“You’ve been staring in this general direction for a while now with this...hopeless look in your eyes. I know this place almost as well as Joel does, what’re you trying so hard to will into existence?” Jayden asked, wandering over to stand beside the patron. His arms crossed loosely in front of his chest, he leaned forward, squinting in the same general direction as if he were trying to make out some hidden message. 

It’s that time of year again.

Spencer sighs, fist crumpling a piece of paper—a letter—that’s been in his hold for the last couple of hours. His heart hurts, and so is his brain for having the thought for too long now, but he can’t seem to find the heart to throw it away just yet. 

It’s probably his seventh—or is it eighth?—attempt at writing to his parents, and he was ecstatic when unlike the previous ones that went unresponded, he received a reply letter this once.

“Dear Spencer,” it had said on the first line, his mother’s handwriting that he’s grown to forget, but a smile curling on the corner of his lips anyway, “Me and your father had decided that perhaps it is best for you to focus more on your study and spend less time writing us nonsensical and letters. We have learned from your Head of House that you have failed,” by this time, his smile had faltered; his mother even refused to write something as mundane as his house’s name, “or rather refused on your own consciousness to attend three classes last semester, hence your grade had deteriorated.”

There’s not a single joy left on his features anymore.

“We refuse to reply to any of your letters anymore until you have proved that your grades are improving, and we have asked Sigmund, Stanley and Sharlene to do the same. Do well. Remember, you are a Wilberforce.”

With a deep sigh, he settles on one of the bench on the Quidditch Pitch, fighting the urge to lie down. He loves his parents, his family, he really does. But this isn’t really the first time he feels like the feeling isn’t mutual. He’s merely a puppet in their eyes, a pawn, one that they can control.

Or rather, one that they think they can control.

A click of his tongue and a growl later, he leans back against the railing, ignoring the cheerful and spirited shouts across the field that he always likes to hear, and just closes his eyes. One way or another, this has to stop.