#vulnerastarter

She’d always had a slight dependency on her to do lists, but right now, they seemed to be the only thing keeping her afloat. Alice lived her days by checking off things she needed to do ( practice this charm, write that essay, go to that club meeting ). It kept her moving, kept her focused on the many tasks at hand. For the first time, she felt like she’d taken on too much --- but even now, she was refusing to drop anything. Not Quidditch, not any of her classes, none of her clubs. She wasn’t going to give in to that; it’d mean she was crumbling, and she was not ready to admit that something like that was close to happening. The only thing she could admit to was that her temper was growing shorter with every day that passed. She was reminded of that when she was helping Madam Pince while fulfilling a few of her Head Girl duties. “I need EVERYONE to shut up!” Eyes flashed over a group of first years, who’d been giggling at what she supposed was a dirty drawing in a Transfiguration book. “Now. This is a LIBRARY, for Merlin’s sakes. Hush.”

“I wonder if we’re still goin’ to the Quidditch World Cup. I was really looking forward to it.”

“D’you want a pun?,” she wondered. “I’ve got plenty up my sleeve, and they always make me feel a tinge better. Laughter being the best medicine is bullshit, of course, but it helps.”

“Listen, I have absolute faith in my classmates --” lie. “-- and their taste in alcohol --” lie. “-- but I just prefer drinking from my own stash, you know?,” said Lucius, draining his glass of wine with a last sip. “I mean, no offense, but I doubt that any of the people behind this ... little get together would bring wine this good.”

Hestia slides her way down the table, a blank look on her face as she begins to pile the food onto her plate. There’s an aching in her chest which she ignores, quietly going about her morning routine. “If you want that sausage, just take it,” There’s a quiet exhaustion in her voice, done with the pretence of whatever the fuck she should be feeling that wasn’t anger or fear. Her hand pauses, her fork poised in mid air, half a hash brown on the end of it, as she speaks. “And if you can move that bloody dish rag of an article, I’d appreciate it.”

“Well, yeah, sure, but I mean... what’s the worst that could happen?” Considering the sugar quills she was currently experimentally dousing in various amounts of firewhiskey as she spoke, probably a fair bit, but she chose to ignore that, instead testing different binding spells on each sugar quill.