Closed Not Wasting Trust

[Chase Campbell]

Chase wasn't used to having other kids trust him with.. well, anything really. It was something that was mainly his own fault because he hadn't even tried to make friends back at his old school. He had done the opposite really. Try his best not have anyone hang around him. If he didn't place trust in possible friendships than at least they couldn't break his either. Which was exactly why he had been surprised when Leah had just handed over her scarf to him back in Obsidian Harbour. Not just that but she hadn't asked for it back. Had trusted him to take it home with him and return it to her when they were both at school. He didn't think it was something he would've been able to do himself. Especially since she didn't even know him. Sure, it was only a scarf but an expensive looking one. At least that's what he thought. Which meant that she was either good of trust or there had been something about him that had somehow made her trust him. Either way, he was determined not to break that trust.

His mom hadn't been too pleased at the sight of his face nor the bloody scarf but she had helped him get it clean nonetheless. Had even helped remind him to put it in his trunk, even if he had already placed it on top of his trunk as soon as they had gotten it clean. For someone who didn't care about a lot of things this seemed highly important to him. Chase had tried to pay attention to what house Leah had been sorted in during the ceremony but hadn't managed to get a hold of her after that. Right now though he was on a mission to find her, the scarf safely tucked away into his bag. Finding someone in a castle this size was a difficult task, especially with classes not having begun yet, and after wandering around for what already felt like too long he had climbed his way up the stairs towards the seventh floor and found himself a place at one of the windowsills. If he wasn't going to find her walking around than he might as well stay in one spot and hope for her to pass by. Which, seeing as her common room was nearby, she hopefully would.

 

[Leah Thorne]

Leah had been pleased to hear not one but a few familiar names during the sorting ceremony and had been over the moon to have one of them in the same dorm as her. It felt nice knowing that there were at least some people in this school that knew her name. It gave her a sense of security as she got ready to spend what little time she had before lessons start exploring the castle, just like she had dreamed of doing for months now. The doors to the Gryffindor common room where heavy but she soon found herself in the corridor with what felt like the whole world before her. She had made it a few steps towards the stairs when she noticed a shape sitting in one of the windowsills. She was about to ignore it and go on her way but she hesitated when she realized the same was actually quite familiar. Leah's face turned into a wide grin as she nearly skipped over to him. "Chase!" she said excitedly. "What are you doing here? Can you believe it? We're actually here." The words came out like an avalanche and she did a little spin with her hands wide as if to accentuate the fact that they were here at Hogwarts, at last.

 

[Chase Campbell]

Chase had been watching student after student pass him by, most not even paying any attention to him as they headed wherever they needed to be. Most of them were, unsurprisingly, Gryffindors and he secretely wondered what their common room would be like. He had seen the hufflepuff one, obviously, and for some reason he couldn't help but to feel like he might not belong there. Or maybe he did, he just wasn't sure why. And the common room wasn't specifically to his taste. Even if part of him could appreciate the homeliness of it. After a little while Chase had averted his gaze to the window, looking at the grounds and the students who were doing whatever it was they were doing outside. From all the way up here they looked like ants and he tried to decide whether they could even see him as well. Probably not. He turned his head when he heard his name being called, keen on the prospect of his efforts paying off and him finally being able to leave the corridor he had been in for a while now. "Hey." He replied with the tiniest hint of a grin when he noticed it was actually Leah. "I was waiting on you." Chase added as he started digging through his bag, looking up again when she kept talking. "I guess. I don't see what's so special about being here though." He shrugged at her excitement of being at Hogwarts while he looked for the scarf. In his opinion, there was no way this school was going to be much better than his previous one and so far nothing about Hogwarts had changed that perspective yet. "Got it!" He finally said, perhaps a little too proud, as he pulled the scarf out of bag. It didn't look as smoothly folded as it had been before but he had tried his best to not mess it up too much before he held it out to her. "Here. My mom managed to get the blood out."

 

[Leah Thorne]

Leah gave him an odd look when he said he was waiting for her and started to look through his bag for something. She looked at him dumfounded when he said he didn't know what was special about being here. "What?! How can you even say that?" she lamented, being a little dramatic. "It's better than being at home." she said as if that were obvious. But she guessed some people actually liked being at home. Her home didn't really exist anymore and even if it did her parent's fighting would have made her just as eager to leave. She was really starting to wonder why he had been waiting for her if he was just going to disagree with her, but any other words she was going to say got caught in her throat when he pulled out her scarf. Leah gasped and froze for a moment. Her mother had been upset when she had returned without the scarf and received an nice long lecture about how to take care of expensive things. One that Leah had heard many many times before. "You remembered!" she gushed and reached out to grab the scar and run it through her fingers. There were no traces of blood anywhere. She had practically forgotten all about it, but he hadn't.

 

[Chase Campbell]

Chase shrugged when Leah questioned his feelings about being at school yet what she said afterwards made her question what it was about hogwarts that made her feel like it was better than being at home. He liked being at home. He had freedom, his video games, his mom. Mostly good things, that was for sure. "I don't know, I quite like being at home. I don't care for school, let alone living at school." He replied with another shrug, not quite sure if he was willing to into more explanation than that. He didn't think he needed to when he managed to get the scarf out of his bag though. "Uh, yeah." Chase nodded a little sheepishly at Leah's excitement about him remembering to return her scarf to her. He liked to say it was his mom that had remembered but it wasn't. It had been all him and he was oddly proud of that. "I mean I did promise.." He trailed off a little, wondering if returning the scarf had felt like a much bigger deal to him than it had to Leah. Either way, he had made a promise and he was glad he stuck to it.

 

[Leah Thorne]

Leah shrugged when Chase said he liked being at home. She felt a little embarrassed. Was it normal to want to be at home? She had heard other kids talk about being homesick but that felt like the farthest thing from her mind. She wasn't going to argue with him but she knew that she was much happier at Hogwarts so far. "You did." she said with a nod and grinned at him. "Now I know you are a man of your word." she said in a mockingly serious tone before laughing. "I really do appreciate it. My mom was pretty mad when I told her I lost it." Leah said in a rush. "It will be nice to surprise her with it when I see her. Which....will probably won't be for a while though." She hadn't really considered just how long it would be before she saw her parents again. But she shook the thought away, not wanting to dwell on logistics that made no difference to her.

 

[Chase Campbell]

Chase wasn't sure why Leah seemed far more excited about being at school than she was about being at home. They seemed to be opposites in that matter. To be fair, he felt like they differed in more ways than one. And yet he quite liked being around her. "Mine wasn't too pleased either but that might've just been because of the blood." He responded with a small shrug. Although he wasn't too sure what his mom had found worse: his face or the scarf. She had cooled down quickly when he had explained the situation, but there was no denying she had been stressed about getting the scarf clean. "You could just hand it to her as a christmas gift." Chase offered. "Or are you not going home during the break..?"

 

[Leah Thorne]

Leah quietly vowed that she would make Chase enjoy school. They would be stuck her for the next seven year so they might as well have some fun here. But so far she couldn't really figure out what the boy thought was fun other than tossing that ball around. Which hadn't exactly ended well last time. She laughed when he mentioned his mother wasn't happy. "I guess not. I imagine she was shocked when she saw you." she laughed again thinking of what it might have been like. Her mother was always more disappointed than shocked when she showed up with a bloody knee or elbow. She had never been hit in the face like that so maybe that would be different. She was just about to agree with Chase's suggestion but she faltered when he mentioned not going home. Somehow, without meaning too, he had found the weak spot in her. Holidays and home weren't easy answers and she wasn't sure what to say. "Of course I am." she said quickly and it wasn't exactly a lie. She never considered herself a prideful person or someone who had something to hide but it felt too serious to bring up now. Not when she wanted to be happy about getting the scarf back. "It will make the perfect gift." she added, smiling again.

 

[Chase Campbell]

Chase gave a small shrug when Leah mentioned she imagined his mother would've been shocked when he saw him. It hadn't been too bad, especially since he had managed to clean it up quite a bit before going home, but at the same time it had been a while since his mom had been mad at him. "I reckon, yeah. Although she might've been more worried about the scarf than my nose." He added with the feintest hint of a grin. His mom was used to him getting into dumb little accidents, this one had just been a little bigger than most. "Cool." Chase nodded when Leah responded to his question about heading home, not even noticing how quickly she had been to respond. Had he been paying better attention, he might've found that a little odd. "I hope she'll be glad to have it back." He added. If it were his own mom, he was sure she would be delighted by it, although he wondered if she would be mad about losing it in the first place. Perhaps she would, if she owned any scarf as expensive looking as this one.

 

[Leah Thorne]

Leah gave him a curious look. "Why was she worried about the scarf?" she asked. She didn't say what she really was curious about though. Why the scarf mattered more than his nose? "It's just a piece of fabric after all." she added. She was used to earning a disappointed look from her mother and she was fairly certain she had forgotten about the incident already. Maybe reminding her wasn't the best idea, she wondered. But Leah shook the thought away. Chase's mom had gone through a lot of trouble it seemed, she wasn't going to let that go to waste. "So what were you going to do today?" she asked brightly, not wanting to dwell on the past anymore. They only had so much time before classes started and she wanted to make the most of it, and maybe she could get Chase to loosen up just a little.

 

[Chase Campbell]

Chase shrugged at Leah's question. Perhaps he had said more than he had wanted to but at the same time he felt like she could be trusted. That she wouldn't laugh at him or think he was pitiful like a bunch of kids at one of his old schools had. "Yeah, but like.. it looked expensive. I'm sure it is expensive. I reckon it might've been the thought of having to replace it that worried her." He said, trying to explain without having to actually say the words. Chase didn't care that they never had much money or that most of his clothes were hand me downs. He had always been fine with it. But kids could be mean and that had made him feel like it was better to shut up and build his walls high than to blabber on and blindly trust everyone he came across to be a decent person. "I'm not sure." He replied when Leah asked him a question. "I was going to find you and since this place is massive I didn't exactly plan anything else. Not that I would know what to do around here anyways."