Aftermath

[Harley Tsuji]

Harley's life had been punctuated by outbursts of fury and fighting, but Harley had never felt like this. Her blood felt electric with fury and adrenaline, impulses she had desperately been trying to restrain to avoid entirely ruining Hayley's event, and all that she wanted was to punch something. So she did, as soon as the four of them had retreated to the privacy of an empty classroom. "F**K!" Harley screamed, slamming her fist into the wall. The skin on her knuckles tearing was gruesomely satisfying, but it did nothing to lessen the jittering and burning under Harley's skin. "F**K, F**K, F**K!" She cursed, shaking her arms angrily to try and disperse the energy as she paced up and down the room. "I can't BELIEVE them! F**K!" She knew Hayley was shaken and needed looking after, and once they had calmed down Harley wanted to go to the hospital wing to see if the boy who got punched was okay, but right now she wasn't in any state to help anyone, burning with fury and adrenaline.

 

[Hayley Elridge]

Hayley hurried into the room after Harley, and without even checking to see if the others had closed the door behind them she collapsed heavily into a chair and started sobbing. She had barely held herself together while people signed up for further meetings (though the quantity of those who had was encouraging), but now she was alone with her friends she didn't need to try any more. How had it gone so wrong? She'd expected some opposition to her ideas - they were revolutionary, after all - but this! Actual, physical fighting, the first time she'd tried to introduce it! They had scared away the people she was trying to attract! She wasn't sure how many of them had stayed long enough to sign on. Hayley drew a deep, shuddering breath, trying to calm herself down. When the panic had cleared there would be anger, she was sure, but for now she couldn't see past what a disaster her revolution had become.

 

[Harley Tsuji]

Though a moment earlier it had felt like the fight would never leave Harley's system, like she was going to be amped up and furious for the rest of her life, it only took one sound to immediately drain all of that, to leave her feeling weak and exhausted and empty. Harley had never heard Hayley actually cry before, and all her instincts shifted at once, from fury and fight to wanting to do anything she could to make that sound stop. To make it all okay again. "Oh, Hayley..." She choked, dropping to her knees by Hayley's chair and wrapping her friend in a tight, warm hug. Harley's once buzzing arms now felt like they were made of lead noodles, so tired and heavy. She felt tears springing to her own eyes as she held Hayley close, rocking her slightly from side to side, trying desperately to calm her friend down. "It's okay, it's okay, it'll be okay..." She whispered through her own tears, stroking Hayley's back. "It's okay, I've got you." No part of Harley felt powerful or strong anymore. She felt scared, small, young, realising just how much bigger than them all this was.

 

[Hayley Elridge]

Hayley's nerves were so frayed that she flinched when she felt warm arms around her, then she relaxed slightly and slumped into Harley's embrace. She buried her face in Harley's hair, grounding herself in the slightest bit of reality with the smooth texture in it. She took shallow, heaving breaths in between her sobs. Harley. Her protector, her best friend. What would she do without Harley? She had broken the fight up when Hayley was too far away and too frozen to do anything. Hayley had never felt so helpless before in her life. She'd started all this to try and change things for the better, to get people on her side, and now . . . she'd never felt so small, so useless. She sniffled, not wanting to move out of Harley's embrace to wipe her nose. Her body was limp, drained of all the nervous, half-furious energy that had kept her going until this point. "Why . . ." she whispered. She had intended to go further, but what words sufficed for this? Why had it gone so wrong? Why were people so eager to misinterpret her words?

 

[Aurora Night]

Rory was buzzing with a furious energy that she knew without a doubt hadn't existed in her since the long-ago days of her first year at Hogwarts. What had just happened was about the exact same kind of situation as had caused her to be so outraged back then, and with no one left to take it out on she almost wished she wanted to punch the wall as hard as Harley just had, or kick something, or, or... or just scream. The fact that she did none of those things, but just stared at one spot on the wall very fixatedly spoke volumes as to how seriously mad she actually was. Mad enough to be thinking, rather than acting and reacting. Rory had originally been late to Hayley's meeting, arriving in time to hear only the last controversial part of her friend's opening speech, meaning that she'd been at the back of the gathered students when the meeting had begun to get out of hand. While at first she had restrained herself from responding to the criticisms, Rory had soon found herself pushing her way to the front, ready to stand up beside Hayley and loudly yell down anyone and everyone who had decided to have a go at her friend.

The truth was that the foundation of Rory's support for the cause was the fact that Hayley wanted to see it become a reality. Sure, Rory thought that fighting prejudice for a better world sounded like a great idea, but she didn't think she would have found the motivation to really do anything about it without having listened to Hayley explain all her ideas and plans beforehand. Just remembering the excitement on her friend's face as she had described everything, the way she had shown them all the first poster designs, the passion with which she believed and wanted to actively do something for all the people who had been treated unfairly in the past; for the people who were going to be treated unfairly in the future if no one did anything... Watching Hayley crying now, in the moment that she should have been smiling - it made Rory absolutely spitting mad. Her fists hurt from how tightly she was clenching them. But the anger would have to wait.

Rory pushed the feeling away into a small (though still very present) ball inside of herself and, not knowing what else to do, came over to kneel in front of Harley and Hayley. She hesitated slightly, then reached up to take one of Hayley's hands. It was startling, to feel so much outrage on the other girl's behalf. Rory had known that Hayley was one of her best friends for a long time now, but their rocky beginning had always slightly coloured their relationship after - always antagonising and making fun of one another, trying to annoy each other as often as they made the other laugh - but now Rory knew without a doubt. Hayley meant just as much to her as either of her other best friends, and she wasn't going to stand for seeing her friend and her ideas disrespected in the way they just had. "That's not what it was supposed to be about," she began, hoping to support Hayley with words as well as physical comfort. There was only so much anger you could communicate in a hand squeeze without breaking a couple of fingers, after all. "That wasn't your revolution, Hayley. Okay?" Rory's voice was low in an effort to be soothing, but urgent. She wanted Hayley to know this, even if she wouldn't have the capacity to process it properly until later. "The only way they can ruin it is if you let them. And you won't. We won't." In this moment Rory's fierce determination to support her friend was the only thing that mattered to her on the subject.

 

[Rose Holland]

Rose supported her friends, that went without argument. So even though she wasn't quite as sure of Hayley's position on the revolution as she felt like she should be, she knew that no matter what she would side with her friend. After today's disaster, she knew Hayley would need her and the rest of their group. The worst part of this entire situation was that no one had actually listened to the underlying problem. Rose agreed with many that a revolution was perhaps a bit of an extreme measure, but she also knew that something had to be changed if they wanted to stop discrimination against muggleborns. The people quoting their family's achievements may have been speaking the truth, but that didn't say anything about what they themselves had been doing. As far as Rose could see, Hayley was the only person actually attempting something to change things for the better. Seeing her be shot down for it by so many older students was disheartening. And the fight that broken out because one of the Potters couldn't control himself had just made her very sad. Violence wasn't a solution, only another problem to deal with.

As she joined her friends in an abandoned classroom, Rose tried to keep herself calm. Harley, Hayley and Rory all had more explosive tempers than she did, and she felt a sort of responsibility to help calm down the tension. Even if she wasn't entirely sure how yet. She grimaced a little at the loud cursing Harley was doing, but she knew she was just expelling her frustration. It made her sad to see how upset Hayley was, but Harley was comforting her and hugging her. Rory soon joined, and Rose did as well. She tried her best to envelop them all into a hug at once, but mostly managed to just awkwardly put her arms around the chair, Harley ,and Hayley while being able to pet Rory's hair a bit if she wanted to. She supposed Rory needed her hug the least right now, though. "Guys, it's going to be okay." She said softly. "The people against it, they weren't anyone special or important. Did you see Professor Styx? He didn't oppose you, if you got him to listen, you can reach others! Those students may have fancy last names, but they have nothing to say about anything that happens at this school OR in the world, at least not yet." She said soothingly, hoping her words would reach her friend. "You got opposition, but that wasn't all you got. If we just ignore them for a moment, I heard a lot of people agree or at least agree to parts of it. I think there's a way to go on with this, include the people that are willing to listen and let your voice be heard." She said, hopeful it would actually happen that way. "No matter what, you have us." She added before letting go. The hug was starting to make her feel like a stretched out noodle. "We'll help more, and maybe we can ask that older boy to help too! Though I could understand if he'd rather avoid it after getting punched..." She added, trailing off.

 

[Harley Tsuji]

Harley though that the sound of Hayley crying had broken her heart, but the tiny, broken "Why?" she heard emerge from her best friend shattered it to a thousand pieces. It was the most pained sound Harley had ever heard, cutting right to her core, and she hugged Hayley closer, shushing her gently and rocking her back and forth. Harley just kept rocking Hayley gently as their friends joined them, doing what they could to reassure Hayley, but for the most part Harley just held Hayley, doing what she could to make her feel safe. Everything felt like too much and it was a struggle to really even hear what Rory and Rose were saying, but Rose's last words filtered into her ears and she nodded, still holding Hayley close. "I'll go see him after this." Harley mumbled softly, stroking Hayley's back. "It'll be okay. I'll tell him this wasn't what you wanted, and you're sorry. It's okay." She kept holding Hayley close, giving her something to ground herself against. She knew that once she was back to herself Hayley would want to handle this herself, but right now she wasn't ready, and Harley could pick up the responsibilities until Hayley had time to put herself together again.

 

[Hayley Elridge]

The warm, comforting pressure of her friends around her was starting to make Hayley feel more like herself. She felt Rory's hand in hers, and Rose's arms around them all, and those simple, casually intimate touches gradually began to feel more real than the nightmare the afternoon had become. She concentrated on breathing, in and out, in and out, with fewer of those ugly, racking sobs. Her friends' reassuring words washed over her, and if she still felt too overwhelmed and fuzzy to fully grasp the meaning of them, it was enough to know that they were there and caring and kind. "I . . . I'm not letting this go," she managed, half to herself, unsure even if she had spoken loud enough to be intelligible. But the mere act of saying the words brought her a fragment of grim determination. Her eyes were blurred with tears, but she opened them, even if all she could see from here was the bright blue-green shades of Harley's hair. She'd been too upset to summon any of her habitual anger before, but now it was beginning to seep back, a small hard ball in her chest that began to drive the despair away. "It wasn't supposed to be like this," she said, a little stronger now. "But this just proves . . . proves why things have to change. If people will . . . f***ing . . . fight each other rather than listen to what's wrong . . ." They would have to be more cautious. But if her grand plans were too much for people to accept, there were at least those who had agreed that some sort of change was necessary. They had signed up to talk about this, and Hayley wouldn't let them down. She would continue, more slowly than she had planned, and she would keep that anger burning . . . and if she saw that damn Potter boy again, she would punch him in the face.