Closed Back to the basics

[Eoin Armati]

Eoin was still not very pleased to once again be back at Hogwarts. The break just seemed to feel shorter and shorter every single year and he never felt as though he had enough time to be back with his family again. And he hated it. He hated being away from his normal life, the life his siblings were leading instead of him. Eoin would honestly give anything to just go back to how things were before he learned he was a wizard and could do magic before he learned that any of this nonsense was actually real. Unfortunately, he had yet to find a way to permanently turn back time, so he was simply stuck in this life he hated and the school he still felt no fondness for.

One of the best ways of passing the time was tutoring, however. Though he might hate performing magic, the theory side of things was still something he was interested in. Once again he found himself waiting on Weston to arrive, a couple of textbooks sat next to him on the ground as he sat crossed-legged under a tree near the edge of the water. He had thought that getting outside would be nice, a change from being stuck in the library or the common room. Now all he needed was the arrival of the other boy and they could get started.

@Weston Stirling

 

[Weston Stirling]

There were a lot of things Weston hadn't missed about Hogwarts while on break — the trick stairs, the endless essays, and yes, the tutoring sessions. But he had missed hanging out with Eoin, so he wasn't going to complain too much about the early session they'd scheduled this week. He also knew objectively that it was a good idea to get a session in before classes started. There was a lot he'd forgotten over the break. It wasn't even his fault. If adults really wanted kids to keep up with their studies over the break, they would make underage magic legal.

Weston was also looking forward to this week's tutoring session because he and Eoin had agreed to meet outside. Normally, Weston preferred being indoors, but he wasn't going to pass up a chance to be near the lake, not when he was so close to catching sight of the man-eating eel. He figured he could keep an eye on the lake while they studied. So when he found that Eoin was practically sitting at the water's edge, Weston grinned. "Hi Eoin!" he chirped as he sat down, angling himself towards the lake. "What are we going over today?" He spotted the textbooks and made a face. "Can we do some spells?" Weston knew he didn't really need the spell practice, but maybe he could delay the theory stuff just a bit.

 

[Eoin Armati]

He ended up not having to wait for long until his classmate arrived, glancing up from where he had been staring out at the water to offer the other boy a small smile as he sat himself down. While Eoin wouldn't really say he and Weston were friends (they never actually hung out outside these tutoring sessions), he certainly didn't mind the other boy's company so much. Even if sometimes trying to tutor him could end up taking much longer than Eoin would have liked.

"Weston," he greeted in a casual manner as he shifted his sitting position slightly, moving a couple of his textbooks a little closer to him. He had opened his mouth to respond to the question, but Weston was already following up with another one and Eoin frowned slightly. That might be a problem seeing as he had left his own wand in his trunk were it was most likely going to stay for the majority of the year. "Depends on what spell you wanted to practice. I don't have my wand on me."

 

[Weston Stirling]

Weston's grin grew even wider when Eoin smiled back. The other boy was always so serious that sometimes even Weston had doubts that they were actually friends. Which was ridiculous. Because who wouldn't want to be his friend? Plus, they lived together and hung out every week during their tutoring sessions, which automatically made them friends in Weston's mind. Still, he considered the small smile to be progress.

At Eoin's question, Weston froze as he had clearly not thought this far ahead. "Uh... everything?" Going through every spell they had ever learned would certainly delay things. But he also knew it would be a waste of time. And besides, spell practice would be difficult if Eoin didn't have his wand with him. Speaking of which... "Why don't you have your wand with you?" he asked, baffled. In their classes, Eoin always seemed prepared. It was strange that he'd forgotten his wand.

 

[Eoin Armati]

'Everything' was a rather broad scope when it came to magic and Eoin just sighed ever so slightly. It would have been useful if Weston had a specific spell he needed help with or at least a subject they could focus on. This was not going to be as easy as he imagined it would be. Then again, he shouldn't have been expecting it to be easy considering that Weston was not really the best when it came to retaining information. Not like Eoin was, anyway. But he supposed that was why Weston was the one who needed the tutoring.

"Because I do not plan on doing any magic," he responded easily without even thinking about it. There was no point in carrying his wand around with him for absolutely no reason when he never had any plans of using it. Even in situations where a levitation charm or unlocking spell could come in useful, he'd still rather solve the problem the muggle way. "Anyhow," moving on from why he didn't have his wand, "Was there a spell you wanted to practice the most? You can still attempt it and I can offer pointers."

 

[Weston Stirling]

Weston frowned in confusion. "Like, ever?" Even if Weston didn't have any specific plans to use magic that day, he always carried his wand with him during the school year. Who knew when he needed a light or a summoning charm? Magic made things easier. And it was just what wizards did. They carried wands. Even his mum, who lived in the muggle world and almost never used magic, still carried her wand around.

"Ummm..." Weston glanced around, momentarily distracted by Eoin's question. Transfiguration had been tough last year, and if there were any spells he needed to work on, it was those. But it wasn't like they had a tea kettle out here. "Statua. Or animare. Or any of the Transfiguration ones," he said. If anyone could figure out how to practice those spells out here by the lake, it was Eoin. Maybe the other boy could conjure a kettle or a chipmunk out of thin air to practice on. Or he could — wait, Eoin hadn't brought his wand. "Why don't you want to do magic?" Weston asked, unable to drop the subject, if only because he was now intensely curious. Plus the less time they spent studying, the better.

 

[Eoin Armati]

Eoin just sighed, "Not if I can help it, no." No one was actually going to understand why he didn't want to use magic. Most people he happened to share that information with just thought he was a weirdo. Not to mention that information just opened to door for Purists and those who thought he didn't belong in the magical world to come forward and start insulting him. Even if he was inclined to agree with them about where he actually belonged.

At least he was making some progress with Weston and what subject he actually wanted to try and focus on instead of just 'magic' in general. Transfiguration spells, however, usually needed something to actually transfigure to practice on, which he didn't really have in his possession out here by the lake. "Right," he hummed, looking around him for a moment to see if there was anything around them they could use for practice. But then Weston was speaking again and Eoin's eyes found the other boy from behind his glasses. Once again he sighed. "I just... don't like doing it. I don't want to learn it. I don't even want to be at Hogwarts."

 

[Weston Stirling]

Eoin's answer was not clearing anything up. "But... why?" Weston asked, unable to comprehend how someone could dislike doing magic. "It's not like doing magic hurts you." Getting hit by magic could hurt, but not doing it. For a second, Weston wondered if Eoin was bad at magic before realizing that didn't make any sense. He was probably the smartest person in their year. There was a reason he was tutoring Weston, after all.

He vaguely remembered Eoin not being thrilled to be at Hogwarts the first night, back when they had been first years. But that was two years ago, and Weston was shocked to hear that Eoin still felt that way. "But... but... Hogwarts is great. We go to school in a castle. We have feasts and giant parties and there are magical creatures everywhere and we even get to pick our own classes." He'd grown up listening to his mum's stories about Hogwarts and counting down the days until he got to attend. The school had lived up to his wildest expectations. How could Eoin not want to be here? Weston glanced around, looking for more reasons to list. "We even have a forest with centaurs and a lake with a man-eating eel," he said, gesturing out towards the water. "How many schools can say that?"

 

[Eoin Armati]

As he suspected, Weston didn't seem to understand where he was coming from and Eoin just sighed. "For a large variety of reasons I'd rather not go into," it was a rather long list of reasons as to why he didn't like doing magic and wanted absolutely nothing to do with it if he could help it. The moment he was actually out of Hogwarts he really wouldn't be surprised if he stored his wand away and simply never touched it again. Then he could live the nice and normal life he wanted for himself away from all these weird magical things.

In his opinion, no, Hogwarts was not very great. Actually, it was rather the opposite. It also pulls me away from my family for most of the year, I hate parties, don't really care about feasts and you also get to pick your classes at a muggle school." So he didn't really think any of those points pained Hogwarts in a better light in the slightest. And when Weston brought up the Forbidden forest with creatures in there that could kill them as a good thing, Eoin did have his arguments ready. But what he said about the eel instead grabbed his attention and he blinked. "The eel is not man-eating. There is no such thing as a man-eating eel."

 

[Weston Stirling]

"Okay, but what are the reasons?" he asked, wondering why Eoin was so hesitant to explain his dislike for magic. Weston started to get some sense of those reasons, however, as Eoin kept talking. He had to admit that the family point was reasonable though the others left him even more confused. "You don't like parties or feasts?" he asked, now truly baffled. It was as if Eoin had said he disliked fun. How could one dislike magical decorations and endless plates of delicious food? "Yeah, but in muggle school, you have to be older to pick your classes." At least he was pretty sure that was how it worked. Every time he'd complained about doing maths at home, his parents had told him to be grateful he could stop once he attended Hogwarts since muggle students had to continue taking the subject until they were 16.

Now it was Weston's turn to blink at Eoin. "Yeah there is. Haven't you heard about the eel? It's really big, bigger than regular eels, and it lives in the middle of the lake. That's why you're not supposed to swim out far, cause it sometimes eats people." He had assumed that everyone knew about the eel. People were always talking about it, and some kids had even claimed that they'd seen it. But maybe Eoin had spent so much time studying that he'd completely missed out on the eel rumors.

 

[Eoin Armati]

"I just said I would rather not get into it," he responded rather shortly as Weston tried to press him for more information on his apparant hate for magic and the magical world. The other boy wouldn't understand no matter how much Eoin tried to tell him about it, so it just wasn't worth the bother as far as he was concerned. "Perhaps, but at least at Muggle school I would actually enjoy the classes and wouldn't mind continuing them for longer," unlike with Hogwarts where he had ended up dropping most of his classes because he got absolutely no joy from performing magic, brewing potions or dealing with any more screaming plants.

Eoin just blinked back, "Yes, I know about the eel. I've even seen it. But it's not man-eating, that's ridiculous." Honestly, what kind of stupid rumours were going around this school? "It's just a normal eel, it probably has a normal diet as well of smaller fish, snails and worms and whatever else it can find in the lake."

 

[Weston Stirling]

Weston flinched as Eoin's tone sharpened. "Okay, sorry, you were just being vague," he said. He was still kind of confused, but he decided to drop it now that it was clear Eoin was annoyed. Weston didn't understand Eoin's aversion to the Hogwarts classes either, but he suspected it was tied up to the whole disliking magic issue. "What about History of Magic? I thought you liked that one." Eoin was so good at the class that he had to like it. Weston couldn't see how anyone could do that well without having an interest in the material.

When Eoin mentioned he'd seen the eel, Weston's mouth fell open, and he leaned forward. His excitement was short lived, however. "You must've seen a different eel. The man-eating one is supposed to be really big. Like, really big," he said, gesturing wildly with his hands. "It's definitely not normal. It's probably magical. Did you know someone once died in the lake? I bet they got attacked by the eel." The death of a student in the lake was one of the creepier legends at Hogwarts, and he had no doubt it was linked to the mysterious creature. "Hey, do you think there's more than one man-eating eel in the lake?" he mused, looking out over the water. "It's got to have a family." That made sense to Weston. The eel couldn't have materialized out of nowhere.

 

[Eoin Armati]

Eoin sighed, "Yeah, there was a reason for that." He was being vague because he didn't want to talk about it, he would have thought that was obvious. Apparently not. Maybe he should walk around with a sign telling people that he'd rather not have that conversation if he could help it. And then Weston asked about History of Magic and Eoin shrugged, "Finding something interesting and actually enjoy it are two different things." Sure, he found the subject matter interesting to learn and study about, but that didn't really mean he enjoyed learning about it.

"No, trust me, I have seen the only eel in the lake and it is most certainly not man-eating. There is no such thing as a man-eating eel." That was clearly just some stupid rumour someone was spreading. Probably one of the older students who thought it would trick some gullible first year and make them scared of the lake or some such nonsense. "And the student that died had nothing to do with the eel. I heard he just got his foot trapped and drowned or something."

 

[Weston Stirling]

Weston wasn't sure he understood the difference. If you found something interesting, wouldn't you automatically enjoy learning more about it? He was tempted to ask, but the conversation turned to much more exciting matters. "Yeah, but how do you know? What if you just saw a normal eel?" Weston assumed that if Eoin had seen the eel, he would be much more enthused than he was now. He shook his head, unsure if Eoin had understood him. "Regular eels might not eat people, but this is a special eel. It's supposed to be really big and it could be magical. It has to eat something big to keep up its size." And people were the logical answer. There was nothing else that big that ventured into the lake, aside from the mermaids. Maybe the eel also ate merpeople?

He was surprised to hear that Eoin knew about the student who died. "Are you sure they weren't attacked by the eel?" Weston asked with a frown. "Maybe that's what trapped him!" Everything was starting to fit together. The drowning, the large eel sightings, all those warnings not to venture too deep into the lake — it all made sense when one considered the possibility that there was a magical, man-eating creature lurking in the waters.

 

[Eoin Armati]

Was Weston really this stupid? Or was he having to work at it? He had been sorted into Ravenclaw, so you did have to think he did have at least some intelligence, but at the moment, he was failing to show any. Eoin really didn't know why the other boy was so convinced that there was some mythical man-eating eel in the lake. Whoever was telling people this story needed a punch in the face. "I have been studying the lake extensively for the past two years in my free time and I assure you that there is only one giant eel in the lake and it is most certainly not man-eating." He was quite sure if there was some man-eating giant eel then he would have seen it by now. Or been eaten by it from how much time he had spent in the water.

Eoin rolled his eyes again, "Yes I'm sure. I asked a Professor about it in my first year. They just got their foot trapped between some rocks or something. The eel had nothing to do with it. If the eel was responsible, do you really think it would still be allowed to live in the lake after murdering a student?" He did have some concerns about how Hogwarts seemed to handle student safety with their Forbidden forest and other dangers, but he would hope the school wasn't that stupid.

 

[Weston Stirling]

Weston gave Eoin a skeptical look. On one hand, Eoin seemed convinced that the eel wasn't man-eating. Like really convinced. Ordinarily that might have been enough to sway Weston. But he'd spent the last two years hearing and talking about the man-eating eel, and he couldn't just let go of the theory without any proof. "Do you have proof it's not man-eating? And how do you know there's only one giant eel? Did you search the whole lake?" Weston (with Indi's help) had been searching the lake for years now, and he hadn't even seen one eel. He couldn't understand how Eoin had managed to search the lake thoroughly enough to get an accurate eel count.

He was a bit disappointed to hear that the eel was not responsible for the boy's death. "Oh," Weston said, his face falling. "I guess if a professor said so." Still, that didn't shake his belief that the eel was dangerous. "But that doesn't mean the eel's not man-eating. Hogwarts keeps all sorts of dangerous stuff, like mandrakes." He still couldn't grasp why Eoin found the concept of a man-eating eel (or a whole group of them) so hard to believe.

 

[Eoin Armati]

Weston started asking for proof and Eoin was almost getting annoyed enough to start pulling his hair out about it. His dormmate was an absolute idiot. Eoin was absolutely convinced. He had no right to be in Ravenclaw if he really believed there was a stupid man-eating eel living in the lake. "Yeah, really good proof, you ready for this?" He snapped, holding back the urge to start telling Weston what he really thought at the moment, "No one's been eaten. Do you honestly think that if there was a man-eating eel in the lake that there would be no reports of students getting gobbled up? It would have died by now if he wasn't eating anyone."

Yes, he was well aware of how dangerous Hogwarts could be with their screaming death roots and lord knew whatever else lurking in the Forbidden forest. But those things were kept in an area that was forbidden and when handling the mandrakes it had been in a class with a Professor supervising. "Perhaps. But if there were man-eating eels in the lake, then don't you think that students being allowed to swim in said lake would be forbidden? You know, in case someone gets eaten?"

 

[Weston Stirling]

It was rare that Weston found someone who was willing to have an in-depth conversation about the eel. Really, it was just Indi who engaged with his eel theories. And now there was Eoin. Weston had been so caught up in their conversation that he didn't notice Eoin's frustration until he snapped. Weston stared at the other boy in alarm. "Why are you so upset? I was just wondering." He paused, mulling over Eoin's "proof" and was unable to resist giving his own take on it. "Maybe it's been a while since it actually ate someone. And just because it's man-eating doesn't mean it only eats people. Man-eating tigers still eat, uh, whatever tigers normally eat." The eel probably just fed on people whenever it had the chance. And according to Eoin, it had been a while since that had happened.

Hogwarts was filled with hidden dangers, so while Eoin had a point, Weston didn't think it unlikely that maybe the professors had just overlooked the lake. They were expected to navigate moving staircases, flying brooms, killer plants, and dangerous spells on a daily basis. Maybe murderous eels weren't a big deal by wizard standards. "Well, Simon did tell us not to swim too far into the lake at the Brotherhood party last year because of the eel." He would need to ask Simon a couple questions about the eel before the older boy graduated. "Why would he do that if the eel's not dangerous?"

 

[Eoin Armati]

He wasn't upset, he was just annoyed. There was a very clear difference. "Because you are being completely and utterly ridiculous! And not to mention childish believing some stupid rumour about the eel being man-eating in the first place." He could understand some poor and unsuspecting first year actually believing something like that, but not a third year. Someone who should honestly know better than now. "A long time? Try absolutely never. There have never been any reports of a student being eaten by an eel. Or a Professor. Or anyone, for that matter." And when you looked at that, it would be pretty hard to believe that the eel actually was man-eating considering it had never actually eaten anyone.

This whole conversation was just utterly ridiculous. Eoin huffed, realizing that the tutoring he had been planning on helping Weston with clearly wasn't going to happen at this point. No, the boy was just wasting his time with a stupid argument. "Because I'm pretty sure the eel doesn't like people and just wants to be left alone. Not because you were about to get eaten."

 

[Weston Stirling]

Weston had never seen Eoin like this. If he had thought Eoin was angry when he kept asking about the whole not-doing-magic thing, well, that was nothing compared to the way his roommate was acting now, calling him names. "That's... that's a mean thing to say," he finally said after a long pause. He wasn't sure how things had gone so wrong. He also didn't understand how Eoin could be so certain that no one had been eaten. Hogwarts had been around for decades, and they'd only been here for two years.

He shook his head. "You weren't there. Simon basically said don't swim too far or you'll get eaten." Okay, he hadn't said it in those exact words. (Or had he? Weston's memory wasn't the best). But the meaning had been pretty clear. "If the eel doesn't like people, it'd make sense that it would attack anyone who got close!"

 

[Eoin Armati]

Eoin just gave a small huff, "It's the truth though." He didn't exactly care if it was considered a bit mean to say these things, he really just needed Weston to understand how much of an idiot he was being. Not to mention incredibly naive to believe this foolish rumour in the first place. Eoin might understand thinking it was true if there wasn't so much evidence pointing in the opposite direction that the eel was pretty much harmless and wasn't about to start gobbling people up whenever it happened to get the chance.

"No," Eoin offered with a roll of his eyes, "I am pretty sure he wouldn't have said that. At least, not seriously." Sure, he might have said it as a joke, but that was it. And still Weston wanted to defend the idea of a man-eating-eel and Eoin was getting more and more annoyed at it all by the second. "No, it doesn't bloody attack people. Splash people, maybe. There is no man-eating-eel. No one has been eaten. Not now and not ever. I am this close to dragging you to a bloody Professor to explain this to you because you can't seem to get it into that thick skull of yours that you being a brainless idiot right now."

 

[Weston Stirling]

Weston shook his head. "No, it's not. You're just saying that to be mean." Why Eoin was trying to be so mean, he didn't know. It was almost like the other boy was taking personal offense to the eel's existence. Maybe Eoin didn't like the eel because the creature was magical, and he apparently disliked all magical things.

"He did," Weston insisted. "You can ask anyone in the Brotherhood." And he was pretty sure Simon had been serious. It didn't make sense that the Brotherhood leader would bother warning people about something that didn't exist. Weston opened his mouth, ready to object again to Eoin's claim about the eel, but shut it when the other boy kept going. His eyes widened, and he felt an uncomfortable pressure building behind them as Eoin called him some horrible names. No one had ever spoken to him this way, and he didn't know what to do. His mum and dad had told him what to do if he encountered any bullies at school, but they hadn't covered what to do if his friend was being the bully.

"I... I'm not an idiot." Weston finally stammered, his brain looping Eoin's last few words over and over again. He knew he didn't get the best grades, but his parents had always said there were other ways one could be smart. Besides, the hat had put him in Ravenclaw. That had to mean something, right? "You shouldn't call anyone that. You're being mean and horrible. You're supposed to be my friend," he said, his voice wavering slightly at the end.

 

[Eoin Armati]

Eoin scowled and shook his head again, "No I'm not, I'm saying it because that is exactly how you are acting right now." He wasn't trying to be mean, but sure, he supposed that was how the words were coming across. But it wasn't his fault that Weston was just being an idiot. He needed to hear it, even if he, apparently, wasn't going to believe it.

"Yeah? Then he was clearly saying it as a joke or to scare some naive first years. Or third years, apparently." Though he still very much doubted that someone in power would tell people that the eel would eat them if they swam too far out. And if they would say something like that to scare people, then they needed that power taken away from them, as far as Eoin was concerned. Because some stupid first years were probably going to believe those words and then continue spreading this ridiculous rumour about the eel munching on people. Which was something that really wasn't needed.

Weston did apparently seem to be getting quite upset, but Eoin was finding it hard to feel bad for the boy. Instead, he folded his arms as he looked at him. "I never said we were friends," he admitted with a small shift of his shoulders. He certainly didn't consider his dormmate a friend, more someone he could put up with. Though Weston was really pushing that with his views on the eel.

 

[Weston Stirling]

Weston was trying his hardest not to cry. Not because he thought there was anything wrong with crying, but because he had suddenly been struck by the awful thought that if Eoin could be mean to him about something as simple as the eel, then he might act even meaner once he saw Weston cry. He was concentrating so hard on this simple task that he nearly missed Eoin's next comment. "What?" he asked automatically. He had to replay the words a couple times before he could understand them. "Of course we're friends." Weston knew he an Eoin weren't that close, not in the same way he was with Jordie or Zay or even Indi, but they were definitely friends.

"We hang out all the time," he said, thinking back to all their tutoring sessions and the times they had been in the dorm or the common room at the same time. Ok, so they didn't really talk that much when they hung out in the dorms, but that didn't mean that they weren't friends. "Like now." Maybe Eoin was just saying this to hurt him, though Weston still hadn't figured out why he was doing that in the first place.

 

[Eoin Armati]

He really didn't know why Weston had the sudden impression that they were friends. They didn't hang out, they didn't have friendly chats and they never really spoke to each other. "No, we're really not," he responded almost automatically. And if Weston really still believed in some man-eating eel, then Eoin didn't really want to be friends with someone who could be so stupid. If he believed that he didn't want to think about what other sorts of stupid stuff he might believe in. And then deny the truth even when it was spelled out right in front of him just to keep believing in his stupid fantasies.

"No we don't," he couldn't even remember the last time he had actually spent time with the other boy. "This isn't hanging out. I'm supposed to be tutoring you." If there was no tutoring going on, which did seem to be the case at the moment, then he wouldn't be here. He'd probably be in the library with his nose stuck in a book enjoying the silence and his own company.