Closed Knotted Remorse

[Emily Madison]

Emily didn't think she could ever show her face in the Gryffindor common room again. The year had barely begun, and she had dragged her house into last place almost singlehandedly. Sure, that kid had shoved Alice first, and Emily didn't even know where the other kid had come from, but she had been the one who had lost control. No matter how much Mum said Emily needed to focus on how she was going to do better in future moving forwards, rather than blaming and hating herself for what had happened, Emily couldn't quite make herself follow that advice. She had lost the control she had spent so many years developing, she had hurt her house, and maybe even scared off her best friend.

So Emily was doing the only thing she could think to do. She had holed up in a corner of the lounge, facing away from the door in the hopes that any angry Gryffindors wouldn't notice her, and was working on an apology present. Emily had made some intricate friendship bracelets before, but she was pulling out all the stops on this one. Beads, tons of different colours, an intricate knotting pattern, even some of the most precious charms and shells Emily had been saving. She hoped making something so nice for Alice would help avoid their friendship being ruined, so Emily was hunched over her work, squinting slightly at the thin strands of floss as she wove them carefully into a bracelet that had to be the best she had ever made.

 

[Elsie Baros]

Elsie was fed up! Not only had Rowan simply refused to listen to reason, she now had to contend with her weirdo sister following her everywhere like a creeper. It wasn't even to do with dancing any, or she would have been making her dance, no, she just kept showing up at random places she wasn't supposed to be. The only reason Elsie had managed to get away from her right now was because she'd gone to talk to the Divination professor about one thing or another and Elsie had somehow managed to sneak away. She hoped she would have a couple of hours to herself before Rowan found her again, though she doubted it. Somehow her sister was eerily good at finding her, she almost thought she'd put a tracker of some sort on her, but she hadn't found anything when she'd looked and neither of them were skilled enough at the minute to use charms for that sort of thing, so she could only assume her sister had... spies. Not that she would know who they are since she mostly kept to herself.​

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The Student Lounge had become something of a safe haven for Elsie in the last couple of weeks. Rowan almost never came in here because she didn't believe that Elsie would like being surrounded by heaps of students and whilst that was generally true, she'd been putting herself in increasingly more wild situations just to get Rowan off her back. She stepped into the Student Lounge and was about to drop her books onto the table when she looked over to the corner to see someone hunched over the table... doing arts and crafts of some sort? It had been a long time since Elsie had done anything crafty, she'd been so busy trying to learn her dances that it hadn't even crossed her mind she might need to continue to cultivate her hobbies. The girl, Elsie wasn't sure who she was from this angle, looked like she was intently focused and Elsie wondered if it was a good idea to interrupt her. There were't many others in the room, surprisingly, but she supposed at this time of the day most would have been outside. Having just come from out there she could definitely say it was a nice day outside.​

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Elsie carefully sat her books to the side and thought about the pros and cons of approaching the girl. She looked like she had plenty of materials, though she couldn't really tell from here what they might've been for. She bit her lip, the girl might've been unfriendly, or intently focused, both of which could end badly for Elsie if she suddenly just walked over there, but she didn't want to stare at her either, because that was weird. This is where Rowan usually came in handy in these types of situations. Though Elsie was generally pretty outgoing around her family, people she didn't know where a different story entirely. It was something she'd slowly been trying to overcome, but she wasn't quite there yet. She kept taking a step towards the girl and then taking a step back. She couldn't make up her mind about what she wanted to do, but she really did want to join the girl, even if she didn't used her materials, she wanted to be with someone else who appreciated the subtleness of artistry in whatever form. Arts and crafts was just as important and amazing as any other art and it liked she appreciated that.​

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Pumping herself up a little more, Elsie made sure she made a bit of noise so she didn't scare the girl as she approached. She'd had that happen to her before and it was not fun at all. "Uhm... I'm... I'm sorry to bother you." She started, hoping she wasn't actually annoying the girl. "Are you making bracelets?" She asked, trying not to seem like she'd been standing in the room for a good five minutes before she'd gotten up the nerve to say anything, it would have been so embarrassing if the girl had known it the whole time and just let her stand there like a fish. "I wondered if... maybe, I could help?" It looked a bit complicated, but she was sure she could pick it up with some instruction.​

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-I'm sorry, I really don't know where all of this came from -​

 

[Emily Madison]

((no worriessss it's good!))

The only way Emily could really chase away her guilt about what had happened was to focus completely on other things, and so every scrap of her attention was dedicated to the bracelet in front of her. So when she heard someone approaching Emily jumped, looking up nervously. For a heart-stopping moment she worried it might be Professor Pendleton dragging her off to be expelled, or that boy she had punched coming after her for revenge. But no, it was a girl she recognised from class, and Emily relaxed slightly, hoping she hadn't heard about the fight. She managed a slightly weak smile when the girl asked if she could help, nodding in agreement as she tried to remember her name. "Oh, sure, you can make one if you like." Emily smiled, trying to inject a cheer that felt false into her voice as she pushed out the chair next to her to invite her classmate to sit. "I'm so sorry, I'm Emily but I've forgotten your name. I'm really bad at remembering them." She smiled apologetically, sliding some colours of floss across the table. "Have you made friendship bracelets before?"

 

[Elsie Baros]

-I'm so sorry, I thought I replied! -

Elsie was glad she didn't seem to have startled the girl, though it could have easily been done. She seemed a little bit distracted by something, if working in a corner on her own was anything to go by of course. But Elsie didn't want to intrude on the girls thoughts anymore than she probably was at the moment. She grinned as she was invited to help and quickly took the seat offered to her. She didn't know much about this girl, never having paid her much attention, but it this was a chance to gain a friend outside of Rowan, well that was always good. She smiled at the girl mentioned she didn't know her name. "That's fair, I wasn't here last year, I transferred back in from Hogwarts Scotland this year, so we probably wouldn't have had a chance." And in first and second year she'd had other things she needed to worry about. "I'm Elsie. Sorry to say I'm not sure of your name either." She returned, not put off in the least that she wasn't aware. After all, neither way Elsie. She shook her head as she looked over at the bits and pieces on the table. "No, not really, but I like arts and crafts, if you'll excuse the phrase." Elsie didn't like the term, but it had been the first thing to pop into her head to describe what the other girl was doing. "Is it something you can instruct me to do, or I could just watch you?"​