my tears ricochet PV J. Malters Reopened

Jess walked along the school hall, yanking at her hair irksomely. Her rubber band had come undone during Charms, which, thankfully, was her last class of the day. Eager to keep the unruly curls and tangles out of her face, Jess had twisted the hair back into a loose braid that she could already feel coming apart with every bounce upon her back. Jess had never really been good at braiding her hair, especially without the help of a mirror to guide her, and it was showing. She could take a short trip down to her dormitory, of course, and simply retrieve a new rubber band to put her hair back into its comfortable ponytail, but that seemed like a lot of work and Jess really wasn't feeling up to walking down stairs solely to fix her hair. No, she decided, she would just pull it half up behind her head and braid the top portion to keep it in place. She would need a mirror for that, though, to make sure that the hairdo was even and she wouldn't be left wandering the halls looking like a half-shaved ape. Spotting the entrance to the abandoned bathroom a short way up ahead, Jess figured that that would probably be the best place to fix her hair, as there would be no one else there to ogle at her as she completed the bothersome task. Stupid rubber band.

Ducking into the bathroom, Jess didn't spot anyone in the room at first, and let out a relieved sigh. But as the creaking of the door subsided and gave way to the muffled sound of crying, Jess turned in surprise and realized that she was not, in fact, the only resident of the abandoned toilets. On the floor near the entrance to the room was huddled a girl, clutching a necklace and sobbing as if her entire heart had shattered in two. "Oh, um..." Jess said, unsure how to approach the girl. She seemed older than Jess and rather as if she would be quite intimidating if she wasn't curled up on the bathroom floor the way she was now, and in all honesty, Jess found herself fearing how the girl might react if she tried to comfort her. Half turning towards the bathroom door to head out of the room and pretend she hadn't seen anything, Jess paused.

As much as Jess feared the girl's reaction, she couldn't exactly leave her there to wallow in her own sorrow. And after all, the Sorting Hat had sorted Jess into Hufflepuff for a reason, hadn't it? Maybe it had seen kindness in her, had always intended for her to be there to help and support others. Maybe she had always been meant to have wound up here, to try and ease the suffering this girl was clearly going through at least a little bit. Pulling a pack of tissues from her bag, Jess stepped up to the girl slowly and crouched down beside her, offering the tissues to her. "Um, are you okay?" she asked, her tone gentle. "Do you need a tissue?"

@Jess Malters

Of course, she couldn't get a small bit of privacy. Someday, she was going to seriously need to ascertain what she had done to make the universe hate her so much. Her mother was dead, her father for all intents and purposes was gone, and her life was never going to be the same. You would think that would be enough, but apparently it wasn't. Ana had managed to get into a brutal argument with one of her closest friends, and now she couldn't even have privacy to cry. She must have royally screwed up to deserve the abuse the universe was dolling out upon her.

She shoved the necklace back under her robes as the other girl entered since it wasn't something she particularly wanted to talk about. That was an understatement, actually, she vehemently didn't want to talk about it. She was sure that if she even tried to talk about it, she would just shatter and be beyond repair. To be fair, a case could be made that she was already long beyond repair, considering all that had happened.

The girl who had intruded upon Ana's wallowing looked younger than her, most likely a first year. Just perfect, not only was her moment of solitude gone but now she had to deal with a whiny and likely incredibly nosy first year. "No," Ana said in response to both of the girl's questions. She had meant for it to sound somewhat biting and authoritative to make the girl regret her choice to speak to Ana and ideally flee the bathroom, but instead, it came out sounding utterly heartbroken. She shook the girl a resentful look that would have been far more intimidating if she wasn't sitting on the bathroom floor with bloodshot and puffy eyes.

She ran a hand through her hair and took a deep breath, trying to compose herself somewhat so that this little brat wouldn't have anything more than she already did to run and gossip with all her friends about. Why couldn't anyone at this school mind their own bloody business? It seemed that half the people were obsessed with trying to comfort her and find out what was wrong and that the other half was solely focused on spreading increasingly insane rumors about her. She resented all of them for it. Neither one actually did her any good, and if anything, they just hurt her more because they demanded her focus on them instead of dealing with her problems.

Deep down, she knew that being alone wasn't what was best for her or even remotely what she wanted, but she also knew that it was a matter of time before she flew apart completely and it would be the best thing for everyone for her to be the only person who was destroyed by that. In her own immature and messed up way, she was trying to protect not only her friends but everyone at the school. Not that it was actually working. "I'm fine," she said, sniffling and wiping her eyes with her sleeve as though that made things seem completely normal.

As Jess sat crouched beside the girl, she saw her hide the necklace she had been holding when Jess came in. In the back of her mind, Jess wondered what the necklace was: if it meant something to the girl or if it was just a trinket she liked to hold and play with. Either way, Jess wasn't going to pry. If it was the latter of the two options, then there was no point talking about it, and if, as Jess suspected, the necklace was in some way connected to the girl's grief, then asking about it would likely only worsen the situation.

Slightly to Jess's surprise, the girl refused her offer and shot her an icy glare. Though, Jess figured she probably should have expected something like this. Someone as tough and intimidating-looking as this girl was probably used to bottling her emotions up inside and would never admit that they needed help from someone, especially not a random someone that they had just met and who had seen them in a vulnerable state. Still, the girl's voice seemed to reflect her grief, and it was clear that even if she didn't want it, she needed someone to be there for her.

As Jess watched the girl run a hand through her hair, she resolved to be the person to stay by this girl's side. Even if her fear had increased from earlier, so had her certainty that this girl clearly wasn't okay and that Jess's stumbling into her was no accident. The girl swiped a hand across her eyes with the words, "I'm fine," which only really served to show Jess that she wasn't. In her experience, everyone who said they were fine wasn't really fine.

Jess wavered for a moment, then lifted the tissues again in a gesture for the girl to take them. "No, you're not," she said softly. She was fully aware that with the way that the girl had responded and looked at her before, telling her these words was probably more dangerous then starting a duel with one of her friends. And yet, if she could show this girl that her pride really shouldn't take a hit from this, maybe she could do some good here. After all, it wasn't like Jess thought any less of the girl for crying; she was a person, a child, and all children cry sometimes. "Just take the tissue, refusing it won't do you any good... I won't tell anyone."

@Jess Malters

Ana tried to roll her eyes the way she generally did when someone said something stupid, but it didn't have the energy or disdain behind it that she would have liked. Was it really this obvious that she wasn't fine? She knew it was to her friends but was it really that obvious to a stranger? Then again, she was sobbing on a random bathroom floor. Tipping her head back and staring at the ceiling instead of her unwanted companion, she sighed loudly.

She wrinkled her nose but couldn't bring herself to fully scowl at the girl's next words. For all the stranger knew, maybe Ana was allergic to tissues! She wasn't, but that was hardly the point. She glanced at the girl before grudgingly taking the tissue. "If you tell anyone, I'll make your life a living hell," she said, her heart not really in the threat. Turning her gaze back upward, she sighed again. She really didn't have the energy or motivation to make good on a threat like that, but she hoped her reputation and general demeanor would help intimidate the girl enough to keep her from speaking about any of this encounter.

"Do you make a habit of scouring bathrooms for people to give tissues?" Ana asked, her words missing the intended venom. If her past self could see her now, she'd been incredibly disappointed. She would demand to know what had happened to the vivacious, admittedly bitchy force of nature she had been. But past Ana wasn't here, the trainwreck that was current Ana was. How had she lost everything in such a short time? Losing her mother had been the catalyst, but she had lost so much more in addition. She had lost her faith in humanity, her belief in her parents, her belief that she was meaningful in the grand scheme of things, and most recently, her faith in herself.

The fight on the first day of school had shaken her to her core, and the more she thought about it, the more shaken she was. The one thing she knew for certain was she couldn't even trust herself anymore. She hadn't even fully begun to process the other implications of that loss of control. She truly felt like she had nothing left anymore. She had never understood all the people saying that money was meaningless and couldn't buy before, but she did now. She had inherited an insane amount of money in the past year and she would trade it all for her life to go back to how it was before. It had been messy and imperfect, but it wasn't like this. It wasn't a nightmare every waking and sleeping hour.

The girl rolled her eyes at Jess and looked up at the ceiling, slightly irking the Hufflepuff. Jess was just trying to help the girl, so why should she be acting all annoyed with Jess as if she had done something wrong? Just ignore it, Jess told herself firmly. She's probably just too proud to act any other way, especially since I walked in on her crying... that doesn't mean she doesn't deserve help.

Jess felt her annoyance lessen slightly as the girl wrinkled her nose but took the tissue anyways, although she still threatened Jess as she did so. Too pleased that the girl had taken even this little step in accepting help from Jess, she hardly registered the murderous promise. She doubted that the girl would go through with the threat anyways, as she clearly had other, bigger things to worry about, but it would still be safer not to tell anyone and be cautious with it anyways. Not that Jess had been planning to spill the secret, though. She simply didn't see the point in telling anyone else, since it wasn't like she would get anything other than being known as the girl who found someone crying and told the whole school about it in return, and Jess really didn't want to be remembered that way.

"Do you make a habit of scouring bathrooms for people to give tissues?"

Despite herself, Jess grinned a bit at the question. She wasn't sure if the other girl had meant it as a joke or not, but either way, she meant to answer it like a proper question. "I don't, actually. Although... this is my second time stumbling into someone in these bathrooms, so I'm not sure they should hold the right to be called 'abandoned' anymore. It seems like they're occupied most of the time, anyways." Jess highly doubted that the girl actually cared about her previous bathroom adventures, but, well, she had asked. Plus, if the girl got annoyed with Jess, then that would distract her from whatever it was that had her sitting in the bathroom sobbing, so it would be a good thing, right?

"What's your name, anyways?" Jess asked, more out of the desire to have something to say and for the simplification of thinking about the girl then out of an actual need to know. "And... do you want me to go and try to find one of your friends or like a teacher or something and get them to come talk to you?" Realizing that the girl might not actually want to be around anyone, seeing as she was in the abandoned bathroom and all, Jess quickly added, "I won't if you don't want me to, though..."

@Jess Malters

She shot another watery glare at the girl. It was a rhetorical question, and quite frankly, she felt that it said far more about the girl than the people she found crying. After all, it was a cliche that people went to the bathrooms for privacy, generally to cry or do something else that they didn't particularly want others to witness. What did it say about her that she frequented the Abandoned Toilets for no particular reason?

Then again, Ana was hardly one to judge. It seemed that these days, she spent half her time crying int the aforementioned bathroom and the other half getting into fights over stupid rumors. She wished they didn't bother her so much, after all, no other rumors had. Her parents had always said rumors were the attempts of lesser people to understand people who actually did important things, and Ana definitely agreed. Nobody she had heard spreading the vile rumors had been anyone that she thought highly of, or had ever even met before. Still, this differed from rumors about who she went to the ball with or who she had or hadn't kissed. This was something big and painful and nobody else had any right to it.

She continued to stare at the ceiling, partially because looking up made it more difficult to continue crying and partially because it meant she didn't have to look at the other girl. She ran a hand through her hair as she contemplated the complete and utter failure that was her life. It seemed she had cried in the bathroom at least once every year so far, and as far as she could remember, it was always about her parents. Always about the threat of disownment. Now that and far worse things had happened and she didn't know what to do with herself. That constant fear of her parents choosing for her not to be their child anymore had been replaced by something far worse. The reality of that fear.

She couldn't even properly mourn her mother because she had no idea how she felt about her being gone. Sad, obviously, but a part of her was angry at her for not being stronger, for her failure to stop Oliver from casting Ana out. Except her mother was gone, and Ana had no one to be angry at besides herself. She hadn't even begun to contemplate her complicated feelings on her father. He had been arrested for her mother's murder, and Ana couldn't say for certain whether he did or didn't do it. Some part of her psyche had blocked out her mothers death, in a feeble attempt to protect her. She wished she could say for certain that her father wasn't capable of doing something so terrible and violent, that there was some other explanation, but he had proven he was more than capable of violence the night she had been disowned. What terrified her now was how capable she was of violence. Not the run of the mill school girl hexes and squabbles, but real physical violence.

I'm Anastasia -" she said, interrupted by another round of sobs. She couldn't introduce herself fully without using the name that she shared with her dead mother and her imprisoned father. She couldn't bring herself to say it and she also felt sick to her stomach for not saying it."And no, don't you dare get anyone else." She had intended her second reply to be more commanding but instead, it came out sounding like her pleading.

Jess caught the glare that the other girl shot her way, and had to remind herself again not to become mad at her for the way she was acting. Besides, Jess had meant to annoy her with the overly-descriptive answer to the girl's sarcastic question, hadn't she? This meant that it had worked, right? Hopefully. Or... not? Was it good to annoy the girl as a form of distraction? After finding just how intimidating that annoyance could prove to be, Jess wasn't so sure anymore. Still, she still had to try and make the girl feel better somehow, even if she she wasn't quite sure how yet.

She watched as the girl started to introduce herself and then lapsed back into sobbing, shooting a round of pity through Jess's chest. She tried to keep her face neutral, though, or at least not change her expression from what it had been before. Somehow, she highly doubted that this girl- Anastasia- wanted anyone, especially Jess, to pity her. She nodded at Anastasia'a next words, seeing that her earlier suspicion had been correct. The girl didn't want anyone to have found her- well... that didn't seem to have worked out too well, since Jess had still walked in on her. Still, this only made the young Hufflepuff more determined to actually try and help the girl, hopefully in a way different from all the other people the girl was avoiding who had likely been unsuccessful in their attempts to help her. "Okay," she said softly. "I won't." At least she didn't tell me to leave yet, Jess thought to herself. That's a good sign, right?

She trailed off for a second, then decided to try and distract the girl again, hopefully with compliments instead of things that would annoy her this time. "Anastasia... that's a really pretty name. I know a couple of Anna's, but only two of them are actually Anastasia's. They're all Russian, though, like me. Are you Russian, too?" It was kind of a random question, Jess knew, but maybe it would get the girl to think positively instead of whatever was going on now. A sudden thought struck her, and she looked back at the girl sharply, her eyes bright. "You know what always makes me feel better? Tea. Dinner should be starting soon, do you want me to go get you some?"

@Jess Malters

Ana's stupid hands wouldn't stop trembling and she wanted to kick herself. How had she become this pathetic? She couldn't control herself enough to not get into a brawl every five minutes and now she couldn't even get herself to stop shaking like she was some scared child. She had stopped being a child the moment she had been disowned, and she hated herself even more for feeling this way.

The self-hatred was one of many new emotions that Ana had discovered recently, and it was probably her least favorite. She had gone through her entire life certain that she was better than everyone, simply because of who she was. There were other reasons, but that was the main one. Between being disowned and the possibility of what her father had done, that had been snatched away from her. That loss combined with the guilt she felt over her mother's death meant that she pretty much hated everyone, but herself most of all. Everything that she had believed about herself had proven to be false and she didn't know what was left other than the sorry shell she was.

She thought she caught a hint of pity on the girl's face, but didn't even have the energy to get angry about that. She was pitful and she knew it. Still, that didn't mean she wanted pity from some random first year or anyone for that matter. She almost preferred the nasty gossips that stared in the halls because at least they didn't mean well and she felt free to hate them. People who pitied her or even worse tried to help made her feel worse most of the time. She couldn't stand for people to see her so weak and vulnerable, which usually come out as her lashing out at them like she had all of her friends.

The Gryffindor shook her head at Jess's inquiry as to whether or not Ana was Russian. She wasn't sure why her parents had chosen that name, and the tragic princess's tale was feeling especially relevant right then. She sighed slightly at the girl's mention of tea as memories of countless garden parties and brunches and teas rushed forward. All of the pastels blurred together and seemed to be bloodstained by what had happened. "I-" she said, taken aback at the girl's offer. The idea of someone doing something genuinely helpful with no ulterior motives sounded improbable to the girl, but she was also rather hungry. "That would be good, thank you." The prospect of braving the Great Hall in her current state sounded horrible and she stared at her trembling hands again to try to dispel the thought.

Jess's eyes widened fractionally at Anastasia'a agreement to get tea... or, rather, her acceptance of Jess's offer to go and fetch her some. It wasn't really fair, Jess figured, that she should have to go and act like a servant for this girl when she had been nothing but rude to the Hufflepuff, but still, Jess had been the one to make the offer. Besides, the girl had actually thanked Jess just now, which the first year definitely hadn't been expecting. Maybe this meant that she was softening, at least a bit, towards Jess, and the girl found that this made the prospect of skipping dinner to run back and forth from the bathroom to the Great Hall just to help a random stranger worth it.

She nodded at the girl and started to make her way out of the bathroom, but stopped halfway out the door and turned around hesitantly. "Just- don't leave while I'm gone, alright? Please..." Yes, Jess was glad that the girl had accepted her offer, but that didn't mean that she was willing to leave to get the tea if Anastasia was just going to take this chance to ditch Jess and leave the bathroom while she was alone. Not really waiting for the girl's response, Jess slipped out of the bathroom and headed off down the hall.

So- the girl hadn't wanted Jess- no, definitely hadn't wanted Jess to go get any teachers or any of her friends, which meant that she wanted to be alone. Although, she hadn't actually told Jess to leave the bathroom, so maybe it was just people she actually knew that she didn't want to see. So... what did that mean about the reason Anastasia was left crying alone in an abandoned bathroom? Had she done something bad that made her friends hate her and now she regretted it? No, her not wanting to see her friends didn't necessarily have to mean that they didn't want to see her... Maybe it was something more along the lines of Katrina's woes, like dead relatives or some Hogwarts-related injury. Katrina had said that there had been some kind of dangerous monsters there who had attacked the students, after all, so maybe Anastasia was crying over her experiences with them? But no- that didn't really make sense, since the Ball had happened a while ago... maybe Jess was just reading way too far into it, and Anastasia was simply crying because of a failed test or her boyfriend breaking up with her or something.

Whatever it was that had the girl acting the way she was now, Jess was pretty sure she wasn't going to tell the Hufflepuff the specifics of it, anyways. Asking if she wanted to talk about it might still be worth a shot, though. If the girl had something she needed to say then maybe it would be easier for her to talk to Jess than to any of her friends who she was actually close with, so Jess could help in that regard. Or- the girl could decide that she just wanted to drink her tea in peace or have Jess distract her, so the first year could help with that too. Though, if Anastasia did request that Jess leave her alone, the Hufflepuff told herself she wouldn't listen. Even if the older girl thought that being alone would be best for herself in that moment, Jess reckoned that she really shouldn't be alone in the state that she was currently in.

Having already made it to the doors of the Great Hall while thinking without quite noticing, Jess snapped out of her guesses as she walked through the entrance and looked around. Spotting a kettle along with a box of tea bags sitting near the end of the Hufflepuff table, Jess made her way towards it, oblivious to the chatter of the students around her. If someone close to Jess was talking about a specific Anastasia Beckett and her tendency to set people on fire or even murder her own parents, Jess didn't hear it. If she had, maybe she wouldn't have been as eager to get the tea and make her way back to the mysterious and possibly very dangerous girl sitting alone in the abandoned bathrooms and sobbing to herself.

Either way, Jess continued to block out all the voices around her as she got to the table and plopped a tea bag inside a cup and poured hot water over it. Looking up, Jess saw the pitcher of milk standing right in front of her and mentally smacked herself. In her haste to leave the bathrooms earlier and be alone with her thoughts, she had forgotten to ask Anastasia how she liked her tea. Oh well. Jess didn't mind having her tea with or without milk anyways, so she could just make both variants and then give Anastasia whichever one she chose- problem solved! As for sugar, she could just take one pack for herself and two for the older girl so she could decide how sweet to make her own drink... Jess nodded to herself as she grabbed two coffee stirrers with which to mix their drinks, proud at herself for figuring out how to still get both herself and Anastasia their preferred variant of tea. Jess turned to head back out of the Great Hall, but a protesting growl from her stomach stopped her for a moment. She really was quite hungry, and it wouldn't hurt to stop and eat a bit, would it? After entertaining that idea for a couple of seconds, Jess let it go and sighed to herself. Hungry as she was, she couldn't let herself stay here and leave Anastasia alone for even more time than she had already been gone. Besides, she could still eat, even if she went back to the girl. She reached out and grabbed a bagel for herself, then, hesitantly, picked up another one. Anastasia might be hungry, too.

Food in hand and mind set on asking the girl if she wanted to talk about her troubles, Jess turned on her heel and walked out of the Great Hall and along the hallways until she reached the moving stairs, which she bounded up, nearly forgetting to jump over the trick step as she went. When she reached the entrance to the bathrooms, Jess paused to catch her breath and shift the food around in her hands. Now that she thought about it, eating in the bathrooms probably wasn't the best idea. They were abandoned, though, so hopefully that would make the whole experience a little less... undesirable. Her breathing finally back to normal, Jess nudged the door open and peered inside.

Thankfully, Anastasia was still there, though she looked a little calmer than she had before. "I wasn't sure how you liked your tea, so I've got one here with milk and one without it," Jess said, extending two of the sugar packets out to the girl. "I also brought sugar for you to put in it since I don't really know how sweet you like your stuff... oh, and I got you a bagel if you want it." She walked a bit closer to the stalls, looking for a place on the floor that seemed at least a little cleaner than the others, and sat down. "So..." she said softly, pouring the contents of her own sugar packet into her tea. "Do you want to talk about what happened, or would you rather I try and distract you with something else?"