Two Ends of a Magnet

While everyone was in the Great Hall eating food, or near the entrance hall, chatting with friends, a boy named Talon sat on a bench near the Grand Staircase, reading his book. He hadn't had any friends in a while, and Talon was partially okay with it. At times, he felt like he had an open void in his body, something that he couldn't possibly explain, yet theorized it was just the absence of friends. Frankly, he wanted a lot more friends yet never really had the ambition or drive to try and gain some. He preferred his alone time, seldom conversing with anyone in his age group or house. Maybe this was why the professors had been worried about him at one point. He hadn't looked sad, just another regular kind of guy that you would see in a wizarding boarding school, yet the professors saw through his charade. Talon often wondered if they had cared, or rather they just wanted him to feel better so he would graduate with high honors and make the school look good. Often times, he figured it was the latter.

Talon had been browsing through a book he managed to pick up at the library, 'Achievements in Charming', something he thought would help him prepare for his Charms tests. The material made sense to him, yet he had a lot of trouble trying to retain it after every page. Magic wasn't exactly something you could pick up on and remember it at the breakneck speed of a cheetah. He groaned ant closed his book, knowing full well he couldn't cram any more information in his head. Talon set the book down beside him and rested his head against the wall, closing his eyes. He was pretty exhausted, staying up late and trying to review his Defense Against the Dark Arts lectures as well. The lack of sleep was catching up to him, and soon he almost felt himself lose conscientiousness. He quickly snapped himself awake though, rubbing his eyes hoping the friction would cause him to wake up. Might as well try to pick up on page 103... he thought to himself and reached for his book.

When he reached for his book though, he quickly realized his palm fell flat on the bench. Blinking several times, he looked to his right and saw that his book was gone! Looking under the bench, looking around the bench, and looking between his legs, he couldn't find his textbook anywhere. "Great, just great," he muttered bitterly, standing up. He began to search the area, hoping he would see his book somewhere.

"Leave me alone! I didn't do anything to you guys!"

A scared Sapphire Ivanova screamed behind her as she ran from a group of Slytherins that were always picking on her. Like usual they'd just started with their usual teasing for no apparent reason. Sapphire had just been walking to the Great Hall to eat and they'd come out of nowhere. It was obvious that they'd been waiting for her for a while, but she wasn't exactly sure why they were doing that. It really scared her that they would do something like that. And she definitely didn't like it at all. Maybe it was that they still hadn't forgiven her for accidentally pulling an unknown prank to her on them.

She really didn't care. All she wanted was for them to go away and leave her alone. As she ran, they began to cast some spells in her way, good thing they had such bad aim. Some of them thought, missed her by just a little bit. She turned her head toward them and laughed softly. "This is why you guys are failing Defense Against the Dark Arts!" she screamed at them. They obviously didn't like her telling them this and just as she reached the Grand Staircase another spell was sent her way. This time, the caster had taken time to aim at her, making sure that it would hit.

The fifteen year old gasped as the spell made contact with her. She screamed and was sent flying forward a few inches, until she landed in front of a bench that was occupied by a boy around her age. Sapphire hit the floor face first and there was a loud smacking sound. When she lifted her head again, Sapphire felt something warm running down her from her nose and lips. She lifted a shaky hand to her face and touched the blood that had begun to flow from her face. Tears formed from the pain and the sight of the red liquid that had come from inside her and she just began to cry. "Why?!" she screamed at them. "Why do you always have to pick on me?! What did I ever do to you?!" she yelled, with her face facing the floor.

Fashion

Talon immediately turned and looked around after hearing a sharp thud. Feeling like an idiot for looking up, he looked down and saw a girl sprawled on the ground, blood obviously flowing from the impact. "Oh shi-", he said as he quickly knelt beside her. He placed one arm around her, trying to comfort her and reasoned as to what the damage was. She was bleeding pretty bad. No wonder, Sherlock, she did just hit the floor face first, scolding himself in his mind. He quickly pulled out his pitch black wand and thought frantically as to what the spell was he needed. This is why you pay attention in class, genius! he thought to himself again. "This is gonna hurt a little, but it should help.Episkey," he said, the end of the wand pointing at her face. Now all they had to do was wait and see if it worked...hopefully.

Looking back up at the staircase, he noticed several students laughing at the top. What the hell was their problem. "Are you guys off your rocker or something?!" he shouted at them. Hopefully they weren't going to try anything with him, because he wasn't exactly a master duelist...or brawler. Looking back down at the mysterious girl, Talon said "Miss, are you alright? That was a nasty fall you took there." Talon began to think of some other spells he could possibly use, but due to his exhaustion he couldn't think of anything else. He just happened to remember Episkey just off the top of his head. "Who were those guys?"

The Slytherins kept laughing as they saw the blood running down her face. Of course they thought something like this was funny, especially since they'd caused it. A few other students had stopped what they were doing and they had turned their attention to the scene before them. A few laughed at what was happening while others were scolding the Slytherins for what they'd done to Sapphire. The pain that was going through her right now was horrible and she could barely even touch her nose because of the pain. When she suddenly felt someone's arm go around her, she gasped and her eyes widened. She looked at the boy who was kneeling next to her and she just stared at him. When he pointed his wand at her, her breath caught in her throat and she looked at the wand. When he cast the spell and her nose was fixed and the bleeding stopped, Sapphire gave a sharp scream from the pain the fixing caused her.

Her hand was clutched into a fist and it began to shake as her bottled anger was about to come out. "They - they're Slytherins who always pick on me." she said in a soft trembling voice. The Slytherins heard this and they laughed. "She's our pet." one of the Slytherins said. "We own her." another said after the first one's comment and Sapphire slowly stood up. Even though the blood had stopped, there was still dried blood on her face and it made her seem almost crazy. "Stop calling me your pet!" she screamed. "I am nothing of yours! I never have and I never will!" she screamed as more tears ran down her face. Her hand reached for her wand and she quickly pulled it out. "Now I'll show you how you're supposed to cast a spell!" she said, aiming it at them. For a moment she thought about casting the killing curse on them, but she wasn't about to let them get her to ruin her own life y killing them. Instead she just settled with a simpler spell. "Stupefy!" she shouted at the three of them.

Just after she cast the spell, she fell back down to the floor in tears. She didn't even pay attention to what happened to the Slytherins, she was just thinking about what they'd said before she did anything to them. She hated them ... all of them and she hoped that they'd just die. It wasn't fair that they did whatever they wanted to her, especially when she never did anything to them to deserve the way they treated her.

Talon only stood and watched at the girl began to aim her wand at the Slytherins and cast her spell. He was a little nerve wracked right now, due to all that just happened, but he wasn't going to try and stop someone casting a spell. He didn't want to be turned into a teacup or anything like that. After she put her arm down, he stood close to her, offering supportive tones and help. "Here, come on." he said, leading her over to the bench, trying to stay out of the sight of the other students. He noticed that she still had some blood on her face, which he promptly pulled out his wand again. "Tergeo," he said, waiting for the effect to take place. "You're alright now, they're gone." Why would anyone want to harm someone like her? She seemed harmless, but then again, he just met her. In Talon's mind, she could've been a serial killer and he was helping her. That didn't exactly help his jittery nerves either. "Are you alright?" he asked her kindly, shooing off some of the other students that passed by as well "did you hurt anything else?"

Now he thought he was being 'too' helpful, so he decided to back off a little. He kept thinking about those 3 guys, they said they 'owned' her? What the hell did that mean? She definitely didn't look the part of a Slytherin, and he should know. She seemed too...expressive, she seemed to be that of a Gryffindor or Hufflepuff legacy. "What are those guys names," he asked her, in a soft tone "I can talk to some of the professors and see if we can get them detention or something..." Now only did he realize how pointless that would be.

Sapphire let him lead her over to the bench where he'd been sitting at and only continued to cry. She didn't know what to do right now and she was sure as hell that she'd be the one to get in trouble for casting a spell at other students. It wasn't fair that they always got away with everything they did ... Including what they'd tried to do to her before. No one had said anything about that because they were all too scared of the three of them. It was amazing how three students like them could have control of the fear of nearly everyone else, and she just hated that about them. Sapphire let him cast the spell on her, now knowing he wouldn't harm her, and she sighed softly, trying to calm herself down. She hated crying this much in front of others, it made her seem weak in get opinion and even though most thought Hufflepuffs were weaklings who depended on others, it wasn't true and she hoped that with her spell she'd shown everyone that she wasn't afraid to defend herself.

She nodded at his questions. "Yes, I'm fine. I'm not hurt anywhere else." she told him in the same soft voice as before, only this time it seemed a bit more timid. "That won't help. I'll be the one who ends up getting in trouble for that. They always turn the blame onto me and like usual the professors always believe them." she sighed and looked down at her hands for a few moments. She really hated those three and she hoped that someone gave them what they deserved soon, or she would do it herself. She looked up at him and smiled gently, something that wasn't very much like Sapphire. "I'm Sapphire Ivanova." she aaid, extending her hand toward him. "What's your name?" she asked, tilting her head to the aide in a cutesy sort of way, like she normally did.

Talon noticed she couldn't be mean to others. She seemed to nice and timid to be mean. As she stuck out her hand, Talon returned the gesture and shook hers, in a nice grip. "My name is Talon Marlowe, Ravenclaw." He looked back over to the spot where she landed and noticed a small splocth of blood still there. With that sight, Talon quickly came up with a plan. "Hang on," he said, quickly standing up. He used the tergeo spell over the pool of blood to quickly get rid of any evidence. He then looked up at the top of the Grand Staircase, wondering if those three were still up there, fortunately though, they were not. He went back over Sapphire and said "Alright, some prefects I'm guessing are heading back over here. Just remain calm." He sat back down next to Sapphire and began to act as a lookout. As planned, one of the prefects came running down and quickly interrogated the two, Sapphire being a suspect.

"Nothing happened here," he said with a straight face "or rather we didn't see it. Someone went running down the hall over there though." The prefect, knowing Talon was friends with one of the professors, took the bait and ran down the hallway to their left. "That should do with them for a while." he said triumphantly. "I'm glad you're alright though. That was a nasty fall."

Sapphire smiled at him as he introduced himself. "You're a Ravenclaw?" she blinked. "I'm a Hufflepuff." she said. "That's the main reason why those three always picked on me. They think that because I'm a Hufflepuff, I'm weak and they take that as an excuse to pick on me and do whatever they want with me." she sighed and tried to stop crying. She watched him go over to the small pool of blood on the floor where she'd fallen and she saw his cast a spell over it. The blood disappeared and she felt herself relax a bit. At his mention of the prefects, Sapphire's breath caught in her throat again. She began to think that they would get her in trouble again, like they always did. She just hoped that it wasn't a Slytherin prefect that came to check everything out, because if it was, she was dead.

When the prefect approached them, Sapphire tried to keep a straight face as Talon spoke to the prefect. She was glad that the prefect wasn't from Slytherin. She looked at the girl's cloak and she saw that it was a Gryffindor perfect there, that made everything much easier. The Gryffindor prefects were always much more forgiving and they actually tried to find out what happened before they jumped to the wrong conclusions about what had happened. When the prefect left, Sapphire sighed in relief. She was sure that she was going to get in trouble for what happened, but it seemed right now that wouldn't happen. "Yeah, I've taken worse falls that those three caused." she said. She brought her legs up onto the bench and pulled them close to her as she looked at Talon, her head resting on her knees, tilted sideways.

Talon looked at Sapphire, noticing she was still traumatized by the situation. He tried to think of some way he could try and help, but he wasn't exactly the one to try and cheer someone up. If anything, he would need another Hufflepuff to cheer a Hufflepuff up. "You've taken worse falls that that?" he asked with disbelief in his voice. When looked at in hindsight, he figured it wasn't that bad in hindsight, but landing face first on the floor didn't exactly make it feel good. Talon also continued to look around, looking around for those Slytherin members. He kept thinking to himself that they would be coming back, and Talon needed to be ready in case something like that were to happen again. " Are you alright though?" he asked, referring more to how she was feeling mentally than physically "all of that must've been pretty nerve wracking." He thought about something he could do, and after a moment's thought, he came up with something. Before he had gone and sat at the bench where the fateful meeting had occurred, he had gone into the Great Hall and saw something spectacular. At the Slytherin table, there was a chocolate frog just sitting there, with no one around. Talon hadn't had a chocolate frog in the longest time, so when no one was looking, he had gone over and grabbed it, walking away casually. He kept thinking he would return it later, since he only wanted the wizard card, but now he realized it could've belonged to those three or something. If not...then oh well!

He pulled out the chocolate frog package and handed it to Sapphire. "I don't know if you like chocolate...or frogs, but here." Talon would just head back into the Great Hall later and see if he could find another one, so it wasn't a big deal. Talon then asked "Does this happen a lot?" in a friendly tone to try and not show any aggression. He was sure this happened a lot, judging by how she reacted by shooting a spell back at them after the fall. "Seems like they are just doing this more than to just pick on you." he theorized, realizing he was beginning to over analyze something again.

Sapphire nodded at his question. "Yes, I have. From everything they've done to me, I've broken my arm and sprained my ankle multiple times." she sighed. "I even have a sca-" she cut herself off and looked down. She wasn't sure she wanted anyone to know about everything they'd done to her, it wasn't just some random bullying that happens to everyone. They'd scarred her both physically and mentally. She didn't want anyone to find out about what they did, because then everything would just fall on her and she would get in trouble not only with the school and probably the Ministry, but with her family as well. They might even disown her, even though she didn't really care about her inheritance.

She looked at him and smiled innocently at him. She really wasn't okay, it showed in her eyes that there was trauma from something horrible in her. But her smiling face was usually enough to keep anyone from being able to tell that she was really hurting inside, that she was looking for an escape from everything. "I'm fine." she said. "Really, I'm fine." she smiled at him. When he gave her the chocolate frog, Sapphire stared at it in her hands, not knowing what to do. It was like her mind just blanked and she forgot about everything. She looked up at him with her eyes blank, like nothing was going on in her mind anymore. But she slowly nodded as his question registered in her head. "It ... it happens all the time with them. They always do this ... they say that I belong to them to them." she said softly. "That I'm their pet ... that I owe them. But I don't know what they're talking about." she started crying again.