Thursday Shakedown || Avryn

 

      Thursday, April 12, 1923  

~ 9:53 AM

---

Avery Calder Hale was an insufferable brown-noser.

They should've been out of the potions classroom three minutes ago, already on their way up the stairs and toward the DADA classroom. They wouldn't be late, not if they were a bit more brisk in their walk, but it did mean they'd have to move at a less leisurely pace than she liked on the way to the class she despised. Some might wrongly assume eagerness where there was none. Should the professor be walking the same corridor, Professor Blackwood might erroneously conclude that she and Avery were excited for the lesson and couldn't wait for it to begin.

That may have been the case for Avery, and it was unfortunate that people had begun to assume her moods and opinions mirrored his. The absence of her own words and the sheer abundance of his often left people thinking he spoke for them both. His bossiness couldn't have helped that either.

The Ravenclaw currently yapping in good spirits had insisted they remain behind to help her mother pack away the extra ingredients. Kathryn would have offered, if there wasn't another class they needed to be in. His willingness was her chain.

He couldn't be the only one to help her mother. She wouldn't allow it.

Now they would barely be on time.

They lagged behind the rest of the class, but they were still in view, at least until the group bent the corner that led to the staircase. The distance wasn't insurmountable, but Avery would have to realise that their current pace was unacceptable.

As they approached the corner, their path was suddenly blocked.

Not everyone had carried on after rounding the corner. Dorothy stood before them, preventing further movement. She wasn't alone. The entire group was there. Evelyn and Marjorie, and, of course, heading the disruption was Laura herself. Curiously, there attention wasn't on the girl who had had playdates with them in a summer now past. Haughty eyes and disapproving scowls were all turned toward Avery.

They looked at him as if they were expecting something, until eventually, even Kathryn turned her gaze in his direction.

"We need to talk."

If he had business with them, she preferred he hurry up or they really would be late and she would be thoroughly put out.

Kathryn Elise Barlowe didn't have to stay.

Rather, Avery would have found it all the more satisfying if she'd simply moved on with her morning and headed off to class without him. So he'd be a minute or two late. What was one little tardy against Professor Barlowe's - the lady one - approval and recognition of his efforts to go above and beyond normal student duties?

Yes, he'd suggested she stay and help, but if she hadn't wanted to it would be no skin off his back. More accolades for him. He didn't understand why she seemed so insistent that he not be the only one helping, while also seeming upset that she was late for her next class.

The girl was a mystery that kept digging itself deeper.

Alas, here they were, both perfectly helpful and now walking side by side through the dungeon corridors while he regaled her of the time he'd ridden a sheep in the children's rodeo back home.

He'd won third place. It was the biggest letdown of his life.

"You can't tell me that Eugene MacGregor," he emphasized the boy's surname in his best Scottish accent, rolled 'r' and all, "had better form than I did. I lasted a whole point seven-five seconds longer than he did on his ruddy sheep, and I was up straight as an arrow, but they said my shoulders were hunched. I think MacGregor's dad paid off the judges. Fourth place guy thought the same but - "

He nearly walked straight into them.

Avery stopped so abruptly that even his explanation of the obvious corruption within the children’s rodeo judging system came to an immediate halt. He and Kathryn had rounded the corner directly into the group of girls who had spent most of the year tormenting her.

Avery disliked calling people stupid. It was imprecise. Intelligence existed across a broad and measurable spectrum, and most people merely occupied the less impressive regions of it. Slytherins, Hufflepuffs, definitely Gryffindors. Most Ravenclaws, he found had at least a modicum of demonstrable intellect.

These girls, however, appeared determined to test the lower boundary.

"We need to talk."

To him? About what? Those girls never talked to anyone unless they were making fun of someone or trying to recruit for their weird little coven of plastic. "Yeah?" he asked, his expression falling so flat he couldn't demonstrate how more unimpressed he was with them if he tried.

"I assume about the color pink? I'm fairly certain anything deeper would be a bit above your cognitive ability."

He despised them, if it wasn't obvious.

Had Avery become friends with the girls? He'd certainly never mentioned it. In the middle of his sheep riding and long lecture series on wool, it seemed like the sort of thing that would've already come up. Laura and her friends, for whatever ghastly reason, were a big deal among the younger years. The girl had worked her way through nearly half their peers by now. With some, she used her family's money, promising—and delivering—many nice things to those willing to speak to her as if she were the queen and demanding to know how high the moment she asked them to jump. Those who weren't as fussed about her nice clothes and the little gifts that flew into the castle on a weekly basis faced a different, more aggressive form of persuasion.

But only the people she held interest in.

Avery didn't seem like the sort of boy she would like to have following her around. His proclivity for biological radio broadcasting aside, he was a Muggleborn. That was a big deal in Laura's circle. She only liked to interact with other purebloods, allowing the rest peripheral access at most. For the ones who followed, it was enough. Walking the same corridor as her, sitting at the same table while she disparaged them for their lineage, that seemed all they needed. It was an interesting choice of company in such a large castle. But the real interest lay in the possibility that Avery had allowed himself to fall into it, too.

She never saw him talking to them, but then, they weren't joined at the hip. There were enough times when the pair weren't together, and she supposed he could've used them to indulge the girl and her friends.

'Unlikely', Kathryn decided. If he was willing to spend a half hour regaling her with talk of his older brother's sleeping habits and his father's preferred hoe, he would've mentioned something like ingratiating himself with Laura by now. He'd already shared his opinions on what he suspected to be their level of intelligence, making it even less likely.

"Yeah? I assume about the color pink? I'm fairly certain anything deeper would be a bit above your cognitive ability."

They didn't like that.

While Kathryn waited with waning patience for Avery to be done entertaining the girls so they could be on with their walk, his words had incited indignation within them. More than that, his insult – one they were intelligent enough to understand – had spurred them into violence. It was Laura who acted. Without warning, her hand rose, smacking Avery square across the cheek.

THWACK!

The sound echoed in the empty corridor, heralding in a silence that it seemed no one wanted to break.

Until she did.

"You've got some nerve talking to me like that, you sheep-fucking mudblood." She was offended, rightly seeing that Avery's words had positioned him above her as her cerebral better. It was unbecoming language. "You're lucky they let your sort in at all. The elves must spend half the day disinfecting everything you lot touch."

The other three sneered at the boy, turning up their noises as if his very presence offended them.

"You absolute clot. How many times do we have to tell you to leave this one alone?" She jutted her chin in Kathryn's direction, taking the girl by mild surprise. She hadn't asked to be involved in the exchange and feared it would only eat further into their already dwindling time. The request itself wasn't a surprise. "Why do I have to come tell you myself" Avery had told her that they'd approached him before, wanting to create some distance between them. She hadn't been able to imagine why, but Avery had made his position firm. It seemed a little silly, then, to keep bringing up the matter while expecting a different result.

Didn't they have their own classes to be heading to?

THWACK!

For a moment, the world went fuzzy with the sensation of fire racing across his cheek. His ear rang with a high-pitched squeal while the boy staggered with the force of the slap.

A slap. Did...did she just hit him?!

Avery's hand immediately reached for his cheek, his fingertips grazing across the spot that now blazed red, while the rest of him flushed with heat. His pulse rose from a steady beat, thumping and thumping until it was racing so fast he briefly worried it might burst from his chest and take off down the corridor without him. Every breath came harder, heavy as his chest rose up and down, his brain scrambling to make sense of what had just happened.

"You've got some nerve talking to me like that, you sheep-fucking mudblood. You're lucky they let your sort in at all. The elves must spend half the day disinfecting everything you lot touch. You absolute clot. How many times do we have to tell you to leave this one alone? Why do I have to come tell you myself""

Avery had been hit before. Growing up the middle of three boys, he'd had plenty of skirmishes, with his siblings and with the neighbor boys from time to time. Being raised on a farm didn't leave much room for soft, gentle boys afraid of getting their hands dirty. While Avery preferred working things out in a more cerebral way - talking that was - he never shied away from a scuffle.

His father had raised him to never hit a girl.

But his mother hadn't raised a little bitch boy.

Without a second thought on what he should or shouldn't do, Avery swung. His palm landed hard across Laura's face as she stumbled backwards, a shrill cry of disbelief leaving her rotten lips as her friends screamed and crowded around her. Marjorie shoved him hard in the chest, nearly knocking him off balance, but Avery planted his feet and swung again. His palm cracked across her cheek just as loudly as Laura's.

"A mudblood?!" He ignored the sheep-fucker insult. It wasn't the first time someone had insulted his family's livelihood with stupid accusations. "That's rich coming from the lot who picks out their husbands at family reunions!" He reached for Kathryn, taking her by the arm to move her quickly from the group while they were hysterical and distracted. Those cretins could try and tell him all day who he could be around or not be around, and he wouldn't give their opinions a single second of consideration.

His face flushed with humiliation, his body shook with adrenaline and rage coursed through his veins as the sting on his palms throbbed. But he'd had enough of those stupid girls.

They'd messed with the wrong kid, and the wrong mute criminal.

To say that Kathryn was stunned...would have been a gross overstatement, but she was certainly taken aback.

Having seen the barbarism that Avery sometimes employed in the hospital wing was enough to convince the girl that he was capable of violence, but she'd never entertained the idea of him being a fighter. Frankly, he didn't seem the sort. Avery prattled on from morning until night, typically ignoring the displeasure it sometimes brought to his audience. He was often in good spirits – especially when he was the centre of attention – and she'd heard professors call him 'pleasant'.

There was nothing pleasant about the way his palm connected with Laura's cheek. Satisfaction was a different matter. Kathryn lifted her wrist, noting the time while Marjorie reached forward to push the boy.

It was another bit of silliness she didn't think she would ever understand. Laura had demonstrated a willingness for violence and had been repaid. Had they had such an issue – if their indignant screams were any indication – then why would they draw further violence? That seemed the surest way to prolong what all five of them could agree was an undesirable outcome. Without solving anything, it had earned Marjorie a slap that Kathryn was sure she hadn't been asking for.

"That's rich coming from the lot who picks out their husbands at family reunions!"

While Evelyn and Dorothy tended Laura, Marjorie had chosen the role of aristocratic defender. The slap hadn't been enough to remove her temper. Avery's words further inflamed the girl.

The Slytherin girl reached for him, but he reached for her, taking them both swiftly to the group. Kathryn spared a final look behind her as they went, seeing the tizzy that Avery had left them in.

What an utter waste of time.

---

 

      A Corridor Leading to The Grand Staircases  

~ 5:04 PM

---

Avery was an interesting specimen of a boy.

Had she not been standing there when the mini scuffle broke out in the dungeons, it would have been difficult to believe it had ever happened. Despite the anger with which he'd dragged her to Defence Against the Dark Arts, the boy had returned to his usual merriment. His words hadn't slowed; his stories never lost their colour. The boy continued brown-nosing his way through their day, possessing the audacity to tell her that she could leave without him when he knew very well that they walked to their lessons together.

Sometimes, he pretended to be dense in that manner.

Perhaps some day she would leave him. When she managed to form a new routine, Kathryn considered reducing his role to avoid such cheeky comments in the distant future. For now, she walked with him on the way back from their library shift. They were late for dinner. It was the second tardiness of the day, and the little girl was thoroughly put out. She couldn't understand the boy's obsessions (as she deemed it) with making himself useful to her mother, but she hadn't appreciated the extra tables they'd 'volunteered' to clean before finally leaving.

Someday, she would find a way to break it out of him; for now, she listened while he spoke about his mother's lamb chops and the correct way to prepare them should one want to ensure they were succulent.

The irony, she gathered, was entirely lost on the boy who spent so much time discussing sheep and had, just that morning, been accused of procreating with them.

Kathryn let him be, not in the mood to have him spiral onto a separate tangent on why his tastes and interests didn't conflict in his mind. He could justify anything when he wanted to, nevermind the soundness of the logic beneath it.

She noticed the group approaching them the moment they entered the corridor. The girls had returned, stalking down the corridor with determination in their strides. They weren't her concern. When they'd hit Avery, he'd hit back. Should they like a repeat performance, the boy who remained in such a good mood would likely have no issues obliging. Her attention was on the boys who walked with them. Anders and his friends had strides that were as determined, chests puffed and expressions focused as if they'd been sent on a mission they had every intention of completing.

Her stomach fell before she could fully make sense of the scene. Something told her that they were in for a repeat of the earlier day and that neither of them wanted any part of it.

That decided, Kathryn took Avery by the wrist and tried turning him around. She didn't know whether there was another path to the Great Hall, but she supposed they would have to find out.

"Oi! Where you headed to?" the older boy called. Kathryn pushed past the instinct to freeze, tugging at Avery to ensure he didn't try to either.

"What's the hurry, we just wanna talk."

It was a shit day, but Avery was surviving. To anyone who wasn't aware of what had happened earlier in the day, the boy would seem his normal, chatty, inquisitive self. He wasn't the type to brood out in the open or let people see that Laura's little clique had gotten to him. He wasn't the type to mull and groan about what had transpired.

Rather, he was the type to seek revenge.

It was an ugly little side to the cerebral boy who preferred to spend his time researching and experimenting. His father had often said that Avery had a serious case of 'middle child syndrome' and when things didn't necessarily go his way, or if he felt out of control, the normal docility he carried himself with was replaced by something far more vindictive.

He could admit he'd reacted poorly. Perhaps not to the observation of others, but to himself. He wasn't one to typically be reactive and lash out. Rather her preferred calculating his moves, and was already doing so, but he regretted the slaps all the same. They were beneath him, brutish and far too caveman-ish to become his go to. Avery never wanted to be the sort who got angry and swung.

He wanted to be the one who got angry and dangerous, so people would think twice about messing with him or his friend.

Yes, he supposed Kathryn Barlowe was his friend now. Color him surprised too.

Poisons were his next move. Not in the murder-y type of way, like Kathryn and her family, although he was sure if he wanted to murder someone, she would handle it. But more of the painful, embarrassing, inconvenient type of poisons that cut people right off their pedestals.

He just needed to talk to the resident plant expert first.

In the meantime, lambchops and their proper preparation were the topic of the hour. "If you baste them in garlic butter, it's honestly the best," he said, dreaming of his mum's food out loud. Hogwarts's food was alright, but nothing like his mum's or nan's for that matter. "My mom does roasted potatoes with them, and I'm telling you Kate, it's literally the best thing you've ever - "

"Oi! Where you headed to?"

He felt the tug on his sleeve, but glanced back, following the voice that called out to them. His expression dropped instantly, seeing Anders - Laura's ogre - and his buddies gaining on them. Great. Just what he needed. Did these people have nothing better to do than pick on first years?

"What's the hurry, we just wanna talk."

The boy pulled his arm from Kathryn's grasp. "Go," he said quietly, nodding her on to the Great Hall. "I'll be there in a minute. Save me a cauldron cake if they have them." There was a pit in his stomach, a churning, knowing where this was going, and there was no reason to upset the quiet girl who froze in situations like this. Avery wasn't scared - exactly - but he knew he was outnumbered, and without Cal or Leith here to back him up, it wasn't going to be pretty.

He nudged Kathryn on, as he turned back to the group of the boys. "Yeah?" he asked, trying to sound braver than he felt. "And what about?" Certainly nothing that required excessive brain power, surely.

Avery Hale had lost his mind in a way that had nothing to do with his persistent and undeterred use of 'Kate'.

He'd told her to go. He'd told her to save a seat – going as far as nudging her. This far into the school year, it was safe to say that neither child was still surprised by physical corrections. Tugging, nudging, pulling – they'd all gained a foothold, alongside her quill, in the unusual manner in which they communicated. They were comfortable enough – or perhaps simply impatient enough – that it never occurred to them that most children kept their hands to themselves. Impatience seemed the clearer answer. Avery was a go-getter who didn't always appreciate the time she took to process a moment before insisting they hurry in. She was often impatient to sit and have him read her words when he would only argue his response.

This wasn't impatience. Kathryn could admit that in the same way she could recognise that it wasn't clear thinking. On his own, together, they were obviously and horrifically outnumbered. Seven against two weren't the sort of odds even a gambler would take on. Whatever pride Avery thought he held should be reasonably put aside for the sake of retreat.

The problem was that no matter how she tugged at the stubborn boy, he remained with his feet planted as if they'd been swallowed by the stone beneath them.

Even worse, Avery tried to engage them.

"Yeah? And what about?"

Nothing they cared to know, Hale. Did she have to tell him everything? Evidently, she did. Evidently, he held the same distinct lack of self-preservation that most Gryffindors and her reckless brother did. The difference? Avery was a bony-chested, noodle-armed boy of unremarkable height. With all his helping around the farm, Anders and his friends had already gotten into fitness. Dorothy had told the other girls in their dorm once, while she'd arrived to collect a few things, that they were hoping to be in top form for the day quidditch was reinstated. They'd begun puberty. They were taller. Their muscles were denser, and while they weren't anything as impressive as her big brother's, they were certainly the safer bet.

It wouldn't do.

Kathryn gave another tug in her own silent desperation to not be engaged, but it was too late. The pair at either side of Anders rushed to close the remaining distance. In a flash, they were on them, knocking her out of the way before holding Avery by either arm. Just as quickly, Anders was on him, punching him square in the gut with enough force that it was likely to knock the wind out of him while it rearranged a few organs.

An exaggeration, surely, but it had been a nasty swing; nastier, even, than the one he'd taken at Laura earlier in the day.

"Heard you hit my girlfriend." He punched again, another to the gut as if trying to aggravate the first. "Think you're so tough? Putting your hands on a girl? Big man, you are, but you know what?" He grabbed him by the front of his hair, forcing his gaze upward. "You fucked with the wrong girl. Get him down."

Despite Avery's struggle, the boys shoved against his shoulders, pushing until they got him messily to his knees.

Kathryn stepped forward before she could think about the action, her stomach turning and her heart racing. It was Evelyn who pulled her back. The Slytherin girl grabbed her by her bun, pulling her into a circle the others hand made.

Marjorie, who was growing to be quite tall for 12, blocked her from seeing the moment Anders kneed Avery in the face, but she'd certainly heard the moment of impact. She tried to see around them, but Laura spun her around.

"Want to help your little boyfriend? She shoved her toward Evelyn, who shoved her just as harshly toward Marjorie. Kathryn stumbled and staggered, trying to remain firmly standing, but the shoves got harder and heavier until they almost seemed to echo through her chest cavity.

It was as Avery had expected. Brutes like them never wanted to talk, despite what they'd say. With a lack of emotional intelligence and the ability to have a civil conversation, boys like them always turned to violence. Was it deserving? Avery wouldn't say so. He'd been hit first, and called names. So what if she was a girl - and God help him if his father heard him mutter it - she had dished it, she should be able to take it.

Just like he'd have to take whatever was coming at him now, he supposed.

The boys rushed him, grabbing him by the arms to hold him in place. Avery mused for a brief moment how unnecessary it was. Holding him down wouldn't change the fact that the statistical odds were wildly swaying out of his favor. But would could he expect from a few idiots with only basic cognitive ability minutely above a Neanderthal's?

The first hit came hard and fast, knocking the wind from the small boy's lungs with a violent gasp. The pain wrenched through his abdomen, twisting and crushing as Avery grimaced, struggling uselessly against the hold, even knowing defending himself wouldn't look the way he wanted it to.

"Heard you hit my girlfriend."

Another punch. This one shooting down through his stomach into the boys legs, causing his knees to buckle. "Think you're so tough? Putting your hands on a girl? Big man, you are, but you know what? You fucked with the wrong girl. Get him down."

The tug at his hair caused the boy's grimace to deepen as he struggled for breath, his body refusing stubbornly to go to his knees, even as his muscles weekend and the force on his shoulders shoved him down. He didn't regret it. He'd hit Laura over and over again if he'd had the chance. He'd slap that horrible girl so red her face would be unrecognizable if he'd could have gotten away with it. He had half a mind to say so too, but self-preservation had finally kicked in, and Avery realized it'd only prolong this less-than-exhilarating experience.

Anders's knee slammed into the little boy's face, causing him to cry out as he slumped between the other two boys, blood gushing from his nose as his eyes watered and fire roared through his nerves. Somewhere behind him, he could hear the girls saying something to Kathryn, but in the chaos that was his mind, he couldn't decipher any of it.

Were they hurting her too? A quiet girl who had never bothered any of them?

He really needed her to unleash her murdering mafia tendencies right about now.

"Leave her alone," he sputtered, blood misting from his lips with each word. "She didn't do anything to you." Perhaps he should only worry about himself here, but who else was going to speak up for her? No one else was around.

It was a...grave realization while Avery remained on his knees.

"Leave her alone. She didn't do anything to you."

The girls giggled.

It was almost unnatural. The cadence was tight, the inflections appearing in the wrong places. Kathryn didn't suspect there was any real joy bubbling from their lips but something more closely akin to what her mother had once explained as 'vindictiveness'. It wasn't that Avery's words had amused them; she was sharp enough to understand that, even while hands continued to grab at her from every direction.

One hand, she couldn't say which, grabbed firmly at her bun. This time, it didn't try to direct her; it yanked roughly enough that her entire head rocked backward painfully. When it let go, the once neatly pulled-together blonde hair fell messily around her in waves and bundles.

Kathryn froze.

The little girl couldn't feel the hand that slapped her across the face or the sting it left behind. She couldn't feel the aggressive thumps that slammed into her back. She was caught somewhere between numbness and sensation; her body vibrating with impact, she'd lost the ability to feel. Inside her ear was a loud and uncomfortable ringing that soon outpaced the noise of the chaos around her. Kathryn couldn't hear the insults. She couldn't hear the boys. She couldn't hear Avery. From somewhere outside the corridor, perhaps on another plane of existence entirely, she heard a muffled eruption of laughter. She had no idea they mocked the way she was shaking and the apparent look of horror that had etched itself into her expression.

It wasn't just her hair. One of them had ripped the sleeve of her robe away from the rest of it; another had popped as many as two buttons from her shirt, with a third hanging loosely by the string.

Kathryn experienced the disorganisation bodily, reminded of the day they'd taken her gloves. It was the same violation for a little girl who'd spent so long running from mess and anything that might remind her of the neglected little girl whose hair had been too matted to be saved and whose clothes hung off her as they liked. Had they only hit her, she could've put on a solemn face and waited for them to be done.

Not far away, Avery wasn't being shown much better mercy – there was no mercy at all. When they'd wrestled the boy to the floor, the three kicked and stomped furiously at him from all sides. Their polished patent and leather caught him in every area he left exposed, like thundering feet in the middle of a stampede.

Lucky for Avery, there were only three pairs.

"You got sheep-fucker blood on my shoes! Fucking mudblood! You can't even afford the threading!" Anders's friend kicked Avery square in the face.

"Come here, love," Anders said, beckoning Laura from the scene of her own assault. When she drew close, he grabbed Avery by the hair again and yanked him over. "You're gonna kiss her feet and apologise. Boys."

Despite his struggle, they grabbed him again, shoving his face into the girl's Mary Janes. The harder he struggled, the harder they hit. It became a battle of wills that only invited more violence onto the boy.

When Avery had first learned he was a wizard and that he'd be attending some special school for his type, he'd never imagined the ugliness that would come along with it.

It was enough, wasn't it? To be so different from his own family and the muggle community he'd grown up in, now faced with a school of people like him. To find that there were outcasts - hierarchies even - within the school based on the type of wizard you were, or rather your background, had been fully foreign to the little boy who had only wanted to prove himself and learn as much as he could.

Could he be annoying? Undoubtedly. Could he be incessant, relentless and ambitious in his quest to be the best at everything he did? Avery knew he could be, but he'd never thought that would be something to be sneered at. So what if he came from muggle stock? So what if his blood wasn't dripping with magical ancestry? What did it matter in the grand scheme of things?

"You got sheep-fucker blood on my shoes! Fucking mudblood! You can't even afford the threading!"

Funny how they seemed to believe that because he was muggleborn and a farm kid, that meant he was poor or his family was lacking in money. He meant to say as much, when a shoe caught him right in the face, causing the boy to fall flat to the floor. Kicks and hits came from every direction, so fast that Avery couldn't even process it. Tears filled his eyes as blood filled his mouth, wishing Cal or his dad were here. The boy didn't think himself weak, but even he understood that he had no chance against so many of them.

He'd just have to endure until they lost interest and then somehow drag himself to the hospital wing.

In the chaos of it all, he lost track of Kathryn, unable to focus on anything in particular.

When his hair was grabbed again, he fought. Swinging and kicking, his hand digging into Ander's wrist as they tried to drag him closer to Laura.

"You're gonna kiss her feet and apologise. Boys."

Avery would die first. Literally, the boy grimaced to himself. He would rather die and have his body sent back to his mother than ever stoop so low. Humiliation flooded the boy as they shoved his cheek into Laura's shoes, hitting him to force compliance.

If there was one thing Avery Calder Hale was, it was stubborn to his own detriment.

Another hit against the side of his head, and he'd had enough. The boy growled and then snapped, biting down as hard as he could into Laura's ankle. His teeth sunk in, as his bit harder and tighter, her screams of pain echoing down the corridor as the boys continued to hit. Still, he didn't let go. He poured every strength he had left into his jaw, feeling her skin puncture beneath his teeth as rage coursed through him.

Avery wasn't helping himself at all.

His refusal to do as he was told had been enough to enrage the boys who believed they'd come to teach him a lesson. Granted, the violence they'd already inflicted was enough for them to feel as if they'd been narrowing the gap between his audacity and his understanding, but this new refusal? It was an affront to their very nature. Anders had given an instruction, and he expected it to be followed. What he didn't expect was his girlfriend suddenly crying out in pain while the boy sank his teeth into her.

A fucking savage.

This was the sort they let into Hogwarts. He'd better not have been contagious. The older boy was quicker on the take than his friends. While they still scrambled to figure out what was happened, Anders yanked Avery forcefully off the poor girl.

He wasn't learning.

Hits? Kicks? They were too soft to make him understand his place. It was beneath them, beneath their feet, grovelling for any sort of acknowledgement. Avery didn't know who they were, or the sterling futures they had already laid out. He didn't understand that one word from any of their fathers and his parents would lose their precious farm. Not even a word. A few wand waves. What would the muggles do? Who would bat an eye for the poor muggles on their patch of dirt or the streets they would end up on? He was an ant. An insignificant ant who needed to be squashed.

Anders wrangled him away before slamming the boy's head into the cold stone beneath them. He slammed it a second time before straightening. One final kick to Avery's gut and the older boy felt satisfied.

He snapped his fingers and his boys eased away.

The girls took their cue from them, leaving the girl they'd taken to smacking around when the shoves no longer seemed enough. It was Dorothy who gave one final, hard shove to close out the encounter. It was hard enough that the other shaking and unstable girl tipped over. She tripped over twisted feet, landing roughly on her side. The girl's stepped over her to fuss with Laura's injury.

They led the frightened, wailing girl away. Likely, they were heading to the hospital wing to get her patched up.

And just like that, the chaos of the corridor was behind them, leaving the first years alone once again. The silence was heavier now, filled with the violence of moments past. Kathryn wouldn't have had words, even if she were the verbal type. There was raw static frying its way through her mind. Inside that static was a single thread.

Her hip screamed from the way it had so unceremoniously crashed into the ground, but she managed to twist herself around to look at Avery. Despite being pried wide open, Kathryn's vision blurred around him as she fought to keep her mind present and grounded there in the corridor.

She saw the blood without being able to process it and saw the pain in his expression in moments between the blur and the clarity.

The little girl steadily grew more aggravated by her inability to focus, which only exacerbated the short circuiting. She tried to check him the way the volunteers had taught them, but her hands shook too much.

Sitting wouldn't help.

Certain that he was dead or dying, Kathryn forced herself back to her feet and then tried to pull him up with her. Inside her chest was an uncomfortable pinching, one that came from her shallow breathing. They had to go. They had to go; it didn't matter where, but staying seemed the greater peril for the girl whose entire body hummed chaotically.

His body was yanked, forcefully, his teeth gnashing deeper into the girl's ankle. Avery was thrown to the ground, his small body shaking and reverberating with the kicks and hits that had rained down upon him. Every nerve ending roared with fire, sending signals of pain and shock coursing through his veins and up into his brain where it short-circuited.

If Avery were half-conscious, he might have marveled at the way his brain was shutting down, actively attempting to protect him from abuse his body endured. Alas, he'd have to experiment when he had all his faculties and could accurately assess brain patterns and the way adrenaline affected them.

For now, as his head was slammed down into the cold stone, the world went fuzzy, a deep ringing taking place of any other sound his ears might have been able to pick up on. His body froze, unable or unwilling to fight any longer, slumping against the floor as his head was smashed for a second time.

Black crept in from the edges of his vision, pulsing in and out, lulling the boy into unconsciousness. Vaguely, he was aware of them leaving, his fingertips moving only slightly through the small amount of blood that had pooled beneath him. He blinked, trying to make sense of the scene around him, but the fuzziness grew and the black beckoned to him. Darker and deeper it grew, until only a speck of light shone through.

He thought he felt Kathryn tugging on him, but he was useless. As the pain took over, the boy gave in, letting himself get swept away into the painless dark.

Alone in the corridor, the boy lay quietly, his nose and mouth dripping blood while his eyes swelled puffy with bruises. Were he conscious, he would hope that his friend would run for help rather than insisting on dragging his limp body through the castle, but Avery was hardly in a place to make requests.

His mother would be beside herself. It was best he didn't tell her anything.

He wasn't getting up.

He wasn't getting up.

Try as she did and with shaking limbs, she couldn't manage to get the boy off the ground. It wasn't that he was particularly heavy or bulky, but Kathryn herself wasn't a strong girl. Most of her exercise came from walking the annoyingly long staircases of the castle and ballet. Lifting a half-conscious boy who groaned just enough to assure her that he wasn't her next experiment hadn't made it into her routine.

Today seemed like a poor time to start.

After another minute of fruitless tugging, her mind finally caught up to the reality that laid itself out before her. Avery needed help but wasn't in a position to get it for himself. That made it her duty, didn’t it? Kathryn stood with that deliberation for another minute, crippled by the total shutdown of her own nervous system. It felt like a crisis. Surely, this constituted such. The issue was her propensity to become paralysed in times of crisis. He was bleeding and likely didn’t have the time to wait for her to thaw.

But how did she get her feet to move when she could scarcely feel them? No one told her, when she awoke that morning, that she would have such a stressful moment thrust upon her and Avery. She’d had no time to prepare, no time to brace herself…no time to condition her mind with the fortitude necessary to stare the moment in the eyes, unblinking.

Terror would simply have to do.

Stiffly, Kathryn made her way down the corridor, doing her best to focus more on getting air in and out of her lungs than on her dishevelled appearance and the aches that insisted they accompany her on her journey. The little girl didn’t have enough presence of mind to know what or who she was looking for, only that she needed help. Would she know when she’d found it? Luckily, life didn’t need her to have all the answers before lending a hand. Not two corridors down was Ruth. The girl was heading from the direction that led down to the Slytherin common room. She didn’t recognise the girls that walked with her. It didn’t matter.

Avery was bleeding two corridors over.

In a flash, Ruth was on her, fussing and saying words that she didn’t understand. Too many words. Not enough moving. Her nerves were steadied by her purpose. Kathryn took her brother’s girlfriend by the wrist and marched her back to the half-dead boy.

Silently, she lifted a hand and pointed.

"I thought we weren't studying tonight."

"No, you promised we would if we skipped last night."

"Can't we skip tonight, too?"

"You realise we've got exams coming up, don't you?"

"Not important ones."

"See??"

Rae and her dormmates made their way down the corridor, lost in their own conversation. Each had rumbling stomachs and thoughts of the night's meal running through their heads. Rae was in and out of it all, chiming in only when it suited her to. Gracie was right. Exams weren't starting for maybe another month. She didn't want to already have her nights hijacked by tomes and textbooks. Merlin knew that the girl still had PTSD from all the studying she'd been forced into for OWLs. A lot of it had been self-inflicted, knowing the tough criteria for getting into the collegium, but that didn't make it any less traumatic.

Speaking of trauma...

The Slytherin girl's steps slowed to a stop when she saw Kathryn turn the corner into the corridor looking like she was seconds from unravelling. Another of her dormmates pointed, thinking she may not have seen, but the shaking little girl was hard to miss.

She encouraged them to head on without her, just before Benji's little sister came to a stop before her. Rae was fussing in a second. She checked her bruises and tugged at her torn uniform.

"Kathryn? What happened? Who did this?" Even as she asked, Rae felt herself already formulating an answer. It had nearly been an entire school year, and there was only one group who'd shown any inclination for giving Kate this kind of attention. Her expression darkened, though she tried to remain composed. "Where are they? Tell me--"

The first year wasn't listening.

A simple reparo was all she'd managed on Kate's uniform before the little girl took her by the wrist and tugged her off. She supposed...she supposed that she would just have to wait to see. Reason told her that soon enough, she would have all the answers that Kathryn likely would never have spoken even if she'd remained standing there.

Sure enough, those answers came.

"Shit..." she breathed, not needing to be pulled any further. Rae conjured a small hairbrush and offered it to Kathryn before kneeling by the bleeding, half-conscious boy.

The first thing she did was run a few tests, just enough to assure herself she didn't need to be sprinting with him to the hospital wing. Then she took care of the bruises.

"Oi, Avery? Avery, can you hear me? Tell me where it hurts."

"Oi, Avery? Avery, can you hear me? Tell me where it hurts."

He...he could hear her. Somewhere between consciousness and not, the boy drifted, trying to grasp onto anything solid. Pain surged across his face and deep into his skull where his brain ached with the force of all it had endured. "Ruth Elliot...?" his lips moaned, his swollen eyes opening a crack behind the moisture that welled within them. He couldn't see her, not at first. Fuzzy light and shadows danced across his vision as he grimaced against the pain.

"Everywhere," he moaned finally, his hand dragging itself to his face, where he gingerly touched his nose. He had to get up. He couldn't lay here and let Ruth Elliot see him in such a vulnerable state. If she thought he was incompetent before, she'd never let him live this down and his ambitions in the Hospital Wing were all but pipe dreams.

He had to get up.

Shaky arms propped beneath him as the lanky little boy struggled to force himself upright into a sitting position. For a moment, the darkness engulfed him again, causing the boy to sway in place before his hands caught him again. "Smashed my head into the stone." It hurt, so badly, but the pain wasn't nearly as alarming as the way his eyes throbbed. His nose felt cold, while his lips were on fire with cuts. The rest of his body ached too, but nothing so bad as his face.

"I don't think I can get to the Hospital Wing myself," he admitted quietly as he swayed again, dizziness taking hold of him. He sniffed, wiping the blood from his nose and mouth as a few tears streaked down his face. "Y-you won't let them tell my mum, right?"

He was finally able to focus on the older girl, even through a fuzzy haze. "Please?"

She had made the right choice – never mind that the choice had been made for her – when she'd enlisted Ruth. She didn't linger where most got trapped, desperately trying to get words out of her when actions were what were needed. It took a particular brand of action, too. Not the performative kind with flailing arms and busy movements that amounted to nothing, but purpose.

Ruth repaired her ripped uniform. She conjured her a brush. She knelt before Avery and got to work. This was the sort of efficiency that Kathryn could fall behind. Brush in hand and her...well...she supposed he must have been a friend. Watching her friend be attended to by someone as capable as her brother's girlfriend allowed her nerves to begin settling. She felt more in control of her circumstances again, less blown about by the wind and battered.

With hands still shaking, she brushed through the hair that fell too chaotically to the waistband of her skirt. Each stroke brought her closer to clarity, each number bringing her down from the panic that had paralysed her before. The tension in her muscles was loosening despite the aches that remained. Pain, for the little girl, had never been a call to action. On its own, it had never been the trigger that could send her into catastrophic failure. Violence carried its own familiarity, another relative for the get-together. Its unpleasantness held its own residence inside a frame that had learned a long time ago to endure.

Disorder was the line.

Disorder was the beast with flaming red eyes that held the ability to drag her back to Hackney and squalor and starvation and neglect. It was the creature that breathed heavily at the back of her neck, its breath uncomfortably warm.

Kathryn stayed out of the way as she knew she should, watching to make sure her friend would be alright without ever losing place in her count.

He didn't want his mother knowing. She couldn't imagine why. Perhaps, like her own mother, his would want to have something done. Had Ruth not repaired her robes, Julia would certainly have found herself facing a sullen little girl with wide blue eyes and a burning desire to be put back together. Then again, his mother couldn't use magic. The outcome wouldn't have been the same. She was also all the way wherever she was. It would take too long for her to get there. Avery would be well by then.

Thirty-eight...thirty-nine...forty."

Kathryn placed the brush into the pocket of her robe before twisting her hair around her wrist, twining it back into a tight and uncompromising bun.

She felt more like herself immediately. Unable to see the areas of reddening along her skin, it was easy for her to convince herself that she was once again the perfectly put-together porcelain doll she preferred to be.

She would wait for Avery to be put back together, too.

"Everywhere."

Everywhere.

It was about as helpful as she supposed she could expect him to be, given the condition she found him in. Whatever the idiots had done, they'd wanted to be thorough about it. In some ways, Rae supposed he was lucky to not have lost any of his teeth. Not everyone within the castle was civil enough to resolve things with words rather than fists – her included – and this was the result of that.

Now, Rae didn't condemn violence. A girl like her? One who'd seen time and time again that sometimes it was only in showing someone why they should leave you alone that they ever actually did? Oh, no, she was quite the proponent for laying hands and allowing people to come to Christ as they were. She believed that those who had a hard time hearing would need to have other methods employed to ensure compliance. Kaitlyn's tumble down the stairs had been a necessary virtue, and she would do it again.

Kathryn and Avery hadn't bothered anyone.

If Kate could find a way to occupy negative space within a room, she was sure the girl would. Rae could...see why some might have found her off-putting or standoffish. She seldom responded when spoken to, preferring to stare until whoever spoke gave up and sought answers elsewhere. Avery...had the opposite problem. He never shut up. Worse, he was a know-it-all who fancied himself the smartest person in any room. Annoying? Certainly. Worth pounding the boy into the stone over?

Not. Hardly.

Rae's jaw set, even as she tried to remember her calm bedside manner. It was important to remain serene for the sake of the patient, hoping to assure them of your competence and the fact they were in good hands. Inside her, a storm was raging.

"I don't think I can get to the Hospital Wing myself."

"Shhh, you won't have to." Her path would take her somewhere else, but not before she could help them. With a wave of her wand, the Slytherin prefect cast a silent 'mobilicorpus' on the boy. She watched him rise steadily until he was about the height of her hips.

"Y-you won't let them tell my mum, right? Please?"

"Don't worry, sweet thing," she offered, brushing her thumb gingerly over the bruise at his forehead. He would have some swelling in the coming days, but it was nothing potions couldn't help. "No one's telling anyone anything. I'll handle this." Rae turned to the little girl who'd managed to get herself back to some semblance of her neat exterior. "Come along, Kathryn. Let's get your little friend patched up. Benji and I will have a word with them after."

Neither had confirmed it, but the assault spoke for itself.

No one else possessed as much vitriol for the annoying but otherwise unproblematic pair.

"Shhh, you won't have to."

Well, that was certainly a relief. Had Avery been in a clearer frame of mind - and curse those idiots for causing that. albeit likely temporary issue - he may have been able to sit with the gentleness of her tone and the way Ruth Elliot offered comfort that she didn't owe him.

Avery knew that well enough, even as young as he was. His father had instilled in him that nobody owed him their time or kindness or presence. Only respect, if he earned it. He and Ruth Elliot had never seen eye-to-eye or gotten along in the broadest sense of the expression. She had always been bossy and domineering and he was as stubborn as a bull on his best days. The young boy knew he could be obnoxious, but in his mind his behavior had always justified the end.

Maybe...maybe he'd judged Ruth Elliot too fast, if she were able to be nice and sweet with him after the way he'd backtalked her and snitched her out to the Healer.

He'd have to think on all of it once his faculties fully returned.

For now, as his body rose into the air, he sighed, grimacing against another throb that shot through his nose with his exhale. He vaguely felt the older girl's finger brush his forehead, and for a moment, it almost felt like his mum. Fresh tears welled at the corner of his eyes, as the boy realized just how much he missed his mum. And his dad. And his brothers. And home, and Chloe and....everything.

"Don't worry, sweet thing, No one's telling anyone anything. I'll handle this."

The boy wanted to say thank you. He wanted to even nod his acknowledgement, but as the girls walked alongside his floating body, Avery simply closed his eyes, willing the pain to lessen just until they made it to the Hospital Wing.

He'd make sure to do something really nice for Ruth Elliot when everything was back to normal again.