Of Jealously and Loneliness (BLAOIFE)

Aoife spent the afternoon playing quidditch. Constantly. In the pouring rain. The weather didn't bother her. This was a chance to forget about everything and push herself. She took a few very short breaks for water, but otherwise spent the whole time flying around, hitting bludgers to take out her anger on something and "shooting some hoops". It was true, she really was a beater and not a chaser. Practicing all alone might not be the most fun, but she didn't really have any other options. Lyra had decided she liked to stay with both feet on the ground. Who knew where Ariel was? She had no other friends.

Only when the rain started to cease did she look down at her watch and notice that it was dinnertime. Not really caring about running into anyone, she grabbed her bat, put the balls away and flew to the entrance of the castle. If she wanted to arrive before dessert, there was no time for showering and changing out of her muddy robes. Even if her hair was coated in mud and streaks of dirt were scattered over her face. So lugging a huge beaters bat behind her, she made her way towards the Great Hall.

At the Gryffindor table, she didn't immediately see anyone she knew and liked, so just sat down towards the end. Aoife was too tired and hungry to care if she was sitting alone again right now. Immediately she piled her plate up high with chicken, potatoes and vegetables. And tucked in. Maybe she looked like a greedy pig, but after all that flying in the pouring rain, she deserved this meal.

It didn't take her too long to devour it all. So she got some nice chocolate cake. And ate it. Now was the time to leave, before she got back to her depressing thoughts, but then she looked to the Ravenclaw table and saw familiar hair. First, Hunter's wonderful floppy hair which looked just as good from the back. Then Seren's hideous frizzy mane. They were together. Hunter was saying something and Seren was laughing, that hideously sickly sweet smile on her face.

Her heart almost broke. It was every day. The torture. She was with him, being happy. Hunter didn't even look at his ex-best friend. Had she brought this on herself? Was it inevitable? Would it have happened no matter what? Aoife tore her eyes away and stared at her empty plate. Her shoulder ached and various cuts and bruises covered her legs, but she hardly noticed. The pain in her chest was so much worse.


OOC - Blake. Set before Hunter cuts his hair and asks Seren out. Godmodding a bit, sorry.

Blake stuffed his hands in his pockets as he awkwardly glanced around the Great Hall. He spotted Hunter at the Ravenclaw table sitting with Seren, of course. Was it just him or had he been ditched since Hunter and Aoife had fought? Hunter seemed to be spending all his time with the girl and as much as he liked Seren he did think it was a little odd. She fawned over him a lot too and not that Blake was jealous it just made him a little uncomfortable. Blake thought things would get better between him and his best friend since Aoife wasn't around to ruin things but Hunter had just become moody an depressed the whole time now.

Blake didn't bother looking at the other tables after that, he decided he'd just stick to the Gryffindor table and whatever people were there. He perked up a little at the idea of maybe running into Ariel and her older sister. But nope he was all out of look. Blake trudged over to the table, lost in his own dismay that he nearly walked past Aoife and her vivid red hair. He paused despite himself, recalling how forlorn she had appeared after Hunter asked her out and even though she didn't appear the victim in the scenario Blake couldn't help feeling for her despite himself.

He realised he had now been hovering awkwardly over the seat across from her staring at her pitifully. He decided maybe to just move on, but then he thought to himself if Hunter was off with Seren why shouldn't he sit with Aoife and keep her company. Probably because she'd throw a hissy fit and toss her dinner in your face you git, he reminded himself. He quickly ignored the thought as she sighed and looked so alone and he made up his mind. He quickly took a seat before he changed his mind.

"Hi." he said, in a rather normal voice. For once there was no hint of falseness or fake chirpiness in his voice. Just  a hint of embarrassment at his indecisiveness. "Yes! There's chicken fajitas for dinner today," Blake exclaimed, immediately grinning to himself.

"Oh sorry." He said immediately, casting his eyes down towards his plate.  "That was insensitive. I know how upset you are. Or that you just seem down." Blake tried to amend. "Not like I noticed or anything." Blake said then shrugging and deciding to shut himself up by putting a spoonful of mashed potato in his mouth. He didn't have to admit to her that he had been watching her from afar and noticed she hadn't been herself at all recently and actually felt bad for her.

Blake finally looked back up from his food to see how Aoife reacted to his stumbling words. "What were you doing?" Blake asked after finally swallowing his potato. He had eventually noticed Aoife's wet and dirty attire. It had been raining all day which meant Blake had been stuck up in the library reading, alone. So he hadn't noticed anyone coming or going from the common room. It looked like the girl had been busy.

Aoife only noticed Blake across the table when he said hello. Why? Blake hated her. She hated him. He was friends with Hunter and Seren. It made no sense for him to sit by her and actually make conversation. She was sure there were other places on the table for him to sit. She obviously wouldn't be his first choice of person to sit with. Perhaps she’d been wrong and Blake was the one under the influence of some madness spell or potion, not Hunter.

Did he feel sorry for her? That wouldn’t be good. She was having trouble deciding whether she wanted sympathy or not. Obviously, having sympathy meant she had friends, more or less. But people feeling sorry for her was always a bad thing. And even if Blake was sympathising with her, he was far from her friend. He was the opposite of a friend. Aoife realised that she still hadn’t responded to his greeting. What should she say? Not throw cake at him, because cake was too valuable. She couldn’t throw a bench with people sitting on it, or a fork in case it stabbed him too hard. What happened to forgetting violent tendencies in times of sadness? Maybe she just shouldn’t hit him. “Uh… hello,” she said quietly, pushing some hair behind her ear and staring at her empty plate.

“Yay, chicken fajitas.” She liked chicken. Chicken was good. Usually she was enthusiastic about her third favourite meat (after bacon and sausages) but she was enthusiastic about very little nowadays. Mainly just TFIOS and sometimes bacon. Even, on occasion, hearing about victory for the Cork or National Irish Quidditch Team brought a smile to her face.

Then Blake was apologising. She was supposed to be the one that was really out of character and stupidly different recently, not him. Aoife frowned. It wasn’t that she didn’t like this new Blake, who apologised and talked to her as though they were friends, but it was so WEIRD. It could be a prank, couldn’t it? He pretended to be nice then hit her with something huge, before running back to Hunter to laugh about her behind her back and make fun of her. For some reason, she got the feeling that wasn’t the case here.

Oh, now deep and emotional talks about how she was acting upset. He just kept leaving her speechless. An insult would be much easier to come up with than an answer to this. To get rid of her expression, which probably looked sad like it usually did, she stabbed a potato with a fork and stuffed it in her face. It would give her time to answer right. Was it a test? To see how stupid and awkward she was? No, of course it wasn’t. Ouch, boiling hot. She chewed thoughtfully on her potato, before finally swallowing the rest. “Sad? No! I’m not sad or down or upset or depressed! Why do you ask?” she said quickly, grinning widely to back up her statements.

“Quidditch!” she answered, trying to be cheerful to maintain her happy attitude act thing. Obviously she’d been outside playing. How else could she get so muddy and completely soaked through? Well, she could go and make mud pies in the pouring rain. That sounded like the sort of thing she’d usually do. “What about you?” Didn’t look like he’d been outside, constantly practicing and building his abs. Wasn’t he in the Gryffindor team? Git should be doing the same as her, even in the rain.

Maybe this was a bad idea, Blake's intentions were good but Aoife didn't know that and he could see her inner turmoil. She probably wanted to hit him or something. Well he didn't deserve that and he would definitely be out of there if she did. Blake watched her attentively to see if her hands twitched or something. A fork in the eye was not something he wanted. Blake continued watching in silence wondering if Aoife was just going to ignore him for the duration of dinner. He supposed Aoife was just in shock at him sitting there, did he really think of him as that bad a guy? Well he had never done anything to fix that thought, in fact quite the opposite he just annoyed her repeatedly. Well now he could change that, or try to if she gave him the chance and was normal for once.

"Yes, hi." Blake said once more after Aoife finally replied. The silence felt awkward to him, but at least she replied. Even of it was barely audible. "Look, would you like me to go?" Blake asked, trying to gauge if Aoife didn't want him there or not. Blake asked as Aoife stared him down, not in a hatred way just more so in confusion. Maybe he shouldn't have come over but then who else was there to sit with anyway and he really did not want to go and sit with Hunter and Seren. Had Hunter taken him up on his advise that there was always other girls. Yeah there was always other girls and not all of them hated Aoife with a passion, just Seren. This was probably killing Aoife. Blake resisted to turn around and see how the pair were getting on. No point in drawing attention to them maybe Aoife hadn't realised they were sitting together. "No reason." Blake said quickly and then looked down at his plate, but not before spotting her over enthusiastic smile. He smiled awkwardly back, hoping to relieve some of the tension between the pair. Or maybe that was just him that felt awkward.

Were they actually having a conversation. Even though Blake initiated it it was uncharted territory for him too and he was a little reserved about his reply. IT WAS WEIRD. "You were flying out in that?" Blake asked, slightly concerned and raising his eyebrows. "That's dedication. And I was in the library" Blake said with dignity. He had no interest in flying in that weather. They had enough team practices in it and Blake still hadn't gotten over his recent excursion with Victoria when she took a nasty fall. He thought his fear of heights could be back and his face paled at the idea.

Aoife didn’t exactly want Blake to go. It was nice to have someone to sit with, even if it was someone she had always hated in the past. It was just a real shock that he’d actually chosen to sit with her instead of one of his many other friends or admirers. She decided to just roll with it and act as though she’d had civilised conversation with him before, not arguments and constant insults flying back and forth. “No,” she said in response to his offer to leave. “I mean, unless you want to. Obviously.” No pressure on him staying, in case he changed his mind and decided he didn’t want to sit there because he was too cool and could sit somewhere else. With his cool friends, the other option. She needed her self-confidence back. She was WAY cooler than everyone Blake knew. She was cooler than everyone, really. It was just remembering it that was the problem sometimes. “Oh.” There was probably a reason. But she didn’t care enough to ask more questions. It would probably only make things more awkward.

“Yes,” she nodded. Why would she lie about being out in that weather? To show off? Her hair and drenched robes were proof of it anyway. It wasn’t dedication, it was a cowardly distraction, because she was a coward. Quidditch practice could have waited until it was nicer, but she picked that day because the pouring rain and freezing cold temperature only pushed her to carry on. “It wasn’t so bad, warm robes.” Sort of. There was probably a spell of some description that she could use to keep herself completely warm and dry outside, but that sort of ruined the purpose. It wasn’t dedication anymore. Ah, library. That made sense. Blake was that sort of student. “Have you studied for the Potions exam?” Aoife asked a little worriedly. She’d completely forgotten about it until she was out flying. So some studying for that might be in order so that she didn’t fail miserably. Potions was not her strong point. She was starting to get over the slugs, but the ingredients and directions and everything always confused her.

Then she fell into a thoughtful silence while she chewed on yet another roast potato. These were indeed very good potatoes. House Elves were the best. How did they manage to make food of this standard every single meal ever? She had never had anything at all to complain about when it came to Hogwarts food because it was so beautiful and tasty and wonderful. Every single potato.