Closed Not Hearing Means Terrible Notes

[Gregory Friend]

Gregory had been opting to sit at the back of his classes, that was out of the way of everyone else. He wasn't going to be picked or picked on. He'd be at the back and out of sight, but it was resulting in his notes being nothing short of terrible. Gregory had never been good at note-taking, but with his partial deafness, it had just made hearing everything difficult. His notes for Astronomy just didn't make sense. He was trying to piece it together, but the stupid broken glasses kept slipping off his nose, which didn't make things any easier for him. Gregory wanted to borrow some notes from someone else, but he didn't want to bother anyone, and he knew people probably thought he was annoying and that would only add to that. But he couldn't make heads or tails of anything that he had written. ​

 

[Cassius Styx]

Cassius Styx wanted to have a good year, but it seemed like that was not going to happen because while going through the corridors, he received a note. It read, 'You and your family are a bunch of inbred pricks, signed GF' Naturally, his mind jumped to the initials. GF. That was Gregory Friend. And this had to be that twerp's handwriting. Cass was seeing red. Rather than think that maybe someone was trying to stir up some trouble, Cass went to seek him out. It did not take long to find the little maggot at the Hufflepuff house table. He received a little bit of a growth spurt over the holidays. Cass had the note in his hand, and walked over to the boy with the broken glasses and slammed the note down in front of him, on top of his notes. "Explain this, you little sh*t." Cass was in a horrid mood, and was not about to let some mudblood Hufflepuff make fun of him or his family.​

 

[Gregory Friend]

Gregory was focused, trying his best to figure out what his notes were saying, that he hadn't heard Cassius walk up to him. He jumped, startled as the note slammed down in front of him. His glasses slipped off his face and he scrambled to grab them before he looked at the note. He frowned, he didn't recognize what it was at all. ”I don't know…I've never seen that before,” he glanced up at Cassius and immediately looked away. He could tell that the other boy was in a foul mood and given that he clearly thought he had written that note, this wasn't going to end well. ”I don't even know what inbred means,” he lied, hoping that Cassius wouldn't catch the lie. Gregory hoped that Cassius would just believe he too dumb to not know what it meant and therefore incapable of writing the note. ​

 

[Cassius Styx]

Cass let go of the note so that Gregory could read what he had wrote before, but noticed how his glasses were ridiculous. Were they permanently broken? This would ruin one of the things he could have done to punish him, but he seemed to be afraid to stare at him. "It has your initials on it. It has to be yours!" Cass could not be convinced otherwise. How else would he explain it? The Slytherin loomed over Gregory and noticed how he even claimed not to know what inbred meant. "You are lying!" Cass reached down to grab the boy by his shirt to lift him up. "You know what it means! Anyone with a brain knows what it means! None of my family members have ever f**ked our cousins!"​

 

[Gregory Friend]

Gregory spotted the initials, but he hadn't written it. ”I can't be the only person in this school with those initials,” he replied, a little desperate. He hadn't written it, but he could tell that Cassius was convinced, utterly convinced that he had. There was likely nothing he could say that would change his mind. Gregory let out a yelp as his shirt was grabbed by Cassius, who seemed to not have a problem lifting him. He shook his head, raising his hands, which shook lightly. ”I didn't write it! I…don't… I…don't think your family does.” Gregory didn't think anyone in Cassius' family did, but it was clearly a sore subject for the boy. He was frantically speaking, knowing this just wasn't going to end well at all but, he knew there was little getting out of it. ”Please, you have to believe me, I didn't write that note,” ​

 

[Cassius Styx]

Cass just could not see reason behind his anger. He was completely irrational, and any sane person would compare hand writing to see who the culprit is in case they were trying to frame poor Gregory Friend. All Cass cared about was making him pay for what he had done. Allegedly. But he maintained his innocence the entire time, even when Cass had him by the shirt with both hands. Oh he could not wait until he was strong enough to only use one hand. "And I don't believe you!" Cass used his strength to slam the Hufflepuff to the table, not caring if his back collided with something. He took one of his hands off of him to ball it into a fist. "10 seconds to prove it before I finish those glasses off." Cass didn't know why he was going to even give him a chance since he could just take his anger out on this boy. He deserved it. He was lower than dirt.​

 

[Gregory Friend]

Gregory begun to squirm in Cassius' tight hold on his shirt. He knew this was going to end terribly, and he had half a mind to try to get out of the shirt and run away. But he couldn't. Gregory yelped loudly as he was slammed into the table, groaning in pain. He didn't have anything to prove that it wasn't him. It was written in an ink he likely had, it didn't seem like his handwriting, but he was sure that Cassius would just say that he had gotten someone else to write it. It had his initials on it. But he had nothing, no way to prove to Cassius that he hadn't written what was on the paper. ”All I have is my word, I promise I didn't,” he spoke with a panicked tone. His glasses were already broken, if Cassius broke them further, his dad would ask questions about what had happened, and he was practically blind without them. This was not how he'd expected this to go, but with his luck, of course this was how it went. ​

 

[Cassius Styx]

Cassius just could not bring himself to believe anything that was coming from Gregory's mouth. He was just a stupid mudblood that wanted to stir up trouble. So, Cass let his anger get the best of him by using violence. He balled his fist back and punched the Hufflepuff straight in the face, aiming to snap those glasses in half like a twig. He finished with that since that was more than enough for now and let go of him. He took a couple of steps back and warned, "Saying something about my family is the number one trigger to piss me off. Don't do it again." Cass started to think about the entire thing. Why would Gregory start something with him? Why would he want to piss him off? None of it was making sense. Cass shook his head and just thought that maybe Gregory wanted the attention. His eyes went to the notes and then the handwriting. Cass let out a groan as he started to walk away from the Hufflepuff table. ​

 

[Gregory Friend]

Gregory had enough foresight to close his eyes as Cassius punched him in the fast. He felt his nose crack painfully, he felt blood on his upper lip and the glasses fell off his face. His head flew back, hitting the table with the momentum of Cassius' hit. But the boy let go. Gregory opened his eyes again, and they were filled with tears. He felt dazed and awful. Blood was pouring out of his nose. He sat up slightly, putting a hand under his nose in an attempt to stem the blood. He gathered the pieces of his smashed glasses, shoving them quickly into his pocket. Gregory could see Cassius walking away, and Gregory did not want to linger much more. He dashed out of the room, ducking around Cassius to leave the great hall as quickly as his legs would and did carry him, praying the whole time that he didn't fall over. ​

 

[Seraphiel Fletcher]

Sera needed a new hobby. None of his attempts to put a D&D group together had worked out, he could hardly practice baking in the Hogwarts' kitchens, and he was terrible on a broom. He had considered joining the conglomerated arts club, but other than writing, he wasn't very good at the creative arts either, and newspapers bored him half to death. At least he had Cass. No matter how adrift he felt in the castle, Cass was always there to keep him company. Sera was looking for him when Gregory came rushing out of the great hall, a hand held up to his bloody nose. Probably tripped over. The kid was clumsy, right? That was what Sera told himself, though it gave him an odd feeling in his stomach.

After a moment, he carried on into the hall. It didn't take him long to find his best friend. "Cass! You OK?" he asked. "Did you see Gregory? He looked like a... a bloody geyser. Someone should give him a couple of corks."

 

[Cassius Styx]

Cass stopped walking when Gregory practically zoomed out of the Great Hall like a mouse on drugs. He groaned as he turned around and went back to the notes that might have been saved from the blood. He found the note and then took one of Gregory's notes so that he could study it. He started to walk back to the exit when his eyes landed on Seraphiel. No one could say that Cass had a thing against Hufflepuffs since his best friend was one. Cass' anger melted away as he reached around to scratch the back of his neck once one of Gregory's notes was in his pocket. "Yeah, just had a little anger management lesson." Cass looked in the direction of where Gregory ran off to, when his eyes went back to Sera asking about Gregory. Cass put his hand on his hip. "Yeah, I did. And I did that to him. Because he wrote this." Cass took out the note that "GF" wrote and handed it over to Seraphiel so that he could read it for himself.​

 

[Seraphiel Fletcher]

Anger management lesson? Sera looked at Cass blankly until he produced a scribbled note signed by Gregory's hand. "What?" he said, reading it twice more to be sure he hadn't misinterpreted the message. Nope. It said exactly what he thought it said. Everyone in the castle seemed to have it out for Cass; and while Sera wouldn't have resorted to violence, it wasn't hard to see why Cass did. "That's messed up. Who does that? I like how he put 'GF', like he's not the only person in our year with those initials. What an idiot. And I used to feel bad for him." He handed the note back. "Maybe... maybe you should just ignore him. He wants you to punch him so you look like the bad guy. I don't know - he shouldn't be allowed to get away with this..."

 

[Cassius Styx]

Cass didn’t think anyone would have written the note other than Gregory Friend, and signed it as such. Then again, he did have a hot temper, and it was so easily ignited. At least Seraphiel seemed to be on his side, and shrugged his shoulders, "I have no idea, so I broke his nose and glasses as retribution. If I were a Hufflepuff, I’d do a lot more in the dorm, but alas." Cass wondered if he could put that idea in Seraphiel’s head about messing with Gregory in places that he could not do. "In a way, I do pity him. He obviously doesn’t have the type of background that we do." Cass just assumed that he was a muggle-born since he came from a place like that, in a muggle town no less. Seraphiel had a point, which made him sigh. "I can’t just… Not react. I don’t know how else to teach him a valuable lesson to not mess with me, or my family. He is a bad luck charm or something since he constantly spills sh*t on me."​