Facepalming and Shit (Miranda)

British winters had nothing on Russia. Those snowings were far more powerful. DamnyouRussia. With a school camera hanging from his neck, Alek found himself standing at somewhere along the bridges. Or at least he thought he was near the bridges. He wasn't exactly sure. The nice Ravenclaw from the newspaper had sent him on a mission to take any interesting pictures of the day's event and record the stories. "Well, the thing about this is that nothing interesting has happened!" he told himself as he walked down a couple of rock steps. Everything was so quiet! The only picture he had gotten so far was of a Fourth Year Hufflepuff girl who had somehow managed to get stuck somewhere between the the two massive refrigerators in the Kitchens and couldn't get herself out.

Alek wore his brand new Slytherin scarf, which he wore proudly regardless of having no idea what Slytherin meant. Maybe it was just another English word he should have learned but didn't. The grass had at some point been green and beautiful, but now it was covered in snow and Alek loved the way his footprints marked on the white and fluffly ground. Reaching the edge of what he now knew was a bridge, just as he'd thought he realized there was another path of footprint coming from a different angle, but leading to the same place: the covered bridge. Looking up, he saw a girl. Damn, Britain was full of them! Not that he minded, of course, but still. Where was manly Britain? He liked the way she looked in that moment, just simply leaning over the railing and looking off into whatever dimension she was in at that moment. Without thinking about it, his fingers pulled the camera to his face, and as he focused the lens and looked through the viewfinder to make sure he got her just right, his pale fingers pressed the shutter.

Taking out his little journal, he wrote in his best handwriting - because apparently the nice Ravenclaw couldn't read his normal handwriting - [i]Hogwarts, a place where beautiful girls come to show off or an actual school for wizards around the world?[i] It was too long for a title, but he had to get his point across. Besides, he had already told everyone in the newspaper shit that he didn't write. Alek wasn't a writer and should not be trusted because of his poor English. Well, what was done was done. After taking the picture, he figured it was only fair to get the girl's name. And age, in case she was one of those early bloomers who developed way too early and ended up looking like 16 year olds when they were really barely 13. Putting his best smile on, the one he used when he liked a girl, he made up his mind on what he would say to her. Obviously, telling her he took the picture would be creepy. So that was out. Of course, he could lie. "Hello!" he greeted her happily.

"You wouldn't happen to know where the owl place is, would you?" he asked as he reached her. Faking ignorance on where something was usually led to the girl showing him where he 'needed' to be. What is it called, again? Damn, he couldn't remember the English word for it. Between moments of self doubt and worry, his accent became thicker.

It was one of those days. One if those days where Miranda wanted to be cut off from the world. Ok. She normally felt like that, but today, she especially felt like it. It had been exactly six months since the Accident, and today she felt fucking alone. All fucking alone. Nobody understood what was going on. Nobody could relate to her. So it was then that she was standing on the bridge looking down into the murky water just reminiscing on the good times she had at Salem.

She remembered the parties. The magical glowing parties that she would throw for her girls. And Quidditch. She missed Quidditch the most. But it didn't look like anybody was interested here, which was fucking sad. America was all about quidditch. Her entire house at Salem participated in some way. Whether it was being the water girl, cheerleaders, or players, everybody was involved.

She was the seeker in her house. She could almost feel herself catching the golden snitch after every single one of her games. She usually won. She looked at her reflection and threw a rock down, making the water ripple and dissolve the reflection she couldn't bear to look at. She missed home so much. She suddenly got the feeling she was being watched. And she heard a click. Like somebody was taking a picture. She turned all the way around before seeing the fucking boy standing right there. She ignored his question about the owl place, because honestly, she had know fucking clue either.

She asked, " why did you fucking take a picture of me? You fucking weirdo."

She hoped this kid didn't use his pictures to fantasize. She shivered a little bit getting a tad creeped out. She said, " the second that gets printed, you better fucking delete it or I'll hunt you down."

Yeah, so this whole changing for the better thing wasn't working out very well for her. And honestly, Miranda didn't fucking care at that moment.

Okay, that backfired. Taking a step back, Alek smiled. “I am weird, thank you for noticing.” Quickly searching for a lie, he focused on her face and recognized it. She was a transfer student, the one they had pictures of the new students all over the place in the newsroom. Or whatever it was called. They were planning on interviewing them, apparently, ask them what they thought about the school. Still grinning, he said, “I work for the school newspaper. The one nobody reads.” He flashed his little notebook of notes. There were more doodles than words, but at least he had something in it.

“We interviewing the Transfer Students.” He said, trying to sound as normal as he could, his accent probably giving his foreign nature away. Then he realized, he forgot the ‘are’. Damn it. Stupid Russian. Stupid English. He should have been French. Or German. Yes, he should speak German. Or maybe Spanish. Something easy. Shrugging, he said, “Sorry, lady. Can’t delete it. You can have it if it gets printed.” He left out the part about not really being the one who’d print the picture, if they did interview the students like they planned. “You can burn your own picture if you want.” Yeah, let’s see how she’d like to see her own face burning in a pit of fire.

Paper? A school paper meant attention. Attention that she didn't want anybody to fucking know. She looked at the kid like he was stupid. Because, he fucking was. She said, "I don't want to be in the fucking paper. And last I heard, there are plenty of fucking transfer students, so interview one of them." She looked down and said, "I'm not in the fucking mood." She looked up at him when he said she could burn the picture himself. Was he that fucking cruel? Maybe he didn't mean it in that way. Such a terrible way. She went up to him and said, "Fuck you."

There, that wasn't childish. That wasn't childish at all. But he didn't understand. Nobody did. And because of that, Miranda was the person she was because nobody understood. And did she really give a shit? Not really. Because Miranda was tired of everybody's bullshit. And she won't take any more horse shit from anyone. Especially if it was legit horse shit. That shit was nasty.

She was feisty. Alek couldn't tell if he liked it or hated it. Shrugging, he said, "You were the first one I found." The first good looking one, but he wasn't really going to say that or his whole plan would be ruined. "Not a matter of being in the mood. It's about being helpful." he sighed, as if the small talk had become uninteresting and tiring, but then she said it. Exactly what he was waiting for. Smirking, he half-joked, "Just tell me when and where and I'll be there." Yes, he'd definitely do it. That's what he did for fun anyway, joking about it was only half the fun, really.

However, his blue eyes switched from the joy of perverted fun to actual confusion. "I'm sorry. Are you okay?" he asked, his accent seeming to be only a mile thick, no big deal. "I don't mean to anger you." Alek wasn't going to apologize, because that was way out of his usual persona, but he might feel a little bit of remorse for being annoying when she looked so...upset.

Miranda took a deep breath. It wasn't his fault he was fucking stupid. Maybe the kid just didn't have common sense. But in reality, he was the first one to ever apologize for making her attitude the way it was. So she said, " it's alright. Listen... It's not your fault. I'm just a Stuburn little shit head who can't get her head out of her ass." There. Did that make since? It was better than explaining what was really wrong. Which was everything.

Miranda ignored all his little perverted comments. She owed him that much. All the poor shit wanted to do was take a picture and ask a few questions. And hey, maybe she would get some friends out of it or something. Not that she wanted any in this shit whole. She replied, " I'll do your stupid interview. I owe you that much for being a dick."

What was up with her today!? Normally she said "fuck you, flipped them off and walked away. But this kid had that look. That look that said that he was genually worried about her and wanted to know what was wrong. She would give him the benefit of the doubt just this one time. And any other time she would do what she normally did. After all, Miranda wasn't going to change for some stupid interview and some semi attractive Russian hottie.

Listening, Alek realized it was something deeper than his annoying good looks that was bothering her, and she wasn't laughing, she wasn't doing that giggle thing girls did. Alek had never felt so useless as he felt in that moment. Looking at her as she explained something about her ass being in her head, Alek's steel blue eyes automatically shifted to check her out. Looking back at her, he said, "Your ass looks fine to me." and he was being genuinely serious, because he hadn't understood what she meant, it all sounded like a bunch of foreign words and in his mind her voice was drawn out as squiggles and zig zag lines rather than straight ones. Meaning, he had no idea if that whole "ass in you heard" deal was an idiom. Hating the feeling of stupidity, Alek dared ask, "Sorry, I don't think I understand what that means. Something is wrong with your ass or your head?"

She had agreed to do the interview, but the truth was that the interview was mostly an excuse to talk to her, so he had no questions prepared. In a beat, he decided to wing it. He took out his paper and pen, and stared at a blank piece of paper, as if he was trying to decide which question to ask, holding his little notepad close to his body. "Let's begin with basics." he smiled at her, a flash of straight, perfectly white teeth. "What is your name, age, and country of origin.?" That seemed reasonable enough. Anyone could have asked her that, then he moved to a more personal question, just to figure out if her parents had divorced or if she had made the same mistake as he had, "What is your reason to be here?".

"Don't worry. I am a dick, as well." He said, "I actually have one, but I guess that's no surprise." he said, trying to make it look like he was writing stuff down. "Some people like dicks, others do not. It's no big deal."

Oh no he did not. Fuck him. Miranda said, "you did not just look at my ass. The analogy just basically means I'm full of myself. And look at my ass again and I'll cut you." Miranda wondered if she would have to speak slower and in less syllables. Sure it wasn't his fault he didn't understand. He was Russian. Not from America, but still. Any British kid that was in this joint would've understood.

Miranda listened as he just said the basics. Name, age, that sort of shit. Miranda could do that. That shit was easy. She replied, "I'm Miranda Grace Cunningham. I'm 16 years old, and from Salem, Massachusetts in the United States of 'Merica." She laughed at Merica. It was an inside joke between her and her friends at Salem. Then. He got to the hard questions. Why was she here? She said,"well, I'm here becUse your giving me a fucking interview." DUH. This kid wasn't the brightest tool in the tool shed. Miranda knew what he meant, she just didn't want to answer. That question was too personal for the whole Fucking world to know.

Miranda laughed when he said he was a dick. Miranda had met dicks before. And he was far from one. Half of the population of this school were dicks. He was just one of the few who wasn't. Well, he was in his own Russian way, but Miranda liked it. She almost forgave him for that last question. Then she couldn't contain herself. When he said that some people like dicks and others don't, she just busted out laughing. Maybe this Russian hottie wasn't so bad after all. He had a sense of humor at least, and that was a plus.