Open Shuffling the Cards

Professor Kingsley was happy when Arvel turned and accepted the roll of paper. She didn't know Arvel well, just knew he didn't seem to enjoy her class at all and what she had heard from Jacob, none of it good. But standing in front of the young boy, Cyndi couldn't help but see the similarities to her own son, equally sensitive and impulsive. She allowed him a moment to hopefully compose himself. "Arvel, before I escort you to Professor Pendleton's office, is there anything you'd like to tell me?" She crossed her arms, wondering if he'd be just as resistant as he'd been to any other questions she'd asked him before. "You jinxed another student. This is not something the deputy is going to take lightly" she added, pressing the seriousness of what he'd done. She sighed, not even sure Monty was in his office yet. He might still be at the ball.
 
Tristan was glad Professor Kingsley accepted his offer, and he was also proud of himself for managing not to smile too much when she told off the annoying Slytherin girl. "Thank you, Professor." He told her as she told him he didn't have to return. He nodded at her respectfully, suppressing a grin at her next words. If she really did send word to his Head of House, that could only mean good things for him. What happened was definitely bad for Nixon, but Tristan had come out of it pretty well. As much as he wanted to listen to Arvel getting his punishment, he knew better than to linger. "I'm sure a nurse can fix this in no time." He said to Nixon reassuringly, taking his arm. "Let's go." He said softly, leaving along with the boy. He didn't look behind him at Arvel and Professor Kingsley, as much as he wanted to. He left with Nixon, feeling quite happy about how things turned out for him, even if he also felt bad for his date. He would make sure a nurse saw to him before he left to go back to his dormitory.
 
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Alone with Professor Kingsley, Arvel began to feel sick. But nothing could have prepared him for the stomach-turning question that came next. Professor Pendleton?! Why did he have to go and see the Deputy Head? Couldn't Professor Kingsley just take away a few house points, give him a detention, and send him on his way? Professor Pendleton was never going to listen to him after he'd already told Arvel off for bullying Jacob. This was turning into the worst day of Arvel's life. Worse still, Professor Kingsley was giving him the very opportunity to speak he'd been longing for, and suddenly he couldn't bring himself to explain. It was just too embarrassing. His face crumpled all over again as he shook his head. "Is he going to be okay?" he asked instead, almost choking on the lump in his throat. "I didn't want to hurt him! I just - I wanted him to - know how I feel."
 
Cyndi wasn't surprised when she only got a head shake. For whatever reason, Arvel seemed quite against answering questions she asked of him. She expected that they would simply walk in silence and she'd just begun to turn to do just that when the Hufflepuff teen spoke. The woman nodded. "Yes, I'm sure he'll be fine. I've just never been great at healing spells or I'd have set him to rights myself" she stated quietly. The jinx he had used hadn't been a particularly dangerous one, just one full of inconvenience to the victim in question. Still, it was one that a person used when they had a vendetta against another because it marred the skin. "Come along now" she sighed, turning and beginning to head towards the deputy headmaster. "I'm not sure what you mean by that but surely telling him would have been a better option."
 
Arvel nodded. He hadn't thought a third year jinx could do irreversible damage, but for a moment there he had panicked. As Professor Kingsley turned, Arvel followed her obediently, keeping his gaze lowered. Telling Nixon might have been the better option, if he'd thought Nixon would listen. Or maybe the direct confrontation frightened him. Talking to Nixon about his feelings would have meant admitting to them - something he still wasn't ready to do. But even if he had been ready, he very much doubted talking to Nixon would have been a good idea. The boy obviously didn't care about his feelings. Arvel meant nothing to him. He wiped his face, trying not to guess how many more house points he would lose when they arrived at Professor Pendleton's office.
 
The walk was a quiet one, not that Cyndi much minded. The moments just before had been far more excitement than she had expected when she'd entered the corridor. Finally reaching Professor Pendleton's office, the woman knocked and waited for him to answer. When he did, she gave him a small smile. "Hello Monty. I've brought Arvel here to have a word with you. There was just an incident between him and a couple of Hufflepuffs" she stated, continuing on to explain that Arvel had jinxed another boy and that Sapphire Michaels had been sent to her Head of House. She sighed as she finished. "Sorry to bring this to you just before break. Happy Christmas, by the way" she added, having just remembered she'd been coming to deliver a gift to him. She held out the small box, a wry smile on her face.
 
Given half a chance, Monty would have spent the entire evening secreted in his office, far away from the noise and excitement downstairs. Unfortunately, he had duties as a chaperone to fulfil, and only managed to prise himself away from the ball as it began winding to a close. Exhausted, he let himself into his office and sat down. The quiet made his ears ring. Bliss. But no sooner had he decided his night was over than a knock at the door proved him wrong. He briefly contemplated pretending he wasn't in before resigning himself to getting up and answering to it. His smile to Cyndi vanished as he spotted Arvel, whose puffy eyes and averted gaze left no room to doubt that he had been crying. "Oh. I see," Monty said, his disappointment in the students, especially Arvel, growing as Cyndi went on. He'd hoped not to see the boy in his office again after the incident with Jacob. But even for Arvel, jinxing somebody sounded quite out of character. Monty's eyes widened as he accepted Cyndi's gift. "Oh - goodness. Thank you, that's - that's very thoughtful. Happy Christmas to you, too." He'd yet to buy gifts for anybody, though he intended to. "I'll, er, open it a bit later," he added ruefully. "Right. You'd best come in, Arvel. Thank you, Professor Kingsley."
 
Arvel shifted uncomfortably on his feet, his crime sounding so much worse when it came from Professor Kingsley's mouth. He still couldn't explain why he'd done it. Of course, he knew why he wanted to embarrass Nixon, but he'd been angry for a long time and never before wanted to jinx anybody. He waited awkwardly through some kind of gift exchange, feeling for the second time in ten minutes as if he were spoiling what should have been a happy moment. Then Professor Pendleton invited him in. If he ran in the opposite direction instead, would they chase after him? Would his punishment be more, or less severe? He dragged his feet through the door and over to a chair, where he waited, his heels on the seat and his arms wrapped around his knees, for the Deputy Head to do his worst.
 
As Cyndi turned away, Monty closed the door and made his way back to his desk. Under usual circumstances, he would have asked Arvel to take his feet off the chair, but as the Hufflepuff seemed distressed all Monty did was narrow his eyes. He sat down. The most obvious question seemed to be, why? But Monty couldn't expect Arvel to give such a broad question a specific answer. It just didn't add up. On the surface, Arvel was an exemplary student: good grades, member of the Quidditch team, and, if Monty was remembering correctly, writer for the Hogwarts Monthly. So why did he keep acting out so spitefully? First Jacob, now this. Monty couldn't even guess who the target was this time. Cyndi hadn't said. "So," Monty said. "What's going on, Arvel?"
 
Arvel couldn't talk to Professor Pendleton about Nixon. He couldn't. It was too embarrassing. Yet if he didn't even try to explain himself, he risked the Deputy thinking he was just insolent, obnoxious, a bully. Either way - whether he told the truth, or said nothing - he wasn't walking out of here with both his dignity and his reputation in tact. The question was, which did he care about more?

The Hufflepuff wiped his face on his sleeve. Blinked quickly. Time was running out. He had to make a choice. After a moment, he shrugged. Professor Pendleton would never understand, he decided. Arvel could have told him everything, laid down his vulnerabilities like playing cards, and still lost the game. It wasn't worth it.
 
As Monty had expected, asking Arvel to explain himself only caused him to clam up even further. But not asking would have been like searching for the right keys to unlock a door without first trying the handle. It had to be done. Now that the simplest solution had been tried and failed, Monty could move on. But to what? Without a clue what was upsetting Arvel, Monty didn't know which approach to take. "Hm," he said. "See, from where I'm sitting, it looks as if you lashed out today for no reason or purpose except to humiliate another pupil." The nature of the jinx Arvel had chosen made that clear enough. "If you don't tell me why you did it, I won't be able to understand," he added, less sternly. "And I'd like to understand. Because I can see that you're upset, and I want to help you."
 
Arvel wanted to deny it, but he couldn't, because Professor Pendleton was right. He had lashed out with the intent of humiliating Nixon. He'd wanted to see the boy suffer the way he had. It was an awful, awful way to behave, and had Arvel been able to rewind time and take it back, he surely would have. Then he'd have taken Professor Kingsley's advice. Talked to him. He'd been a coward, acting out to avoid confronting his fears. And now he was paying the price for it. He lifted his hand too late to catch the tears that spilled over. He didn't deserve Professor Pendleton being so nice to him. Not after what happened with Jacob and the mandrake. All of Arvel's simmering feelings bubbled suddenly to the surface. "I just want him to like me," he said, so quietly he wasn't even sure Professor Pendleton would hear. Or at least, he wanted to know why Nixon didn't like him. Was it something Arvel had done wrong? Had he upset him? Been a bad kisser? The truth, no matter how painful, would have been easier to cope with than being ignored.
 
Arvel wasn't making any sense. If he wanted this pupil to like him, why had he tried to hurt and embarrass him? Surely that was counter-intuitive. Unless Monty had heard the Hufflepuff wrong, but he didn't think he had. Was this boy one of his friends? An ex-friend? Somebody he admired and wanted to befriend? How could Monty possibly guess at their history when he had no idea who the boy even was? And even if had known, it wouldn't have made Arvel's behaviour any less puzzling. "I'm sorry, I don't understand," Monty said. Unless... Well, it was unlikely, but he supposed Arvel might have meant that he wanted this boy to like him. But he didn't want to jump to conclusions. "Could you tell me what you mean?"
 
A look of pain crumpled Arvel's face. This was awful. It wasn't even the fact it was about another boy. It was the whole thing. All of it. It was just so embarrassing. He'd barely even talked about his feelings to Analei, let alone to a professor. But keeping it bottled up all this time hadn't helped much either. He'd expected his feelings to fade in time, but nothing had changed. He still wanted to kiss Nixon. To dance with him. And he felt so angry all the time. He didn't want to be angry. He didn't want to want to hurt people. That just wasn't the kind of person he was. Maybe, just maybe, if he talked about it, the feelings would go away. He took a breath. "I thought he liked me. He said he did." That was a lie, but Arvel wasn't telling Professor Pendleton Nixon had kissed him. Kissing someone was as good as telling them you liked them, anyway. His cheeks burned, but he carried on. "Then he just... stopped talking to me. He won't even look at me! It's like I don't exist. And I hate seeing him with other people. It's like there's something wrong with me, like I've done something wrong, but I don't know what - I don't know what I've done!" He tore off some more of the paper roll to wipe his streaming face. He must have looked awful. "I just wanted to get my own back."
 
Monty felt his heart sink. Not just because he felt sorry for the boy, though he certainly did, but because this was an area he had very little experience from which to draw and offer advice. Nobody had ever broken his heart. He'd never given it to anybody. Furthermore, he disagreed strongly with how Arvel had retaliated. It sounded very much to Monty as if he was trying to punish this unnamed boy for not wanting to pursue a relationship with him. The boy didn't owe Arvel anything, and the fact Arvel felt so entitled to his affection almost made Monty angry, in spite of the fact he could relate to feeling different, left out, as if there was something wrong with him.

"Arvel, you do understand that this boy doesn't owe you anything, don't you?" Monty said, only then realising how insensitive he was being. But this was important, too. He spoke calmly, but seriously. "It was incredibly unkind of him to toy with your feelings like that, but... well, people can change their minds. It isn't up to you to decide whether he likes you, or to punish him for seeing somebody else. You had absolutely no right." Only now that Monty had gotten this out of the way did he feel he could offer any sympathy. "You are an intelligent, thoughtful young man - usually. There are all sorts of reasons somebody might not like you, very few of which are a consequence of your personality - or anything about you, for that matter. The possibilities are infinite. Please try not to overthink it. But I will say this: you won't do yourself any favours jinxing people in the school corridors. Do you understand?"
 
Arvel's first response was to frown. Of course he knew Nixon didn't owe him anything! But the more he thought about it, the more he wondered if he really knew that at all. Maybe he did think Nixon owed him something, because of that kiss. Maybe he'd thought that kiss was some kind of promise, and when Nixon had broken it, Arvel had responded with petty indignation. The revelation of his intent was so shocking that he stopped crying. Professor Pendleton was right about one thing. He didn't have any right to decide who Nixon saw. But surely, surely Nixon at least owed him an explanation? The deputy head was almost completely overlooking how horrible Nixon had been, how upset Arvel was, focusing instead on how he shouldn't have retaliated. Everything always seemed to be his fault. He kept quiet, letting the man finish. By the end of his speech, Arvel did feel fractionally better, but he was still angry, hurt, and confused. "Yes, sir," he mumbled into his lap, even though he didn't understand. It was too much to comprehend at once. He just wanted this to be over. "Sorry."
 
Monty wondered whether anything he'd said had actually gone in at all, or if Arvel was simply saying he had because it was what he wanted to hear. He felt a twinge of guilt. He hadn't meant to be so insensitive. He just felt strongly about these things. So when Arvel said he was sorry, Monty said, "So am I. Look, I didn't mean to be so... harsh. What I mean is, I don't want you to feel you can't come and talk to me, or any of your professors, when you're struggling. We do care. I care. You are at an age where your feelings can run away with you, and it's difficult! Confusing." He was no longer speaking from personal experience. "Don't be afraid to speak to somebody you trust. A friend, a teacher - anybody. I do have to remove house points, unfortunately. But only because it's important that you learn a lesson from this. I'm also going to keep you behind for detention tomorrow; you can write me an essay on the appropriate uses of jinxes. You are dismissed - unless there's anything else you'd like to talk about?"
 
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