In Another Life

[Satchel Howard]

Satchel had found a new hideout. The Howards weren't the kind of family who were particularly engaged in school life, and so none of his relatives names graced the trophies around the walls. No Howard would set foot in this place, that was certain. He thought some of them might have started looking for their missing cousin, hence the need for rotation in where he escaped during the day. It was lucky that the castle was so big, he could manage to move about with ease, no chance of being caught here. His family life had never been ideal, but things were ten times worse now. His family had always thought that he was one of them, that he felt the same way they did about the world, but he didn't, he never had. The discovery that he was a parselmouth had simply made things worse. They were all so proud and he couldn't explain himself because where would he be then? He loved his family, his siblings, his cousins, and he wished he could change them, but he couldn't. All he could do was try to ensure that they caused as little harm as possible, but at the moment, they were convinced he would be some sort of dark wizard who would bring glory to their name. Nothing was further from what Satchel wanted.

That was what brought the boy to this room, where he sat crouched behind a big case full of trophies doing his reading for potions. Satchel was a peaceable boy, he couldn't fight his family, he couldn't stand against them. All he truly wanted was to have been born in a different family, or a different version of his family. Surely in some alternate world, the Howards were good people.

 

[Maise Verdereau]

"B, I'll see you at dinner, yeah I need to grab something from the trophy room!"

Maise had spent a couple of hours in the trophy room with Brooklyn earlier as they went over some of their homework together. Maise wasn't great at studying and it was even harder when she was pretending not to already know a lot of the stuff. Still, she probably could have been a little less reliant on Brooklyn for her grades, but she knew Brooklyn enjoyed tutoring her. Maise walked into the trophy room and looked around for her missing textbook. She'd thought she'd left it right in the door when she'd rushed out for a quick fly. She didn't get spend as much time with her best friend as she would have liked, but she still managed to make time when they weren't in class. It was just so unfortunate that she was in the complete opposite common room. Making ridiculous amounts of noise as she searched for her textbook, Maise finally noticed that someone was in the trophy room and she immediately stopped moving. She didn't mean to disturb someone! Merlin, she should have checked!

"Oh, oh, I am so sorry. I didn't realise anyone was in here, please forgive me!" She noted that the boy, who looked to be about her age, was studying. She felt bad for having disturbed him, she knew how hard it was to find study time these days with all the chaos in the school, not to mention that poltergeist, always running around and ruining people's quiet time, much like she had just done. "I'm not a poltergeist, I swear."
​

 

[Satchel Howard]

The noise almost faded into the background for Satchel, he was used to noise. Almost. At first he thought it might be one of his cousins, or his siblings. his siblings would've been better, they accepted that he wasn't as expressive as the rest of their family. Sybil would've been the worst. His cousin was like a walking tornado. They were close, but mostly because he felt like a bodyguard for the rest of the world when she was around. Peering around the corner, he saw a girl, who seemed a tad lost. He still held his book, but knew he wouldn't return to his reading until the person was gone.

Eventually, she noticed him, "It's fine, this isn't pressing work, I'm just doing it because I can. Are you looking for something?" Standing he finally got a good look at her. She seemed somewhat familiar, perhaps from the common room. "I've never seen a poltergeist, so I'll have to trust you. It's odd that I haven't actually, they usually live in old houses and almost all of my family have very old houses. Then again, my family are loud enough not to need one." Stepping toward her, it occurred to him that she might appreciate some aid. "Do you need help?" His arms hung awkwardly at his sides as he wondered whether he should just begin searching, though he knew not what for.