Simple ABCs

[Avie Mitchell]

Being made prefect had been a strange thing, he hadn't known what it was in the beginning, he now knew what it was, but he didn't know how to do it, it meant behaving from what he gathered and the teen had figured that prefects weren't supposed to throw rocks using a slingshot at the younger students, or any passing by students. But, Avie didn't think he was ready to give that up just yet. He liked spending time with Bothie and he liked throwing rocks, he collecting enough that he could spend an entire day throwing rocks at people and still have a very full collection. The teen had however decided that if Styx wanted him to be a prefect then he would be that, he might take a few tries to get it right, but he guessed that was what the book was for. The teen was going to try his best, he was going to give it his relative all, because it wasn't like he was going to stop having fun, if anything he was thinking this meant that people wouldn't be able to try to tell on him if they found out who he was, since he could now dock points.

The boy had the prefect book under his arm as he made his way to the Kitchens, since it was peak breakfast time, and Avie didn't want to sit in that room and struggle through each word of this book currently under his arm. He wandered into the kitchens and sat down on one of the tables, before explaining to the house-elfs that for breakfast today he wanted jelly beans, cold of course. When he got a confused expression back, Avie had launched into a very bad description of what they were until the house-elfs appeared to have gotten what he was saying, he got himself some juice and then sat down at the table, putting the book out in front of him and opening it to the first page, or well, the first page of actual writing, and not all the stuff before it. He then from within his pocket pulled out Rockie and placed him on the table, he took the little guy everywhere, he liked watching it and playing with it, it was his favourite pet. He stared at the book, letting his rock just be beside his glass, the words within it didn't make sense, he couldn't get it, the second word spelt wrong, if it was supposed to be prefect, like on his badge, but it was spelled perfect, "The....prefect....prefect..is.." he was trying, but after stumbling through the first sentence, but he'd only been able to get half the words and the ones he didn't get he'd stumbled in trying pronounce. The teen sighed heavily, and tried again.
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[Esme Lancaster]

The school year had only just started back up and already it was evident that this was going to be a bad year. Esmè didn't need to train her Inner Eye to see that. The Winter Break had it's ups and downs, from staying at Lucien's and meeting his charming cousin to intimidating a boy into cleaning up Ollivanders after he'd made a mess and proceeded to threaten her, then setting him on fire not long after once he thought it was a good idea to try ruin her date. She was having none of it with these new students, but it turned out that they weren't the only problem in the school. Already she had landed a detention and lost house points after being unwillingly caught in a food fight and challenged to a duel by none other than a Gryffindor prefect, of all people. One of those selected to enforce the rules and lead by example had gone and broken the rules simply to irk her. The witch still wanted to crush James Adams under her heel for having the audacity to try and start a fight with someone who didn't want to be there in the first place. If he ever crossed her path again, it'd be the last time he raised a wand to anyone. If that whole fiasco wasn't bad enough, Jakobe, one of the few people she considered a friend in the school, went and kissed her without so much as a warning. Even though she left him with bats created from his own mucus attacking his face, it wasn't enough to satisfy her. He'd betrayed her trust. It felt as if the world was conspiring against her. Everyone was going out of their way to annoy or somehow make her unhappy.

At least she wasn't suffering alone. Her cousin was on probation due to the same awful food fight she was dragged into. But then, so was his mudblood relative, which was always a positive. Positive thinking was what she needed. Aeon told her to try and focus on everything that was going right, rather than what was wrong, but it was difficult. Especially with this dish-washing duty she had to do because of this detention. Despite being at the school for four years, Esmè had never stepped foot in the kitchen. She didn't have a reason to until now. So, as she headed toward the Dungeons following breakfast, being careful to make sure Jake wasn't lurking about, the witch decided to drop in on the room. Turns out, it was less of a room and more of a hall, with a high ceiling and massive stone fireplace burning at the end. She hadn't expected something so grand for a kitchen run by grimy little house elves, nor did she expect to see a familiar face at one of the tables. Avie. The witch smiled, glad to see someone she wasn't having any problems with for a change. Approaching him, she sat down by his side as he sighed. "If it isn't one of my favourite people. How are you doing, Avie? You sound frustrated." Esmè greeted him, casting a curious glance at the book he had in front of him. Hopefully, his troubles didn't revolve around girls and end with him trying to kiss her too.
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[Avie Mitchell]

Avie's frustration only grew as he tried again and again to get the first page, but it just wasn't happening for him. His mind saw the words, but couldn't figure them out, he couldn't do like he'd seen just about everyone else do which was pick up a bit of paper and just know how to say the words and what they meant. The book would've been just as useful to Avie in some obscure and uncommon language as it was to him now in the language that he actually spoke. The teen had taken a small sip of his juice and tried again, using his finger so that he wouldn't lose his place, but the book was complicated, and no matter if his finger was there or not, he didn't know what it meant, it didn't technically help him. The teen just wanted to burn the book, this was so pointless, he knew he should've tried with someone simpler, where the writing was bigger and the words were smaller, but Hogwarts didn't have anything like that on offer for him, by the time you got to Hogwarts there was a presumption that you had basic literacy skills. Avie tried again, he went more slowly, tried to figure out each sound before completing the word. The thing was that Avie knew a lot of the words, or how to say them, but he didn't associate them with something written down, the connection wasn't there.

The teen looked up when someone sat next to him, he felt his cheeks redden slightly until he realised who it was. Esme! "Esme" Avie greeted warmly, giving her a little hug. He looked at her happily as she spoke, calling him one of her favourite people made him smile, he liked Esme a lot, he'd heard different things about it, but she always been nice to him, plus she was Lucien's friend, and if Lucien said someone was okay, he assumed they were okay. The teen looked back at his book and sighed again, as if in response to her question about how things were. He just nodded and then looked between the book and her. He didn't know how to vocalise it, he had never been too bothered about his lack of reading skills until he had really begun trying, the slytherin prefect had always been happy to just go along with what was happening, it didn't matter if he couldn't read but now that he wanted to, it felt like the most impossible thing. He felt utterly stupid, and Avie didn't like feeling like that, even if he probably was, "Why does it say prefect twice?" he pulled the book in front of himself more, and pointed to it, showing Esme, the little animated pet rock moved to the top of the book, seemingly peering at the word too, "And why are the two words spelled differently, this one," he pointed to the one that said prefect, "is right, and the other one is wrong, right?"
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[Esme Lancaster]

Esmè returned her friends small hug, happy to see he was looking better than the previous year. She had felt bad for not spending as much time with him as she would have liked during the previous semester, especially after she had watched him collapse during Defense Against the Dark Arts. It had been scary to see him freak out like that in the middle of class. Her own problems at the time were petty in comparison to what he was dealing with, but she'd been so caught up in them to pay attention to anyone else's needs. She knew it was selfish of her to focus so much on her own issues that she ignored everyone else, but now she wanted to put in the effort for the people she liked and cared about, as limited as that range was. Recently, the range seemed to just narrow further. She'd lost one friend, or more accurately he had disgusted her, but it wasn't a major loss.

The Slytherin witch took a closer look at the book Avie was reading as he showed it to her, unsure of what she was supposed to be looking at until he pointed it out, and even then looked confused. The perfect prefect is... She didn't see anything wrong with it, the sentence made sense to her, until she recalled that the boy wasn't all that great when it came to reading. It was still difficult to understand how another fifteen year old could struggle with a skill that came so easily to everyone else. "Hmm." Esmè hummed in thought, not wanting to jump so quickly to pointing out where Avie was wrong. She made it look as if she had to read the sentence a few times before she got it. "Oh, I see now. They're so similar, but it's the perfect prefect, like how to be the best at it. Who thought it was a good idea to write it like that?" She scoffed as if the author was an idiot and gently patted the animated rock she'd gifted him as she spoke, glad to see Avie still kept it around. "Why are you reading this anyway? I don't think you need any tips on how to be a good prefect." In truth, the witch was actually surprised that he'd received the position, especially considering how Professor Styx didn't seem to particularly like him too much. There was also his struggles with literacy and the fact that his main interests involved rocks. Then again, she thought he was a good person, in an odd way that didn't get on her nerves, and he did earn the most house points during the previous year, so he had to be more competent than she assumed.
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[Avie Mitchell]

Avie looked between Esme and the book as she seemed to attempt to read the page, a part of the teen was grateful that she too seemed to be struggling with what the book was saying, it didn't even occur to the teen that she might just be doing that for his benefit, because as much as he knew not very people struggled like he did with the basics it didn't occur to him how easy this was for everyone else. In his mind the other people in his year were only remotely better at this than he was. He looked at her as she hmm'd and the proceeded to find the problem, none of the words were spelled incorrectly and one actually meant perfect, he looked back at the words, and then remember the word that she was talking about, "Ooooooh," he said as he realised what it meant and his mind came to the realisation about it, the start of the sentence now made sense to him! This was a definite improvement on what he'd been struggling with, but it didn't help with the rest of it, "It is silly," he said to her nodding in agreement, of course his dislike of it was just because of his own struggle to read it.

Pulling the book away from Esme and back towards himself, just as Esme continued speaking, he looked up at her and gave a little shrug, he was trying his best. At that moment, distracting him from both his friend and the book in front of him a house elf appeared next to Avie and handed him a small bowl of jelly beans, he jumped slightly in excitement and stuffed a whole bunch of them in his mouth, not even caring about the many flavours filling his mouth currently, then he offered some to Esme and then also gave one to his little rock even though he knew the rock didn't eat. He looked back at the book and then shrugged at Esme again, "Professor Styx picked me, I want to make him proud," he looked at the book, trying to get further but he was too slow and he would rather have fun with Esme than read the stupid book, "My ma would've been proud of me, and even more so, if I could read this book! But it's so complicated, and the writing is so small," he told her, making her look at the page, pointing to a word, "Is that even english?" he pointed to a word half way down the page, it read necessarily but he had no idea, "It's really boring I think, but I wanna make them proud," he leaned into her, "But, I would rather throw rocks at the house elves," he said quietly with a little smirk.
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[Esme Lancaster]

Esmè shook her head and laughed as as Avie stuffed his face with the jellybeans a house elf had brought him. It was to be expected, whereas the Slytherin witch preferred to take things as a slower pace. When he offered the bowl to her, she thanked him and picked out a few of the yellow ones, fond of the lemon flavour. It was always hard to tell with jellybeans though, sometimes one colour could have a couple of different flavour options, unless it was Bertie Botts in which case you had no way of telling whatsoever. Those were an adventure she did not often like to go through. Esmè put a bean into her mouth and chewed, casting a confused glance down at the animated rock Avie had decided to try feed. According to her cousin, they didn't actually have mouths but it was sort of cute to watch it struggle with the coloured candy.

"I'm not sure it's possible to impress Styx. Have you ever seen the man smile? I fear it would mean the end of times if he did." Esmè deadpanned, flicking an orange jellybean she'd mistaken for a yellow one across the table. It made a soft plink as it rebounded off of a copper pot, before skittering onto the floor. She wasn't going to bother seeing where it went, the house elves could have the job of finding it. She wondered if she could somehow rope them into doing the dishes on her behalf, too. The girl looked back down at the book Avie had, reading once more where his finger pointed to on the page. Necessarily. A word most children could at least read, if not spell correctly. He really was struggling. "If you'd like, Avie, I could always try to help you with reading." With OWLs, Seer lessons, Quidditch and Dueling, the witch didn't have a lot of free time on her hands throughout the year, but she'd make time to help him out, even if it was only a small amount. She couldn't imagine what it was like not being able to read properly. Studying was hard enough as it was, not knowing a handful of the words you were reading would have been a nightmare. "But for now," The witch reached out and gently closed the prefect guide, nodding toward the house elves working in the kitchen. "How many rocks do you have on you?"​

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[Avie Mitchell]

The teen didn't mind sharing his sweets with his rock and Esme, he knew the elves could get more if he asked for them. He had of course in his time with Rockie realised that he couldn't eat, but he didn't want the little guy to be left out when he was enjoying his time with Esme. He looked at his friend with disbelief, he might not have ever seen the man smile, but he didn't think it was impossible, "It's the dungeons," he leaned in and whispered, "The dungeons make people grumpy, but hugs make it better," he told her in a very sure of himself tone, as if that was the definitive truth of why the man didn't seem to smile, "Can there even be an end of times? I thought time couldn't end, I mean, when the clock in the kitchen stopped working, I thought all time had stopped but my aunt said it was impossible," he told her, as if trying to understand what she'd been saying about the end of time, not at all understanding it. The teen just shrugged it away, perhaps it was just one of those things, like the dense thing that Lucien had once talked about or the tree bits that Bothie had talked about.

At Esme's offer, he shook his head, but then light leaned it against her shoulder, smiling slightly, "It's okay Esme," he spoke with a smile clear in his tone, "It would be too difficult, you have your own work," he told her, since Avie truly believed that he was too difficult to teach at this point, that there was no use trying to tell him anything, that it simply just wasn't as possible as people seemed to all think it was. Avie's aunt had tried and failed, he'd tried to learn and failed, Ciro had tried and failed. He had to do this himself, he couldn't put that kind of burden on his friend, especially not Esme, "I can do this," he sat back up and watched as she closed over the book, he had been about to tell her that he needed it, when she nodded towards the house elves and then asked him how many rocks he had in his pocket. He grinned at this, excitedly, before reaching into his pocket and pulling out a handful of small rocks and placing them on the table they were sitting at, "I always have plenty," he told her, the rocks were pretty small, nothing too substantial but enough to cause pain. He turned slightly in his seat, taking one of the rocks and then aimed it directly at a house elf, "Ten points if you hit one, twenty if you get in the food," he said, when the rock hit one of the elves before erupting into laughter.
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[Esme Lancaster]

Esmè almost choked on her food when Avie told her he thought time had stopped when he saw a broken clock, and had to pause in her chewing. It sounded ridiculous, but when she really thought about it, it wouldn't have been too difficult to believe as a possibility. She was aware that Time existed as a branch of magic, but there was little about it that anyone knew about. Wizardkind was capable of traveling backwards in time by a few hours, that much was known and studied, but was it possible to stop time itself? With time travel being a capability they had, it wasn't too hard to believe. Halting time was probably not ideal to begin with, especially if it affected everything, or wasn't able to be resumed. It was almost scary to think about. Their existences frozen in a fixed point, unable to move forward or back. The witch pushed away the thought. Time was too confusing.

Though Esmè did want to help Avie out, she decided against arguing it with him when he declined her offer to aid with his literacy skills. "I believe in you." She told him, looking down her shoulder to return his smile when he leaned against her. When he turned out to be keen on the idea of throwing rocks at elves, her smile grew wider and she watched as he managed to clonk one on its bald little head. "Very nice aim. I think you would make an alright chaser." She laughed and took one of the pebbles from the table. With careful aim, she let it loose toward the stove. The small rock clinked against the rim of a copper pot, bubbling with a thick, soupy liquid, and dropped inside with a faint plop. "Twenty to me. Let's see if you can get it in that dough over there. Might end up chipping someones tooth if it gets baked inside." As long as it wasn't her eating rocks, she was happy for it to happen to other people. However, she knew she would have to double check her food from now on. Just in case.
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[Avie Mitchell]

Avie smiled at her words, he believed in him too, and he really didn't want to force his friend into doing something that most people failed at, so he wasn't going to make her do anything she didn't particularly want to. Instead he focused on the rock throwing, something he could do really well, at her words he just shook his head, "No," despite the rock hitting the house elf on his bald head, and causing laughter to erupt from the teen, he had no interest in being a chaser, "I like catching the shiny object," he told her grinning, "I'll leave the chasing to you and Lucien," he told her. Watching with interest as she threw one of the rocks and managed to get it in the liquid within the pot. He laughed happily at this, clapping a little in his excitement, this was just so much better than studying, or trying to read. He got so bored of those things, he didn't get bored of these things.

At her challenge he just nodded, and took one of the rocks from his small pile, "I hope that one of the professor's chips their teeth, just not Professor Styx," and this wasn't because he was scared of the man, because he loved him and didn't want him getting hurt. But, without saying anything else he carefully aimed and then threw it, despite Avie's problems in most things, apparently he didn't have a problem with aiming rocks, almost like he'd done it a hundred times over, and the rock glided in the air before reaching the dough with ease. He exclaimed happily in celebration, clapping to himself, "So, I have ten points already, and I get twenty more," he began counting up with his fingers what this might be, until he reached the total, "Thirty!" Avie grinned happily, grabbing a few of the jellybeans, and then trying to decide what Esme might have to do, "Try hitting two, so it bounces on one and then hits another," he told her, waiting for her to do it. He wished that Bothizar was here with his slingshot, that way the could cause a little more pain, plus he was sure that Bothizar would really enjoy it.
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