A New Outlook

[Jory Addison]

Jory had had a rough week. Well, it was a little longer than a week, but not nearly enough to count. However long it had been, it had been bad. He had had very little sleep and more of his homework than usual hadn't been finished. Earlier, though, he had gone up to his bed after his last class and had a nice little breakdown.

He had made sure none of the guys were there, and then that they wouldn't come in on him, or at least that they wouldn't know what he was doing hidden behind his curtains, before ultimately curling up and letting it out. Somewhere he had heard that having a good cry could help so much, but he had never really believed it until right then.

Sometime during the long minutes, or was it an hour? that he had been there his mind had calmed and he was able to see how stupid he was being. He was miserable, but he didn't have to be, he could just ignore everything like Willow had said. Where it hadn't made any sense during the first few hard days, now the concept was easier to accept. When she had said it, it seemed impossible that that could really help. That thought was proven wrong during his walk down to Hogsmeade as he forcefully ignored any and all comments thrown his way.

Jory was going to see Markise, his eyes still slightly puffy, to talk and maybe get his mind off of it after a little bit. Markise had helped knock some sense into him about Lyric, so maybe he could help here, too, though Jory already felt so much better about it all. When he reached the shop, he took a deep breath and let it out slowly as he opened the door.

[Markise Sterling]

Markise was doing the same thing he was always doing at this time, sifting through things that needed sorted, marking inventory, and sending them out to their respective shelves and racks. It wasn't as difficult as it had been when he'd first opened the store in Diagon Alley, but it was just as mind-numbing, and the sound of the bells over the door had him lifting his head with a reflexive smile in place. Jory again. Markise worked to keep his smile up.

"Hi Jory, back already?" The Bloody Mary hadn't been bad, but he'd felt like he was playacting every time he'd stopped dancing long enough to think and half the time he'd been on the dance floor. The entire night had felt like a massive tease.

[Jory Addison]

Jory nodded as he made his way into the shop. "Yeah. It's been a bad week, I kind of....came out," he said, pulling his jacket apart to reveal an old shirt that was rarely seen outside of home, and even then it usually stayed behind his bedroom door where no one saw. He wondered if Markise had heard, and he all but knew that Markise knew about the twins.

[Markise Sterling]

Yes, Markise had heard. It was impossible not to when comparisons were thrown his way now and then. Who was gayer? The kid with the lavender hair or the one decked out in rainbows? They didn't touch him, at least. He was damned good at Ariel's zapping spell by now. "How are you?" Markise asked. "Sleeping all right?" Just looking at Jory, he didn't think so. He'd either been awake for the past week or crying himself to sleep, judging by his eyes.

[Jory Addison]

Jory shrugged at the first question and shook his head at the second. "Not really," he said. "It's kind of hard to." He reached up and wiped self-conscious fingers against his eyes. He didn't exactly trust the other guys in his dorm, especially not after his encounter with the twins. Still, he loved his rainbows and wasn't about to give them up now that he was used to wearing them.

[Markise Sterling]

"Are they messing with you?" Markise asked. He knew what the Gryffindors had done to Dare from Ariel, and though it was a different set, who knew how inspired the 6th years might have been? "There might be spells you could put up to keep people out." He didn't know, and wouldn't have ever thought to try at SWIM, where magic outside classrooms was so frowned-upon. It was used freely at Hogwarts, though. Surely if you could keep someone out of a building or a box you could keep them out of a bed.

[Jory Addison]

Jory shrugged again. "I don't know, I mean...I hear stuff more than they try to actually do stuff. But it's only been a week." He didn't know if they would start doing more the longer it went on. It would be nice if they just forgot about him, though he really, really doubted that would happen. But then....then there were the twins. He hated thinking about that.

[Markise Sterling]

"I think Dare and Michael got it all," Markise said, though he couldn't look up to do so. He hated thinking about anyone going through what he'd gone through, even if Dare hadn't been alone when it happened the way he had. "How much of your stuff have they trashed?" It was the least of the things that had happened to him, but it had happened all the same. They couldn't this time, not with everything he owned locked in the shop or on his person during the day.

[Jory Addison]

"I've been keeping as much important stuff as I can with me," Jory said, since he had a feeling that that was something that would happen. "I don't know if they've done anything, I get the feeling they're waiting." Maybe because he was hidden away there when they were usually in the room. "They put some stuff in my bookbag and my dresser the other day."

[Markise Sterling]

"If it was never alive, you're lucky," Markise said, then set aside a stack of shirts, taking a deep breath before moving quickly on. "Sorry I'm not being more exciting." He looked up from his papers and forced a smile again. "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right?" He'd lived through losing his best friend more than once, lived through a collective beating and hexing that had nearly killed him, lived through alcoholism and self-hate. He could live through this, and at the moment, this was tension-filled boredom far more than it was being teased in the corridors.

[Jory Addison]

"It's fine," Jory said, choosing not to imagine opening his bookbag to find something dead. Then, "I guess," to Markise's recitation of the quote. He had heard that before, though he hadn't been through enough to prove it true. "I hope nothing too bad will happen, those twins didn't get to do anything to me." An involuntary shiver raced up his spine with the memory.

[Markise Sterling]

"They get near you again, zap them," Markise advised. "They let go." The look he gave Jory said there was no question about whether it worked. "Stay around people and they won't be able to corner you." How many times had he wished he'd been in the dorms early that night? Never mind the thought that it could have just happened another night instead. "You can't just wait for them to decide to do something or you're not living. Be ready, then do what you want." It was what he and Ariel had done this time. Though he realized that Jory didn't have the option of moving out, there were still things he could do to keep himself safer.

[Jory Addison]

"I was....not doing good, but I want to do better." Jory wanted to do something. "What do you mean, zap them?" He wasn't horrible with a wand, but he wasn't good, either. He had always focused more on Divination and Astronomy than Charms or Defense. There had just never been a reason for him to care and try hard in those classes.

[Markise Sterling]

"Zap their hands," Markise said. "You can do it without waving your wand all over the place if you don't keep it in the back of your pants."He slid his wand from its pocket at his thigh, and only because he knew how well he could control this particular spell, only because he'd been practicing it from the day he'd learned it, sent a brief, mild zap across the counter. "Someone bothers me and they get it a hell of a lot worse than that," he said. Then, remembering himself, winced slightly. "Sorry." He didn't have any dirt, and he seriously hadn't believed it would work as well as it had until he'd used it on Michael.

[Jory Addison]

Jory jumped in surprise, but he was interested. "Won't it just make them mad?" he asked, eying Markise's wand. He couldn't imagine those guys just leaving if he tried to fight back. But then...they had left almost as soon as Ariel had shown up. "How do you do it?" he added, unsure of his ability with a wand, although he was more sure of that than his ability to actually do something when put in a situation that called for it.