[Courtyard] Confrontation (Elle)

[Bradyn Reed]

'Why didn't you tell me?'

The scene kept replaying in his head, oh he simply could not have let it out with less tact than that. 'Registered animagus.' Bray had actually been thinking for a while on how to tell her and surely whatever he came up with would've been more classy than spitting it out to try and be better than everyone else, which ended up not happening since everyone was equally interesting.

But he ended up saying it that way right in front of her and now he knew he was in trouble. Not with Elle, who'd probably just bottle up her hurt for a while, more of with Fay who would probably bludger him with her beater's bat and yell at him for saying something so bluntly. Which, he had to admit, was something he deserved. 'Form being of a domestic shorthaired cat.' His idiocy was still haunting him, even though by now it was a couple hours after the class. He needed to talk to her and get this patched up before it ended up ruining their relationship.

She wasn't the easiest person to find when you wanted to, though, probably one of the downsides of them being in different houses. For all he knew, she could be hiding out in her common room trying to avoid him. If that was the case there wasn't much that could be done unless he talked to one of his Hufflepuff friends and had her dragged out. "Yeah, like hell I'd do that." He said to himself with a smirk knowing full well that he'd already tormented the poor girl enough today telling her that she'd been dating a cat.

Instead he just trudged towards the courtyard which seemed uncharacteristically empty since most people were either out in Hogsmeade or eating supper around this time. That was fine with him, it gave him some time to think. But instead of thinking, he was only fully reminded of how she even met the girl.

'Stupid, stupid cat.'
"Do you have a problem with.. cats?"
'No, just animals in general ... we don't really see eye to eye.'
"Ah, that's a shame. Usually I find that animals like me."

Apparently, he didn't know how much of a shame it could be back then.

[ short crap. :D ]

[Ellie Rook]

It wasn't that Bray was an animagus. Lots of people were animagus. It was that he hadn't told her.

Ellie sat in her dormitory on the window seat, looking out over the Grounds. The quidditch pitch loomed off in the distance, and if you looked straight down, the courtyards came into view. Ellie sighed as she hugged her pillow. She had gone from class to class, sneaking in late so she wouldn't have to sit near him, leaving early so he wouldn't follow. She was being horribly childish. She had been spending all her time hiding out in the Hufflepuff house. Bray probably knew it. She felt bad, but why hadn't he told her.

She was probably making it a much bigger deal than it was. Ellie just couldn't understand why he would basically lie to her. Being an animagus is a big part of your life. Ellie couldn't exactly relate, but she would bet it was. Lets think about it. Bray was young, and being an animagus wasn't the easiest thing to accomplish. He must have wanted it really bad. Ellie couldn't imagine why he would hide something so important to him from her.

Ellie looked out and down. The courtyard looked empty. She could use some fresh air. The chance of meeting Bray was slim, since she thought he might have quidditch practice anyway. Ellie stood up and pulled her converses on and slowly made her way down to the courtyard.

Finally, she felt the fresh air on her face. She looked up once only to see the bench she usually sat on. It was the bench she first met Bray. She put her hand up to her face, right below her hair line on the left side. Ellie could feel a faint scar which marked the place where she had been attacked by a cat early in the year. Here, Bray had stood up for the cat, which made perfect sense now.

Again she looked up, her hands in her pockets. The sun shone down and glared in front of her. Never the less, she could see the outline of someone, a boy, a shorter boy, a Bray. Ellie stood and looked at him, her eyes sunken and sad. She didn't say anything, yet she didn't move away.

"Meow."

she said finally, short and sharp, her face remaining blank.

[Bradyn Reed]

Considering their first meeting, it was surprising that their friendship could ever grow into something more, but Bray always liked Ellie for who she was. The shy girl who always tried her best in lessons and tended to be the victim of most everything around her. It was cute, or at least he thought so. But in the end did it really come down to the fact that he was a cat, and she didn't like them? Being an animagi didn't rule his life but it sure had a big effect on it, since he would've never fought with Erys if he wasn't one, then again, he wouldn't have become friends with her either. So, perhaps, it had it's good qualities that she needed to see.

But how was he supposed to phrase that? How could he possibly tell her that he was still human, no matter what he looked like on the outside? It was confusing even him and who understood animagi more than someone who had to study it for so long, and with his demonic sister no less.

Figuring he shouldn't sit by himself much longer before someone noticed him and got the wrong impression, he was about to pack up and leave to go sit in the common room and argue with Fay for a while when the sound of a cat distracted him. Of course, he wasn't really listening to it so at first he figured it was one of the students pesky pets wandering around without it's master, but as he turned his head he realized it was quite something else. "Ellie.." He said as the biggest statement of the obvious. Apparently he wasn't going to get much time to mull over what he should do. At least she wasn't avoiding him anymore, though.

"Here kitty, kitty?" Bray said without humor but with a small smile and his brows raised innocently before scooting over to make room for her on the bench.

[Ellie Rook]

"Here kitty, kitty?"

Ellie's face remained unchanged. She hadn't done it to be funny, and the fact that Bray was fooling around...ugh!! Well, it was Bray after all. She supposed that he had to smile, it was the last resort. Ellie was sure that she was going to get a wrinkle from frowning so much. She shook her head and looked at the ground.

Ellie saw Bray's feet scoot over, making room for her to sit. She kept her hands in her pockets and looked at the empty seat. She shuffled a little and then with a sigh, she walked over and plopped herself down next to him, but as far away on the bench as she could. She didn't look at him, but hand still in pockets, she starred at the stone flooring.

What would she say to him? How would she know that it wasn't a giant lie, something else that he had to hide from her. She sighed. "Let me guess, your a cross-dressing Frenchman too..." Ellie said, gaze still stuck on the pavement. She sighed and finally looked at her boyfriend, trying to find any truth in his face.

[Bradyn Reed]

Emotional problems, well, Bray was certainly out of his league with this. There needed to be a portable Fay that he could bring around with him, a little pocket dictionary that would tell him how to react to things so he didn't come off as being a fool. Opening with a joke obviously seemed to just make her more irritated with him and when he thought about it, he probably would be too. But not for the same reason, more because cat puns were just lame after you've heard them nonstop for the past year or two.

Well, she sat down without a doubt even if it looked like he was the awkward guy on the bus that no one wanted to sit next to but there was no other room. 'Fine, be that way.' Bray thought and dared to roll his eyes at her since she wasn't even looking at him. But that was almost better since he wasn't sure he'd be able to think clearly at all with her staring at him, looking like she wanted to murder him or just plain disappointed.

Bray needed to explain, but when he looked back on it the idea that seemed crystal clear in his head just didn't seem to make sense anymore. Why didn't he and Fay tell her? Well, simply because she hated animals. Makes sense to them but not really something you could try to explain to your upset girlfriend. "I..." He started, going for a general explanation but was soon cut off by her sarcasm. Apparently, he had rubbed off on her too. Bray's sarcasm infection, only this time it's come back and bit him in the ass.

Unable to hide his frown, he tried to think of a reasonable reply to that other than the one was thinking. Yes, he certainly couldn't spit that out since it would only provoke her more. Something else, something else. "Hey, are you comparing me to Ash?!" Ah, damn, he let it slip after all. Being the king of sarcasm was certainly more of a curse than a gift.

"Just kidding..." Bray said with a small smile to try and cover up the little slip-up which he didn't expect her to find all that hilarious like Fay would. Even a pissed Fay would laugh at a cross-dressing Ash joke. Hell, Bray wasn't even close to being a snooty little Frenchman. He was all Irish, and all proud.

"Don't you think I would've mentioned that in my introduction, anyway? Future cross-dressing career would be something important to me. I guess." He said, fumbling over the mixture of sarcasm and seriousness to the point that he ended up confusing himself.

"But I'm not a cross-dresser. I'm just a kitty boy."

[ psht. this isn't late at all. noo >>
wrote it while I was half-alseep too.
merry christmas, lynn-love! ]

[Ellie Rook]

Ellie sighed as Bray obviously tried to combat her sarcasm with a bit of his own. However, the sarcasm king fell a little short when all he could come up with was a line about none other then Ash Laurent. Not only did Ellie and Ash not get along, Ellie couldn't imagine why Bray would possibly bring him up. Granted, she could see a very thin line between cross dressers and French men with Ash, but still.

Ellie inhaled sharply. "Well, no you probably wouldn't have added that in your introduction, especially if it was important to you!" Ellie crossed her arms and exhaled. She pushed her fallen hair out of her face. She lifted her head and looked at Bray for the first time. His face was sad, Ellie could tell that he was hurting just as much as she was. She sighed. She studied his face. His eyes, his lips, she missed them. She couldn't yell at him.

"I don't understand it." She said, her eyes darting across his face, trying to get him to look at her. "Everyone else knew. Everyone." Ellie unfolded her arms. "Am I just thick? What were you afraid of!?" Ellie put her hand on his arm in an attempt to get him to soften to her and talk to her. "I thought that we..." She couldn't say it. "Don't you trust me?"

[Bradyn Reed]

Well, it could have been worse. She only ignored the accidental comment instead of blowing up in his face for not being able to be serious even during situations like this. But really, what could she expect? He wasn't wallowing in self-pity, yet anyway, so he just kept up his shield to try and avoid any emotional confrontation.

But that wasn't going to work. Not now, when she so demanded to know what the hell he was thinking. 'Come on, boy, you're a Ravenclaw. How fast can you think up a new, more reasonable excuse?' Bray thought, his lips pursing slightly as his brain went into overdrive to try and find a more plausible excuse besides liking her too much to let something silly like that to scare her away.

She quickly confused him, though, taking his rationality and rejecting it before throwing it in his face. Raising a brow a bit he turned to glance at her for a moment before shifting his gave back to his feet. "Uhh?" He said lamely at her sharp tone, not really sure what the comeback was to that. "I'm sorry..?" There, that should cover for whatever she was rambling about which he wasn't sure he understood. I mean, if she was trying to say that he didn't mention important things in his introduction, then how'd she find out he was an animagi and why the hell were they fighting?

Not quite daring to say much more for the moment, he just focused on finding the perfect excuse. That is, until she decided to talk again and seemingly let out all her anger at him. He visably winced under the weight of her words and let her get them all out before attempting to say something. What that something would be, he had no idea, but he couldn't just take that then slink off without saying anything. "I..." He said, before pausing and realizing that wouldn't get him far. Taking a deep breath and sucking it in through his teeth to try and calm himself, Bray still dared not to look at her and see what her expression was after all of that. "You know that's not it at all."

Placing his hand over her's, he tried to change his grimace into a small smile but still didn't look at her. Then the idea hit him like a slap in the face and he wondered why he hadn't seen it before. Erys. Of course, that's something that even she could understand. "It was for your protection." He said simply, taking his hand off hers to push up the sleeve of his arm. In the dark you couldn't quite see the thin healing scars from their first battle but it was hard to miss the red healing scratches from the latest one which he dragged Max into.

"As much as I'd love to say that I'm still me. Just me, not a beast, with her as my only example, I'm not so sure I could say that as the truth." Bray said in a stern, almost monotone voice. He didn't dare go on to mention that her boyfriend looked like swiss cheese and was her personal scratching post.

[ *giggles* put on some rock to wake me up and ended up distracting me and bray from posting and rocking out. *eyeroll* ]

[Ellie Rook]

Ellie knew she probably wasn't making sense and from the look on Bray's face she knew she definitely wasn't. She sigh. She wished they could just go back to the way they were, but something inside Ellie had a problem with it. She didn't know what else could happen that he would keep from her.

Protection. Ellie moved her own hand off his arm, her eyes confused, yet wide. "From what?" Ellie asked, but as Bray raised his shirt sleeve, she knew instantly who he was talking about. Erys Grace. Ellie had always thought that maybe the Slytherin had been the one to first attack her in the hallway the day that Ellie and bray met, but she never really told anyone. The Slytherin was bad news and Ellie knew and tried not to antagonized her.

But this was horrible. Apparently Grace had been using her boyfriend as a personal scratching post. Still Ellie couldn't understand why he had hid all of this from her.

"I still don't understand." Ellie said, her hands placed limply in her lap. "I could have helped you, I could have been there for..." Ellie didn't even know what had happened. "Do you mean you would hurt me?" Ellie said, trying not to sound as frightened as she felt.

Sure Bray was only part cat, but Ellie didn't have luck with the most harmless of animals. Cats still had sharp claws and teeth and bad attitudes. Elie could be frightened of them, but Bray? Ellie didn't get it. Wasn't it still him? Didn't he have control? It's not like he was a werewolf which had no control over anything. He was a simple cat animagus? Or did it change more than just his physical appearance?

[Bradyn Reed]

Of course, when you mention protection any sensible person would want to know what the danger was. Bray hadn't really thought about it. Maybe it was a little bit of Erys, but she was a danger to everyone, maybe it was a little bit of himself. But really, who'd believe that they were a danger to each other? Most people thought they were an 'adorable couple', or perhaps that was just Fay in her general crazy rantings.

"From..." He started nervously but she cut off at the sight of his scratches. Were they that bad, hell, they were healing after all. And it's not like they hurt much. Sighing again, Bray realized that he probably went about this the wrong way and tried to decide how to get out of this hole he dug for himself. She was overacting. Again. Was this going to start to become a common thing for her? As well as prying into his now mysterious life.

"No, no." Bray said dismissively before she started hyperventilating at the thought of him possibly being more cat than Bray. "Stop overacting. I'm just saying, you see Erys boyfriend. She treats him more like.... a cut of meat that she's butchering rather than a nasty Snake boy." He said with an exaggerated sigh and typical rolling of his eyes to try and provide a bit of comic relief.

"Maybe I thought it would just be better if I didn't have to deal with even the idea of that. So then... I wasn't a kitty boy with you, just Bray." Now it sounded like he was preaching. It was rather pathetic actually, trying to smooth out his wording to make his explanation more inclined for her to forgive him. Not that she really would.

Shrugging a bit, he figured he should stop while he was ahead. "I just know that I wouldn't do that to you. I'm not slash and claw happy like her.. so don't bother comparing us." The last bit was finished a little gruffly, he was already tired of talking about this to her. Maybe she should sit down and do some research if she really wanted to get it.

[Ellie Rook]

Ellie was one big over reaction. She couldn't help it. Its what she did. She made a big deal about this because it was important to her. Her mind was so full of questions, she had little room to actually think over what Bray was saying.

"I don't understand." Ellie just didn't get it. Her brain couldn't wrap around the concept. She didn't understand what this meant. Why Bray being an animagus had anything to do with them. Why it had to change there relationship. It didn't. It didn't have to do any of those things. It did now however just because of the way Bray had handle everything.

"You forget that Erys treats everyone like a cut of meat, and thats only if she likes you." Ellie said. How could Bray think that he was capable of treating anyone like the way the Slytherin treated her friends. Ellie had never even heard the Ravenclaw get really mad.

"But Bray..." Ellie said, keeping her voice calm. She was trying not to break into tears. It wasn't that she was sad or mad, it was just that she hated not understanding what was going on. It was the worst feeling in the world, like something had been ripped out of your head leaving a tremendous gap. "...being an animagus is part of who you are." Sher took a deep breath. "This is Bray." she looked at him, "You, a Ravenclaw, an Irishman, my boyfriend, a catboy." She smiled at him.

Ellie didn't really know what she was talking about. He was right. She didn't get it. "Why can't you just lay it out for me plain and simple?" She asked...almost pleading. "I want to know. I want to understand, because... I care." Ellie said, looking in her lap, trying not to break down.

[Bradyn Reed]

Bray was definitely going about this all the wrong way and she still wasn't getting it. Knowing him, he was probably just making it worse and putting irrational fears inside her head. 'Congratulations, you're a moron.' He thought to himself while trying to think about how to put what he knew into words. It's almost like being an animagi didn't have words to describe it and it was so complex and deeply part of him that he couldn't say much more than 'I'm a cat animagi' and expect that to cover the whole concept.

"I want you to understand, but I just can't find the words." He admitted with a frown, as if it was insulting to his Ravenclaw nature to not be able to find an articulate way to put this. "Can you give me some time to mull this over? I don't think I can handle this at the moment." It was an extremely weak statement for him and it was obvious that she'd pushed away his sarcastic shield for the moment. Bad idea, he needed that back.

Even though it felt like he was nearly going to chew a hole in his lip with nervousness and that his heart was racing with the idea that she might just give up on him completely, he couldn't help but laugh at her comment against Erys. "Aw, now, she's not that bad. If you get to know her, anyway." She probably wouldn't like him saying that, though, and maybe she was only 'alright' if you had claws to defend yourself with and, according to Max, a deathwish. "But I guess you're right." Bray could at least let her win that arguement, since if it was even possible for one of them to win the animagi thing, he was pretty sure it wasn't going to be her.

"It is part of me, a big part and it's always has been since you met me." He said with a frown and turned to look at her for a minute. "I may not have given you the whole truth, but I didn't act all that different around you.. You just get the whole picture now." A cruel way to put it, but it was the truth none-the-less. She liked him before she knew he had a cuter side, it's not like he was a mountain lion animagi or anything relatively dangerous.

"I will, or at least, I'll try to put it simple. Like I said, give me some time.." Bray said, standing up to show that it was an inarguable point. Normally he would've said something about having to head back to the common room to see that Fay hadn't attacked any civilians but now he wasn't quite sure that he should say anything else. He'd already dug himself a grave and wasn't so sure he could get out of it.

{ terrible post, trying to end this thread 'cause look at the time where it's set xD
"even though by now it was a couple hours after the class" }

[Ellie Rook]

Ellie couldn't understand what was going on. Bray was pushing her away. Or it seemed like it. Granted, they hadn't planned to met up and talk about things, it just sort of happen. Neither one of them had their heads on straight yet. Ellie was sure Bray wasn't ready to talk yet.

She didn't argue about what he was say. She just shrugged and let him continue. It sounded like an apologies, or a half thought about one. Ellie figured it was all she was going to get for the time being and let it slide. She would let him think about it.

However, she wasn't ready for him to get up and walk away. Couldn't they just talk. Ellie opened her mouth to say something, but she thought against it. The sun had gone down minutes ago and the courtyard was getting dark. Ellie sat and watched as Bray walked away. She sighed. The meeting hadn't been as successful as she wished it would have been. She couldn't imagine they got very far. Nothing was resolved. More time was just laid out on the table.

As Ellie got up and went her separate way back to the Hufflepuff common room she couldn't help but think that more time was the worst thing. She wasn't sure she could handle more time.