Closed Company of a Friend

[Conan Burke]

Conan had been very happy to be back at school. Home was just really weird at the moment. It was weird to be staying at different houses each week for the entire break. So Conan was happy to be back at school with the familiar atmosphere of the castle as well as seeing his friends. Conan walked into the great hall for lunch, his usual box of shells tucked underneath his arm. He was about to make his way towards the Ravenclaw table but saw Gregory at his house table instead. Conan made his way towards his friend. "Hey, Gregory. All good if I join you?"

 

[Gregory Friend]

Gregory was back at school, and sitting alone. It didn't really make much of a change to how he generally was. He tended to just not sit with the others in his house, always picking a spot on his own, that meant he'd get into less bother if anything did happen. But he couldn't stop someone sitting with him. Gregory looked up from his plate to one of the few friends he had. "Hey," he said before nodding, "Yeah sure," he said "How are you?"

 

[Conan Burke]

Conan smiled happily when Gregory had agreed for him to sit down. "Thanks!" Conan says with a smile, as he places his shell collection box on the table, before grabbing a seat next to Gregory. Conan thought about the question Gregory had asked him. "Do you want the truth or a lie?" Conan said, with a chuckle, as he wanted to give Gregory the option to decide.

 

[Gregory Friend]

Gregory was a little surprised when he was offered such a choice with it. To either get the truth or a lie. He was trying to be a better friend. So he knew what the choice should be, though he hoped it would be something he could actually help with. He didn't much like the idea of not being able to help his friend. "Truth..if you want," he added the last part, wanting to still leave the choice up to Conan as to if he was honest or not.

 

[Conan Burke]

Conan nodded, totally okay with being honest with his friend. "I guess I'm doing okay. Though the break was a complete bummer. As you know my parents split. My parents now live separately. It's been awful and annoying going to different houses each week" Conan said with a sigh. Everything in general was just awkward and it didn't help that his parents were being awkward with things. "Sorry, enough about me, how are you?"

 

[Gregory Friend]

Gregory was almost bracing himself for what might be wrong with his friend, but really it wasn't as bad as he worried. He understood that for Conan it was bad, that it was different and annoying and clearly was affecting his mood. "That's rough," he said, though Gregory had no idea what it was like. "Do you think you'll eventually get used to it?" Gregory didn't want to ask if perhaps he would pick one parent over another. That seemed like it would be unhelpful. "Oh, I'm okay, my sister came to stay over the break, she was.....," he paused trying to pick his words. "She's okay,"

 

[Conan Burke]

Conan shrugged at his friend's question. "I dunno aye, I mean I hope so? I think it will be a while until I can adjust to the change" Conan explains to his friend. It was a big change, and it was something he wasn't used to. He personally wasn't a fan of change. Though it seemed it was much more fun at his dad's compared to his mum's place. Conan listened to Gregory as he spoke about his break. "Oh, that's nice. Did you have a good break with her at least?" Conan asked his friend, as he noticed the pause from his friend for a second.

 

[Gregory Friend]

Gregory nodded. "I'm sure you'll adjust," he said as encouragingly as he could manage. he was sure it would be hard, and likely present new issues like other partners and everything but he was sure that Conan would manage. But he had no way of knowing for sure. He realised his mistake in describing his sister. "No...not really, she doesn't like me very much," Gregory admitted softly. "I try to be nice, but she's twenty years older than me, we're not..we're different," Gregory admitted, looking away from Conan, and just fidgeting slightly.

 

[Conan Burke]

Conan listened as his friend spoke about his sister. "Oh wow, that must be hard. Having a sibling that much older than you. I can't imagine having my siblings being that much older" Conan said sincerely. He was quite close to his siblings, and he couldn't imagine not being close to them. "Oh... How different?" Conan asked hesitantly as he asked his friend. He was hesitant to ask as he didn't want to force his friend to answer a question that he didn't want to.

 

[Gregory Friend]

Gregory shrugged a little. "When they're that much older, they no longer live with you, so it's not too bad, it's more like having an uncle or an aunt," Gregory said, though he didn't really have those. He gave a little frown, knowing he wasn't explaining it very well. "She doesn't really like me...Her parents, adopted me, and I think she's always thought I was taking advantage of them because they're older," he said softly with a little shrug. "But I'm not, I promise," he was quick to add.

 

[Conan Burke]

Conan listened as Gregory had explained a little further about his home life and such. It was nice getting to know his friend a little better. Though he had forgotten that Gregory had been adopted. "How do you mean she doesn't like you? Is she like... mean to you in some way?" Conan asked his friend genuinely. "Hey, it's ok. I'm sure you're not" Conan says with a smile, trying to reassure his friend.

 

[Gregory Friend]

Gregory just shrugged a little, trying to make himself a bit smaller as he spoke. He wasn't sure he could accurately explain how his sister, an adult was mean to him, but he just knew she was. "I'm not," he agreed, wanting to stick to that point over her. That he wasn't taking advantage of them, that they wanted him. "Families, right?" he said, jokingly, trying to make the situation lighter.

 

[Conan Burke]

Conan chuckled. "Yeah... families," Conan says with a chuckle. Everyone's families were different, which made things interesting. Though he never thought of his parents splitting at all, things could change in a matter of seconds. "Anyways, you got any plans for the upcoming semester? Going to try anything new at all?" Conan asked his friend, deciding to change the subject.

 

[Gregory Friend]

Gregory gave a weak smile, though pleased that Conan was content to go along with it. He gave a little smile and then shook his head. "No, just try and to better in classes and all that," he said. "I need to stop sitting at the back of the class," he said with a little shrug. He sat at the back of the room because it was easier to be hidden away and out the way, but it did make hearing everything difficult. "You?"

 

[Conan Burke]

Conan nodded. "Doing good in class is always great. I think I'm gonna try and do the same. Do a little better in class" Conan said with a nod. He knew he hadn't gotten that many good grades in the previous year and his mum wasn't too pleased with it. Conan thought for a moment, before shrugging. "I dunno aye. Do my usual shell hunting I guess, nothing that exciting" Conan says with a shrug. He was sure there were more, but he couldn't really think of any more at the top of his head.

 

[Gregory Friend]

Gregory nodded slightly, he didn't know how well Conan did in classes, but he assumed it was still better than he did. There was just a shared desire to do better, to be better at the classes. He appreciated that at least Conan had a hobby, Gregory had no such thing, he was always too pre-occupied with the next step and the next day to think that far ahead. "I think it's exciting," he tried to reassure in case someone had told Conan it wasn't.

 

[Conan Burke]

"We can always be study buddies too if you need a hand with anything. I know I might need help with some stuff. Helping each other with schoolwork should be good. But only if you want to" Conan said with a small smile. Conan knew he wanted to do better, so he guessed that maybe helping each other or studying with other people always helped as well. Conan smiled brightly. "Thanks! I'm really proud of it, even though there's a lot. I've lost count of how many I have now"

 

[Gregory Friend]

Gregory thought having a study buddy would be helpful, since his notes tended to be pretty poor. But he didn't want to have to rely on Conan's notes so much the boy ended up hating him for not being able to do more work. "Yeah, that could be useful," he agreed despite his worries, his desire to do better stronger than his desire to hide how poor his notes were. "It's a good collection," he replied. Not thinking there would ever be a point for Conan where he had too many shells. "Have you found any good ones recently?"

 

[Conan Burke]

Conan was happy with Gregory's response about being possible study buddies. Conan didn't mind if he had to share most of his notes with his friend if he needed it. It was better than not having any sort of notes. He perked up a little as Gregory mentioned about his collection. He was glad that someone else thought so. "Not many, but there were a few" Conan says with a smile, as he excitedly reaches out for his shell collection box and opens it up. There were a few on the top of his collection that were recent ones added to the collection. "I found this really cool blue one! It's got like small spirals on it which i thought was pretty cool!"

 

[Gregory Friend]

Gregory happily leaned over to be able to just see the new shells which Conan had, excited to get see how they were different. He still treasured the shell which Conan had given him, and though he never intended to start his own collection, he was very eager to always see how his was going. "Oh, blue's cool," he said, trying his best to look at it. "I wonder how it got that colour," Gregory didn't know the first thing about shells, beyond what Conan had already said.

 

[Conan Burke]

Conan puts the shell between them, so Gregory had a better look at the shell. "I read somewhere that it depends on their environment on how they get their colour from" Conan explained a little more, as he remembered something from a book about seashells he had gotten from his mum a while ago. He knew he had to read a little more into it to grab more information about shells.

 

[Gregory Friend]

Gregory nodded, thinking it pretty interesting that even shells could be affected by their environment. He knew they all were, but shells, that seemed weird. He just nodded though and wondered if Conan was intending to one day study shells in a professional capacity. "Do you..," he started before stopping himself and having to psyche himself up for a moment to ask. "Do you know what you want to do when you graduate?" they were well off that happening, but he was curious.

 

[Conan Burke]

Conan listened as Gregory spoke, giving him a look of encouragement as Gregory took a moment to say what he wanted to say. The Ravenclaw thought for a moment. "Hmm, I dunno to be honest. Maybe something to do with shells would be cool though" Conan says with a shrug. He hadn't really considered what he wanted to do once he left Hogwarts, though maybe he should start thinking about it. "How about you? Have you thought of what you wanted to do when you graduate?"

 

[Gregory Friend]

Gregory thought it was interesting that despite Conan's interest in the shells, it wasn't something he had clarity on what he would do. Were there magical jobs with shells, would it be a muggle thing. "Do wizards have jobs that look at shells?" Gregory asked with a curious tone. He didn't know the first thing about wizard jobs. "No, not really, I'm not really good at anything, and I don't have...like...a passion like you do,"

 

[Conan Burke]

Conan shrugged at Gregory's question. "I'm not too sure, probably not. But if it's only a muggle job, that's okay too. It would be nice to experience the muggle world a lot more" Conan said with a smile and nod. Conan felt the muggle world was quite interesting. He hadn't really spent much time in the muggle world if he was being honest, so he knew he'd like to get to know the world a lot more. Conan frowned a little. "I'm sure there's something you're good at. Maybe you just haven't found it yet. Anyways, you have heaps of time to think about what you wanna do once we graduate. We don't need to figure it out right away"