Pretending

"You haven't made any attempts at owling home, have you mate? Don't you think your parents, especially your mum, are wondering how you're doing?"

"If they were really wondering, don't you think they'd have sent something to me by now?"

"Well.. maybe, but it still doesn't hurt to write home every now and then."

"...and I will. Just not soon."

Teenage troubles. What joy.

Since the summer before he'd gone back to Hogwarts, a certain Dylan Davies had for some unknown reason, declared war on his parents. Caspian had tried to talk about it with him, wanting to find out what exactly his problem was. In all honesty, though, Dylan was simply being a brat. He hadn't gotten something he'd wanted, and was upset about it.

He had decided that he wasn't going to speak to his parents, the length of time was unknown even to him, and he would get a job somewhere this year so he could start being actually independent.

What an exciting life he leads.

An angsty, rebellious and mostly unsociable life.

If it wasn't for Caspian transferring, he wasn't sure who he'd actually get along with now. Dylan would never admit that to his best friend though; it was too sentimental a thought. Dylan had been lost in thought while the other Ravenclaw was talking at him, trying to get something more than a "yeah" or "mhm" out of him. Just as Cass was about to give up, Dylan's eyes lit up with amusement.

"Y'know what Cass?" He suddenly asked, and continued before the other boy could respond. "I'll see ya later, I'm going to send an owl home." He figured that was a good enough way to get his friend to leave him be for a while, though Caspian wasn't too sure it was a good idea. Dylan's want to send an owl home didn't seem like it had the best of intentions.

And it didn't.

At least not when he first entered the owlery. He stood in front of the open window frame, parchment and quill in hand. He all of a sudden wasn't sure what to write, nor was he sure he wanted to continue acting the way he was. He was pretending to be someone he really wasn't, and he wasn't even sure why.

Nessa was supposed to be sending a letter home. Supposed to, yes, but not quite doing it. She couldn't seem to bring herself to tie anything to the owl's leg - made harder by the fact that she hadn't written anything to then tie, anyways. Sure, she had parchment with her, and a quill sticking out of the top of her school bag, but she was really just standing at a window, staring out over the grounds.

Mercifully, winter hadn't hit yet; she didn't love that season to begin with, but making the little hike up to the owlery was that much harder. She supposed that it was fair to say she hadn't hated going the previous years. Back then, things seemed almost simple. Now nothing at all seemed easy, considering what she had begun piecing together and the fact that she couldn't quite convince herself that none of what she'd started to assume was realistic. Instead, all of it made more and more sense as she mused her way over it.

It was, though, rather easier to be herself that high above the grounds. No one looking up would know she was there, or if they did, it would be hard to see who she actually was. So she allowed herself a heavy sigh, one hand combing through her hair -- just as she heard footsteps behind her. She hadn't noticed anyone coming up the steps, and frankly, the fact that it was Dylan of all people merely made even less sense. Nessa had a bizarre way of noticing him, especially when she didn't actually want to. So the realization that he had snuck up on her really set even more firmly in her mind the idea that she was messed up, now.

Her whole understanding of who she was had been ripped apart, so really, who could blame her?

She turned sharply, spotting him with an obviousness that suggested she hadn't expected to be walked in on. Unable to really bring herself to do or say anything worthwhile, she straightened up as if he wouldn't notice how disoriented she was, and put on a (probably very bad) show of writing some kind of attempt at a letter to home, as if he weren't there at all.

He didn't know how he hadn't noticed someone else there, nor why he thought he'd even be alone. The other students didn't have as fickle a relationship with their parents as him, least not in his eyes. But the sudden realization that he was not by any means alone in the owlery certainly took him by surprise.

Dylan blinked, realizing that it was Nessa Bridgewood who was there, and was very obviously trying hard to pretend to write a letter. Was it cause of his presence? He'd certainly like to think so. Dylan had always found the other Ravenclaw attractive, though he wasn't sure he'd ever been able to tell her that.

He liked keeping his distance, usually, not because he was afraid of liking her or anything. No, he just thought she was out of his league. Whatever league that was anyways.

This time, though, she seemed different, like she was phased by something. Dylan decided to walk over to her. "Hey Nessa. Writing to your folks?" He asked nonchalantly, offering her a smile.

Naively, Nessa had thought at first that perhaps he would ignore her purposefully, to avoid any discomfort. As housemates, it wasn't like she could avoid Dylan even if she really wanted to. Well, that wasn't entirely true. She could have. But it would've been more effort than Nessa felt like expending these days.

But he didn't ignore her. In fact, when he spoke, her scribbling faltered as her pulse jumped - half in surprise, half because actually, she was pleased in some way that he had addressed her. She made a mental note to figure out what she felt like that, later, but pulled the parchment up against her stomach to hide it.

"Oh," she started, turning to look at him. "Well... They expect me to, so. I'm working on it." She glanced down at his hands, looking for a letter in kind. "Are you?"

Leaving his parchment and quill laying behind him, Dylan moved to try to hide the items with his body. He wasnt trying to hide the fact rhat he was, indeed, writing a letter, but rather he tried to hide the blank parchment that should have been filled with words dedicated to his parents with the amount of time he'd already spent at the owlery, anyways.

Not that she knew how long that'd been.

"Yeah," he nodded. "Sorta. I'm trying to, but it's harder than I thought it would be." He had everything he wanted to say to them in his mind, all lined up and ready to go. But for whatever reason, he couldn't figure out how to write it down. Maybe they were all things that needed to be said in person, rather than through a letter. But Dylan was afraid that he wouldn't be able to say anything in person to them. He also didn't want his parents having a letter that would hurt them every time they saw it. 

Even if it had been his purpose to bring them a little pain, he didn't want it to be a constant reminder of the things he'd wrote. Especially because his parents would never throw it away, they would hide it somewhere and keep it.

"Kind of dumb that we're expected to write, isn't it?"