i will hear my voice this time

Glenda looked quite frazzled in Ted’s opinion, which only made him much worse for bumping in to her in the first place. He went to help her with her stuff, but by the time he had stooped down, she was already finished. “No, no. Hey. It’s totally fine. Are you okay? I feel like that bump kind of…sent you into a tizzy.” He put a soft hand on her shoulder, a concerned look on his face.

Glenda couldn’t help but let out a nervous chuckle. Getting into a tizzy was not something she’s heard before, but it was rather accurate description of her life at least half the time. The fact that it was Ted and not somebody she didn’t know at all made the situation better at least. “Yeah, no, I’m—I’m fine. No tizzy or anything.” Lie, but oh hey, this small one could be forgiven, right? “Really sorry about the bumping though, I didn’t get any ink on you or your shoes or anything else, right?” she asked, her eyes looking over him quickly to see if she can catch any ink spots.

Barty squinted at the woman in front of him, a scowl still on his face. Sure, he liked animals more than he liked most people so that made him question why she would let a pet run wild especially in a place where things could go so bad so fast. It just solidified with him that people are stupid. As if he doubted her, he let out a huff before casting a glance to the side and, unfortunately, perked up a little bit as he saw that the girl wasn’t actually lying. Without even asking, he reached over and scooped the toad up with his free hand. “You’re lucky that your toad decided to pick someone who likes animals to hop over to honestly. It doesn’t excuse you interrupting my reading, of course.” Barty shrugged his shoulders and he stroked the little toad on the top of it’s head. “You should really be more careful with your things.” If that came off as vaguely threatening, then his message had been well understood. Looking back up at the woman, he quirked an eyebrow as he tilted his head. “Do you usually let her hop off like that or are you more responsible than that?”

Glenda’s heart skipped a beat for a second. He didn’t seem the nicest person and he was clearly annoyed that he got disturbed, and she wasn’t going to deny that it crossed her mind that he might not just pick Martha up, but... yeah, she wasn’t even going to think about that. But then he really didn’t do anything, and he reassured her that he was fond of animals, and that calmed her down a bit. “I’m-- I’m really sorry. About the-- about the interrupting thingy.”

She couldn’t really figure him out, though, because on one hand, he continued to sound kind of threatening and called Martha a thing - how could anyone call her a thing, really, when she is one of the cutest thing ever, Glenda was really confused about anyone who couldn’t see that -, but at the same thing, he was stroking and petting Martha’s head, which suggested kindness. The uneasiness and nerves she felt did not disappear, to say the least. “I-- no, I-- I mean, usually pay attention to her, I just-- I got distracted for a second and she really loves exploring things and she is interested in anything and everything, and I am guessing she saw you and thought getting to know somebody know would be a good idea and just hopped over here.” She was practically rushing through those last words, rambling as she tried to explain herself.

   It was somewhat of a doomed idea right from the start, truly: after an entire night spent tossing and turning, he should’ve just stayed in rather than forcing himself to get up and stomach what Hogwarts considers to be a healthy breakfast. Routines, they say. Wake up early to start the day just right, they say. Does it count if one barely slept at all? Well, it will have to. 

    Not too tasked with things as useless as acknowledging the existence of every familiar person in the halls — let alone strangers — it was only a matter of time until Rabastan simply went and let someone bump into him, textbook knocked out of a loose and distracted grasp. In an instant, he’s taking a step back to get himself out of what used to be his personal space before she straight up crashed into it, because Merlin. Even relative proximity to the girl makes him wonder if she’s about to vibrate out of her own body, and Rabastan doesn’t care for this entire mess in the slightest.

    Dutifully, he does his best to contain an eye roll as the girl tends to the disaster of her own making, patiently awaiting for her to be done with this circus. The though of extracting his own book from the scene that unfolds at his feet is hardly anything he would willingly be a part of, but suddenly there’s ink spilling all over the place, and —well, there goes today’s first testament to the fact that people need to stop breeding. 

   “Could you at least try to keep it together? I’m not the one who doesn’t understand how walking works, so clearly, I’m fine.” Rabastan dismisses all apologies and words of concern, bending down to pick up his book and fully intending to get out of this before the girl’s fidgeting rubs off and gives him a fucking ulcer. Before he can, as par for the course, one of her parchments sticks to his textbook: soaked in ink and seemingly beyond salvaging. Rabastan is familiar with the look of this, and even more so with the kind of feeling that it evokes, which is perhaps the sole reason for why he waits a second instead of standing back up, contemplating something with a slight wince around the edges of his eyes. There’s a sigh, a muttered spell, the wand sucking the ink from the paper; out of sheer curiosity, Rabastan scours the words in attempts to make out what the assignment is, eyes trained on the parchment instead of landing on a witch even once. “Do you know the spell for the rest of this?”

Could you at least try to keep it together? I’m not the one who doesn’t understand how walking works, so clearly, I’m fine. She was the one who ran into the other person, so truly, every single word was well deserved and absolutely true, and she didn’t really expect a pat on the head and congratulation on a job well done, but still, Glenda couldn’t help but wince at the sound of the guy’s response. It was mean and the edge of the words was clear and obvious, and she stopped dead in the middle of gathering her things.

She watched as he bent down to pick up his own belongings – because she literally ran into him so hard, it wasn’t just her who dropped their stuff, really, what was she thinking rushing around the corridors like a crazy person like this – and she really should have just helped him,that might have made the situation at least slightly better, but instead, she was frozen in her place, anxiety taking over, her heart beating in her throat so hard she could barely focus on anything else. Why was this happening to her (aside from the fact that she really didn’t pay any attention to where she was going, she was very aware of that)? Why couldn’t she just react like a normal person, say sorry and just communicate? At least say she’s sorry or something.

And then he was doing a spell and one of the parchments was clear and then he turned towards her and asked her if she knew the spell for the rest, and if things were bad before, now it was horrible. She was frozen and she was almost sure she looked as dumb as she possibly could at that moment, and she really didn’t want to know what he thought about her in that moment. “I—I—“ she stuttered, truly in awe of herself that she could even form a word and speak at that moment.

Barty was sitting under a tree on the castle grounds, staring blankly at the book in his hands though he’d already read the same two sentences about 10 times. This whole business with whoever this Miss Echo was should’ve been the farthest thing from Barty’s mind. It was all a bunch of bullshit, of course. All caused by someone who was probably taking advantage of people’s heightened anxieties due to what was happening outside the safety of the castle walls. It all made sense that way. A few vague fortunes that sounded threatening here, a few good ones there. It was almost enough to make people turn against their friends if they got too ingrained in their own fortunes and their friends getting ones better or worse than theirs. It was absolutely chaotic  and that was when he realized the exact reason why he was so interested in all that fortune shit. 

A small smirk crept onto his face despite himself and he was about to go back to reading his book when a shadow passed over him. Barty snapped the book shut, raising his gaze as a scowl replaced the smirk on his face. “What? Do you have a problem with people trying to read or something?”

In the early days of the new school year, Glenda always loved to take Martha, her toad, out onto the grounds. The small toad loved spending time outside, she was truly living and enjoying herself there, and Glenda usually ended up either studying or reading something. This time, however, her mind wandered to the Hogsmeade trip, and how most of it she spent in Gladrags Wizardwear and Tomes and Scrolls. Okay, technically, it was more like, she spent a little time in Gladrags Wizardswear, got herself a new scarf, and then spent the rest of her day in the bookstore, perusing new and interesting books, and then ending up on the floor of the shop, reading some of those books.

While her mins wandered onto what she was reading, she didn’t notice her toad hopped over to somebody else, and as soon as she realized where Martha was, she quickly scrambled up to her feet and rushed over to the guy. “Wait, what?” she asked, suddenly way too aware of the fact that she just rushed up to somebody, who was now glaring up at her and clearly not happy that she disturbed him. “I—no, I didn’t—I mean—I am sorry, I just--- my toad. She’s right next to you,” she pointed towards Martha, who was no hopping closer to the closed book, examining it curiously.

She is blaming the fact that she overslept so she didn't see the other person coming towards her (was this person coming towards her from the beginning or did the person just suddenly appear in front of her, because it really felt like it was the latter one), and she ran into them, dropping her books and parchments and the bottle of ink she was holding because her mind didn't work properly and she forgot to throw everything into her bag as she rushed out of her dormitory not so long ago. The bottle broke and the ink started to spill. "Oh no, oh no, oh no," Glenda kept saying as she quickly dropped down to pick up at least the parchments. She worked hard on that homework if anything happened to it...

And then it finally truly hit is that this was happening because she ran into somebody, and she was more concerned about her own stuff than who she ran into and that must have looked really bad. "Oh gosh, oh gosh, I am sorry, are you-- are you ok? I didn’t mean to-- I mean-- I am really sorry."