Charlie and Jemima
July 05, 2015 9:38 AM
Doing what Teppenpaws do best by Charlie and Jemima
OOC This post follows on from the interaction between Charlie and Theodore in MARS.BIC
Charlie was sitting flicking through a magazine on the sofa when a soft cough interrupted his thoughts. He looked up, to see the second year - Theodore’s sister. His initial instinct was to scowl but she was so small and round cheeked, with little blond bunches tied with hairbands with glittery orange balls on them. And she was smiling at him. It would have been like glaring a fluffy little kitten.
“I just wanted to say thanks for my birthday card,” she smiled.
“I didn’t…”
“You helped Theodore,” she interrupted. “It was immediately obvious someone had,” she added, before Charlie could argue. “It took a bit of wheedling to get him to tell me who though. I think he was a bit embarrassed...”
Of course he was. He was sure Mr. Perfect Pureblood Homophobe was ashamed to have spent so much as five minutes in his company unsupervised, lest he’d caught the gay from him. Ironic, really, seeing as didn’t have the contagion in the first place… Jemima, however, surprised him as she continued.
“He seemed to think he probably had been rather an awkward pupil. And that he probably owed you an apology for it.”
“I see,” said Charlie, raising his eyebrows slightly. “No disrespect to your brother but I feel I shouldn’t be holding my breath on that one.” The little one seemed rather sweet - fairly well an open book, but just because her reserved brother had admitted as much to her didn’t mean he would face up and say it to Charlie.
“Probably not,” she sighed. “Theodore… isn’t very good at apologising. But at least you know now that he does feel sorry,” Jemima had a natural tendency to try to put things right with people. One which, perhaps, her naturally reserved brother sometimes took advantage of. He didn’t know how to apologise to Charlie, especially when he felt vaguely like his actions were justified - his family firmly believed that marriage should be between a man and a woman. But he hadn’t meant to cause offence, especially when Charlie had been going out of his way to help him. That part had nagged at him. He had relied on Jemima’s open nature to do the apologising for him, feeling it was the best compromise available. “I do hope he wasn’t terribly grumpy with you. I can imagine he was a pain - he’s useless at art but he hates being bad at anything. So it was really nice that he tried - and that someone had the patience to help him”
Charlie almost glared again. He wanted to snap that no, Theodore had not been ‘grumpy,’ he had been ill-informed and homophobic, and that he damn well needed to apologise like a grown up if he was sorry. But he would be yelling at the wrong person. And the little duckling didn’t seem like she deserved it. He was, in fact, feeling rather guilty at all the cross things he’d thought about her for even being connected to the whole MARS fiasco. He also felt bad shattering her illusions that anything more grown up and serious might have passed between him and Theodore - that it hadn’t just been a case of her brother being a bit moody. Not, of course, for Theodore’s sake but… for hers. She had plenty of time to grow up and learn that people hated each other for all sorts of complex, deep running reasons, and sometimes a sorry didn’t just smooth things over. And, for all his many faults, the gesture Theodore had made to his sister was sweet. He wasn’t going to be the one to ruin that by telling her the story behind the card. The card. If she had that, one more, very important reason why he really shouldn’t yell at, disillusion or spoil things for her - at least, not today - dropped.
“I’ll survive it,” he assured her. “Happy birthday.”
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Charlie and Jemima
Doing what Teppenpaws do best
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Charlie and Jemima
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