[September 15, 2016: Thursday, Week 2.] [About, oh, forty-five minutes ago, James Potter was giving Simmie a hard time. A few minutes after that, Mark MacRae got involved. Maybe five minutes after THAT, Alexis Prewett got involved, and then things got interesting. And by "interesting", I mean "awful", at least if you are well. Anyone but Mark or Alexis.] [Simmie fled, followed shortly by Alexis, and since then the first years remained grouped, in silence, in their own little section of the Gryffindor common room. Anyone who's tried to sneak away was unerringly singled out by Mark, who smiled an alarmingly cheerful smile and asked them, just as cheerfully, where they were going.] [The answer was inevitably, "Nowhere."] [Fortunately, or NOT, Alexis is coming back! And she doesn't look super angry, but she still *really* doesn't look happy. She stops before the lot of the first years and says, in her best Head Girl voice, "Nobody is going to treat Simmie like that again - or ANYONE ELSE. That is not how we treat each other in this house. Are we clear?" At the mumbled agreements, she dismisses the lot of them, only to stop James, Fabian, Gideon, and Rommy. "You," she says, signaling them out, "Stick around." The other first years scatter, mostly to their own rooms, glad to finally be released from the upperclassmen. They're scary!] [Start!] [James scowls as he sits back down.] * Maggie gets to her feet, eager to get away from Mark and Alexis, but then realizes that she's going to have to go to the room with Simmie in it and freezes. * Zoe did *not* try to escape from Mark, though she really, really wanted to. She spent most of the past forty minutes hunched in her seat, looking increasingly miserable. When released she pops straight up out of her chair. * Zoe takes a few quick steps to get out of range of Alexis (scary!), giving James only the briefest of backward glances. Then she just stops and stands there, apparently thinking, before looking at Maggie. "I'm - " she wavers, swallows, blinks, then takes a breath and continues in a stronger voice. "I'm going to go tell Simmie I'm sorry." * Maggie blinks, then nods. "Okay." Pause, then, "Um, m- me, too." She looks down, saying in a quieter voice, "We were kind of awful to her, weren't we." * Zoe bites her lip and nods veryquickly, but before she can dwell on this too much, she grabs Maggie's hand and pulls the other girl after her towards their dorm. * Maggie is pulled! She doesn't fight it much, though the closer they get, the more sluggish her steps become. * Zoe looks back at Maggie, frowning unhappily, but she doesn't say anything. After all, *she's* not looking forward to this either. But she has to apologize. So when she gets to the door of the room they share, she knocks timidly before peeking inside. "S-Simmie? Can - can we come in?" * Simmie pushes Lady Alice off her lap and gets up to go answer the door. She crosses the room and opens the door a bit timidly. "yes... if you are sure you want to," she says softly. * Maggie blurts, "Of course we want to!" And suddenly she's pushing past Zoe to get into the room. "We're really sorry, Simmie!" * Zoe 's lip trembles at that and her eyes start welling up. "Simmie, I'm really, really, really sorry we were mean to you! I just - I *still* think that Eliana girl's scary and awful and - I don't know *why* you like her but I guess if she's nice to you it's okay and - I don't know *why* James was being so horrible, you're not like that, and - I didn't mean to be so mean to you!" * Zoe has to gulp for air at this point, but she's watching Simmie through guilty tears. * Simmie looks a bit surprised, she blinks and starts to tear up again, but she's trying to hold it back and smile, which ends up just giving her a weird, lop-sided, twisted lip expression face thing. * Maggie sees that, and she can't help it- she starts to giggle, because it's kind of funny, but she feels guilty, so she starts to tear up, too, and before long she looks a lot like Simmie does. * Zoe just flings herself at Simmie and hugs her when it looks like she's probably forgiven, and she starts crying in earnest. * Simmie breaks and giggles. "that face is ridiculous" * Simmie hugs Zoe and then holds her arms out for Maggie, too. group hugs are best... get over here! * Maggie jumps into the hug even as she says, between giggles, "So's yours." We really are sorry, Simmie. I- I didn't know how mean I was. * Zoe has to gulp a few times and swipe away tears before she gets her funny face on. She nods agreement with Maggie, having opened her mouth to say just that and been beaten to it. its okay... i just... i don't want to be alone anymore * Zoe nods vigorously and hugs Simmie more. "We won't ever, ever do anything like this again. Promise." * Simmie wipes her eyes with her robe. promise promise? * Zoe nods again. "Promise promise," she says perfectly seriously. * Simmie leans back slightly, and looking all serious asks, "wombat's honor?" * Zoe blinks at that. "What? What's a wombat?" It's a, um. It's a rodent. Kind of. I saw it in a zoo once... * Zoe does not look notably less confused. "How do they have honor?" * Simmie shrugs. * Zoe has relaxed her hold on Simmie (and to a lesser extent, Maggie) now that she's less upset, but she's now distracted from her initial intent to get handkerchiefs for everyone. I dunno, but *I* have honor. * Maggie wipes at her eyes. "So, um, Maggie's honor." Pause. "And a wombat's." * Simmie nods and smiles at Maggie. "good enough for me!" * Zoe apparently decides to just set the mystery aside. "Um, me too. Zoe's honor. Or, um, Guerrero's honor." Also pause. "And a wombat's." * Zoe smiles at Simmie, the first non-lopsided trembly one she's managed this conversation. also works! * Simmie giggles. i had questions about wombats and honor, too... but i was assured that they do have it * Zoe smiles a bit more. That settled, she goes to get handkerchiefs. They all need them. She's a little puzzled to find one of hers missing, but she shrugs it off and brings three more back, sharing them out among herself and her friends. * Zoe wipes at her eyes and then blinks a bit more at Simmie. "Who told you?" * Simmie blots her eyes a bit. "um... his name is Mark" * Zoe blanches at the mention of Mark. After a brief frozen moment she asks cautiously, "Um...is he nice? Because...he seemed sort of scary." * Simmie blinks. "scary? Mark? maybe its someone different. he's not scary at all" * Zoe blinks, but sets this aside for the moment, too. Instead she motions to the handkerchief she handed Simmie, which Simmie still hasn't made use of. "There, use that if you need to." She follows her own advice and blows her nose, so she can stop sniffling. He's REALLY scary! How are you making friends with all of the scary people, Simmie? * Maggie doesn't say this in an accusatory way, at least. * Simmie blinks at Maggie. "i don't know... but they weren't scary to me." Not even Eliana? * Zoe smiles and hugs Simmie again. "Maybe it's just because you're really nice." And then her face falls again, but Maggie's talking so she doesn't say anything. * Maggie does nod in agreement with Zoe. It probably *is* because Simmie's really nice. maybe... * Simmie pulls out the handkerchief that Alexis gave her and wipes her eyes. and then sheepishly smiles a bit when she realizes it matches the one Zoe gave her. * Zoe 's eyes widen in enlightenment. "Oh! That's where it went!" And then she realizes why Simmie probably has it. More sadface. "...I'm still really sorry we were mean, Simmie..." We should, um, do something to make it up to you. * Simmie bites her lip nervously. "i'm sorry... i didn't know where it came from. Alexis handed it to me" * Zoe blinks, perks up, and nods. "Hey, yeah! What should we do?" Oh, it's okay. * Zoe smiles reassuringly at Simmie. "You can use my stuff if you need it." Well, we- um- I don't know what we can do in the castle, really I've mostly spent all of my time studying and going to classes and the great hall and hanging out with y- um, yeah. But I *want* to do something. * Zoe thinks about it. "Well, we can't go to Hogsmeade until third year, and Simmie probably knows about *everything* in the castle already..." not everything... the castle changes a lot. and there are a lot of places i couldn't go when i was younger. * Simmie reaches into her pocket and pulls out a half-empty box of everyflavor beans and offers them to Zoe and Maggie * Maggie nods. "We could look around, maybe" She grabs a bean without thinking and pops it in her mouth, chewing, and shortly after a puzzled expression crosses her face. * Zoe thinks more. "If I was at home I'd bake you a cake, but..." * Maggie 's expression goes from puzzled to disgusted. "Are these still good? This tastes like, ugh. Like feet or something." She reaches for a kerchief and spits it out. * Zoe hesitantly takes one of the beans. "Yeah, you never know what you'll get..." But because Simmie offered she pops it in her mouth. * Zoe 's bean was actually fairly pretty, white with a turquoise swirl through it. She chews uncertainly. "Um...toothpaste?" Well, it could be worse. * Simmie takes a pink bean with a brown ring and places it on her tongue. she winks and chews it, wincing and shuddering a bit. she forces it down with an exaggerated swallow and makes a yuck face. "earthworm!" * Zoe bites her tongue. This is really not the time to question Simmie's taste in candy. * Maggie looks in the box, trying to find one that's inoffensive. * Maggie eventually picks one that's pure white, putting it into her mouth. "Um" She brightens. "Cream? Only it's not sweetened" * Simmie giggles. "usually white ones and red ones are better than blues and greens" Okay! * Simmie she takes a blue-green one with white waves on it as if to demonstrate. she pops it into her mouth and then shudders again. "seawater," she says once she recovers. "now i'm thirsty" I'll get you some water! * Maggie hops up and scampers off to do that, already putting action to this whole "Make it up to Simmie" thing. * Simmie looks after Maggie worriedly. "wait... you don't have to..." * Zoe looks after her, then back to Simmie with a smile. "She just wants to help," she says quietly. * Simmie nods. "i know... but... i..." she bits her lip. "i was having more fun with us all together again." she looks at Zoe hopefully * Zoe blinks as if that hadn't occurred to her. Then she nods firmly and smiles at Simmie. "I'll tell her. We can spend the weekend together, maybe go explore some of the places you couldn't before." okay! * Maggie returns after a few minutes with a glass of water. "Here you go," she says, setting it on the table next to Simmie's bed. "Sorry it took so long." * Simmie smiles at Maggie and gives her a hug. "thank you" [and there was much hugging and giggling and staying up waaaaaaay too late talking about stuff. the every flavor beans did not make another appearance that night. the handkerchiefs, however, did a few more times -- even at breakfast the next morning. one thing was certain, however, the Gryffindor Girls were back!]