[OPEN MINGLE] Or perhaps in Slytherin

[fulllifeconsequences]

Who: Slytherin House! (And friends and visitors, of course!)
Where: Slytherin Common Room, Quidditch Pitch, various places around Hogwarts
When: Duration of the event
Rating: G (will edit as necessary)
Summary: Slytherin open log!
The Story:



The Slytherin common room was a long, low underground room with rough stone walls and ceiling, from which round, greenish lamps were hanging on chains. A fire was crackling under an elaborately carved mantelpiece ahead of them, and several Slytherins were silhouetted around it in carved chairs.

The common room has changed, somewhat, from its historical description, thanks to the decorative powers of one Mettaton. Though it still extends beneath the lake and thus retains a greenish, aquatic cast, it's much more brightly lit, its cold, damp atmosphere replaced with dazzling MTT-brand warmth. Even the giant squid, occasionally peering in as it does its rounds of the lake, seems just a shade more glamorous inside such a charming space.

Students - and a ghost or two - can be found nestled within its confines, plotting mischief around the fire, studiously doing their homework (as good students do), or perhaps trading Chocolate Frog trading cards. Though Slytherin is not especially well-known for its wide-open, trusting nature, Slytherins are known for not snitching on each other; if a guest or two were to creep in for a while, then odds are, nobody saw anything.

Comments

[agneshko]

Uh huh.

[ all right is reserved for tepid circumstances, and elena is perfectly aware victor's hobbies are anything but. she's endeared, as she always is, by the satisfaction in his smile. there are times when she laments that other slytherins do not know this beautiful, monstrous side to him. mostly, she is selfishly pleased she gets to see it, like it's hers and hers alone. it isn't as though she does not repay in kind. victor was the first person to know her feelings for damon, and he was the first person she went to in tears when her parents and katerina's disowned them. she never doubts her place in victor's world, a constant she needs quite desperately. ]

I'm reading a muggle book Nik recommended to me.

[ she lifts the jane austen novel up for his appraisal. ] Have you heard of it?

[lifeskills]

<sub>[It's better for Elena not to know all the details. The more she knows, the more complicit she becomes, and the next time he crosses paths with Professor Barnes he might not get off so easily. He wouldn't want her to reap the consequences of something he's sewing, not her.

He can't fix everything for her--he can't her family back together any more than he can fix the fault lines in his own--but he can protect her from this. (From him.)]</sub>

It's about ghosts and romance, isn't it? _{[If he had to pick one aspect and only one aspect of the mundane world that interests him, he'd have to say literature. Caroline Frankenstein had loved it and passed the same appetite to the most bookish of her sons.]} Not all that different than here some days.

_{[And yes, Elena is getting a pointed look at that. One could make the argument she has more than a few things in common with Jane Eyre. Interested in romance and feminist self-discovery would be on the front page of her dating profile if she had one.]}

Have you been waiting up?

[agneshko]

M...aybe.

[ is she that predictable? romance, death, and feminist self-discovery.

victor really does know her well.

elena pretends not to notice that pointed look. instead, she inches toward a corner in the couch, allowing for more room should he like to join her. ] Of course I was waiting. You're my best friend. I'm going to worry. [ one of these days time won't be on his side, and elena worries it will get him in trouble. victor's thirst for knowledge is insatiable, and unlike many others who believe themselves truth-seekers, his pursuit is never for the sake of knowledge alone. ]

[lifeskills]

It seems a bit outside of his tastes.

<sub>[But then again, maybe not. Klaus does have that girl now. That girl or that boy tends to be how Victor labels all significant others in his head. He's a late bloomer when it comes to being of an age to date; the relationships cropping up around him still mystify him more than anything else, Elena's hopeful prospects included.

Head falling back against the couch, he lets himself relax in a boneless slump after the day's busyness. Time is never on his side, and it shows in his tiredness. Still, the long days are worth it.]</sub>

You worry too much. _{[When he turns his head to smile at her, it's with fond reproach.]} They wouldn't have caught me. There are always rambunctious Gryffindors about to make an appropriate distraction.

[agneshko]

I worry just enough, thank you very much.

[ his proximity allows elena's fingers to rake into the soft strands of his hair, playing with them as she has a frequent habit of doing. it soothes her, and she'd like to think it soothes him, at least a little. she sets jane eyre aside, for the time being, giving him her full attention.

elena wrinkles her nose at the mention of rambunctious gryffindors. she loves bonnie, and she hates being a cliche, but gryffindors are the toughest to get along with. ] They are flashy, aren't they? [ the mastery of subtlety eludes them.

slytherins know it works in their favor. ]

[lifeskills]

Too much. _{[He repeats the words playfully, insistently.]} You shouldn't worry at all. I'm fine. I will be fine.

<sub>[One day, anyway. One day soon. She'll see.

His eyelids lower to half-mast at the touch to his hair. He hasn't been able to find the words to articulate the thought without it being mortifying, but there's something about the way she touches his hair that reminds him of a mother's touch, gentle, and unconditional, and comforting. As always, thinking about mothers leaves him on the edge of a deep pool of emotion, wobbling on the verge of falling in.

Would it be discomfiting for her to know she makes him think of a dead parent? It seems safer not to find out.]</sub>

There were a couple wrestling outside the Great Hall when I went past. I don't think the teachers that came to break it up even noticed I was there.

_{[There are perks to being that short kid who slouches at the backs of crowds; no one pays you any mind when you go skidding down the hall in a rush to get to the dungeons.]}

[agneshko]

Of course you'll be fine.

[ he's one of her own. that means she'll make it so, however she has to. elena never accepts the alternative. she's perceptive enough to understand she can only protect victor from so much. she certainly can't protect him from himself. he'll find the answers he is hoping to find at whatever the cost, as any slytherin would. he may or may not like what he finds, and it may or may not end well, but whatever happens, she'll be there. ]

It's amazing what people will fail to see for lack of effort, and I know you're careful.

[ she touches his cheek gently, before she continues to untangle his hair with gentle fingers. ]

It doesn't mean you're invisible, you know.

[lifeskills]

<sub>[He shifts his head a little where it rests against the cushion, holding her gaze across the distance, uncaring of who might happen to glimpse them in this intimate pose this late at night. It brings to mind their first sleepover back when they'd been much younger, laying side-by-side, facing each other, talking about whatever idle thought came to mind.

He hadn't thought it strange to spend time with a girl then, and he doesn't now. What he and Elena share doesn't fit in any conventional check boxes that prescribe young boys and girls can't be friends without it being sexual in some way--and that's just fine with him. He's never found those boxes to be a comfortable fit.]</sub>

It's not because of what happened with Professor Barnes, right?

_{[Of course, he'd told Elena about getting caught taking a book from Barnes' office and that Professor Barnes had been surprisingly lenient about it, but he didn't think it warranted Elena fretting on his behalf. Students break--or judiciously bend, if they're really clever--the rules all the time.]}

[agneshko]

[ she thinks it might be her problem.

elena is incapable of getting to know someone and befriending them superficially. she falls in love with everyone she meets just a bit, enamored by all the little things that make them who they are. victor's genius; his love of poetry and darkness. it's not sexual, no. it transcends romance, even. but it's love. ]

No. No, it's not that.

[ it's her turn to shift now, so that her head is resting on his shoulder. ]

You get this look in your eye sometimes. I'm not sure I can describe it. [ but it scares her. ]

[lifeskills]

Then what?

<sub>[It's not like Elena to worry in general for no real reason. She's a doer. When she worries about something, he knows her to be someone who isolates the problem and attacks it with action. It's why she's a good person to have in your corner.

And it's what makes her a good witch, as Victor had come to see in their first year when they'd been partnered together in Potions class and she'd walked herself through the steps in the textbook without fail. She'd been taller than him back then; thankfully, he's since grown so they're more on a level and she doesn't have to strain herself to lean on him.]</sub>

What do you mean?

_{[He doesn't follow at first. What look?]}