Witty Tittle

"No, I've spoken to a dumb jock. It's way easier than this is." he told her

He smirked at his own joke. He joked very rarely with others, genuinely anyway. It was fitting that the Gryffindor prankster be the one to make him start again. Feeling the urge to check the lake for signs of the squid he sat up on his elbows. Others had gathered across the other side of the lake, likely doing their own hobbies. Thankfully he hadn't spotted any Slytherins hanging about. Not that he really cared what they thought but he shuddered at the ridicule he'd get for hanging out with Jack.

The thought crossed his mind. Was he stepping out of line hanging out with a Gryffindor? As always, he is reminded of the words constantly barrated upon him on the rare occasions he saw his father a few years ago.

We have appearances to keep up, you know...

"Do you think the Potter kids deal with the same bullshit I deal with?" he asked her, genuinely. "I'd been discredited by half the student body before I even showed up."

Yes, the weed was working. He was getting weirdly personal again.

She didn’t doubt it. One of her Chasers, Danbury, could barely read half the time and consistently miscalculated their scoring.

Her half of the sandwich was gone and she was hungry again - and she knew why. Lunch would hit the spot, she’d have a bit of a lie in so she would be fresh for the forest after her evening Quidditch practice. She was angling for Captain next year and needed to prove herself every chance she got.

Matthew was on a roll, it seemed, and the contemplation continued.

Jack considered it. James was something of a friend, a Quidditch friend if there ever was one, and there was something in Albus she recognized - and she suspected he felt it too. She had, after all, given out a black eye or two when Albus was being particularly harassed, and she had felt his gratitude in the Potions essay he had slipped her the following Monday.

Despite her uneasiness to claim either Potter boy as a true friend, her answer was definitive. “Yes.” She sat up and brushed her fingers across the surface of the lake. “Yeah, I do. I mean if people are going to accuse you of things you weren’t alive for, that’s on them.”

There was a semblance of solace in her response. Of course the Potter kids had each other to share the legacy with. He was all alone. Not that he ever wanted a brother or a sister but maybe the manor would have been less lonely had there been one. And he didn't see Albus or James staying at Hogwarts over Christmas, so at least they had a home to go to. Jealous was not the word he'd use but perhaps curiosity was the correct one. He wanted to know what it was like to be on the other end of the spectrum of evil. Instead of belonging to one of the most infamous dark wizard families in the world what would his life be like if he was the son of the man who vanquished the Dark Lord.

'Eh." he sighed. "I've done my best to shy away from my own Legacy but those Potter kids really do have something else to live up to."

It was true. Those who really knew him understood he didn't have the reputation of his family. It had taken nearly five years but he felt that the teachers were finally realizing this. Five years of keeping his head down and making friends where it mattered. Most of those friends consisted of Slytherin stoners but they were his companions when he wanted it. This was truly the first time he branched off and associated himself with a Gryffindor. Perhaps he would introduce himself to a Hufflepuff next, he chuckled to himself at the thought.

"I'm blabbering on about my personal problems and here all you wanted was to hang out with the giant squid."

She struggled to relate to the anxiety of what she would leave behind. At fifteen, she barely felt capable of managing the present, hardly convinced she was going to survive adulthood, let alone do well enough to dictate how she was remembered.

Years later she would learn about the concept of the hierarchy of needs and her disdain for all things philosophical would make sense. Existential reflection could only occur where survival was certain, and Jack’s tumultuous home life, the depth of parental disdain, did not afford her the chance to think about thriving.

But she didn’t have to fight against the perception that he was like his family, bloodthirsty and awful. Jack thought the people who legitimately still considered him a threat were idiots. Here she was, a muggleborn with a bad attitude, perfectly un-maimed.

“Yeah, what’s up with that, yap, yap, yap,” Jack drawled, a yawn stretching out the end of her sentence, but there was a smirk playing on her face. “I’d give you advice but my go-to advice is ‘light it on fire’ and I don’t think that applies.”