was from.
"Birmingham.." Elijah said, testing the new word. "Is it nice there?" he asked her.

Elijah hadn't explored England, or Scotland for that matter, to its fullest. He was instructed not to leave the castle or its grounds because of reporters that would love to get pictures of him. Elijah didn't agree with the restrictions so he broke them whenever he had the chance and so far no reporters had crossed him.

Elijah paused when she asked him to explain a few things and he bit his lip. He wasn't sure what he should say at all, all he could do is try and explain how truly depressing his life truly was.

"I am a fifth year Slytherin.." Eli said slowly. "and up until a few weeks ago I attended Durmstrang in Bulgaria. I have lived in Sofia, Bulgaria my whole life and this place is very different to me. One of the women that looked after me said that my father thought Hogwarts was very beautiful in 1994 when he took place in the Triwizard Tournament, however I remain unconvinced. My parents were always away when I was younger so I was given 'nannies' I suppose I learnt everything from them. I used to have a sister but I um.."

Elijah trailed off and looked down at the floor. He wasn't sure how his sister died, he just remembered hearing the news and leaving the mansion with a sketch book. That was the first time he really began to draw. He had realised soon enough that he had quite a knack for it and encouraged the nanny looking after him to take him into the local town. It was there that he bought arts supplies by the dozen and filled an entire room with them. That was one of the rare times that he was glad for the riches he was given.

"I'm actually required to speak four languages or is it five.. no it's five. Russian, English, Bulgarian and Hebrew/Arabic so I suppose it's six. I can play the piano and the acoustic guitar but that's about it. The only thing I have been trained in is how to be charming around 'civilized' company." Elijah most definitely did not forget to use air-quotes. "Unlike you, I don't have a best course or most favoured course at this or any school because I do not enjoy being restricted. Anything to do with school is .. ignored by me I suppose." Elijah shrugged.

Elijah glanced down at his right hand and tugged off the glove he always wore. He glanced sheepishly at Amelia and gently tapped the head of the snake that sat in his palm. The snake's eyes opened and it glanced up to Elijah before hissing and closing its eyes again. Elijah chuckled and pulled the sleeve of his shirt up, revealing the black snake tattoo that coiled up his arm.

He had shown a few people and most had been horrified by the prospect of having a living snake attached to your body but it didn't faze Elijah in the slightest, Nachâsh usually left when he went to bed and wandered back before he woke up in the mornings and even if she didn't she would make her presence known one way or another.

"I guess it's a bit creepy." he chuckled uneasily. "But Nachâsh is harmless. She's not usually this anti-social though. Personally I don't think she likes the time change .."

(( I haven't actually had the chance to mention his tattoo before.. *muses* it is fairly large and not something one would miss if Elijah wandered around shirtless.))

((Have I mentioned I love posting with you? I do not feel guilty in the slightest about long posts, and you give me so much to respond to!))

“Birmingham is pleasant enough,” Amelia replied politely, failing to mention that she rarely saw any part of Birmingham of which her parents did not approve. Although she had taken to biking the streets as she grew older, being at Hogwarts kept her away for most of the year, and during the three months she was home her parents always scheduled numerous events at which her attendance was anything but voluntary, “The weather is temperate and the attractions many. The Bartley Reservoir is a draw for sailors and the site of maritime races in the summer.”

That was as descriptive an answer as she could give without sounding overtly pompous. Although she could speak of the fine houses, the opera houses, and the many affluent abodes, those things did not really define the place she called home. They dominated the time she spent there, to be sure, but they would never be what draw her back. Obligation to her parents and the hope that one of the times she went home Raoul would be there – slim chance – were the only factors which kept her from signing up for winter interim at the castle.

Amelia eagerly allowed Elijah to take over the conversation, always more keen to learn more about others than to reveal anything about herself. He filled the silence quickly with a narrative on his recent transfer to the school and his brief overview of his home life. Amelia should probably have ascertained his novelty among the Hogwarts students; his accent was clearly foreign and with the amount of time she spent observing and cataloguing the students and staff of the boarding school it was unlikely that she overlooked anyone for long. She was disappointed to find that he thought Hogwarts to be dull in comparison to Durmstrang, which she had never seen, but she supposed not everyone saw the castle walls as a haven and an escape from the pressures of life at home.

Amelia had been following his story with a socially acceptable level of interest (although mentally noting everything he said in case it would come up later probably didn’t qualify as socially acceptable), but it wasn’t until his words dropped off that she first attempted to see past his words into what he was thinking. She could tell from the way his inflection had changed that this was a subject which he would not address, an accidental slip likely a remnant of the earlier emotional experience. The past tense of his words suggested loss, which Amelia knew to be a subject she could not breach, both because it would directly disobey the laws of etiquette and because she probably wouldn’t know how to deal with the answer if Elijah chose to provide it.

Although her thoughts lingered on his earlier indiscretion, Amelia was able to partition her mind and allow the majority of her focus to once again follow the boy’s words. His linguistic repertoire was greater even than hers, which was uncommon, but not all that surprising, she found. He seemed a well-rounded individual, impressive with his musical background, although the non-chalant tone he used when speaking about schoolwork made her raise an eyebrow. As a dutiful student and one who quested for knowledge, Amelia couldn’t wrap her mind around the idea that there were people who had absolutely no interest whatsoever in learning. It seemed unfathomable to her.

Nevertheless, Amelia found some things to relate with about Elijah. His description of “civilized company” reminded her very much of something her mother would say, although the air quotes most definitely would have been absent in her description. Etiquette, manners, and a lady-like demeanor had all been a focal point of her upbringing, which may or may not have resulted in the now detached young lady Amelia had grown into.

When Elijah ceased his description of himself, Amelia thought her interest would wane, but to her surprise he found a way to make her ever the more intrigued. Although she did not understand his motion to take off his glove, his sheepish glance led Amelia’s eyes down to the palm of his hand where the head of a snake rested.

A rather discontent snake at that… Amelia thought as the snake hissed, leaning back a bit further upon the decision that this might be a safer distance from which to observe the phenomenon that resided on Elijah’s arm. The boy laughed at both the snake’s fit and, she guessed, her reaction to it, but she was so enraptured that it hardly phased her that he might be guffawing at her expense.

“Creepy is not the first word that comes to mind,” Amelia responded, regaining a bit of her initial bravery and leaning closer to Elijah’s newly exposed arm to watch the snake coil around it, half believing it to be a magically enhanced tattoo and half believing it to be real. It was a phenomenon she could neither explain nor replicate, and her attention was automatically piqued, “Fascinating is more what I was thinking.”

“Nachâsh, you said her name was?” Amelia asked, her mind barely able to wrap itself around the idea that this boy had a moving, named snake on his arm, “How did it… when… what is it?” she finally managed to spit out, too many questions rising to the surface at once and Amelia struggling to choose just one.

((Yeah, I don't like posting one liners or little paragraphs because it gives nothing for someone else to reply to. This RP is brilliant length and quality-wise))

Elijah knew that 'Ash was getting uptight and she wasn't too fond of people she didn't recognise, probably through past experiences that she had neglected to share with him. Elijah whispered soothing words to the snake and ran a hand down his arm, trying to reassure the angry reptile.

"I think you are the only one ever to see that in this snake. Others found her... sickening."

Elijah looked down at the animal that was curled up his arm. 'Ash had grown every month or so since she had come to him with the proposition. He was twelve - going on thirteen, and needed something interesting in his life. As the snake grew, 'Ash curled up his arm and he knew that when she reached full length she would wrap around his neck.

It was interesting for him to watch when she left her fleshy confines. The odd minority had seen 'Ash leave him and most hadn't made it to the bathroom in time. It wasn't horrifying per se, you just don't see a snake - that was mean to be a tattoo, break out of someone's skin.

"She was scared.." Elijah said quietly, running his hand down his arm again. "She came to me, like others had come to wizards, for refuge. I was twelve and alone in the forest that surrounded the mansion. She was out of her wits but with a few quick spells there was a flash and I found her coiling herself around my wrist. I thought it was strange at first, having something like that trapped under your skin but once she broke out it was... magical." Elijah chuckled.

Nachâsh hissed in agreement and gave him a snake-like smile and then directed it to Amelia, hissing in approval.
“I think she likes you.” he grinned.

((I am assuming since you were whispering to the snake and the sheer fact that you have one living under your skin that you are a parseltongue, but please correct me if I am wrong so I can edit my post accordingly.))

Amelia’s could not help but draw nearer to the snake which took up a considerable part of her companion’s arm. It was a fascinating creature, seemingly part of Elijah, but not of him. The snake did not have the same thoughts or feelings as the person she had made her home, but rather the two could communicate as separate entities. Amelia was not altogether surprised to find that Elijah was a parseltongue, not because he was in Slytherin – the fabled house of all parseltongues – but rather because, well… he had a live snake on his arm.

Very deductive, Sherlock…

When Elijah once again directed his attention to her, Amelia took in his words without looking at him, unable to tear her eyes away from the phenomenon which coiled around Elijah’s muscular forearm and bicep. Enraptured as she was, she had little brain power to spare for filtering her words and thus what she said was a completely honest representation of what she felt about the mystery before her.

“I find her incredible,” Amelia whispered, her voice hushed in a sort of reverent awe, “If not more than a little puzzling. I have never seen anything like this before, a symbiotic relationship between a human being snake who has made him her host.”

Amelia continued to watch the snake’s movement and examine the seamless connection between the “tattoo” and his arm while Elijah explained how she came to be there. Her eyebrows raised when he mentioned the snake had been there since he was twelve, a young age to be doing the type of magic which would have been required to implant the refugee in his skin. Amelia was not sure that even now she would be capable of such magic without hurting either the snake or its intended host.

Amelia wanted to reach out and touch the snake which writhed upon Elijah’s arm, if only to give herself concrete proof that her eyes did not deceive her, but she kept her hands to herself. Although it would have been acceptable to touch another person’s pet with permission, it would have been supremely awkward to ask for permission to stroke Elijah’s arm. Besides, she very rarely let anyone into her personal space, aside from the occasional handshake, of course. Physical contact had not been a part of her upbringing, her parents not being exceptionally affectionate, and so she had never learned to need or want for human connection.

So focused was she on keeping her hands to herself, Amelia nearly couldn’t believe her eyes when the object of her attention turned to her with a surprisingly direct hiss. Amelia looked up to Elijah, breaking her focus on the snake for the first time since she had seen it. A look of utter surprise was written across her pale and freckled features, to which he responded by smiling, his reassuring words more calm and collected than she felt.

“Well, you can tell her that I very much like her as well,” Amelia said, smiling in spite of herself. She could not rightly explain why she was pleased to know that Elijah’s snake tattoo was fond of her, but the semi-permanent grin which had spread across her face served as testament to her happiness at the idea.

(It is a variation of the skill but in a sense it is that. It wouldn't be practical to be unable to speak with the animal that has made you their home so Elijah - through the spells, has received the talent this way instead of people like LV who's parslemouth abilities are hereditary.)

Elijah smiled at Amelia. She had a way with words, something he found he could never achieve even if he wanted to. He had a tendency to say what he thought before he could rationalise and think about what he was saying. That got him into some big arguments most of the time but he was stubborn and would fight back with all the passion he could muster.

Elijah remembered back to when he entered the mansion after instilling 'Nash into his flesh. He had never heard a woman scream so damn loud and he made a vow to never to hear the sound again unless something good was going to come of it like a birth of a child - not just some mindless screaming because there's a god forsaken snake on his arm.

That event had actually made his parents come home. Victor was interested and kept exclaiming "cool!" where as his mother would sit and glare at him for hours on end and if he moved from the spot he was standing in and left the room she would glare at that patch of carpet.

"'Nash is a puzzling creature ... very powerful, but very puzzling. I love my snake and I'm pretty sure this little reptile loves me too. If she doesn't then she'll be finding herself without a home for a few weeks." Eli chuckled. "It does get lonely without something you're used to beside you."

Eli saw her hands twitch, he had a feeling she wanted to touch the snake. 'Nash hissed something incoherent that sounded vaguely like a cheer and Eli smiled. Amelia's face lit up as she smiled and Eli found himself standing in complete awe of the woman standing before him.

Her face glowed and her eyes twinkled when she smiled. 'Nash hissed in excitement and he felt the tail flick his chest. He smiled to himself and carefully motioned to her hands.
"You can touch her y'know. I think she'll be more offended if you didn't and then she'd blame me for it." Eli smiled and looked down at the snake's head resting in his palm. 'Nash was nodding furiously and he smirked at the snake who poked it's forked tongue out at him.

Eli wondered if what he was about to do was acceptable but then again, he was never one for being normal. He was unorthodox in more ways than not so he just thought he'd run with it.

Elijah carefully curled his fingers around her wrist and lifted her hand onto his forearm where 'Nash's coiled body seemed to group together more if that made any sense. Elijah rested his hand over hers and guided her fingers across the scales beneath his skin. Once he had a feeling she was calm, he took his hand away and settled and listened to 'Nash's hissing of approval and excitement.
Silly snake. Elijah smiled to himself.

Amelia watched as the snake seemed to smile up at her, a charming little thing if she ever saw one. The tattoo-snake was intricately visible, even under the skin of Elijah’s tanned skin. She could count each scale on its back, although that may have had less to do with the way it was drawn and more to do with the fact that she was keeping an inappropriately close distance from Elijah’s arm.

The Ravenclaw girl had always been relatively interested by body morphing, unable as she was to do it herself. She had never been blessed with the ability to be a metamorphagus, though it would have aided her in maintaining her anonymity throughout her years as a student here. Her parents had always been strictly against other types of physical alteration, everything from piercings to dying her hair. If those things made her mother pinch her eyebrows together with indignation, Amelia could not even begin to imagine what response a tattoo would have elicited. She knew Raoul had gotten one since he left home, but that was unsurprising and, really, it was the least rebellious of most of the things he had done since dropping out of school in April of last year.

As Elijah described the reptilian creature inhabiting his arm, Amelia found herself slightly jealous of the relationship he had with the snake. She was not prone to jealousy as she did not believe it to serve any practical purpose. Why waste time wishing you had something when you could work hard and actually get it? This time, though, she felt the pangs of the emotion she understood to be jealousy, mostly because she believed this level of intimate connection to be beyond the realm of things she could accomplish through hard work. From prior experience, it seemed these types of deep connections could only be formed when you were willing to trust and to open up.

Not exactly your strong suit…

It wasn’t that Amelia was lonely without personal connections; on the contrary, she did not understand the negative connotation so many people placed on being alone. Amelia went out of her way to seek solitude and had never considered herself “lonely”. Being alone meant she was with the only person she trusted completely and could be at ease for once, instead of constantly filtering her words and remembering to adhere to the rules of society.

Elijah seemed, though she couldn’t be completely sure, to be looking at her differently since she had expressed her pleasure at the snake’s approval, the look on his face reading as though something had changed his mind about her. She couldn’t imagine what she could have said to ignite the spark that now danced behind his eyes, but the snake seemed to have noticed it to because her movements became more animated, purposeful.

The boys words gave her some insight into what the sudden change of facial expression had meant, but that didn’t mean Amelia had completely caught up with what he was thinking. Although he had given her an opening which would allow her to do exactly what she had been wishing, she still wasn’t ready to break the physical wall that she put up between herself and others that prevented contact.

She was just about to voice her protestations, make up some excuse why she shouldn’t touch the snake – and by proxy, Elijah – but the Slytherin boy didn’t give her the opportunity to. Before the words could pass her lips, his long fingers closed around Amelia’s small wrist, enclosing it completely. So shocked was she by this gesture, Amelia did not even struggle against him. Her eyes widened in surprise and she inhaled sharply as Elijah placed her hand on his forearm, placing his hand over hers and moving her fingers in such a way that forced her to experience what she likely would have done voluntarily had she not had so many qualms about breaching social contract.

The experience was an out of body one, as if she were reading about it in a book or watching someone else do it. His skin was warm, much warmer than her icy fingers, which had never had proper circulation. She had expected the snake to protrude from Elijah’s skin, like a vein or a bone, but instead it seemed to be a part of him, taking up no more space than a second layer of skin.

She could feel the movement of the creature below her fingers, maintaining the contact with his skin even after he had taken his hand away. Amelia knew she should have stepped back, chastised Elijah for overstepping his boundaries as a gentleman, but she was just too fascinated. The snake seemed to relish in her touch, moving so that each part of its slender form came in contact with her nimble fingers. She found her hand was shaking slightly, for reasons unbeknownst to her, but after a few steadying breaths to remind herself that this was all real, the spasms stopped.

“It’s…” Amelia began, looking up to Elijah in the hopes that she could find the answer written across his forehead, somehow struggling for words where she usually would have had an eloquent comment. Upon meeting his eyes, Amelia found that him moving her hand had also brought the two of them suspiciously close together. She fumbled for a descriptive word, knowing that if she found something to say it would break the tension of their stare and push them past this moment she did not know how to handle.

“It’s… indescribable. I don’t see how you get anything done, for I know I would be sufficiently distracted to put off just about everything else.”