A Place For The Miserable finished

Opeila once more went to the abandoned toilets. Why? She wasn't sure. Maybe to find some privacy. Whatever it was, she felt like this was the place to be now. Maybe it was her seer instinct. She decided to listen to this instinct. Who knew, maybe she would find an answer to at least one of the thousands of questions she had.

But instead she found something she would have never expected to find. A girl, curled up in a corner, crying. A piece of paper in her hand. A short look at the girl's robe told Opeila, that this was a Gryffindor girl. Z
The Slytherin froze in the entrance and quietly closed the door behind her. "Hey... Are you alright?" Stupid question. "What's the matter?", she said after shaking her head about herself asking obvious questions.
"Something I can help you with?"
It was one of Opeila's less aggressive days. Luckily. On other days she would have probably just told her to suck it up and finally grow up. Life was a bitch.

But now she would walk over and sit down next to the Gryffindor. "Bad news?", she asked, looking at the paper. The Slytherin assumed that this was a letter.

@Ivy Bellamy

Ivy had been so caught up in her misery that she hadn't noticed someone else slipping into the room.
"Hey... are you alright?"
Ivy looked up. It was a Slytherin girl, her eyebrows raised in surprise.
"What do you think?" Ivy asked miserably. Usually she wouldn't reply so rudely, but she couldn't care less at the moment. When the report owls got back to her parents, what would playing nice do for her?
The Slytherin shook her head and cleared her throat. "What's the matter?"
Ivy tried to answer, but a sob took place instead. Before she knew it, she was crying again. How embarrassing.
"Something I can help you with?" the Slytherin girl tried again.
"You're wasting your time," Ivy said, when she had calmed down enough to reply. "You can't help me with this."
The Slytherin ignored her and sat down next to her. "Bad news?"
Ivy shook her head, and being too ashamed to say it in words, she tossed the paper in her direction. She couldn't bring herself to see the mocking, evil grin that would surely spread across the Slytherin's face, so she turned away.
"Look at my test score," she said quietly. "I've never scored so badly in my entire life. My family will kill me."
Ivy didn't say it like a joke, as most teenagers would. She meant it.
A shiver ran down her spine. The Bellamys were the kind of people who would kill their daughter over a bad report owl.

Opeila could just stop herself from rolling her eyes at the girl's unfriendly answer. "Alright, I can just leave you alone with you misery, if that is what you want. Or you can tell me what is going on and get it off your chest.", Opeila said, raising her hands. She was no person to break under an unfriendly word, she wouldn't let people talk to her like that. All a matter of inner strength, she liked to think.

And apparently the Gryffindor really needed to talk. She opened her mouth, Opeila thought that she would now say something to her, but instead she started to cry. Opeila herself was absolutely no stranger to tears, but it still always made her feel a little helpless when someone else started to cry. Especially someone she didn't know. For a reason she didn't know. Then the girl told her she was wasting her time. Opeila couldn't help her with it.
"I can try, right? Unless you are hellbend on staying all alone with this. I mean, if you want me to go, I will." Opeila shrugged.

Then the girl tossed the paper at the Slytherin and then finally told her about a test with a bad score and that her family would kill her for it. Opeila first looked at the girl, not sure if she was joking and then at the test. "Alright, it is not an O. So what? This is a first year test. No one is gonna ask you about this test later.", she said seriously. Opeila knew how it was to have a rather bad family situation, so she wouldn't dare to make fun of the Gryffindor's.
"My name is Opeila Seilun. If it helps you, we can study together. I am also not that good in some subjects yet. Especially Transfiguration and Defense Against the Dark Arts.", she said, smiling.

@Ivy Bellamy

@Opeila Seilun

The Slytherin replied rather harshly to Ivy's rudeness, which could be expected, before telling her that her bad test score wasn't going to impact her future. Ivy looked over at the girl. "I know, but my family..." she trailed off. The other girl didn't say anything, earning a rather inquisitive look in her direction from Ivy. Perhaps she had a family like her own. The Gryffindor wanted to ask, but thought it would be quite rude, especially as they had just met.

The Slytherin then introduced herself as Opeila Seilun. A rather strange name, one that Ivy had never heard of before, but pretty in its own way. Ivy was unsure of whether the girl preferred first names or surnames, so she offered both. "I'm Ivy Bellamy."

Opeila asked if she wanted to study together in the future, saying that she, too, wasn't very strong in some subjects with a smile. Ivy's ears pricked up at the mention of Transfiguration, her favourite class.

"I think studying together would be great," she told Opeila, smiling hesitantly back at the Slytherin. Ivy did not let in people easily, and decided that this did not mean that they were friends yet, but she was falling behind in a few subjects, and would be grateful for the help. "And I love Transfiguration - perhaps I can help if you want? I'm not quite sure about Defence Against The Dark Arts."

Ivy got up, wiping the tears away, and took the test paper back. "Thank you for helping me, Opeila." Rather stiffly, she held out a hand as an afterthought. Now that the pureblood was calmer, she was now feeling embarrassed and unsure of how to talk to the other girl. She hated crying, especially in front of others. It made her feel weak. Just in case Opeila misinterpreted her stiffness as ungratefulness, she offered her another smile. It was a rare day that Ivy Bellamy cried, and an even rarer day that someone caught her and comforted her.

The Gryffindor looked at Opeila, listening to her words, before she told the Slytherin once more that her family was the problem.
Opeila bit her lip, thinking about that. Then she shook her head.
"Listen, if they are gonna come for you because of something that unimportant, your family is a group of idiots. And also, why are you worrying so much? No one will make you tell them your score. It is not like the professors are gonna send e-mails to your parents." Why did she just compare it with muggle reactions? Maybe the girl didn't even know what e-mails were.

After Opeila introduced herself, the Gryffindor did the same. Her name was Ivy Bellamy. Opeila smiled. "Nice to meet you, Ivy."

Ivy seemed to like Opeila's suggestion that they could study together, she even offered her help with transfiguration. "That would be so great! Thank you!" Alright, now Opeila was exaggerating a little, not enough to make it unbelievable, but she wasn't really as excited. She had read somewhere, that it was the best help for people who felt like they have failed, if they were made feel needed.

The Gryffindor smiled and held out a hand while thanking Opeila for helping her.
Opeila took her hand.
"No problem at all."
She smiled at Ivy.

@Ivy Bellamy

@Opeila Seilun

E-mails? What were e-mails? Perhaps a Muggle item? Ivy looked at the Slytherin, perplexed, before shaking her head and focusing on her next words. She seemed a little over-excited for the offer of studying. To the average eye, it would have seemed genuine, but Ivy knew how to see through people, and thought that she was maybe pretending a little for her sake. She wasn't offended - the girl had cheered her up, and decided not to mention the studying-thing again.

Ivy got to her feet. "I - um - I suppose I'd better get going." She looked at Opeila thankfully. "I guess I owe you." She hated owing people, but it was true that the Slytherin girl had helped her. "Thank you, I'll see you around, hm?" Ivy smiled at Opeila before slipping out of the bathroom, discarding the test into the bin on the way. Opeila was right.

Who cared about what her family thought? As she had said, it wasn't like anyone would send an e-mail, was it? Ivy shook her head, still confused as to what an "e-mail" was. A Muggle way of sending mail, perhaps?

Note to self: find out what an e-mail is.

Ivy leaves the thread.

Ashlyn walked in sighing a little, she had tried to study in the study room but all the tables were occupied by other students and she had fled from the room, terrified. Now was heading towards the abandoned bathrooms. She was a bit disappointed. As she entered the room she saw a girl leave, she had tear streaks on her face but she didn’t look sad. When Ashlyn walked in there was a Slytherin girl. She waved a bit at her and then sat down in a corner that was out of the sight of the Slytherin girl. She sighed, disappointed, she had told herself she was going to walk in, sit down, and look at her notes, she had ended up fleeing from the study room in terror after seeing all the other students. Now she was about to study in the abandoned bathroom. Not a great start to her first week. She got out her notes and began reading, a bit teary. She new she was going to see her parents during Christmas but she still missed them, she could definitely use their cheerfulness at that point. She started to sulk a bit and started thinking about her friends from back home. She missed playing Seeker during little Quidditch games. She glared at her notes. She sighed again and wondered why Hogwarts had seemed so amazing. In her eyes Hogwarts was a very complicated place and was no longer the place her dreams. Now she had nightmares about falling off the floating and moving stairs. She hadn’t talked to anyone at all, making friends was far from her reach. She looked at her notes and realized she was studying in the bathroom during her first week at school. She sighed one last time and started reading her book on magical theory, deciding to ignore her scribbled notes.