[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

[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?]}