Closed Choking On Apologies

[Aine Thompson]

It was somehow ridiculous that managing to juggle a full course load with every single elective was easier than honest communication, and yet here Aine was, having blundered her way through another paper meeting and being genuinely shocked that Estella hadn't banned her from attending. She supposed her articles had been passable - mostly fluff pieces, but that was fine. Being honest in writing was much harder than being mock truthful in giving harmless opinions on cakes. And when she was honest, it didn't fit the tone and she had to dial it back. She'd burned her original poem, embarrassed by herself. Anonymously giving advice was a little easier, at least. But she'd struggled to apologize to Cameron, and immediately flubbed that. She'd struggled to apologize to Valerius, and now things felt more awkward than anything.

And now she knew she had to apologize to Celia, because she'd been unjustifiably rude to her last year and avoided her ever since. Politics was no reason to be so obnoxious, after all. Regardless of what she thought of the politicians. Her initial interest had waned to quiet despair when it seemed none of them really wanted to change the status quo, and the ones who did were obviously not in with much of a chance. Besides, after reading Celia's pieces in the paper, Aine had to admit that she respected the older Slytherin, even if she didn't like her. Not that it was fair to like or dislike anyone based on not really knowing them, although she had certainly rubbed her the wrong way. But she admired her for being so forthright with her opinions. Not ashamed of them, owning herself and what she thought. Aine couldn't fully deny that she wished she were more like that. But she couldn't be - she was too awkward and anxious and she couldn't make aggression work in her favour. Reminding herself that this year she would be braver, she somewhat meekly approached her as they were disbursing. "Um...hey, Celia? Can I talk to you for a sec?"

 

[Celia Vu]

Celia was not feeling very optimistic as she left the Hogwarts Monthly meeting. The conversations that took place during these meetings never seemed to translate into action, and she was pretty sure the next issue would be filled with the same boring drivel that plagued the other issues. She found it truly astounding that out of a staff of 20 or so people, no one besides her seemed interested in doing actual journalism. There was so much wrong with Hogwarts, so many aspects of the school worth investigating and commenting on, and yet nearly every article the Monthly published was filled with praise. If she had to read one more article complimenting the school's Halloween decorations or lauding a club leader for a dumb meeting idea, she was going to scream.

Unfortunately, before Celia could fully escape the newsroom, one of the younger students stopped her. It was the rude Hufflepuff, the one who claimed to be interested in "modernizing things" but submitted stories about pastries and poems about cats. Why Aine wanted to talk to her, Celia had no idea. But she didn't particularly want to talk to the Hufflepuff. She was silent for a moment, doing her best to look down at Aine (a feat made difficult by the fact that they were practically the same height) as she gave her an unimpressed once-over. "What do you want," she asked flatly.

 

[Aine Thompson]

Aine felt a wave of immediate regret. Like she needed to just find a way to rewind time to just do everything after birth over again to ideally not embarrass herself. How was Celia so intimidating? Maybe she should pretend that she accidentally said Celia's name when she was meaning to talk to someone else? No, that was a stupid idea. She had to start owning up to things, not just avoiding them. "Um, I, ah...what I wanted to say was..." she dithered, ignoring the voice in her head screaming at her for being pathetic. "I was really cr*p to you in meetings here and I'm sorry," she explained, the words tumbling out so quickly they practically ran into ome another. Why was this so hard?

 

[Celia Vu]

Celia sighed impatiently as Aine started to stammer. "Any day now..." she muttered. She knew she was being a b!tch, but Aine had never not been rude to her. Her eyebrows lifted slightly as a mess of words that sounded like an apology tumbled from the Hufflepuff's lips. What had prompted this sudden change of heart? Did Aine want something from her? She had a hard time believing this apology was sincere considering Aine had waited a year to deliver it. Celia waited a beat to see if the Hufflepuff had anything else to say. "Was that it? If you're done, you can move out of the way now," she said as she readjusted her grip on her bag and tried to step past the girl.

 

[Aine Thompson]

Aine stepped aside, intending to ask for some advice on how to be confident enough to express opinions without fear of judgment, and perhaps tips for writing things more meaningful while still being lighthearted. Unfortunately, as her brain and tongue seldom worked in tandem, what instead came out was...

"How do you have the nerve?"

Aine blinked, almost not quite registering that what she'd said wasn't exactly what she meant, or her tone wasn't quite right. "Ah...you know, to go writing things in the paper that can be, uh, difficult? How can you do that?" Absolutely phrased terribly. Aine felt her sense practically jump for an escape route, not wanting to be here when this went poorly.

 

[Celia Vu]

That was... weird, Celia decided. The Hufflepuff had always struck her as odd, and this apology or whatever it was only cemented her impression of the girl. But at least it was over. She started to push past Aine when the girl asked her a question. "Excuse me?" Celia asked, disbelief written across across her face as she turned to stare down Aine. She was about to rip into the girl when a confusing jumble of words spilled forth. It took Celia a second to decipher Aine's question, and when she did, her expression hardened. "How can I do that?" she repeated. "How can I not? I'm sorry I don't want to waste my time writing puff pieces and sh*tty poetry like the rest of you," she said scornfully. "The whole point of journalism is to write about difficult things, not to suck up to the administration." Celia had no idea why Aine was taking offense to her writing, but she was getting tired of the attitudes of the other staff. The Monthly gave them a special platform to share their views with the rest of the school, and yet the other staff seemed insistent on wasting it.