Preaching to the Choir

[Tristan Collins]

The holidays were over and it was time for school again. Tristan had been looking forward to returning here the moment he stepped off the train to meet with his parents. It wasn't really their fault, but holidays at home definitely seemed less thrilling when you knew what was waiting for you back at Hogwarts. He wondered if he could talk them into letting him stay at school next year.

But even though he was happy to be back, there also was an uneasy feeling in his stomach as he walked through the corridors. He caught himself scanning everyone's faces as they passed him, looking for that Rory boy, or one of the Howards. He hated that he had to worry about them, though it wasn't like he was scared. At least, not really.

Tristan was itching to talk about this to someone, and even though it was apparently pretty common to have a background like him, he only knew one other muggle born. He entered the Student Lounge, scanning the people around them for the boy he was looking for. He smiled when he saw him. Jerara and Tristan had met in their first year, which felt like ages ago. He remembered how clueless he had been, he had adapted quite well if he said so himself. He wondered if Jerara felt the same way. He approached him, smiling. "Hey Jerara, how are you?" He asked, hoping he wasn't interrupting anything important.

 

[Jerara Tapsell]

Being back at school wasn't something he experienced, since he didn't really leave the school other than for work, but he was glad that now that the term was about to begin again that he would be able to talk to people who'd been gone, but also not have to work most of the time, though he certainly loved his job, he was particularly happy at the prospect of being able to spend more of his time studying the books he'd begun reading. His fascination with curses had not abated, usually after the semester ended, jerara found something else to read and would focus all of his attention upon that, but this semester after defence against the dark arts had really introduced curses and jinxes his intrigue into them had really developed. He wanted nothing more than to learn every aspect about them, but he was struggling slightly, the books in the library grew more and more advanced and though he could read them, it sometimes took a little longer to understand. Certainly, curses and their uses was the current interest of Jerara. He had begun to study in the student lounge, finding that though often it was busier, he was bothered less and people didn't think anything of him, they certainly didn't question just quite the amount of books on curses he had.

Jerara was interrupted from his reading when a voice greeted him, in the first instance he was a little annoyed. He looked up suddenly, intending to glare at whomever it was, but upon seeing Tristan his expression immediately softened, with a smile gracing his lips with ease. He was always happy to see the other boy, they had been in the same boat in first year, now too probably, but just it had felt good to have at least one other person who understood his reluctance and annoyance at the magical world. The lessons they took still didn't take into account that some wouldn't know as much as others, "Good thanks," he replied, "Just doing some reading, how are you? Good break?" the ravenclaw asked, knowing from his time at the school over the break that Tristan had actually gone home. The ravenclaw wondered if it would be smart to close over the book, to not let the other boy know what he was reading about, but he decided it would be fine.
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[Tristan Collins]

Tristan took a seat next to Jerara, looking over at him. "I'm pretty good too, honestly glad to be back." He told him. "My break was fine, but I miss magic when I'm home." He wondered if Jerara felt the same way. "What about yours?" He had enjoyed talking to this boy last year, and he was glad to find he still quite liked to talk to him. Jerara was interesting, Tristan had the feeling they had more in common than just their blood status. "What are you reading?" He asked, deciding to show an interest in what Jerara was doing before he launched into his own story about what happened before the holidays. His eyebrows raised slightly when he looked at the open pages. That looked advanced, and kind of dark. "That's... not second year material, is it? Unless I studied the wrong things last semester." He decided to make it into a joke, reading about things wasn't necessarily harmful, and it actually looked sort of interesting. At least, the few parts he understood. "Are you interested in Defence Against the Dark Arts?" He asked the other boy.

 

[Jerara Tapsell]

The boy smiled at him easily, always happy to see the boy. They hadn't seen each other in a little while but he was perfectly happy to see him again. The Ravenclaw nodded as he replied, slowly closing over his book as he listened to what the other guy was saying, "Not too bad," Jerara replied, "I was working in Honeydukes during the break, it was pretty fun," Jerara told him, though most people would think of that as a bad way to spend the holidays, the ravenclaw had enjoyed it, and it meant he had a tad more pocket money which he could put towards going home briefly at the end of the school year. The ravenclaw looked down at the book that Tristan was looking it, it was a slightly more advanced, not really for his second year level, but it was still a school sanctioned book, it just went more in depth into spells, into what curses were and she was rather happy about it. The Ravenclaw nodded, "It's a book about curses," and at the second part he shrugged, "Not really, but after the class I was left with more questions, I just wanted answers" he used that as an explanation, he just liked reading about it, he was curious, and had plenty of questions. The boy gave a little shrug, "I'm curious about it, it seems like it could be interesting. Especially because the dark arts are usually directed towards muggleborns, there were a while series of wars in the UK where they were specifically targeting muggleborns," Jerara said, the boy had been reading about it, he thought it was good to know what he could be facing. What people like him had to face, like they both had to deal with, "I want to know what I'm up against," Jerara shrugged, he wasn't telling the entire truth about the matter, but it was part of the reason he was so eager to do well in Defence against the dark arts.
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[Tristan Collins]

Tristan was surprised to hear the other boy had a job, though working at Honeydukes didn't seem too bad. "Huh, that's interesting. I just went home and was bored for the entire holidays." Maybe he should get a job. "I wonder if any other stores are hiring, I wouldn't mind doing that." It'd give him some money to spend, as well as an excuse to stay in the magical world during the holidays instead of going back to the dull muggle world.

Jerara's reply about wanting answers made him smile, he had often felt the same way. The smile slipped away when the other boy told him about dark arts being directed at muggleborns, and the wars against their kind. He frowned, it was all too easy to believe. "I have no problem believing that. At the end of last year I got attacked by two pure bloods who found out I was muggleborn. They're in our year, so I'd watch out for them too if I were you. They're twins, the last name is Howard." He sighed. "And right before these past holidays I got into a fight with this other kid, he's older. He called me a mudblood and shoved me." He sounded a bit petulant about it, but it had been completely unprovoked. "Probably would have liked to do more too, but we got interrupted." He smiled a little at the memory. "A girl heard what he said and punched him in the nose." He paused, considering his next words. "I know we shouldn't, but I really wouldn't mind cursing someone like that sometime. You know? I wouldn't really, but ... they would deserve a prank jinx at least."

 

[Jerara Tapsell]

Jerara nodded along with what he was saying, "I can't really afford to go home," he told him as an excuse, it had been a rather sorry affair on Christmas trying to find a location far enough away from magic to make his phone work so he could call home, but the ravenclaw was at the very least happy about work, it had been interesting and the owner of the shop was such a lovely person so he was perfectly happy, "I'll keep an eye out, they're pretty lax about children working," The boy commented though there was little annoyance in his town, almost a tone of relief in being able to help out and work as much as he could. The boy would of course look out for any opportunities that he could suggest to Tristan, he wasn't sure of the boy's financial situation but he knew it was a good thing to have a little disposable cash. He couldn't spend much of it but he still enjoyed have it for when he could use it.

Jerara had wondered what Tristan's reaction to what he was saying would be, if he knew anything about it, or if this was as much news to him as it had been to Jerara when he had first read about it. The ravenclaw easily believed that there were dark wizards who used their magic to target people like him, people like Tristan, just like others only used their words. He didn't expect Tristan to actually start talking about when it happened to him, he shook his head in disbelief, this second war had happened almost fifty years before and it was still such an aspect of the school. To be fair, Jerara had been expecting it, but it was still difficult to hear, "Did he get in trouble? Good on that girl for punching him, he totally deserved it," the boy asked curious about if anything had happened, he was a little concerned about Tristan getting into a fight, feeling a surge of loyalty and desire to protect his friend much like he would if his friend was his brother, "He definitely does, maybe we should plan something?" he suggested, "I can't believe they actually still go by it, who really think they're better just because they're purebloods," he grumbled, shifting the book in front of him, "I probably spend more time in the library trying to understand magic than they do, I bet you do better in classes," he knew it was really hardly a scale, but it still felt so right to say it, he didn't want to say they were better but it would be nice to be treated on equal footing. Jerara looked at his pile of books, "One of these books has to have prank jinxes we could use, if you wanted to try to get him back?"
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[Tristan Collins]

Jerara's honest admission of not being able to afford going home made Tristan pause for a moment. He himself had often been in a similar sitiation growing up. He flashed back to many times he couldn't afford to go on school trips or similar events, he had never admitted to it and always made up an excuse or let his parents call in sick. His respect for Jerara grew, though a part of him wanted to warn him that being this open could make him the target of bullies. But that was silly, surely he knew and maybe he didn't care. Tristan hesitated. "I... I know that feeling, my family doesn't have a lot of money either." He had already been dreading the first person to ask him what he had gotten for Christmas. His parents had tried their best to make it as memorable as they could, but he knew that most of his classmates probably had new stuff they wanted to show off. "I'll definitely look at some shops."

The subject of Jerara's book was interesting to him, and he was glad to have shared his story about what happened. He hadn't told his parents at home, they would just worry and there was nothing they could do anyway. He hadn't even really discussed it with his best friend Vivian too much, since he wouldn't really get it. Not in the way Jerara did. "I'm not sure if he got in trouble, I think Professor Kingsley said she would talk to his Head of House but he got to walk away to the nurse with his hurt nose. I didn't see any punishment." He rolled his eyes. "His nose was totally fine, by the way. He just wanted to get away." The idea of planning something made Tristan pause for a moment before smiling. He normally wasn't the type to get into trouble, but Rory definitely deserved this. There was a mischievous glint in his eye as he looked at Jerara again. "Let's do it." He said eagerly. "Did you see any good ones so far?"

 

[Jerara Tapsell]

Jerara shrugged at him, he didn't really want to go too much into it, he liked Tristan enough to be pretty plainly honest with him about his break, his family had enough money usually but they were muggle and flights were not cheap especially considering how many he needed. It just worked out better to allow him to make a little extra money and stay behind. The boy therefore shrugged at Tristan's own admission, "Flights are expensive, when I can use magical methods to get home it'll be great, I miss the sunshine," he said in agreement. He wasn't overly private about his family's affairs, he didn't bring it up all the time, didn't show off his family's lack of money, but he didn't shy away from it. The ravenclaw just was happy to leave the subject behind and know that he might've helped Tristan about getting a job, or at least looking out for one, "Sometimes you just need to ask," the boy replied with a shrug. There were few other ways of doing it, sometimes they advertised and others he just needed to ask about it.

Jerara was quite surprised that it seemed like the other boy hadn't gotten into trouble, this greatly annoyed him, and he frowned at his friend, "Really?" he asked, not that he didn't believe Tristan more than he didn't believe it. He couldn't believe that someone would actually just let this guy get away with what he had done. Perhaps he had gotten into trouble later, but it was like Jerara or Tristan could see that, so they had no idea whether he had or had not! The boy rolled his eyes in agreement with him, and he was certainly glad the the boy was on board with what he was suggesting, they wanted to ensure perhaps that they didn't get into trouble while targeting the boy no matter how difficult that might end up being. Jerara pulled a book towards him and began flicking through it, "We're limited, the good spells are way beyond our level, the trip jinx is a fairly easy spell, on our level, but it's not really good in any other way than we could trip him up," he pushed the book towards Tristan to look at while pulling a different book towards him, "Third year is where a lot of the good fun jinxes exist, the antler jinx, the fur growing spell, the curse which makes the victim come out in boils, but we couldn't do them, they're a little beyond us," he sighed heavily, frustrated that they couldn't do these far better spells, Jerara knew they could wait to get this revenge but then it would be lost as to why, so he wanted it now.
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[Amber Chou Wilson]

 

[Tristan Collins]

Tristan decided he wasn't going to ask more about the financial situation. It made him uncomfortable to talk about and he sort of regretted saying anything himself. He had just wanted to show Jerara that he wasn't alone. He nodded quietly at the comment about asking, he was going to.

Tristan was glad to share his annoyance at the situation with Jerara. His reaction was very gratifying and Tristan was glad for it. He sort of suspected the boy was getting away with it, and he hated that idea. Tristan smiled and grabbed a book too. "I think you're giving up too early." He told the other boy. "There's a few spells that are still humiliating, and if you think outside the box..." He pointed at two spells in the book. "Look, Rictusempra and Tarantellegra, if we both cast one on him at the same time, imagine how ridiculous he would look." He smirked. "If not we can always do a trip jinx, and make sure he trips face first into something disgusting." Tristan's mind was working fast. "Or we could levitate a cauldron filled with like... frog brains or something and empty it on his head." He laughed. "I can think of a lot, even with limited spells. Revenge is needed here if the school isn't doing anything."

 

[Jerara Tapsell]

Jerara shook his head, he disagreed, thinking he definitely didn't think he was giving up early in terms of spells, but he could agree that the spells that could humilate him. They were certainly good spells, not the ones that he would really opt for, they were casual in nature, they didn't do much beside make someone laugh or dance, but he was looking to harm the boy a little, or perhaps he was thinking about it the wrong, maybe that sort of spell would be better, would be one that they could both do and would be an easy one off. A trip jinx would be equally done, it would be more and they could claim or be able to say they didn't do anything. That would be good, of course not getting into trouble would always be rather favourable. The ravenclaw nodded a little, thinking over what he was saying. He could agree with limited spells they weren't all together limited in what they could do, he wasn't sure what he had been looking for, perhaps his time had been all too spent within these books that he had assumed that they would be doing something like that.

Jerara nodded, "I like the idea of doing trip jinx, maybe with something else," the boy countered with a nod, he liked the idea, and he knew to take a step away from what he was reading they were too young for anything else really, it would be difficult to achieve much else. Jerara smiled at him nodding slightly, "I like the idea of making something tip on to his head more so than having him fall face first, we don't need to get more than paint really? We don't need to do much worse than that," the boy agreed. He didn't think they needed to get frogs brains, if unwilling to go darker with the spell, then it wouldn't make much sense to go much further with what he might fall into. Jerara was sure it would be easy to get what they would need and perhaps it would be just difficult to find him and set this up, but this to him would only take a little watching, "Should we do it?"
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[Tristan Collins]

Tristan was glad to hear Jerara agreed with one of his ideas and had his own ideas to add as well. He was starting to get really excited for this idea, he could almost picture it in his mind. Though Rory's face when it happened was something he couldn't imagine and just had to see. "Paint sounds good." He told the other boy. "Red maybe." He paused. "Or yellow and blue, like our House colors. Not enough to identify us but..." He paused and shook his head. "No, that's stupid. We shouldn't leave any link to us if we can help it. Let's go with red, like the pure blood he loves so much." He grinned, no doubt in his voice. "Yes. Let's do it."

 

[Jerara Tapsell]

Jerara nodded with a little smile, glad that the more subdued version of the plan seemed to be the one they were agreeing on, however, at the suggestion of their house colours he shook his head, "Well, it would also make green, when they mixed together," he told him with a little shrug, remembering that from his art classes, maybe with magic they could stop them from mixing, but that would certainly a far more advanced spell than either of them could really do. He nodded at the logic of the red paint which was better than anything else that they'd come up with, "Now, all we need to do is get red paint and lure him out," the ravenclaw said to his friend, trying to figure out how best to do this, there was no sense in just waiting outside the slytherin common room, and waiting outside the great hall increased their chances of getting caught, maybe there was a way they could do it when there were less people watching and they could hide far more easily, there had to be a way. Maybe it was with quidditch, "Doesn't he play for the team?" Jerara asked, wondering if Tristan was more interested in quidditch than he was to confirm this, "We could get him at a practice, or leaving a practice? The pitch is pretty big we could hide?"
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[Tristan Collins]

Tristan laughed a little when the boy said that their colors would be green together, but red paint would probably still work better. "I'm sure we can find red paint in that art room thing." He told Jerara. "I've never been there, but I'm sure they would have something like that." He hoped so, at least. "Leave it to me, I'll go look there." He figured it was safer to do parts of the plan separately to avoid being caught together. If they were seen together with red paint a few days before Rory got covered in it, it wouldn't be hard to put two and two together. "And yeah, he does play for the team." Tristan said with a nod. "That's a good idea, it's a nice and empty place usually too, aside from Quidditch teams practicing. It would leave less witnesses and make it less likely that we get any paint on the wrong person." He grinned. "This sounds like a plan."

 

[Jerara Tapsell]

Jerara nodded at Tristan, the arts room was rarely used, they would have no idea if someone took a can of paint, people would really be none the wiser, so it would work, they'd get it, and pour it all over the slytherin's head. He nodded at Tristan, trusting him in being able to get the paint from that room. Once they had that, then what was left of the plan was to find out when Slytherin practiced and then pour the paint on top of his head, that would certain show him! Jerara wasn't much of a prankster and he didn't usually do things like this to others, but he was a little tired of the way some of the people in the school treated people like him and Tristan, it wasn't that often, but it was enough that he believed this was definitely merited. Plus, it was a good plan, "It's a good plan!" he agreed with a smile, feeling weirdly excited about it, "We should go now, you can find the paint and I can find out when they practice and we can meet up and talk about when we'll do it?" he suggested, already half putting his books away, keen to just get started on the plan, a strange excitement filling him at the mere thought of it. They would do this, and they would do it well, and it would be funny!
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