Helena Layne
November 22, 2006 5:35 PM
Feeling a bit silly... by Helena Layne
Helena usually stayed indoors - her mother's fussing about how what she called Lena's English complexion wasn't suited to the Arizona sun had seen to that - but trying to work on her Potions essay had proved fruitless, a search for Anne and Geoff had found them on the Quidditch Pitch and meant that retreat was the only sane option, and sitting in the library hadn't seemed very appealing, either. It was a fine day outside, and she wasn't an invalid or, though it was nice to pretend that she was every now and then, some moonlight-and-magnolias lady with a parasol. A short walk in the maze couldn't hurt anything.The year was almost over, and while she was a little angry with herself for living on the fringes of her classmates for most of it, the next year would come soon enough and the summer promised to be a good one. Her mother’s last letter had mentioned visiting Nadia’s parents in England, which meant that there was nothing seriously wrong, such as Uncle Henry getting himself thrown into jail again or Aunt Melissa getting herself killed, with the American side of the family. Maybe it was distance keeping her from knowing too much about the affairs of her mother’s family, but they always appeared to have fewer crisises than the Laynes.
The little courtyards scattered throughout the garden were almost quaint enough to make up for the lack of any flowers, though the ones with statues sometimes looked a bit off because of the lack of a plaque nearby explaining who each one was of and why that person or, since it was the Wizarding World, being had a statue. Charleston, magical and Muggle, was a city of monuments; Helena supposed there could be pointless statues in places, but she’d never seen any. The courtyards with fountains were better, and one was so fanciful in its design that she couldn’t resist the temptation to sit down on the wide rim and look into it like something out of a story, making her glad she’d worn one of her longer skirts.
The reflection in the water was pale, semi-transparent, and wavered with the movement of the water, but it was clear enough to look accurate. There wasn't that much difference than there had been at Christmas, but if she tilted her head the right way, she could imagine her nose looked a bit better. The picture was straight out of the story she promptly began composing, a cliche-filled waste of time. She'd almost gone through with joining the writing club she'd heard about not long after Christmas, but it was probably for the best that she hadn't. Her stories weren't good enough for general consumption, and she didn't want to be laughed at.
Helena heard the footsteps behind her, but didn’t look up to acknowledge them or completely break her train of thought. Probably Geoff, ready to moan for the thousandth time about how many bruises he had in places he hadn’t previously known he had to bruise. She didn't know how he'd know to look for her, here, but it wouldn't be the strangest stunt he'd ever pulled. He and Anne had vanished just after breakfast, so it was possible that he'd just looked everywhere else, done process of elimination, and gotten lucky.
The footsteps stopped. So much for finishing her daydream. Turning, she frowned up and had began framing her lecture about how tired she was of him complaining to her for what he did to himself or allowed Anne to do to him before she realized that it wasn't her brother she was frowning at.
Blushing, she tried to smooth out her expression and lowered her eyes a little. Standing up was also starting to sound like more and more of a good idea. "Oh - er, I'm sorry. I thought you were someone else." First she was caught daydreaming, and now she was sounding like an imbecile. Maybe Geoff wasn't so far wrong about her not needing to be out without a keeper after all. \n\n
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Feeling a bit silly...
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