Roommates (Ariel)

Lyra was still sad, but more recently she’d just been bored. Bored of doing the same thing over and over again. Bored of not talking to anyone. Bored of missing Jack and missing her parents and missing Lyn. But not bored enough to be Gryffindor brave, shrug it off and pretend everything was totally fine like her brother seemed to be doing at the minute. Because she wasn’t fine and trying to be cheerful would just be a complete waste of time because it would be completely unachievable. So she’d just continued the way she was going, mainly just ignoring everyone, giving the occasional dirty look and doing nothing except going to classes and to get food, in which cases she at least tried to sit alone.

Jack would want her to be happy and all that shit, she knew perfectly well, but Jack wasn’t here to tell her that, or to be any source of comfort. If Jack was here, she wouldn’t even need any sort of comfort, because everything would be fine, and she would be chatting to her friends and writing him letters and looking forward to going back home for the holidays in a few weeks.

After finishing dinner that day, she went straight back up to the common room, walking straight past all the students there to the stairs to the dorms. She didn’t like her dormitory. She supposed there wasn’t anything actually wrong with it except the empty bed that should belong to Nina, the window which she always felt she would fall straight out of on a windy day and having to share a dorm, but Lyra still would prefer to sleep somewhere else. Nonetheless, she spent a lot of time in this room trying to avoid interaction with other people.

She took off her awkward, way-too-long cloak and sat down on her bed. Her mother had sent her a muggle book for her birthday a couple of months ago that she’d forgotten about until recently, so she leant back and started reading that.

Ariel was stuffing her face with food. She was in a remarkably good mood, and it was amazing to feel like that for a change. Her mind was even reeling around pranks. She just needed a few victims now. Would she go with the boring stereotype and hunt down Slytherins, or would she be original and prank anyone, not letting her own attachments get the best of her? Ariel looked over at the Slytherin table. Some of the kids there looked like they needed to be pranked. Aw, stupid, innocent souls, they had bad things to come.

The reason for Ariel's good mood was unknown to her. Sure, of course it had to do with the fact that she and Hunter were bestbuds again, but it was more than that. Maybe she'd just withheld so much energy lately and today was just one of those days? She supposed that was it. She stuffed the last fork into her mouth and grinned, feeling full. Best feeling in the world. She resisted the temptation to belch and rose from the table. She frowned. She should've just belched.

Walking up the stairs to her dormitory, she was ready to relax. She wondered if maybe Lyra would be there. Ariel's good mood took a turn and she grew concerned. She hadn't talked much to Lyra this year, they'd never really been in the same room with time to talk. So a part of her hoped that Lyra would be there, another part, much smaller, hoped she wouldn't. But Ariel had handled Hunter. She was hoping she could somehow bring some comfort to Lyra as well, because they were friends. Ariel was actually really fond of Lyra.

She finally reached the dormitory and opened the door. Lyra was lying on her bed, reading a book. Ariel smiled. Good; she wouldn't be in a hurry then. Ariel closed the door in a not-too-silent fashion, so that she knew Lyra would know she was there. Ariel walked over to her own bed and sat down, flashing Lyra a kind smile. "What's up?" she asked in a tone that gave room for happiness, but also sadness.