Open Where's my money?

[Audrey Beauchamp]

"Well," Audrey started, looking between the two with a shrug. Amodeus seemed so fragile, like a gust of wind would knock him over and fracture him into a heap of snivelling pieces. Audrey's parents abhorred crying. She'd learned she would get no sympathy if she cried, especially not from Quidditch practice, so she had long since stopped. "You're in Gryffindor, so you gotta be a big brave lion, not a scaredy-kitten." Her tone was surprisingly free of malice, even if the words weren't exactly the friendliest. It was more like she was stating a fact. Perhaps being encouraging, in a not especially helpful way. Though, she wondered if she was maybe supposed to say something a little nicer. "Uh, I guess you'll get there one day." Close enough.

Audrey was surprised by the offer as she was making her way out, and turned around, blinking in surprise. In all honesty, she didn't know what to make of it. She tilted her head from one side to the other, looking for all the world like the birds who disliked her, as she weighed it up. "Play a game...?" she repeated. Oz never wanted to do anything with her and Dion, being a few years older, was usually just trying to teach her things like poker or how to duel, or rude words. Sometimes chess, but they both would often bend the rules to try and one-up each other and get yelled at by the pieces, much to their amusement. "Do you mean like cards, or chess, or Quidditch?"

 

[Amodeus Jones]

Amodeus took a big breath, slipping a bit more from behind Teddy. "I won't apologize," He told her, still gripping Teddy's shirt. "Thinking Gryffindors are only one way is stereotypical and mean. I am who I am and I won't apologize for that, and I won't change because I'm not who you want me to be. I know I'm stupid, I don't understand a lot of things and I know that makes it easier for a lot of people to make fun of me. But I love who I am." He took a big breath and gave her a shy smile. "I don't know which game yet." He admitted. "Maybe hide and seek again, or tag, or we could make our own paper airplanes and then throw them or we could play hide and seek," He offered.

 

[Audrey Beauchamp]

Audrey tilted her head, a little surprised to see that the kid had a backbone, but mostly just giving a small snort of laughter at his words. "I don't actually care what you act like and I'm not bothered to make fun of you or anything, I just want to hang out with Teddy," she explained, with a small shrug. "And it's hard to if you're there crying or whatever. My mum always says crying gets you nowhere." Again, her words were stated with as little malice as possible, despite not exactly being friendly. She was confused by the game choices, the paper airplanes sounded the closest to being interesting for trying to work out the best way to get speed and lift on them but she could already tell it just wasn't going to work. "Sounds boring. I'm gonna go do homework." As though that probably wasn't more boring.

 

[Teddy Pirrip]

Teddy watched the interaction unfolding between Audrey and Amodeus. Audrey's characteristic bluntness didn't take him by surprise. What caught him off guard was Amodeus' response, filling Teddy with a sense of pride for his best friend for standing up for himself. Even if it didn'texactly go down smoothly with Audrey, whose words were cutting, Teddy remained proud of Amodeus.

As things stood, it was clear that today wasn't the day for these two to become friends and that it was perhaps time to part ways. Teddy's voice carried encouragement for Amodeus, "You've got it, Amodeus. You never need to apologise for being yourself." He then shifted his attention to Audrey, "Look, we need to head back to the common room. I'll let you know what my dad says." His tone was friendly but also conveyed that it was best to part ways for now.

 

[Amodeus Jones]

Amodeus' shoulders slumped a bit. He struggled with how to respond, and instead he just leant into Teddy. "Alright," He just conceeded, sighing and shutting his eyes. How was Audrey so exhausting? He just shook his head and turned to leave himself, keeping his grip on Teddy's shirt. "What do you want to do?" He asked.