Rumors

[Leia Evans]

Today was not a good day for Leia Evans. Although she had pretty much been laying low at Hogwarts, even managing not to be a focal point of the Gossip Magazine, Leia was still getting slaughtered by rumors and tabloid magazines. The Hufflepuff girl had just received another copy of a magazine in which she and her mother were mentioned, and this time the article was focusing on the eleven year old and her sudden disappearance. She and her mother knew that this would happen sooner or later, that the paparazzi would notice her absence and twist it into something horrible so that it made her famous fashion designer mother look bad again and once again, Leia would get in trouble for it. Thankfully though she was thousands of miles away from her mother, so she couldn't get in trouble.

Leia exited the Great Hall, looking slightly messy and went up to her dorm room to pick up her new acoustic guitar. The Hufflepuff girl grabbed her large purse and put the magazine in there as she headed outdoors, anywhere where she could get away for a little while. Her feet carried her over to the cliffs and since they were off limits she hoped that people wouldn't be there. Leia set down her purse and her guitar case as she picked the magazine up and opened it to read the article thoroughly. She wanted to read it in private because she didn't want anyone to know that her mother was the famous Leonor Evans. She sat on a large rock and rested her elbow on her knee as she read the magazine, dropping her mouth slightly in shock. Apparently there was someone impersonating her online and saying ridiculous things like she was in boarding school and she was going to buy herself a bowling alley for her upcoming birthday!

Leia rolled her eyes at the stupid rumors and shut the magazine, throwing it on the ground by her purse and opened up her guitar case to take her guitar out. She slung the strap around her petite frame and sighed before beginning to play a soothing song she had learned in hopes to calm her nerves down. As Leia sang the song softly, she looked down at her purse, her old cell phone protruding from all the other contents in it. Once she was done playing the song, she reached down and picked up her phone. It was off, of course, since whenever she turned it on it went crazy and starting ringing off the hook and doing weird things due to all the magic that interfered with it, so she could no longer use it. A soft sigh escaped the eleven year old, wishing for a split second, that she wasn't at Hogwarts, just so she could call her mom and tell her to deal with the press right away. The imposter was making her sound like a pompous brat. Buying herself a bowling alley, really?

 

[Kaede Okinawa]

Kaede had been walking around the school grounds, and had eventually found herself at the cliffs. It was one of her favorite place on the campus, and she frequently came there to think through things. Looking off in the distance, she glanced the lake, shimmering under the sun. Another plus to the cliffs was the views. It's winds were refreshing, but it's views were breath taking. She just stood there, basking in the sunlight.

Finally starting to feel a stinging warmth on her pale cheeks, she turned away from it's glaring rays. As she turned around she saw a girl playing guitar. She could faintly make out the notes, but the wind was too loud for her to know exactly. She started to walk forward and noticed Leia, a girl she had met at the beginning of the year. At the moment she didn't look too happy, and Kaede, not wanting to be nosy, but wanting to help, walked up to her. "Hi Leia. Do you remember me?" She smiled at Leia, hoping she remembered their encounter.

 

[Leia Evans]

Leia was about to push the 'On' button of her cell phone in desperation to contact her mother, when she heard someone address her. Startled, she dropped her phone but thankfully it landed in her purse, though the magazine she was reading which talked about her and her mother remained on the floor exposed. Leia breathed a sigh of relief upon realizing who it was and smiled softly. "Yeah, I think I do," she replied to the girls questioning on if she remembered her. "Kaede, right?" Leia asked uncertainly, she hated not being certain about names. "How are you?" she continued in hopes that she did address her correctly.

 

[Kaede Okinawa]

Kaede watched as Leia dropped her phone. "Oh, I'm sorry." Leia smiled and said she remembered her. "Yeah, It's Kaede." She smiled at Leia and spoke softly. "I've been good, I've had a lot of homework but I'm finishing it..." She paused, not sure whether to ask if she was okay. Deciding that the worst that could happen was that Leia would be mad at her, she asked her. "Are you okay?"

 

[Leia Evans]

Leia smiled in reassurance as she waved of Kaede's apology for when she dropped her phone; it was no use to her here anyway. Leia chuckled when Kaede said she'd been good, busy with homework; Leia herself had began slacking on her homework but right now she wasn't worried about that. "You can take a seat here," Leia offered a seat on the large rock as she scooted over to make more room. Leia rested her arm on her guitar that was still strapped over her as she contemplated what she should respond to Kaede. She didn't want anyone to know who her mother was but Leia had to let out her worries to someone. She couldn't exactly say it was just rumors that were getting to her, since she had managed to stay out of that Gossip Magazine around school so she'd have to explain. Leia shook her dark brown locks as she ran a hand through her hair and finally said, "I thought getting away from my home would stop the rumors but it turns out they kinda got worse." It was pretty vague but it still answered Kaede's question.

 

[Kaede Okinawa]

Smiling at Leia, Kaede nodded and sat down next to her. She sat there for a little bit, realizing that Leia might not want to talk about it, at least to her. They hadn't seen eachother for awhile, so she would understand why. Finally, she spoke up. Kaede listened quietly as she said that she thought the rumors would stop when she left, but had gotten worse. She knew full well what that was like. Her sudden disappearance from home would be found out soon, and her parents would be put on the line. Not that they would care, they could just cover it up with money, saying she was staying with a relative. She had no idea what was happening back home, but that's what she assumed had happened. "I know what your talking about, my parents are big back in my country, and they're frequently in the tabloids, a lot of rumors are spread around about us.. But if I was in there at any point recently, it's covered up by now. So I don't know exactly what's wrong, but I know what it feels like to leave something behind and have it come rushing back at you much faster than you thought, and much worse." The same sort of thing had happened with Kaede's memories, so she kind of understood the anxiety that Leia could be feeling.

 

[Leia Evans]

[Sorry for the slow responses, I've been busy. =-/ ]

Leia was quite surprised, to be completely honest, that Kaede could relate to her situation. After the surprise had worn off though, came gratitude - finally someone who knew what it felt like to be talked about by complete strangers and who knew that anything you did affected your entire family, well in Leia's case only she and her mother but nonetheless. The Hufflepuff girl smiled in relief at Kaede as she breathed out, "Wow, I've never met anyone else who knows what it's like."

Still, Leia hadn't quite explained her situation so she bent down and picked up the tabloid magazine off the ground, dusting off the dirt and flipping through the pages until finally she came across the article, leaning in and showing it to Kaede. "That's my mother," she pointed to her picture as an introduction. "She's a famous fashion designer in New York," she explained, the name 'Leonor Evans' in large bold letters underneath the photo. "They usually talk about her in these magazines so we're used to it, but this article is talking about me and my sudden disappearance and apparently, someone is pretending to be me on the internet!" Leia said with a roll of her chocolate colored eyes. She turned to look at Kaede and said, "You know what the internet is right?" with a tone of uncertainty. Leia often forgot that not everyone was raised as a Muggle like she was.

 

[Kaede Okinawa]

She smiled at Leia, she herself had been a little surprised that Leia dealt with the same things Kaede had to a lot of the time. Kaede knew others had the same issues, but she had never met them. "I know, it's the same with me. But, then again, I havn't been allowed out much."

Kaede listened intently as Leia talked about her mother, Leonor Evans. The name was familiar to Kaede, she had seen it somewhere, but she couldn't remember. Her eyes widened as Leia showed her how the paparazzi was making up ridiculous stories about her disappearance and the person on the internet. Who could be so cruel to do that? Don't they know that people don't want, need, or have the time to deal with them? she thought, even though she knew that a lot of the people who did it just wanted fifteen minutes of fame, which was stupid. It ruined a lot of peoples lives. No one should know what happens behind closed doors unless that person wants others to know...well..maybe. There are some things I wish people had known about me.

"Wow, That sounds crazy. What are they saying on the internet about you?" Kaede laughed a little bit at Leia's question about the internet. She knew that some people didn't grow up surrounded by muggles, so they wouldn't know about it, and that was probably why Leia had asked. "Yeah, I know what it is. I'm not allowed to go on it much, but when I do, I play around. But it's kind of sad that something so remarkbly advanced could hurt people so much. Why do people have to take something that makes contacting people so easily and turn it into something that ruins people's lives and reputations? I never quite got that part of it."

 

[Leia Evans]

Leia smiled in gratitude at Kaede, it really was so refreshing and almost like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders now that she found someone else who knew what it was like. She chuckled and rolled her eyes when she asked what they were saying online. "Just weird stuff, like these people have nothing else to do but come up with ridiculous lies about me. They're saying that my mom and I got into a huge fight so she sent me off boarding school in France or something and that I'm also buying myself a bowling alley for my birthday," Leia laughed. She shook her head as she ran a hand through her bangs. "Did you ever have things like this happen to you?" she asked in return, wondering if she had similar tales. Now that Leia had said it out loud to someone it sounded rather funny, but still, someone was impersonating her to sound like a spoiled brat and she didn't like that.

 

[Kaede Okinawa]

Kaede's smile grew friendly as Leia smiled back. It made her happy to see Leia not looking as unhappy as she had just a few seconds ago. Her eyes widened as Leia said some stuff about a bowling alley and france. "They're really saying that stuff about you? Do you know what your Mom will do about it?" She knew that having to deal with all of that had to be tough.

She looked over at Leia when she asked if things had ever happened to her. Not a lot of stuff had happened, but there was one time when she was younger that it got really bad. "Well, when I was eight years old, the paparazzi got over our estate wall. They got pictures of my sisters and I and put them all over the country. Since we were never really allowed out much, they started making up stories about my parents and made up things that made my parents look like they were psychopaths. Parents lock kids in cellars at night, Parents shackle kids to bed posts when they leave. Stuff like that. But it never happened. I don't know why my parents decided to keep us in instead of letting us out, but after that they took us outside the walls for ten minutes a week so people wouldn't make up stories. My Father is the President of the Okinawa Enterprise in Japan, and my families the second in line to the Japanese Imperial family, so anything they can get on us is priceless. Because of all of this though, I made only one other friend besides my two sisters until I came here." Kaede sighed, she wished she had made more friends when she was younger, but her parents had kept her from it.

 

[Leia Evans]

Leia nodded her head somberly when Kaede asked if they had really been saying the things about her online. "Well I wish my phone would work so I could just call my mom and tell her right away to make it stop, but I'll have to owl her instead and that seems like it takes ages," Leia laughed lightly. Owling probably didn't take as long as she imagined, it was probably faster than regular postage as well, but not as fast as a phone call like she wished.

Leia listened to Kaede tell about her own experiences and the Veela girl could only drop her jaw in disbelief. From the sounds of it, Kaede and her sister had it much worse than Leia ever thought she would. That at least she was grateful for. "That's horrible!" the Hufflepuff commented, shaking her head vigorously. "My mom says that as long as we know the truth about us then nothing else matters," Leia stated with a shrug of her shoulders.

She nodded her head quietly in agreement with Kaede's comment about only having one other best friend. "I know how you feel," she agreed. Living in New York where her mother was well known was rather stressful for the eleven year old because people had always wanted to befriend her for free perks, as if they were old enough to get them or something. Even worse was their parents, who tried to force their kids into befriending her so they could get the free perks. Leia was really glad to be away from there where no one knew of her mother and now she could finally find real friends. Turning to Kaede she said, "Sometimes it's really nice to get away from that constant pressure and just be yourself here, isn't it?" Leia rested her hand on her newly purchased guitar, something her mother would never have let her bought if she were back in New York and still living with her.

 

[Kaede Okinawa]

Kaede nodded. Sometimes she wished she could call her sisters as well, but she doubted that her parents would let her talk to them. She was now, the "weirdo" of the family. Besides, her sisters weren't sending her any letters, so they must not really have cared as much about her as they had said. Deep down, Kaede knew this wasn't true, but she couln't find another reason for it.

Her head bobbed slightly as she nodded again as Leia proclaimed it was horrible. It was, indeed. All she had ever wanted was to be able to walk outside without someone bombarding her the whole time. Unfortunatly, that wasn't even a possibility, since she was rarely let out at all. Kaede smiled slightly at Leia's comment. "I can see where that's true. We know the stuff isn't a lie, so why should we get so worked up about what they say? Like, if you defend yourself, it makes it seem even more true. But if you blow it off, less and less people believe it."

"I just wish my parents would have let more kids play with me, then I wouldn't be so nervous all the time." It was true, her parents should have let her play with more than one child outside of the family. "Their excuse was that the kids could just be sent in by the paparazzi with sound recorders under their clothes. I don't totally believe that though. If someone had to resort to a child to get information, I personally think that they really wouldn't be as good as they claim to be."

 

[Leia Evans]

Leia nodded her head enthusiastically when Kaede began saying the same things her mother would say, if you denied a lie, it only made people believe it more, which didn't make sense to Leia, but if you just ignored one completely, people seemed to believe less of it. Perhaps not telling her mother to deal with the rumors of her would be a smarter idea... She supposed her mother would know what to do best in this situation though.

Leia's lips formed a small frown at Kaede admitting that she wished her parents let her play more. "At least you have your siblings?" Leia said hoping to cheer her up with a chuckle. Leia was an only child, well not exactly since she half a half-sister though she never saw her, but still she never had siblings with her to keep her company or someone to relate to. The Hufflepuff shook her head somberly when Kaede said that her parents worried that a child was merely a spy for the paparazzi, living in fear like that must've been tough for them all. "For me it was actually the opposite," Leia said with a light chuckle. "My mother would force children onto me in hopes that I'd be friends with them but they were never good people," she said with a light shrug. In a place as crowded as New York, Leia had always felt completely alone. The Hufflepuff didn't notice herself but subconsciously she shoved people away all the time, never wanting to get too attached because somehow they always ended up disappointing her. Hogwarts had changed her so far for the better so she hoped she wouldn't continue to push people away and instead open herself up to others this time.

 

[Kaede Okinawa]

Kaede smiled slightly when Leia said that at least she had her siblings. She did have them, but sometimes they didn't understand. They were her best friends, but they also didn't have to go through the same things as she had. Ayame was sometimes so engrossed in her studies that she didn't notice Kaede, or Yuki would act selfish and treat her like her parents did. Not that Yuki had the power that her parents did, but she definetly had a bit of their disgust with Kaede. But Yuki was usually good, and so was Ayame. She still loved them with all her heart, but at a certain point, she knew that they didn't totally understand.

Nonetheless, she had always loved to play with them, and be with them, and for that, she was truly greatful. "I do have them, but sometimes they drive me nuts. But that comes with having siblings doesn't it?" Her slight smile became one of Kaede's genuine smiles at the thought of her sisters.

She was struck with disbelief as Leia said her mother had forced children on her. Kaede didn't realize that some parents would do that, but when she thought about it, it did make some sort of sense. If a parent thought their child was lonely, automatically they would want and try to do something to help their child. "She forced them on you? I can see her reasoning but...I don't think you can make friends that way. I think friends just meet you know? That's what I like so much about Hogwarts, it gives me and opportunity to do things without my parents interfering." Kaede gave Leia a friendly smile, and hoped that it would bring up her spirits.