After the Feast (7th Year Girls' Dorm) on Pecari Commons

Theresa Carey

March 22, 2014 8:15 PM

After the Feast (7th Year Girls' Dorm) by Theresa Carey

Theresa tried, very hard, to control her anger, to master her emotions instead of letting her emotions master her, but she was not very good at it at all, and when the Feast ended, she still wanted to throw something very hard. Her head was buzzing with snappy replies she could have made to Jorge and just hadn’t thought of at the time, and she wasn’t sure who was frustrating her more, herself or that…that…that…utter man!

Men, after all, Didn’t Get It. It was why the grown women, and even the older girls, had to stick together, because men just Didn’t Get It. They were constrained by some rules, but not nearly as many as women were, so they had no idea what it was like. Dad, maybe, understood a little – he said he was as much of a smiling liar as she was; Theresa wasn’t sure if she should take that to mean he was as bad at being one as she was, or that he was good at it and he was fond enough of her, and ignorant enough about her daily life, to think she must be, too, but the idea was there – but men in general? Men like Jorge? He could do what he liked, almost, which was why he could jump on the moral high horse. The rest of them were walking in the road and did what they had to do.

Besides, she had not even done anything very wrong. She had just found someone she liked, and who liked her, and made the best she could out of that. It was not like she was just out there, playing for nothing but advantage. Of course she thought of it, how should she not, but it had not been all that, not in the beginning, not now. She would marry Cepheus and they would be perfectly happy and have no more than three children who would have a nanny, or she’d be hanged. How dare he, try to put thoughts in her head and act as though she were a fool, or a hussy, or – or – she didn’t even know what – just for doing the only thing she knew how to do, which was better than any of the alternatives she’d even heard about anyway!

Thinking ruffled her temper further, until she was nearly stomping by the time she got back to the dorms in Pecari. She threw herself on her bed and as soon as she saw Jade, said, “Jade, I don’t know what you let get into Jorge over the summer, but you need to hex it out of him again before I tell my brothers to do it for you!”

That, it occurred to her a moment later, was probably not the way to start – she would have been angry if one of them had just greeted her that way, much less threatened Cepheus at the same time. “I’m sorry,” she added immediately. “I didn't mean that. But he made me so angry, and insulted me, and – and he shouldn’t have done that,” she finished, a little lamely.

0 Theresa Carey After the Feast (7th Year Girls' Dorm) 219 Theresa Carey 1 5

Jade Owen

March 23, 2014 3:33 PM

Raise your Glass in Toast by Jade Owen

Having passed along the good news to Rup, Jade strode back up to her dormitory, taking the stairs two at a time easily with her long legs, with the intention of penning the Quidditch sign-up sheet in order to get it up that same evening. However, she was greeted by a disgruntled roommate upon her return. Far from being offended by the ultimatum T Carey instructed, Jade simply laughed in response, and waved off the other girl's apology. "No, he shouldn't have done that," she agreed good-naturedly, sitting on her own bed and pulling off her boots.

By the manner in which she had sprawled on her mattress - not at all her trying-to-hard-to-be-a-lady self - Jade would guess that Theresa was still flustered by her conversation with Jorge at the feast. Jade hadn't been sitting close enough to know exactly what had been said, but if it had been anything like her conversation - for want of a better word - with him following the concert, then she could well enough guess what had been exchanged between the two of them. She wanted to tell T to ignore him, to not let his comments get to her, but even Jade had allowed the treacherous gnome (she used the term affectionately) to get under her skin and ruffle her proverbial feathers.

"And while I certainly don't mind hexing him into next week," she said, conversationally, as she lifted her legs up on the bed (she had initially been planning to cross them under her, but then discovered that her jeans were too tight to allow such a position, so she stretched them out in front of her, instead), "I don't see how his ignorance has got anything to do with me."

Theresa had said 'what you let get into Jorge over the summer', as if Jade were his keeper, or in some other way responsible for the perpetually grouchy Mr Garcia. "I didn't talk to him at all over the summer," she clarified, and that wasn't a new development: she had never corresponded with Jorge (or any of her other classmates for that matter) over the school holidays. Her parents' owl was not up to flying long distances, and Jade was hardly prone to writing letters, anyway.

0 Jade Owen Raise your Glass in Toast 221 Jade Owen 0 5

Theresa

March 23, 2014 5:45 PM

But I don't want to get into that much toast by Theresa

Theresa was not sure what to make of the way Jade took her outburst and then her apology. On one hand, she was laughing, which meant she might be laughing at Theresa, but on the other, she wasn’t hexing Theresa or automatically taking Jorge’s side. That was a definite mark in her favor, especially the not-hexing-Theresa part.

She frowned, though, a little confused, when Jade asked why Jorge’s behavior was her business, then explained she hadn’t talked to him all summer. “Oh. I thought he was yours. Well, you’re better off without him. The way he talked to me!” Her face burned again at the memory. “I was just trying to be nice, just trying to make conversation, and out of nowhere, he starts insulting my family, he insulted my father, he called me an idiot, he called me a - !”

She cut herself off before she said the last thing she was thinking of, not least because she just did not want that associated with her, but also because she was sure he hadn’t had the nerve to just outright say it. Even someone with no manners presumably knew better, if he’d been in the wizarding world more than a week, than to say that to a Carey girl. Jay didn’t seem to care about her as much as a brother should, he was more interested in supervising their younger brothers and had always left her to Arthur to manage, but there were some insults surely even he wouldn’t put up with. Surely!

“He called me every kind of bad person you can think of, and I didn’t even do anything!” she ranted on, barely thrown off by her interruption to herself. “And he’s a total hypocrite, he started out talking about how life’s just awful, and then I agreed, and then he said it’s all because I respect my elders. I’ll bet you I’m happier than he is in a year, I bet you! He’s going to grow old all alone and nobody’s going to care because he’s awful and nobody will ever like him.”

Theresa realized she had stood up while she was talking, gesturing broadly with her hands, and sat down again, crossing her arms even though she knew it must make her look like she was sulking, instead of just stating simple facts. Oh, when, when, when would she ever learn to fully and properly control her temper?

0 Theresa But I don't want to get into that much toast 0 Theresa 0 5

Jade

March 25, 2014 3:30 PM

Then just raise your glass to your lips? by Jade

Jade blinked. She supposed she oughtn't be surprised by Theresa's admission that she thought she and Jorge were a couple, considering this misinformation had been printed in the yearbook, and the votes had to have come from somewhere. Although Jade had never consciously given the impression that she was in any way involved with Jorge, even her own roommates had gotten the wrong idea. Already having dealt with the revelation at the concert and over the summer, she let the comment pass (though if she were going to express any thoughts at all on T's revelation, it would be the use of the term 'yours' ... it was so possessive, and didn't sit well with Jade. But that was a different matter entirely).

Jade allowed Theresa to continue, to say what she obviously needed to get off her chest, and she realised that she wasn't really surprised to hear any of it. She whether that spoke more about her, or about Jorge. He didn't mean to come off as offensive, she was fairly sure of that, he just didn't really have his brain connected to his mouth the same way as normal people.

She wasn't sure what Theresa wanted her to say - whether she was looking for comfort, or closure, or retribution - so Jade just shrugged and nodded as was appropriate. She did think T needed to calm down a little, though (not just because highly strung people gave Jade a headache), so she offered what she could. "He's a complete toad," Jade began, spoken as a reassurance that she took her roommate's story at face value, "and a hypocrite," she added as an after-thought, because that had been the one solid point Theresa had made, and Jade had to agree with her there, too, "but he probably didn't mean to offend you."

Then, acknowledging that this might sound like she was trying to defend Jorge, she raised her hands, palms facing outwards, and quickly added, "Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I agree with him, Merlin knows he spouts complete garbage from time to time, but he's, well, a guy." She shrugged again and left it at that. As for the rest of it, Theresa was widely accepted to be very pretty, and she'd managed to get Cepheus to cancel his betrothal or whatever for her, and she didn't have Jorge's grumpy disposition, so yes, she probably was going to be happier than him in a year. Jade wouldn't argue that point. As for Jorge ending up old and alone because nobody would ever like him... if he kept picking arguments the way he seemed to be doing recently then there was a chance that might happen.

0 Jade Then just raise your glass to your lips? 0 Jade 0 5

Theresa

March 31, 2014 12:29 AM

While not standing in a bucket of toast by Theresa

Theresa was not impressed with Jade’s argument for Jorge not intending any offense. “I’m pretty sure there’s things even being a guy doesn’t account for,” she said.

She fell back on her bed, putting the backs of her hands against her forehead and allowing her wrists to slant over her eyes. He had said she was better than ‘all this,’ at one point, anyway. She supposed that part could have been a political thing, somehow; she knew some people thought life in the family, the way they did things, was all wrong. Admittedly, sometimes she thought it too; she had gotten in the middle of what would have otherwise been a marriage. But that hadn’t been what the conversation was about at all. Jorge had been going on about her not being a nice person, which had nothing to do with the other, and was particularly grating from someone with no friends, now that Jade seemed to have abandoned him, and who didn’t even know her, anyway. No, he was just awful.

“I’m sorry I was so shrill, though,” she said, not moving her hands away from her face or sitting up. “It’s not your fault I’m too stupid to realize people nobody talks to are probably people nobody talks to for a good reason. I can’t believe you talked to him as long as you did.” Poor Jade. It was too late for her, probably, to find a better investment. Theresa wasn’t even sure there was one available, unless Jade wanted to marry Henry or something, and Theresa was pretty sure she wouldn’t even if the family would agree. “Was the rest of your summer as good as not having to talk to him implies?” she asked, since she hadn’t talked to Jade all summer, either. She wasn’t much of a letter-writer, and they didn't attend the same parties.

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