Closed Fury and Perspective

[Hayley Elridge]

Hayley had resolved to draw more from life, to get the hang of the skills for more realistic art, and to keep herself out of her head and away from her thoughts. Life wasn't often as badass as her drawings from her imagination, especially since she couldn't draw Lizzie any more, but she did live in a castle, so it certainly wasn't boring, either. And Hayley really needed to concentrate on good things, like art, and friends, and not think about her hurt over Lizzie, or her anger. At the moment she was even pushing thoughts of revolution away, because all of those paths led back to Lizzie, and how foolish she'd been, and how betrayed she felt.

So it was that Hayley found herself leaning on the bannister over the great stairwell on a dull drizzly day, practicing perspective. The staircases produced unusual angles and dramatic shadows that were an interesting challenge to draw, even if it was rather frustrating when they moved just as she had them where she wanted them. As the sketch slowly took shape, first rough guiding lines, then firmer outlines, then shading, Hayley lost track of time and stopped paying any notice to the other students bustling on the stairs, or passing behind her.

 

[Gwen Owens-Lee]

Gwen's year so far had been great and definitely a step up from the past two years. She had finally made it into the Gryffindor Quidditch Team, even though she was only an alternate player. It was definitely better than nothing, especially considering Quidditch proved to be more difficult than expected. She wanted to be a professional player one day, just like her cousin, and was determined to prove to the team that she was worthy of a full position. For now, Gwen just had to try her best on top of all of the classes she had to take this semester. With the addition of electives, it would be hard, but she was confident enough in her abilities.

Unfortunately, the day did not seem well enough for Gwen to go out and practice. Flying in the rain would definitely be difficult, and without the experience, Gwen thought it would be best to save practising for another day. Instead, Gwen decided she would roam around the castle during her free time, trying to find something to distract herself from the assignments that were beginning to pile up. As she exited the common room and began walking down the corridor she noticed an older girl drawing something out of the corner of her eye. She almost thought nothing of it until she suddenly recognised her face. The Gryffindor felt anger rise up in her. It was the girl who pitched the idea of a revolution, worsening Gwen's time at the school, and Gwen could not help herself. She made her way over there, her hot and angry face almost matching the shade of her red hair. "You!" she exclaimed, pointing a finger right at the older girl. "Is this what you do now? Gonna show your pretty drawing of the wizarding world to your muggle friends? You should be ashamed of yourself." Gwen stood back, folding her arms across her chest. It took a lot for the girl to not throw any punches.

 

[Hayley Elridge]

Hayley was paying rapt attention to her drawing, leaning close to the page to get the precise angle she wanted to shade the shadows of the staircases, peering down the stairwell below to see what she was trying to draw. She added in a few rough figures of students on the stairs down below, mostly for scale. It came entirely as a surprise when someone started yelling at her.

Hayley jumped and looked around, scowling. As the words registered, her anger came surging up, fiery as ever. Hayley was used to people randomly accosting her to argue about the revolution by now, but never before had they insulted her art. That hurt, and it made her even more angry that it did. “Hey! What the f***? This has always been what I do, b**ch. I’ve been drawing sh*t since way before all this!” Past her initial reaction, Hayley actually looked at the girl, and realised she was younger than she would have expected, and not someone Hayley recognised.

 

[Gwen Owens-Lee]

Gwen rolled her eyes as foul language came out of the girl's mouth. People from the Muggle world were never usually nice people from Gwen's experience and so this did not surprise her. "You should watch your mouth." she told her sharply, narrowing her eyes at her. She had always been taught not to use that kind of language and she was not going to be called a b**ch by someone who barely knew her. The Slythern was older than her and should have known better. It was a wonder how she thought she could start a successful revolution with such poor attitude. "Think before you speak. You're not much of a leader with that kind of language. Your stupid idea of breaking the statue of secrecy... how could you even think that's an option? I hope you rot in hell." Gwen spoke the last part clearly, hoping her words managed to make sense to the girl. The Slytherin should have given up ages ago and Gwen refused to let her get away with it, especially after it made Gwen's first year at Hogwarts one of the worst years of her life.

 

[Hayley Elridge]

Hayley scowled. "Don't tell me what to do. You insult me, I swear as much as I want." In hindsight, her reaction had maybe been a little extreme, but Hayley wasn't about to back down now - or ever. Her foul mouth had always served her well in making her seem hostile to authority figures and people whose opinions she didn't want anyway. "I know when to moderate my language," she said, uncertain of why she was even bothering to defend that part. "It's not when some random comes up specifically to be rude." Hayley closed her sketchbook with a snap, and folded her arms across it, trying to make the gesture look tough rather than protective. Clearly she wouldn't get any more drawing done here. "If you've got any kind of valid reason why breaking the Statute isn't an option, I'd be interested to know. If you're just here to insult me like a dumb reactionary, get the f*** out of my face." There were, Hayley knew, reasonable criticisms of her ideas, which she was prepared to listen to, some of which she was still trying to figure out how to take account of in her vision. There were also a**holes who just wanted to keep their prejudices intact and cling to the status quo. On the barest offchance that this was one of the former, unlikely though it was from her attitude (October had been pretty combatative, too, and she'd had some good points), Hayley was prepared to stick around a little longer.