Today was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

Amelia found her lips pressing into a firm line when Peter insisted on blaming himself, probably doing quite a good imitation of her mother. Antoinette was famous for her thin-lipped frustration, and Amelia had seen enough of it to do even a subconscious mirroring of that expression. It was hard to watch him wallow; not only was it a complete contradiction of his usual personality, it was also against everything Amelia had been taught. Her mother and father had never tolerated self-pity, nor did they believe that fretting needlessly over a situation would ever lead to anything productive. Amelia likely would have been smacked with a wand by now if she had been behaving the way Peter was.

And if anyone had cause to be upset by the situation, it was Amelia. Wasn’t she the one they had been attacking? Wasn’t she the one with the frizz and the freckles, the one that used words like ‘Aberrant’ and ‘fortuitous’, and gotten the flak for it? The majority of the heat that had been dished out by the former Beauxbaton’s elite hadn’t been focused on Peter, and yet here he was berating himself for it.

That is because he cares… Amelia’s subconscious intoned inside her head, speaking slowly as if this were a complicated thing it needed to explain to Amelia’s challenged brain, You should try it sometime.

Sighing, Amelia let her mouth relax and tried to put herself in Peter’s shoes and empathize with what he was experiencing. She supposed it might be somewhat natural – if not logical – to take on the responsibility for what his friends had said. After all, if Amelia had learned nothing else from Antoinette’s constant lecturing it was that the company you keep is a reflection of your character (and thus she was not to associate with anyone below the upper eschelan of society, but that part didn’t really apply here…). In part, Amelia conceded, Peter might rationally come to the conclusion that he did, thinking that if not for him, Amelia never would have been exposed to that crowd and thus their harsh words.

“Look,” Amelia said slowly after gathering her thoughts and focusing on not snapping at him; she was working on this whole empathy thing, and though she didn’t have much practice with social interaction, she at least owed Peter something after the limb he had just gone out on for her, “You don’t have to make me any promises about whether you will or won’t be spending time with them. Your friendships are your own decision, and to be honest, I can’t say that I predicted that you might decide that this…” Amelia paused her, hesitating to use the word that she knew had to come next for her sentence to make sense, “…this friendship-type-thing we have going on here would be worth rethinking your world view, but I can’t say I’m disappointed to be free of the giggling hordes.”

“So for now, let’s just put it behind us and save the 'never-ever-again' decisions for some other time, shall we?” Amelia suggested, attempting to put Peter at ease but also trying to move away from what she considered to be a very awkward situation, considering she still hadn’t quite grasped what would have made Peter say the things he did in the first place. I mean, yes, the things he had said about them being awful people that needed to grow up and stop being so rude were definite points Amelia could agree with him on, but his choice to express them out loud… that Amelia didn’t so much understand.

Peter listened carefully to her, though his eyes remained on the table as he slowly put some food on his plate and began to poke at it with his silverware, tying to give himself something to do rather than face the girl that his friends had hurt. The girl who was so very unlike them, and unlike him, and unlike anyone he had ever known. The girl he had quite the crush on.

Oh boy, he had followed the thought all the way through. Shit! He had always managed to stop his train of though before it had gotten so far, because he was afraid when he finally let that thought develop, well then he would somehow accidentally screw everything up. That the thought would forevermore lurk in the back of his mind until he did something stupid.

He slowly looked up at her, trying to force the thought of his head and listen to what she said instead. As she went on, a dawning realization began to settle in his mind. His eyebrows met as he watched her with puzzlement, as though observing a jigsaw puzzle that had been scrambled so many time he was too afraid to begin to put it together, yet he was determined to.

Why is she so afraid of someone caring for her? Of someone wanting to commit to something because of her? He shook these thoughts from his head, because he did not need to bombard her with soul-searching questions that would surely either make her uncomfortable or piss her off. Instead he nodded, dropping his gaze. "Okay. I'm sorry. Sounds like a plan..."

Confusion had replaced guilt on Peter’s face, which wasn’t that much of an improvement from where Amelia was sitting, but at least he wasn’t wallowing anymore. His eyebrows had pulled together and he was observing her from across the table while idly poking at his plate of food with his fork. Amelia wanted to squirm under this scrutiny, but she had already done so much squirming earlier when Peter’s friends had been around that she managed to hold still under his gaze.

“Great,” Amelia said quickly when Peter finally agreed to move past the situation and focus on something else. The problem was, he hadn’t offered anything else to move on to, and Amelia was far from a conversationalist. Peter had usually supplied the conversation topic, but Amelia guessed that his mind was still lingering on the previous encounter, even if he was covering it up externally.

To give herself some time to think, Amelia took some salad from a large bowl and put it on her plate. Although it was late on a Friday night and far past dinner time, she wasn’t really hungry any more. She had been so distracted in the last hour that she had completely forgotten that her original intention in coming here – aside from finding a place to dry off – was to get something to eat. She poked idly at the salad and took a few bites before finally settling on a question that she hoped could drag Peter out of his rut. Then he might be willing to start the next line of conversation and save Amelia the trouble.

“So… what are your plans for the summer?” Amelia inquired somewhat awkwardly after taking a sip of water. This wasn’t exactly a personal question, but rather a small-talk, mother-approved question that Amelia had been trained to ask seasonally, varying it only to fit the time of year. Maybe that was why Amelia’s conversation skills were so bad: she had been taught only a small repertoire of questions and told never to stray from it.

Peter hated this. Usually, he felt very natural around Amelia, because he was not always trying to impress her, because he knew there was not much point in trying. She saw through phonies, so it was best to be yourself. Whereas around his 'friends' he had constantly been putting up this or that charade, never relaxing and just being himself.

So it hurt to feel so awkward now, to feel like the natural rhythm of their friendship- he was sure they could at least call it that- thrown off, just because his peers had decided to be assholes. He was sure they would be back, trying to get him back among their ranks, and he could not wait to tear into them. For hurting Amelia and for disrupting their friendship.

He felt a little more at ease as she tried to change the subject. It was something easy to talk about, but it indicated she had felt the awkwardness too which disappointed Peter slightly. He cleared his throat and said, "Oh, I'm not sure yet. Probably return to France. But zis region really has grown on me. And zere are a lot more jobs here. I might try to get my family to move out here. My mozzer lost her job and my sister's health ees declining, so we need the money." He paused, realizing he hadn't even told Ada all of this. He cleared his throat and continued eating like it was nothing.

Well that could certainly start a new conversation… Amelia thought upon hearing Peter’s response, her fork posed in mid-bite because Amelia had been once again astounded by Peter’s complete transparency when it came to himself. The first half of his answer had been exactly what Amelia had expected: a vague, non-committal answer that most students gave when asked that question. At the very most Amelia thought Peter would have had travel plans for the summer, maybe gushed about going to Egypt or Australia.

But instead, Peter had told Amelia, without preface or warning, about his family’s financial struggles, and filled in a few missing pieces from a conversation the two of them had had in the bookshop those few weeks ago. In the bookstore, Peter had mentioned his sister Olive and her love of fantasy books, and Amelia had sensed the hesitation in his voice when he attempted to explain why she liked them so much. Now, she had a good guess at what would have fit in that space of hesitation. Peter’s sister was sick, and she liked adventure books for the same reason Amelia did: they were a chance experience the type of freedom she would never have.

Amelia had never known what it was like to be poor, to struggle for money. Her parents had always been well-off, steadily employed, and high on the social hierarchy. Her father had only forced her to take a job at the Leaky Cauldron playing piano because he wanted her to experience what it was like to work for money, but Antoinette had quickly put the kibosh on that. No daughter of hers was going to be playing music in a bar (she said this word as though it was synonymous with strip club), peddling out her musical talents to whatever trash the drunkards would request.

“You really are an oddity, aren’t you?” Amelia asked, not unkindly, but still blunt, before she could filter the words. She was almost smiling into the question, the realization had hit her so suddenly. She put down her fork and started ticking things off on her fingers.

“You don’t come from a rich family, but somehow end up among the Beauxbatons’ elite. You have a younger sister with declining health, but still manage to be one of the most inexplicably happy people I know. And you are obsessed with pirates. Have you failed to notice any of the irony here?” Amelia said, her pseudo-smile deepening into something more genuine as she went along, somehow finding all of this funny.

Maybe you should have apologized for his mother’s job loss and his sister’s health problems… Amelia’s subconscious suggested, You know, like a normal person would have, instead of highlighting the fact that Peter is basically a walking contradiction.

“I don’t know how you do it,” Amelia said, opening her hands wide as if to give up on the fight to find out, “But I have to admit – I find you utterly perplexing. You are basically the exception to every rule,” Amelia said, finding this funnier and funnier as she went along. What the hell was wrong with her today?

Peter could not help but look up at her words. For a terrible moment, she had left them to silence, and it was in this silence he scolded himself. He had said too much, he had made Amelia uncomfortable, he had made a fool out of himself yet again. The silence was like a way of berating him, pulling on his choke chain, telling him No! Bad Peter!

But her words were even worse. He stared at her in confusion mingled with the traces of hurt- being called odd never hurt him, since he and Adam had been the goofs of their friends. But an oddity was somehow different, it sounded more condemning all on its own. Like a freak of nature, or someone who was purposely different. But he had never allowed Olive to get sick on purpose..

As she continued, he realized she was right. It was strange how he came to be. And under other circumstances, he would have been amused by it. But he had been talking about Olive, his only sister, a thirteen year old angel who may never live to see fourteen. He stared at Amelia a second before letting his gaze drop. "I'm glad to hear my dying sister and my hungry family makes me interesting."

Immediately upon seeing Peter’s reaction to her words, all the funny drained out of the situation. The look on his face was painful enough to make the smile Amelia had been working up to fall completely flat as blotchy red rose to her cheeks. She was embarrassed at what she had said, and her subconscious wasn’t helping anything. It was sending a steady stream of berating comments her way, including but not limited to “I told you so.”

This is why you don’t have any friends. You can’t ever say the right things.

I didn’t mean it like that!

It doesn’t matter what you meant. It only matters what he heard.

It should matter!

No wonder your mother never lets you speak for yourself. This is what happens.

Amelia was feeling awful, her eyes on her lap, and even those closed when Peter finally spoke. The Ravenclaw girl had gone and done what she always did when people got too close to her – she said something wrong. In some cases it was intentional, to get them to leave her in peace, but sometimes – like this time – it was simply a case of Amelia’s lack of social graces coming through. When she was merely holding small-talk conversations, she never got herself into this kind of trouble. It was one of the reasons she always stuck to her mother’s prescribed question and answer sets.

But now she had far overstepped these usual boundaries, and for as crappy as she felt about it, she knew she had made Peter feel worse. And she didn’t know how to fix it. If Amelia was bad at conversation in the first place, she was even worse at recovering when she made a mistake. These were the situations in which Amelia usually wanted to just bail, but how could she possibly justify that kind of action considering what Peter had just gone through on her account?

“I’m sorry. What I meant to say was—I didn’t mean—“ Amelia struggled, tripping over her words as she pleaded with the top of Peter’s head, her voice sounding a bit strangled as she forced herself to talk in a situation where she would have preferred to fall mute.

“You’re not interesting because your sister is sick or your family is poor,” Amelia said, trying to get across what she was trying to say without doing any more harm, “You’re interesting because in spite of those things, you’re still happy. You don’t dwell on all of that… stuff. You have gone through so much more in your life than I have – much, much more – and yet you came out less damaged. That’s… that’s what I meant.”

Amelia’s palm had risen to the back of her neck, kneading the muscles there as she tried in vain to turn her thoughts into words, the type of words that wouldn’t hurt Peter so much. She had done this so many times before, this accidental insult, but she had never wanted so badly to fix it. It seemed that what Peter had done for her earlier with his friends had made more of an impact on Amelia than she thought.

“But I… um… I’m really better when I’m not… you know… talking,” Amelia stuttered, her eyes falling to her lap again.

“Maybe I should just… go?” Amelia asked hesitantly, giving Peter an out even though she didn’t really want to leave. At least not on these terms.

Peter did not enjoy making people feel bad, especially people who meant a lot to him, and had he glanced up to see the aftermath of his words, he probably would have felt a little part of his soul die and his heart would have broken. But right now he was thinking about Olive, in the hospital, on her worse days.. When nothing was working and they needed to get her somewhere where she could just try and get better..

She began to speak and he did not look up. He was not mad at her, it had just struck a sour note in him and was resonating so loudly, he could not smile through it. He was not upset with Amelia as much as he was upset with his situation. Olive did not deserve the lot life had given her. His family did not need one more burden on top of all the other ones. But what could they do?

As she spoke though, he felt his gaze lift, his head rise, though he did not meet her eyes. His eyes landed on her hand on the table, and he listened to what she had to say. Maybe that was a small blessing- that somehow he at least seemed alright. And this was an interesting statement out of Amelia. Part compliment and part confession, two things she rarely ever served.

She asked if she could go and he figured she probably wished to escape and his heart sunk a little, because the last think he wanted from Amelia was space. His eye was still on her hand and he bit his lip before slowly lifting his own, crossing the distance of the table and covering hers. He glanced up at her- it was not exactly a romantic gesture, just a friend reaching out to a friend.

"It's okay, I'm sorry, I know you didn't mean eet." He paused. "And zank you.. for understand- for understanding me." It was not exactly a normal thing to thank someone for, but it was about time someone did, and he was grateful it was Amelia.

Amelia’s teeth had enclosed her bottom lip as she waited for Peter’s response, surprised to find herself nervous about what he would say. Why did she care so much? She had pushed plenty of other people away in this exact manner, but she had never dwelled on it. Some had been unfortunate to lose because it would upset her mother – for example, when she did it to her “suitors” – but on the whole, Amelia rarely lamented the loss of another person. Not since Raoul left.

Amelia had been so close to Raoul, foolishly close. She had depended on him to be the light in her day, the person she told all her secrets to. He had helped her bear up against their parents’ intense laundry list of demands, and helped her to rebel in small ways – building tree houses in the orchard, hiding away clothes that Antoinette had wanted to throw away, stealing their father’s research notebook and trying out a few of the experimental spells. He had been the one person Amelia had always been close to, and because of their relationship, Amelia had given slightly more credit to humanity as a whole.

When Raoul left, though, Amelia realized quickly how foolhardy it had been to place so much faith in another person. Other people are unpredictable; they make decisions that are the best for themselves, but not necessarily for you. That is exactly what Raoul did when he disappeared, and since then, Amelia had vowed not to let herself get that close to anyone again. She had slipped up with Elijah, tricked herself into believing there could be someone to fill Raoul’s place, but she was wrong. Elijah did exactly what Raoul did – walked out of her life, and not even for as worthy a reason.

So what was this reliance on Peter’s answer about? Amelia wanted to convince herself not to care, to blame this waiting with baited breath on the fact that Peter had just defended her to his friends, and that she owed him something for that. That was it, she assured herself. She didn’t want to leave owing him anything.

But when Peter reached across the table and covered her free hand with his, Amelia’s logical thought process came to a screeching halt. He began to speak, still not looking at her, but he was saying what Amelia was waiting to hear. He had accepted what she said, understood at least part of the message she had been trying to convey. And further, he believed Amelia had gotten something more out of his disclosure.

Understand you? I don’t understand you at all, Amelia wanted to say, to stop Peter from believing something that wasn’t true. She had merely observed something about Peter, the way she observed everyone around her. She was perceptive, yes, but in separating herself so much from human relationships, Amelia had come to a severe disadvantage in understanding other people’s emotions.

Amelia’s mind was prompting her to say this. Her self-defensiveness was encouraging her to yank her hand away from Peter, the way she pulled away from everyone else that tried to invade her personal space. That type of physical proximity conveyed a type of closeness she always tried to avoid. But despite all of these instinctual reactions to Peter’s gesture and response, there was something else that kept her from acting on them. Something she could not define, but also could not ignore.

So instead, she left her hand where it was and said, perhaps with slight hesitation, “You’re welcome.”