A Change in Reading ((Audrey))

[Caitlin Collins]

Sitting in the library, Caitlin was attempting to ignore the sounds around her and study. But it was not going too well. Every time a chair creaked, every time a page was turned, every time someone whispered a few words, her concentration went flying out of the window. It had gone flying so many times by now that it was surprising it was still returning at all. A library book was open in front of her, the kind of book that anyone who knew Cait might not expect to see her reading. It was a leather hardback, with well over a thousand pages. That in itself was not odd, but the fact that it was non-fiction was the unusual part. Not to mention that the content held a fair few unsavoury spells in its depths. But the chapter she was examining was to do with patronuses... and what to do if you were having trouble summoning one.

It was hardly surprising, really. But the thought had come to her a few days ago and she’d tested it in the ballroom – where she’d first met Dylan, and he’d taught her how to strengthen it for use again shadows. But, she had been unable to produce even the tiniest wisp of white mist. And it had taken all of five minutes for the effort to exhaust her. So now she was trying to find out how to get over this misery, if only temporarily so she could protect herself and others if need be. She had an idea that if she had an Elemental Master, he was supposed to be able to hold her emotions for her... but the idea of a new Elemental Master, likely someone she’d never met before, was daunting enough to make her rub a hand across her tired-looking face. She was getting more sleep now, but still not enough. And now her concentration was gone again. Letting out a near-silent sigh, Caity propped her elbow on the table and leant her cheek against her hand to try and process this one paragraph she’d been re-reading for the last ten minutes.

[tweetsie]

Audrey, dressed in an unusually messy way, stopped by the library to return a couple of books she had taken out. They were of no special interest- merely a book called "The Ways of Rhetoric" and another that was a fictional novel with a terrible plot. She hadn't even read through the second. "The Ways of Rhetoric," on the other hand, despite it's rather ominous title was actually good. It wasn't just a study of how to write effectively, it gave really great examples which would undoubtedly help in essays. Audrey who had never seen herself as that much of a writer, other than in her journal, had picked it up when someone had lent her some advice. She was starting to enjoy writing more, and through a letter to one of her older brothers, she had been told that if she took herself seriously, then she would be taken seriously.

Instead of applying this to life as she usually did, she chose to apply it to writing and in order to take herself seriously, she had taken this book off the shelf. But now, as she returned the book to the library she found herself empty handed and bored. Spotting Caitlin, she walked over to her quietly and sat down across from her. Audrey was a person who had a rather creepy sense of sound and she could do this almost without making any noise whatsoever. She didn't want to interrupt Caitlin's concentration so she quickly glanced at the page to see something about a patronus... the book itself was unlike Caitlin- or as much as she knew of Caitlin. It was large and seemed dry and Audrey couldn't help but think about how horrible it would be to read that.

The two girls had not been friends for long, but as Caitlin arrived after Audrey's mental breakdown, she had no idea what the pre-breakdown Audrey was like at all. This made Caitlin a very convenient person for Audrey to be around and she took advantage of this opportunity. Now, things were changing for her again... she was so much more aware of something going on at the school but the pictures were still very hazy in her mind. Although clarity was in want, she found herself waiting for it to come rather than going out to find it for herself. Caitlin herself seemed to correspond with this something-just-beyond-the-horizon, as she looked sleep deprived... but not in terms of homework related stress.

Noticing the passage was about having trouble conjuring a patronus she decided to speak up- maybe she could help Caitlin feel more awake. "Patronuses? That sounds like fun." she said with a little smile, her green eyes still flickering between the page and Caitlin.

[Caitlin Collins]

Beginning the passage at the top again, Caitlin attempted to block out the distractions again and partly succeeded for a while. This really was heavy going to process, and it took a good deal of translating old-style English into more understandable phrasing in her head to work out what the author was trying to say. He was certainly very intelligent, but no one had bothered to put his words into a more sensible wording than his frequent ramblings. Trying to interpret the first couple of sentences into a form she could understand, she didn’t hear the approach of Audrey as it was filtered out with the other sounds around her. She was vaguely aware of someone sitting down near her, but paid no attention to it until a voice spoke to her.

Her head jerked up in surprise as the slighter loud sound and relation to what she was reading, and she finally saw Audrey sitting there. Letting out the gasp of breath she’d just inhaled quite quickly, the surprise fell from her face. “Oh... hey Audrey. Didn’t see you there.” She didn’t know the Ravenclaw particularly well, and hadn’t interacted a lot with her in the last few months; along with everyone else, to be fair. Making a conscious effort to put a half-smile on her face, she replied to what had been said.

“Well, it might be fun... if this guy didn’t keep going off on tangents about something else entirely. It’s really not very well written,” she confessed, slightly embarrassed at being caught reading something that looked so dry. Especially when the chapter title was written plainly across the top of the page; ‘Extrication of the Reluctant Patronus’. She didn’t want anyone to know she was having trouble with her patronus, even if it might not surprise certain people, such as some of the lightfighters who knew the reason for her sudden, recent change in demeanour. From a distance it might look as though she was close or just the same as she had been before, or at least that was what Caitlin liked to think. She didn’t know how well she was disguising her emotions and thoughts, but thought she was getting better at it since returning from her time at home.

[tweetsie]

Audrey's mouth twitched slightly with a smile at Caitlin's surprise when she saw her . "Yeah... I'll try and walk louder later..." she said, letting her voice trail off as she looked at the page. She was a compulsive over-the-shoulder reader, but at least she could admit it. Audrey stopped her face from showing the disapproval she felt at Caitlin's efforts to smile. She decided to disregard it for now, perhaps she would ease herself into a conversation and then ask Caitlin how she was...

"They tend to do that. I think their entire purpose is to make us want to fall asleep sometimes." She looked at the book again, and failing to notice Caitlin's hesitancy about the book itself, she spoke up.

"So trouble with your Patronus?" she asked, looking at Caitlin. She did look as if something was bothering her which couldn't possibly be helpful. Audrey had somehow conjured a Patronus herself for the first time last year, which was really a horrible year... but she understood the difficulty when something was stopping you whether it be a thought or if you just didn't know how. "Which part of it?" Audrey asked, tapping her fingers on the table, focusing her attention on Caitlin.

[Caitlin Collins]

With a couple months of practice now behind her, Caitlin had come to hope that her efforts to appear as if everything was normal were working, and that people wouldn’t notice her true state of mind. She didn’t know that people could actually realise this without even trying too hard, or she would have been acting a lot less comfortable. Not that she was really comfortable anyway, but her efforts to look so would likely take a hit. But of course, the old Caity had always been smiling, and she was hardly doing that now. Just by pretending to be normal and acting like everyone else in the school was showing that she wasn’t as happy as she had been in the past. With the exception of Dylan, no one had actually seen her true reaction to the suicide.

She nodded in half-hearted agreement as Audrey spoke, commenting on the aim of authors to make you fall asleep, bringing up another smile as it seemed appropriate. The majority of her actions were half-hearted these days, just because it was easier than putting a lot of effort into everything. Her charade of acting “normal” was just another way to make things easier; to avoid questions.

She couldn’t help the sudden tending in her shoulders when Audrey asked about her patronus... nor the unreasonable annoyance those words had produced. Did she have to be so over-curious and read over her shoulder like that? Did she have to know what she was reading? And as much as it might be true, she was making an assumption by thinking that Caitlin was having trouble with her patronus... for all Audrey knew, she could just be helping a friend, or just interested in the topic. But she did hate lying, for the simple reason that it was so easy to be found out and made to look stupid, not to mention that she wasn’t very good at thinking on the spot. She tended to freeze up and go red, which was a fairly good sign that she was lying. So she just shrugged her shoulders, relieving them of the tension and not really supplying a proper answer.

But then the Ravenclaw decided to delve deeper, and ask what the trouble was. Again, she couldn’t help the trace of a scowl that was procured by this question, but smothered it underneath an expression of neutrality. Unfortunately, this was a question that was rather more difficult to shrug off. She began to answer but didn’t really get anywhere with it. “It’s... just...” ...all my happy memories seem to be tainted with horrible ones. Everything goes back to one person, and if I think of him then there’s no chance of a patronus coming from my wand any time soon after that. “... It doesn’t matter. I’ll work it out.”