[Corridors] Sorry's Not Good Enough

[Bradyn Reed]

It was late, but not quite past curfew yet. But it was only a few minutes until it was after curfew so he was still having to sneak around and dodge teachers on his way to the Astronomy tower. Bradyn hadn't gone to the common room that evening, since he didn't want to run into Fay until he said for them to meet.

He'd spent so much time thinking about what to say to her, but still nothing came to him. How could he tell her about what he did to her mother, especially since Maxi hadn't checked that out for him yet? He could be on the offensive, and start accusing her of hiding information about Scott Brooks from them, but he'd just be dodging the problem. That would make this meeting all for not.

Groaning a bit, Bray gently rubbed his temples and went out towards the edge of the tower, out of view from the Claw's common room in case anyone spotted them and decided they would tell a ministry person that students were out of bed. Heck, prefects weren't really his problem since he was on good terms with about half of them. Sitting down against a wall, he waited for Fay. He came early on purpose, since he didn't want her to have to wait for him.

[crappy 'cause you know I hate starting.]

[Felicity Locke]

(( IloveyouNicole :D ))

Felicity waited until almost everyone was gone out of the commonroom before she slid out. She made sure to steer clear of whatever teachers decided to wander the corridors at night. Or the last time she was out and she met that ministry woman. Ug, bad memories.

The whole day, ever since Bray told her to meet him, Fay had been trying to think of why he wanted to speak to her in private. Because of Felicity's rather over active imagination, she had come up with a lot of very...strange situations. One of them was that Bray was secretly a mass murderer and wanted to kill her next. But, she doubted that was really true.

Fay slipped into the room and moved to stand against one of the walls, out of the line of view of the windows. She leaned her shoulder against the wall so she was turned to face Bray. Felicity didn't say anything at first, mostly because she was afraid if she opened her mouth she would snap at him.

[Bradyn Reed]

Bradyn continued to stare at the dirty floor even when he heard the door open. Most likely it was Fay, and even if it wasn't he wasn't going to fight to get out of trouble tonight. Bray didn't really have any motivation, and he'd just take was was coming to him. Maybe if it wasn't Fay, they'd take him away so he wouldn't have to do this talk at all? Yes, that would be nice.

But when he saw Fay in the corner of his eye, he looked back up at her then gestured silently for her to take a seat. "I don't really know what to say.." He said quietly, not looking towards Fay anymore. "Are you mad at me?" Bray frowned a bit, silently hoping she already was. Because if she wasn't, she sure was going to be soon.

Pulling his knees up by his chest, he leaned forward and rested his arms on them. "I did a bad thing, and I really, really, really never intended to tell you about it. But, maybe I should.."

[Felicity Locke]

Felicity shook her head and just sat down in the spot she was in. She rested her back against the wall and glanced back over to him. "For some reasons, yes." Fay looked away from him then and glared at the wall opposite of her.

"What'd you do? Murder some unknown civilization?" That was another one on her list. Felicity gave her crack some half-hearted sarcasm. She put her wand behind her ear and drew one of her knees closer to her. Fay rested one of her arms on it and titled her head back. The tower was always the best place to look at the stars at night.

In truth, Felicity was somewhat frightened to hear what Bray had to say. It had to be a pretty bad thing for him to be avoiding her forever for it. She bit her lower lip and waited for him to speak.

[Bradyn Reed]

Bradyn shook his head a bit, a little saddened that she was already mad at him. But he had been avoiding her so that was probably to be expected. They were best friends, afterall, and if she didn't have him to come to then what had she been doing about her problems.

Silently musing over the idea of Scott and him becoming Bray's replacement in Fay's life, he frowned a little more then turned to face Fay. "Well.. you know what you told me about being able to charm half humans?" He smiled guiltily and looked down. Each and every time he told the story, it wasn't easy, but telling it to Felicity was a whole different story. Bray did have a somewhat valid excuse for what he did, as valid as Fay's was for punching Daniel McLane, but it just didn't seem like it was the same situation at all.

"I was curious, so I went and talked to your mom about that. And she told me the story. Then I sort of let it slip that I thought it was dangerous for you to try to do that, and she started flipping out." He turned a little so he wasn't facing Fay anymore, and scooched a little away from the half-veela.

"She said she was going to take you out of Hogwarts, and she started pulling on her cloak to do so. So I.." He took a deep breath, this was the essential part of the story and the heart and soul of what shame that kept following him. "Istunnedher, thenmodifiedhermemory, thenranaway." Bray said as fast as he could, hoping that she wouldn't catch that part.

[Felicity Locke]

Felicity blinked slightly, surprised he was bringing up her story on half-humans. "Yea, I remember." If this was all that he was getting at, he didn't have to go and be all dramatic about it. Gosh, it was just a story.

"You let it slip to her?" Fay's eyebrow twitched. "Damnit Bray. My mom overreacts at everything and she always thinks that I'm going to leave and-"

Felicity cut off when Bray started to speak again. Her eyes widened, and she felt a knot form in her stomach. The color started to drain from her face. "You..you stunned her?" Fay stood up instantly and gripped the side of the wall. "Did you hit her straight on? Was she alright?" Felicity put both of her hands on her head and started to pace. "Oh my God, Oh my God."

"Please tell me she was alright. Please tell me you didn't mess up the spell. Because it only takes just one-" Fay stopped herself and shook her head.

[Bradyn Reed]

Bradyn winced a bit. He didn't expect her to take it nicely, but still the actual thing happening hurt him deep. "Fay, I really didn't mean to." He said quietly, but the worst has yet to come. If she was freaking out just about him letting slip to her her plans, then she wasn't going to like what he did next at all.

When Fay jumped up he scooted a few paces back, not wanting to get hit by her. But instead of being angry, she just looked hurt and crushed. Tears started to form near the outside of his eyes and he looked down at the ground, bangs covering his face so she would catch his guilty emotions. "I-i.. I don't know, I didn't check. I didn't mean to hurt her, I swear I didn't. Oh god, why didn't I check?" Near the end his voice started to crack and he became a little hysteric.

Bray had been watching Ms. Locke ever since but the idea that he hurt her just seemed to toss all of his common sense out the window. He disappointed Fay, let her down, and crushed her. He felt like crap, and he didn't want to move anymore. At her next statement his head snapped up and he shot a glare at her, even with a few tears streaming down his face. "Are you trying to insinuate that I killed your mother? What kind of monster do you think I am?"

His hands clenched into fists and he looked away. Telling Fay hurt worse than he ever expected, and he wished he could just undo this meeting. But he wouldn't do that, no, he already did that to one person and he regretted it. "You don't trust me anymore, do you?"

[Felicity Locke]

Felicity was still pacing, but she was covering her eyes by now. She just kept muttering 'Oh no' as she paced back and forth. It was too alike before. Just one stray spell. That was all it took. But...but Bray wouldn't do that. He was excellent with his spells. She knew that, she'd seen him cast some before. But she couldn't rid herself of this feeling.

Fay flinched against the sharpness of Bray's voice, and she raised her head up to look at him. Tears were clearly visible on his face, as well as her own. She shook her head slowly. "I know you're not sloppy with your spells. You're an amazing wizard. But.." Fay sank to the ground, her head in her hands again. "But All it takes is one spell. One stupid, stray spell to take someone away from you." Felicity looked back up at Bray.

"The reason my mum's so protective over me is because of what happened to my dad. Someone came into the healing center one day, while I was there with my dad. He started shouting at us and called me a she-devil. Because somehow he knew I was a veela." Felicity brought her knees back up to her chest and rested her forehead on her knees. "My father tried to make him leave, but then the man got really angry. He..he shot a spell at my dad to try to get him to move, but he was so close that it ended up killing him." A fresh new wave of tears rolled down her cheeks.

"I don't know Bray."

[Bradyn Reed]

Bradyn watched her pace back and forth, silly feeling hurt but now feeling a little angry as well. Who did she think he was? Continuing to sit in shame on the floor, he pulled his legs to his chest tighter and lowered his head so she couldn't see his face anymore.

"Don't lie to me, if you trusted your magic, you wouldn't be worrying so much about your mother." He whispered rather coldly. "This was two weeks ago, you seriously can't tell me that you haven't seen or spoken to her since then, and she hasn't been perfectly normal?" He closed her eyes at her accusations about stray spells, knowing perfectly well the dangers. They did take charms together, after all.

Bradyn kept himself curled up during her story, and was a little shocked that it was one he hadn't heard before. "Oh, Fay.." He said, knowing that this would be where he said a pitying comment, but he just couldn't say it. Bray had both his parents, so maybe one kept to himself and didn't talk to them, but they were still both there. Pity wouldn't make her happy, and he couldn't really understand her feelings either.

"Well, I guess if you didn't trust me anymore, you wouldn't have shared that with me." He said softly and kindly, trying to stop both of their crying. "Maybe all these mistakes, mostly mine, brought us a little closer together?" But he knew this was a lie, since she still hadn't come to him to inform him of her new, or perhaps now old, infatuation with Scott Brooks. Perhaps Bray and his supposed best mate were falling apart?

[Felicity Locke]

Felicity snapped her gaze back to him. "I didn't lie. It's not like I magically knew the time when it happened."

Fay shook her head. "Please just..just don't say anything." She looked back up at him. And, for once, her eyes were clear of tears. "I don't need anyone's pity. I don't need people telling me that they understand how I feel. They don't, and I know it." Her eyes hardened as she turned her head to stare back up at the sky. "I don't need any more of anyone's lies."

She stared up at the sky in silence a little while longer. Finally, she looked back over to Bray. "I don't cut my friendships that easily." Fay gave a little sigh and rested her cheek on her knees. "Maybe." She muttered.

Felicity stood up slowly and walked over to where Bray was sitting. She settled herself down next to him and leaned back on her hands. "All I know is that I don't want to lose my best friend." Fay gave Bray a small smile. "Do ya know what it feels like now to protect your friends?" Refering to Fay's little incident with Daniel McLane.

[Bradyn Reed]

Bradyn rolled his eyes at her. Sure she didn't. "Yeah, because I just started avoiding you before it happened for no reason." She was starting to make him mad, making him seem like the bad guy. Well... he was, but still, she could be a good friend and forgive him. It's not like he did anything too bad, he just erased his mistake right out of Fay's mom's memory.

Bray frowned. "I wasn't pitying you or any of that crap, because I'm the indifferent senseless kid, remember?" He snapped, not really willing to take all this crap she was feeding him anymore.

Glaring at the floor, he let the silence continue for a few minutes until he was glad that Fay finally broke it and came over by him. "Yeah, I probably couldn't live without you. Insert cheesy romance scene here." He said, smirking a bit aside from his anger and letting his usual sarcasm take over.

"And yeah, I guess. But you so owe me for that one, she was going to take you away and send you to pansybatons or strongstrangs." He stuck his tongue out in disgust and silently remembered when they first met at their first years sorting. Bray had been such a show off back then about always being a Hogwarts man, and it was a little amusing to him now.

[Felicity Locke]

Felicity rolled her eyes at Bray. "All fighting aside, even though I do believe I said insensitive, I say we go back to speaking with each other."

Fay stretched her legs out in front of her with a sigh. "You serious? Ew. I wouldn't have gone anyway." She shook her head. "She overreacts everytime. Mum always thinks that someone is going to take me away, but she knows I won't let that happen."

She frowned slightly and bit down on her lower lip. "And, er, while we're being open and truthful. I guess I have something to tell you." Her gaze flicked to Bray, then turned back up to the sky. "I haven't told Ash yet. Or anyone else for that matter. So, just promise not to freak out."

[Bradyn Reed]

Bradyn grinned at Fay and whipped off his face with the back of his hand. "Alright, because I didn't want to have to learn sign language to keep talking to you." Leaning back against the wall he outstretched one of his legs and turned a bit to face Fay.

"Yeah right, she probably would've stuff you in her purse or something and ran off." Bray could totally imagine Christi with a mondo bodybag purse filled with rocks.. no wait, that would be Fay's bag. "And it's a moms job to be overprotective. I wish my mom did it more often, but she lets my sisters beat on me all the time!" He laughed a bit, remembering that term would be over soon. He loved his family to death, but god, they sure liked to irk him all the time.

Bradyn looked back up at Fay and smirked. It seemed she had something to tell him too, so obviously he wasn't the only one keeping things from his best friend. "Oh, I don't think I can promise that. You could be a mass murderer, after all."

[Felicity Locke]

Felicity grinned. "Aww, sign language would be fun." That, and Fay and Bray would probably mess it up horribly and just start making up their own signs.

Fay sighed. "Sadly, I can imagine her doing that." Her mother was one of those people who bought the bottomless purse and shoved everything they could find in there. Fay's mom would most likely shove Fay in there if need be. Felicity shudderd. "I'm going to have nightmares about that now."

She shot him a glare. "Yea, because I love murdering the known world." Fay rolled her eyes and sighed. Now, how could she phrase this? Felicity furrowed her eyebrows and glared up at the sky for a moment, thinking.

"Well, let's say I met someone when I was in the forest." She glanced at Bray for a moment, then quickly looked back up to the sky. "And he was another student. And, he asked for broom riding lessons so I gave him some." Fay bit down on her lower lip. "AndIreallylikehim." She said the last statement as quickly as she could as her cheeks flushed red.

[Bradyn Reed]

"I'd fail at sign language and you know it. I'd be like peace sign, spiderman, star trek. And that would translate to, 'I'm hungry'" Bradyn rolled his eyes a bit, sadly knowing that that was perfectly true.

Laughing as quietly as he could, he nodded at Fay. "I can imagine you guys like jousting with your purses." Then he shook his head a bit to try and clear the mental image. "I'm going to have nightmares about that, too.."

Ignoring what she said about murdering people, he listened for the story that he knew was coming. Bray's eye started to twitch a little when she said forest, but he didn't say anything. Now wasn't the time to yell at her for disobeying his 'stay the hell out of that damned forest' rule. When she finished, he just leaned his head back against the wall and laughed a bit.

"Oh, just the Scott Brooks thing?" He continued to laugh to the point that he had to take out his wand and perform the muffliato charm before continuing. "Geeze, you scared me. I thought it would be something important!"