Bangarang

His agitation was growing. Typically, he would have been able to bear it. But, seeing that he had been feeling increasingly unwell as of late, he didn’t have the usual penchant for that sort of discipline on his emotions. Scowling, Kendall slammed his book shut. He had had enough. His train of thought had been interrupted with the incessant singing. He really could not afford attention to the curses in the Dark Arts book that his father had sent. It was bad enough to be still suffering from the symptoms that had continued to plague him. In fact, they had worsened. Kendall was at a loss. Having received the new book from Harold, he had replaced the owl’s empty claws with a letter that finally admitted the symptoms to Augustus. He’d expect his father to be ready with answers. Unlike some of the other students, he didn’t want to resort to a visit to the Hospital Wing. He was suffering, but his ego wouldn’t allow himself to be seen in that place of weakness.

Getting up from where he sat, Kendall strolled over closer to where he could look out over the courtyard. Looking at the bunch of younger students, his mind toyed with the curse that he had been reading about earlier. He imagined the result of it. The blood gushing out from the eyes of one of the boys … Kendall chuckled to himself, feeling his spirits lift from the sadistic image playing in his head. With the charmed book clutched with his other hand, the boy reached for his wand. The smirk on his face took on an expression of devious amusement. Directing it slowly to the boy who was singing another song in an awfully tone-deaf voice, Kendall paused before he cast a lighter jinx. “Langlock.” Almost immediately, the heck of a noise stopped, only to be replaced by frantic movements. A hush fell among the other students in the courtyard with him. And then, a flutter of questions.

The confusion of the group gave Kendall good reason to continue with his chuckling. It was too good. He had to keep from breaking out in bouts of laughter. Grinning now, Kendall directed his wand at the same boy, muttering another jinx under his breath. In the next instance, he saw the figure of the boy flop down, where teeth hit the stony ground. The confusion in the boy and his friends elevated to full-fledged panic now. At the sight of it all, Kendall turned himself and backed slightly away from where he stood. Bent over in silent laughter, he slammed the book against his thigh a couple of times as he relished the scene that he had caused.

Durmstrang seemed like a million miles away from Hogwarts now. At Durmstrang she was chartered for Head Girl. She was the favourite of teacher and pupil alike. She was the most learned individual at the school. Now, at Hogwarts she was being treated as if she were a brain-dead first year with no knowledge of the magical world. Fuming was an understatement if a word was to be used to describe the young girl’s emotions at this point in time. Her magic was crackling around her, so potent with her fury that it made a truant couple hiding in an alcove begin at first to bicker before coming to blows with each other soon afterwards. Two weeks’ worth of detention and a loss of fifty house points. It was unheard of, especially from Cerelia. Her scowl was fixed onto her face as she roughly shoved her books into her bag. She ignored the calls of her brothers behind her and continued to stalk down the corridor, heading towards the grand staircase. She descended the many steps and took herself out into the grounds, free of the confines of the castle.

It was safe to say that Hogwarts was a loathsome place as far as Cerelia was concerned. She wanted to be on the next train to London then Floo to her grandparents’ home in Austria. She wanted to be as far away from the hellish establishment as possible. She adored Durmstrang and everything it stood for. She’d never felt to stifled, so suffocated, as she did at Hogwarts. Even her father’s presence didn’t leave her as cold as the shoddy excuse for a school did. It was to the Owlery that she went first, tugging a quill and some parchment out of her bag upon which she wrote her dismay to her father before sending it off with her owl. She knew she’d regret it upon receiving his response but she hoped against hope that he’d have something to say to the Headmistress about the severe lack of respect Professors had for their students. Cerelia stressed to her father that she had not done wrong, merely corrected the Professor’s mistake, but she knew Adolphus would either agree with her fully or not at all and she hoped against hope it was the former. It could only be the former. She’d never forgive him if it was the latter.

With a heavy sigh, Cerelia left the Owlery after sending her owl off and made her way back to the castle, going into the clock tower courtyard where many of the students freed from classes had met up with their friends to relax or set up a game of Gobstones. Cerelia walked around the pair paying the aforementioned game and headed towards the tower itself, paying little attention to what was going on around her. It was only when the inhabitants of the courtyard fell silent that Cerelia stopped and turned to see a younger student flailing miserably about, grabbing his friends and groaning loudly as he tried to fight off whatever had afflicted him. Cerelia shook her head and ascended the stairs that took her up into the clock tower, stopping when she came to the level that held the balcony.

It was then that she realised that up there she was not alone. Cerelia smiled a little upon finding that her company was a familiar face who was, bizarrely, chuckling to himself. But then, Kendall Rookwood was not someone known for his sanity. Cerelia couldn’t help but smile, his presence reminding her of how long it had been since they’d last spoken. She joined him by his left side at the balcony’s edge, her hand coming to rest on the railing. Cerelia looked up at him thoughtfully before looking down to see the boy still having a meltdown in the courtyard. Cerelia’s hand tightened on the railing as she grew dizzy from the distance between herself and the ground and took her gaze up to Kendall’s face in a bid to distract herself from awareness of just how far up they were.

“You know,” She murmured thoughtfully. “You should really leave the younglings alone. They’re rather harmless, really.”

True to his nature, a bad mood didn’t always stay a bad mood; a bad mood could always be solved with someone else’s pain. At least there was a part of him that this annoying heck of an illness didn’t take away from him. Kendall was cheered up by that prospect. He had stopped whacking the book against his thigh, feeling the sting from the repetitive impact of the hits. It wasn’t that bad, but it was unnecessary. Now that his mood was fixed, Kendall opened his eyes to regain himself as he recovered from the bout of laughter. The surprise that jolted him was undoubtedly a pleasant one. Having found himself with the presence of Cerelia, Kendall continued to grin.

He had been wondering when he will see her next. Katarina was much closer to Cerelia. Still, his tendency to be a protective big brother to the former extended to the latter. Sort of. With his attention now on the girl, Kendall allowed his mind to trail away from the young ones in the courtyard. A good attention span was never one of his stronger points anyway. Besides, they didn’t matter to him. Keeping his wand, Kendall wet his lips without much thought as he listened to Cerelia.

“Haven’t you noticed how boring this school gets? I can’t wait to graduate. It’s stifling, nothing much happens, and you’ve got annoying young ones with silly games and songs.” He shook his head but continued to grin. “But, there’s always a bright side to things.” He smirked now. “Wouldn’t have survived Hogwarts without people like these. You should’ve seen their faces!” He chuckled. “Priceless. The panic. Awww.” He shook his head again, but with great amusement.

And then, Kendall stopped and slipped into a curious sort of expression as he eyed Cerelia. “How do you like Hogwarts, anyway? I’ve been wanting to check on you. Father did write to me to do so. But, you know, I would have, even without that.” Kendall made a dismissive hissing sound, as if his father had underestimated him. “Still, haven’t see you around much. Odd, really, seeing that I’ve not seen Katy around much either. You know her … doesn’t talk much, but when she sees me, she lets it all out. She needs to. It’d kill her if she doesn’t.” Shifting his gaze from a cheeky inscription on the wall near Cerelia, he turned his attention back to the girl again.

As if Kendall hadn’t been causing enough trouble, not long after Cerelia had made it up into the safety of the clock tower, the heavens opened and Hogwarts was given a taste of April showers; and so the previously manic courtyard emptied of people faster than his tricky wand work would have done. She watched with dismay written all over her face as water poured from the sky though she couldn’t help but smirk with satisfaction as she watched the students grow wetter the longer they lingered underneath the torrents. It didn’t take long for them to figure out it was best to escape and soon enough the sound of the rain was louder than the clang of the clock. Cerelia shrank back from the balcony edge and peered out over the grounds, squinting as she tried to cast her gaze through the curtain of rain. She wrapped her robes tighter around her body and glanced up at Kendall as he spoke, finding that she agreed with much of what he was saying.

“Hogwarts is not what I expected,” Cerelia conceded quietly after a moment. Her eyebrows shot to her hairline once he’d finished talking and an incredulous laugh burst from her throat, puncturing the offensive combination of the clockwork and the rain. “‘Awww?’ Really, Kendall?” Cerelia smirked and shook her head, her smile curling her lips upwards and lighting up her eyes. “You’re like the poster boy for the Misuse of Magic Office. Merlin.” Cerelia rolled her eyes before looking around, glancing momentarily at the pair of Hufflepuffs using the clock tower entrance to get back into the castle before turning her gaze to the fluffy haired Slytherin. “Hey, maybe you could appear on their propaganda posters. I imagine the colour scheme to be green and silver with the tagline: I harass first, second, third, fourth and the occasional fifth years. That’s a winner, right there.”

Cerelia nibbled on her bottom lip a little bit before shrugging her shoulders. “Hogwarts is a far cry from Durmstrang, that much is clear. I miss the way things were handled there. Honestly,” Cerelia smiled ruefully before admitting quietly, “I miss being the favourite.” Cerelia shrugged her shoulders again and raised her eyebrows again. “Katarina is around, I suppose...” Cerelia responded evasively. “I’m not sure. I’ve not seen her today. Different classes, I suppose. Speaking of which, what do you need to do to drop a class here? I just had a disastrous Transfiguration lesson. Do they not think about who they’re hiring or do they just take anyone in?”