Sitting in the common room on Crotalus Commons

Henry Carey

September 13, 2013 9:36 AM

Sitting in the common room by Henry Carey

Other than general surprise at being away from his cousins and brother, or even his sister, one of Henry’s objections to his House placement involved the colors of Crotalus. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been – it could have been a bright, unrelieved red, a screaming red which made the eyes water, and was instead a much more restrained and tasteful and rich shade, he thought, words his mother might put together – but still, whenever Henry had to pass through the common room, it was difficult not to think of the walls and floors being covered in blood.

‘Pass through’ were the operative words, however, because Henry never spent enough time in the common room to have to dwell too long on its color scheme. He passed through as quickly as he could in times of low traffic – he could have written a guide to when to be in many areas of Sonora when least likely to encounter people, and had even, paradoxically, developed a faint feeling of kinship with the others who also showed up at the Hall very early or late for meals, as though this gave them all something in common when he really had no idea why they were there when he was and not bothering him – and then spent as much time in his single room as possible before he had to come out again, a room where he had spent weeks forcing himself to work through the color-change charm until he felt good enough with it to turn the bed curtains a much less offensive shade of green. The elves turned them back when they cleaned, which made for a nasty little shock when he walked in and things weren’t quite as he’d left them, but that just gave him more practice.

It amused him to think he might manage to secure a Charms CATS in two years because of prairie elves, he had to admit, though he hadn’t shared the joke with anyone else. For one thing, that would involve admitting he could be made uncomfortable by drapery, and for another, it would involve admitting he was unsure if he would otherwise pass the exam, and for a third, he wasn’t sure anyone else would get why it was funny. Merlin knew he had no idea why they laughed about a lot of the things they did.

The common room, though, was not a good place to practice his skills, and so Henry avoided it. He had no desire to sit around and chatter, as people did, and he was far more comfortable doing his homework while completely alone, so he really saw no reason to go downstairs except when leaving Crotalus altogether. When, therefore, he stopped halfway across the room and took a seat in a corner where he could put his back to the wall, he wondered for a moment if there was going to be a loud noise, some announcement that he had engaged in this strange activity.

Nothing happened. He was relieved by that. Less comforting was the thought that, having gotten this far, he didn’t really know how to occupy himself for the two hours he had convinced himself to do this.

The trouble was Arnold – how was it that trouble always came back to the more energetic members of his family? Couldn’t they have used that energy for good and not evil? Apparently not. The Quidditch game, the one coming up, that was going to be Arnold’s last game. Henry thought he ought to go, just as a formality – family unity, putting on a good face. The problem, though, was that sitting in the stands, around that many people, even in a seat as close to the ground and so far from the action as possible…that would be uncomfortable. Worse than Feasts, probably, since people would be very excited and who knew what the Bludgers might do. So he had decided to try to ease himself into it by going into the common room. If he could sit two hours in the common room – rustling pages, other people’s conversations, the door opening and closing all the time, all making it impossible to concentrate – then he could surely handle the game, where at least he would know what to look at and know the rules of the game. He’d liked it, once.

This game was unfamiliar. Last year, he’d gotten some social time out of the group challenges, he had even almost enjoyed it, but common room politics weren’t much like that, either. Henry picked up a magazine and began to turn the pages. Lots of pictures, not enough words. He checked his watch, compared it to a clock just to be sure, and concluded that this was going to be harder than he had expected.

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Ginny Bellrose

September 13, 2013 8:54 PM

Watching you sit in the common room. by Ginny Bellrose

Ginny had been reading a book in the common room. She liked to have some noise as background whenever she did anything and since she had a room to herself, being in there was just too quiet. Sometimes, she had trouble sleeping at night. Since her family had left her home in Ohio, she had grown accustomed to having the sounds of others and nature all around her. The quiet was not soothing to her. Even before they moved, Ginny usually fell asleep with her house elf in her room with her to keep her company. Ginny never liked to be alone, which is why it was sort of funny that she ended up completely alone in her room here. She wished she could share it with someone or something. Maybe if she begged her parents, they could buy her a cat to keep her safe?

Placing the bookmark in to save her page, Ginny closed her book and stretched. It was during her stretching that she noticed Henry Carey stop suddenly half way through the common room and take a seat. Normally, Ginny did not notice who else would be in the common room since her closest friends were in other houses, but she at least acknowledged those within her age group whenever they were around. Henry was not one that she often saw. She didn’t know much about him really, they shared classes last year and they might have worked together at some point or another (last year blurred together for her due to the challenges), but other than that, he was a mystery to her. Malcolm, Henry’s somehow relation, was also a mystery to her, so she wondered if that was a family thing.

Ginny watched Henry curiously as he simply sat in the corner. He wasn’t reading or working on anything. He didn’t seem to be waiting for anyone. He was just sitting there. Ginny thought this to be a very strange occurrence. Why would he simply just sit there? Ginny’s green eyes were fixated on him from the side of the room. She wasn’t facing him directly, but she had a clear view of him from her position. She wondered if he were people watching? Sometimes people did that. Her father and her used to make up stories about the people around them when she was little. It had been a fun game to play with him. Maybe that was what Henry was doing?

Ginny continued to sit in her seat and watch Henry; wondering what he would do next.

6 Ginny Bellrose Watching you sit in the common room. 0 Ginny Bellrose 0 5

Henry Carey

September 15, 2013 9:12 PM

Becoming flustered by Henry Carey

Looking at a second one did nothing more than the first had to inform Henry why people read magazines voluntarily and spent money in order to do so, but he supposed it was possible that the reason these were lying here and not being read somewhere was because they were very bad ones, not at all indicative of the form. There were books like that; before Sonora, there had been one, assigned by a tutor, Arnold and Brandon, several years apart, had both decided they hated so much once Brandon read it too that they had set the copy Arnold had handed down to Brandon on fire.

Stupid, wasteful, as Aunt Lorraine had pointed out – it was highly likely that Diana and Cecilia could have used the same book, eventually. Arthur hoarded his like nuts, but they had all used Arnold’s old books at one time or another, because their cousin no longer had any use for them once he was done with the term in which they were demanded of him. Henry thought he might actually grasp the impulse behind it, though. Unusual, that.

Since the magazines neither offended him that much nor belonged to him, though, he couldn’t exactly throw them in the fire. So he put them back. Checked his watch again. Wondered how other people did this.

Part of the answer, of course, was that they knew other people in the House. He did that, too. If he didn’t mind talking on a day, he didn’t mind doing so to Arbon or Raines any more than anyone else outside his family, Thornton was acceptable as well, and while Andrews made him want to throw things, he knew as much of her as the others. The problem, though, was that other people knew people in the House well enough to approach them, where he was only going to engage with any of them if they engaged with him first most of the time, especially since that strange conversation he’d had with Anthony. His cousin thought the girls in Crotalus were pretty and that this was a good reason to want to talk to them more often; Henry agreed that they were pretty, but didn’t see how this made up for the lot of them being, as far as he could tell, even duller than he was, and he was duller than toast. You could at least put butter on toast, and cinnamon if you wanted to be really interesting. He and the girls were stuck being dull.

Part of it…logically, he thought it made no sense. He didn’t like most of his family, wasn’t comfortable around them, either, but it didn’t seem to get in his way the way it did here when he was at home. Perhaps just because he knew they were stuck with him for the rest of their lives, and he with them, and probably they would all be stuck together in the next, too. They thought he was as peculiar as everyone else did, but it didn’t really matter. Of course, it didn’t matter much with anyone, really – he disliked it, but they were going to notice, it seemed, whether he interacted with them or not, so he thought he might as well do as he pleased – but he guessed he was just more used to them pointing it out to him?

He looked around the room again and saw a girl – he recognized her from classes, but her name escaped him – looking at him. Feeling caught, he turned red even as he remembered to break eye contact and pretend to look for something he hadn't actually dropped on the floor. Even Arthur, who'd suggested the ruse to him in the first place, didn't think it was the best tactic, but Henry wasn't enough of an actor to pull off anything much more complex.

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Ginny

September 17, 2013 9:45 PM

Is unapologetic. by Ginny

Ginny was beginning to grow bored of watching Henry. She had really been hoping that something fantastic was going to happen by watching him, but he seemed to only be sitting there, reading a magazine without interest. She wondered why in the world he had so abruptly decided to spend time in the common room reading a magazine that was lying around instead of off doing whatever it was that he usually did? Ginny had decided after chatting with Malcolm that the Carey family was a little off. There wasn’t anything that Malcolm had said or done that had made her believe that, she just that he was an odd duck. She liked odd ducks, so she was not put off by this claim she had. But Henry simply solidified this thought of hers.

He seemed even stranger than his however related family member, Malcolm, was.

Without realizing it, the two of them were looking at each other. Henry seemed embarrassed by it as he quickly looked away, but Ginny was not at all perturbed. For all he knew, it was simply a casual glance in his direction that was at the wrong moment in which they both noticed one another. Or that she really wasn’t looking at him but staring off into space in thought and it just happened to be in his direction. Ginny was not embarrassed all that easily. Even if he did think she was staring, she felt she had a good reason for it.

Standing up from her seat, Ginny maneuvered around the room and took a seat nearby the Third year. She smiled pleasantly to him as she did with everyone and looked down at the magazine that he had been reading. It looked like an old edition of whatever it was. “Hi.” She greeted happily to him. “I’m sorry for staring at you earlier, it’s just that I’ve never really seen you in the common room before and it interested me that you were here now.” She explained to him, still not at all embarrassed for her actions.

Being as small as she was, Ginny did not fit well into the chair and her feet dangled off the ground. In her excited state, her feet swung around like a small child’s would. “You’re Henry, right? Malcolm’s relation?” Ginny asked, it was only out of politeness that she asked since she already knew the answer. “I’m Virginia Bellrose, but I prefer to be called Ginny. Are you enjoying the common room today?”

6 Ginny Is unapologetic. 0 Ginny 0 5

Henry

September 21, 2013 12:33 PM

Is a bad actor by Henry

Apparently, he wasn’t enough of an actor to pull off this tactic, either. The girl said a lot, but Henry caught on to something he could respond to relatively easily. “I accept your apology,” he said by route.

As for his being entertaining, he chose not to point out that he was as well within his rights to be here as she was, nor to ask why she knew he was not here very much. She was not a threat, so it did not matter. Perhaps she thought he was pretty, though he had always thought that was more Anthony’s job in the distribution of labor around here. If she was confused about what Henry's job was, though, he doubted it would take very long for her to realize that he was not, in fact, actually interesting in addition and to go away if she was not the same kind of dull that he was, which he did not think many people were.

He wished she would stop swinging her feet while talking so much. It was distracting. This, however, was how people were, and Diana moved around even more when she talked. He remembered Jay saying he had pretended everyone else in the first Quidditch game was a relative and wondered if pretending she was Diana would be helpful.

Probably not. Sometimes he and Diana threw things at each other, and he could just walk away if he wanted. He would just have to deal with people. That was, after all, the point of the exercise.

“I am Henry Carey,” he confirmed. He did not think there was another Henry, but he did not get out of his room enough, or pay enough attention to roll calls, to know for sure, so it was safer to make it clear which one he was. Perhaps she wanted another one. “Malcolm is my distant cousin.” There were more distant relatives, of course – they were both descended from Anthony II, while there were a couple of lines in Virginia who were descended from Anthony II’s brothers, where Georgia and North Carolina were descended from Anthony III’s siblings – but if she wanted to know that, she’d ask.

“Ginny,” he repeated when Bellrose indicated she did not wish to use her proper first name. He could understand why. Virginia was a state. That could lead to confusion. Maybe not from his family – according to the twins’ accounts of Edmond and Jane, the Virginia branch seemed to be so arrogant it thought of itself as the Carey family, with no need for specifics – but in general. Ginny, however, sounded like an adjective describing the state someone should be in after consuming almost too much gin, so he thought she was out of luck either way. “Yes, the common room is pleasant.” This was a lie. Henry liked lying. It made him feel so normal. “Though the reading material is boring.”

He paused, realizing he may have rambled a little too far. “I apologize if I just insulted your taste,” he added, since for all he knew, the magazines were hers and she had been wondering why the strange person who did not normally sit in the common room had gotten in her seat and stolen her very boring light reading. He should have stayed in his room, he thought. "I suppose people have different tastes." He had heard Mother and Aunt Lorraine say such things between them when discussing other women who didn't wear dresses either of them would wear.

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