Silent Study-Buddy

Homework. Weekend homework no less. It was the work of some form of a devil himself. A devil he was sure of. Stan hated it, and everyone he knew hated it too, if they weren't a teacher. That was no big shock for him. He knew that teachers equal torture. That was general consensus, and who could go wrong with that. Well a lot of things could go wrong, but he didn't plan on doing anything to divulge his feelings about the teachers to them. He was awaiting his friend, Salem, who was a long time buddy of his.

Stan felt the chaffing of his rough-denim cut-off jean shorts against his stomach. He was recently filled with a sandwich, but not just any sandwich. He called it the Kumar Knockout. Deep-fried sausage, melted cheese, collard greens, scrambled eggs, bacon, all served between two slices of cornbread. He usually ate all that as a dip, he used bacon-fat mixed with garlic and cilantro as the dipping sauce for the sandwich. It was a heart-clogging French-dip-like combination which somehow didn't kill him. He was surprised he hadn't succumb to a heart attack yet.

He was wearing his usual flamboyant attire, especially flamboyant because of his My Little Pony stickers that adorned his cheeks. He had his hair done up in rainbow spikes, while the base of his hair remained black. Oddly enough, he didn't feel like dying all of it. Which was unusual. He wore a pink low-cut shirt with sequins and long sleeves. His jean-shorts came up a little above his knee, but his Gryffindor robes covered his lap so not many people would see that.

He opened up a textbook, and sifted through it. All of the junk within, which he deemed junk, hurt his head somewhat. Some of the textbook was inaccurate, possibly this thing was the most outdated in the library.

Salem walked toward the library, clutching her book close to her chest, biting her bright red-painted bottom lip. Her wide, distrusting eyes glanced nervously at people who passed her by, looking as though she was terrified they were going to suddenly attack her. Ever since that Zara character had attacked her in Hogsmeade, she had been terrified by strangers... even more than usual.

She headed into the library, her black leather skinny pant legs rubbing against each other. The black ribbons on her corset-type red top flounced along, and she pulled nervously at her black military jacket. She was wearing long, black fingerless gloves and had painted her face with the usual black make up, shocking against her pale face, the only color his ruby red lips.

She walked in and her eyes immediately found Stan, possibly her only friend at Hogwarts. Sure, he dressed weird and acted completely weird, but Salem did not exactly have a bunch of options at Hogwarts. She did not have people lining up to be buddies with her, they were usually too busy sticking their legs out as she walked by, or glaring at her and calling her names.

She sat next to him, saying nothing but offering him a weird mixed smile- terror, anxiousness, humility and welcome. She let her bag slide off of her small shoulder and then thump into her lap. She then moved it to the ground and set it next to her leg, beginning to drag out some parchment, writing utensils, and the textbooks that she would need.

"Hello!" Stan offered a friendly smile, "It's nice to see you today. What've you got there?" He quickly scribbled something on a piece of paper, a question. Something he had to remember for COMC, which he liked as a class but wasn't too fond of the homework. Nor was he fond of the teacher. He was just fond of the things studied with it. He thought long and hard about the question, "I know". He had a eureka moment. He quickly wrote down the answer. It was homework about the manticore, which he didn't get to finish in class. That Brienne girl in his class was a bit puzzling, how could she work so quickly? It was a question he definitely had.

He stifled a belch, and put up a muffilato around himself and Salem so there'd be no noise from them penetrating the library and making the librarian mad. He wasn't sure if Salem was even capable of noise, but he certainly was. Especially with the way he listened to a lot of music. He couldn't work without at least some background music, often a soothing jazz melody, or a quieted metal song. He picked the former for this. He waved his wand and some soothing jazz began to play within the muffilato bubble.

"Sorry, I work better with at least some music. Of course, I got more tunes other than jazz. I have metal or anything that anyone could possibly want to listen to. Except recent pop. That stuff's kinda bad. Not my taste". He had a charming smile for such a weird boy. Some would describe him as a charming diamond in the weird rough. That was certainly something he didn't like to be referred to as. He was no diamond. No, he was a chrysoberyl, otherwise known as Alexandrite. Alexandrite changed colors as much as he did. He certainly changed colors often, well, his hair color anyway. He never liked his natural color. He thought it was too drab.

Salem offered him a smile, or more of a crooked, tight-lipped grimace, her red lips pursed against each other and her eyes wide. Fortunately, Stan had always been enthusiastic and loud enough for the two of them- and some, in her opinion- so there was not too much that was really expected of her, accept to nod or shake her head every once in awhile.

She pulled out her Alchemy book, which was by far, the most difficult class she was taking, mostly because the entire subject and profession itself is completely and utterly challenging. Not only does it take great skill and tiresome effort, but it also required a natural talent that Salem was still trying to figure out of she had or not. Either way, she needed to study.

Stan apologized for the fact that he needed music, and she was not sure why. She already knew this about the boy. She nodded and offered him a smile, acknowledging that the jazz was fine. Salem had learned that any sort of noise to break the silence that so often followed her around was allowed, as long as it was not too loud or frightening. She smiled and bent over her book, knowing that if there was any sort of "conversation" to be had, it would be led by Stan.

"Alchemy? That subsection of the alchemy, right there, that's why I dropped it. That was just a bit too hard. It requires too much concentration", Stan said, the dye in his hair managed to dry, ergo it was safe to touch. Just as it had not been the rest of this week. "Whoever invented weekend homework should be shot. The weekend is for fun, not for work. Especially in certain religions where either Saturday or Sunday is called the Sabbath day. I can't remember which". Religion was not his thing, it never was. He wasn't a devoted Hindu man, like his family wished him to be. Instead, he was strictly secular, it went hand in hand with wizardry. Unlike organized religion, most of them forbidding the practice. However, if religion had a favorable trait to it, he'd try and use that as an argument against a great atrocity. Weekend homework being one.

He didn't realize part of his tshirt was being blotched with the ink from his pen. Not that he'd care. That was a minor inconvenience. He'd rather go to church than care about a stupid stain. Stupid stain or not, it was substantial; it took up a bit of the lower arm of the sleeve. Of course, he was oblivious to it, until someone pointed it out or he looked down. Rarely did he look down before it was pointed out to him. A lot of his favorite shirts and sweaters were ruined like this. However, he still wore the ink-stained clothes, since he thought of the ink as a design rather than a stain. "I could use a Firewhiskey right now". He drank underage, beginning when he was 12, usually Muggle alcohol. However, wizard alcohol captured his interest a lot more. He also liked to smoke. Not just tobacco, though, he also liked marijuana. He smoked once in a while to make him forget the world around him. It nearly always worked, and gave him inspiration for writing sax music. Well, until the morning after a good fatty. The holes burned in his brain and his wallet. Those felt the worst. His hangovers and feelings after doing drugs or drinking were always really bad. This morning he had a particularly bad weed-hangover.

He rubbed his temples, then his hand traveled down to smooth over the yellow My Little Pony sticker on his right cheek. It felt smooth and artificial against his more organic feeling skin. His eyes were a bit red and baggy, but he still managed to look friendly and non-threatening. He managed to cover the smell of the weed with a few spells. Of course, it had to be kicked up a couple notches. Usually it didn't have to be, but this time it did. He felt a little sick, but tried to hide it.

She nodded, fully agreeing with his statement, though she thought that the concept of killing someone for thinking up the concept of homework over the weekend was a little bit drastic. Though, she would agree that some sort of punishment was in order. Stan debated over which day was the Sabbath and she raised her head, mouthing 'Sunday' which she knew from her many readings.

He said that he could go for a Firewhiskey and she nodded. She was like every other teen in that she felt to the social temptations of youth, though she was much more moderate about it. Her silence kept her thoughtful and mindful, so she had to be in a particular, peculiar mood to act so freelance and laissez faire about drinking and other social evils. Though the only thing holding her back from being a total and complete bad citizen was the respect of her brother, something she would never dare to ruin. She would take a few sips, a few inhales, but never enough to cause shame. She nodded and continued on.

"Oh yeah! That's right. Thank you," Stan said, "Sometimes I think my stupidly secular mindset is a curse". He chuckled softly. Of course he wasn't serious about the stupid part, it was meant to be a humorous poke at himself. He always made such jokes. Even when he was terribly sick with a weed-hangover like he was right now. The soothing jazz seemed to alleviate some of the headache he had. He wished that he had something like ibuprofen or a headache potion to quickly cross the blood-brain barrier and do away with the drugged up feeling in his noggin. He knew it was his fault he felt like this, but he didn't expect it to be so long.

Instead of doing his COMC homework, he was doodling on his parchment. Some fantastical design. Perhaps one that would be on a t-shirt someday. What was it? Was it a building? Was it a creature? He didn't really know that much about what it was. Only that he was making marks on parchment and that was about it. When he finished, it looked like something a famous architect would churn out. His brain finally registered what he was drawing. He couldn't draw animals or people or anything, really. Just straight lines. But he joined them in such a way. He was unimpressed, though, and felt as if it should be crumpled up.

"Screw Care of Magical Creatures", he didn't know what he was saying. Or he did, he just wasn't up to parsing it in his mind. Normally, Care of Magical Creatures was his favorite subject. Right now though, it was just an inconvenience.