Icy Night ((Katya))

[Jack Reid]

Jack could feel the icy wind blow through his robes as he walked out into the black that was the night at Hogwarts. He had to get his mind clear. His brothers, August and Bronsen, had been hounding him all day, it seemed. They wanted to make sure he was okay, that he wasn't having a hard time in classes, yet the more they pushed and prodded, the more he got angry with them and had a tendency to blow a fuse. He had gone out into the courtyard to clear his head, and enjoy the cool fall air. It was late November, so snow was expected soon. He did love snow, that was one thing he would admit. It reminded him of the time when his parents actually took notice more of him than anyone else. Before his brothers had come along.

That frustrated him even more, with the thought. Jack tried to push it out of his mind, but he couldn't. Why would they ever care so much for him, then just drop him off the edge like nothing when his two brothers came along? He had no idea why his parents acted the way they did, but it didn't change anything. That was how things were now. He couldn't change it. All he could do was live his life, and be the best Slytherin he knew how to be. It had been a long day, full of classes and teachers seemingly breathing down his neck for things that weren't due for a while. He had a project for Transfiguration due in two weeks that he hadn't even barely started yet, but he wasn't too worried. He could bang that stuff out in a matter of a week or less if he needed to.

What he needed right now was this cold air and maybe someone to talk to. Wait. Who was he kidding? He didn't talk to people like that. Why was he thinking that way? It was absurd. He was a hard-nosed Slyth that did what he wanted. He didn't need someone there to council him. What he needed was to be alone, and at this time of night, even though it wasn't too late, it was too cold for normal students to be out. Jack was sure he would find himself alone and screaming at the stars, wondering why his life was like this. And that was the way he wanted it.

Jack walked over to the edge of the castle wall, looking out over the fields behind the school. It wasn't snowing yet, but he could feel it coming, even smell it coming. There was something about snow, you could just feel it. He loved that feeling, right before a crisp snowfall. Suddenly he heard a noise behind him, and whirled around, wand ready. He whispered the light spell, and his wand came to life with a bright light. He looked down at the ground, but didn't see anything. He spoke another spell, and the light diminished. He leaned over the castle wall again, grumbling to himself about his parents and his brothers, how he would one day show them what he was really made of.

[Katya Love S5]

Katya loved the cold. It cleared her senses and made it easier to think, even though Katya really didn't need anything to help her think – she thought too much as it was. Regardless, Katya loved the cold and so she had pulled herself off the couch in the Slytherin common room, grabbed her cloak and pulled it on, and then stepped out of the common room and headed toward an exit. She didn't know exactly what possessed her to leave the room except for the fact that she was alone in the common room and was getting rather depressed by the dark and dank decorations and the fact that she was drawn to the cold. She had been staying in there for no specific reason, and she was leaving for the same thing – but the draw to the cold air was just something that Katya could not resist. As odd as that might sound. Then again, there were quite a few things about Katya that were odd. Not so many things that other people would find odd, just things that she found odd about herself. There were things that were most definitely odd, though, and those were the things that she kept to herself.

Regardless of whether or not it was odd, Katya was making her way out into the open air. She didn't want to venture onto the grounds, and so she directed herself toward the Courtyard easily. She knew the way to the Courtyard like the back of her hand, in fact; Katya knew nearly the entire castle like the back of her hand. Granted, there was no way she could know the entire castle because it was always changing, but she knew a good portion of it. She wasn't like the other students who travelled the halls daily but never memorised their surroundings. If they suddenly looked up one day, they'd see things they had never seen since their first year – because it's in their first year that everyone drinks in the architecture of the castle, the beauty of it. Katya looked up and saw those things every day. She was very aware of her surroundings, unlike most people. She didn't take anything for granted, because at a very young age –Katya learnt to not take anything for granted because you could lose it quite easily. Her mother was the thing she lost, and she didn't want to go through that pain again.

Katya broke free of the castle and stepped outside in the sharp cold finally. It nipped at her cheeks and sent her honey brown hair flying behind her gently as she pulled her cloak around her a bit and walked along the benches of the courtyard. The courtyard always seemed so forlorn when it was empty, as if it possessed this giant secret and it probably did. So many people entered and left the courtyard where they sat and pondered their life, read letters, wrote letters, wrote in their journals, even cried. Katya remembered the day she had laid on a bench and read, thinking about everything that had happened with her on the night prior. That was the day Tristan had approached her, she had often referred to that day as Black Tuesday. That fateful day where Tristan had decided to bless her with his presence was the day that Katya really lost any sense of what she wanted out of life anymore. Katya ran her fingers through her hair as she continued her walk, her eyes looking around at the stoic nature of the courtyard.

She paused in her steps as she noticed a figure standing a little ways off, leaning against the wall. Katya crossed her arms as she stood, waiting, and apparently the person had felt her presence because they turned around and lit their wand. Katya watched the light flare enough to show who was holding the wand, and she placed the face with a name; Jack Reid, he was in her house and above her a year. She sighed, debating whether or not it would be worth staying out in the courtyard if she had to socialise, and then she took a step forward, standing beside him; "You gave up too easily," she stated calmly as she looked at him out of the corner of her eye, "you should have waited another minute or so before you distinguished your wand." She wasn’t usually one to initiate conversation, but she had a feeling neither was he.

[Jack Reid]

Jack whirled around again, almost slipping his hand off of the edge of the wall. Katya Love, a Slytherin, a year under him, stood next to him all of a sudden, telling him how he should have kept his light going a bit longer. He caught his breath, regaining composure, and spoke his wand to lighting again. The small area burst with light, and he could see her fully. “You should learn not to sneak up on people like that, Katya,” he said, scoldingly. He really had no place to scold her, even though he was a year older than she was, but she still shouldn’t scare people like that. It didn’t matter if she didn’t mean to, it still happened. He looked her over, trying to see a reason why she might be out here. Jack couldn’t find one, not by just looking at her, but he was determined to find out.

Maybe if he opened up about his reasoning for being out her, she’d tell him why she sneaked up on him like that. “Well, do you want to know why I’m out here?” Without giving her a chance to respond, he gave up the information. “I’m out here alone because I’ve got a lot on my mind. Things with my parents, with my brothers, and people in my life who want nothing more than to see me fail and fall. It’s pathetic. Seriously, why would a person—better yet, a family abandon one child to take more care of the other two? Ever since—well, ever since certain events transpired, it’s been all about August and Bronsen, and never anything more about me. I could use some attention every once in a while. Don’t I deserve that? Don’t I?” He realized all that had come out of his mouth in the last minute, and shut his mouth. He had just given an almost stranger nearly his whole life story. How could he have been so careless? He had come out here for nothing more than to be alone and deal with the problems in his head. Then she had to show up and get him talking. Katya hadn’t even said anything though. Apparently he needed someone to talk to, and no one else was there but Katya.

He had to turn away from the light, his wand laying on the edge of the wall. He was nearly crying, but he could never let someone see that. He was Jack Reid. Definitely not someone who cried. Not even someone who showed much emotion. He got his bearings back within seconds, and turned back to Katya. “I’m…sorry about that,” he said calmly. “Well, now that you know why I’m out here, why don’t you tell me what you’re doing out here on this icy night?” He wrapped his robes over his body once more, waiting for her answer.

[Katya Love S5]

Katya managed a small smirk as she kept her eyes focused ahead of her at the night atmosphere. Her breath came out in little puffs of air, it was that cold. She knew that if it was going to rain, in moments the water would turn to snow. She didn't know how she felt about that, because while Katya loved the cold – she didn't like the wet. She looked at Jack as he lit his wand again and spoke in a quiet tone; "Well, if I did that, I wouldn't be given the opportunity to make sixth years jump." She found it amusing that she could startle anyone, because frankly – Katya was quite tiny and she was rather timid in personality. She didn't speak up normally, and she didn't make herself known. The fact that she had made Jack scared, even for a second, was something that made her laugh almost. Almost. Katya hardly laughed outright, the only person to hear her laugh really was Conan and she liked to write that off as the fact that it was late that night in the common room. Regardless, she found it amusing and so she turned away to look back at the night again. They were silent for a moment and then Jack broke the silence more. She didn't look at him again, though, she just continued to stare out into the darkness.

He was talking about his family and about not getting any attention, and Katya couldn’t help but shake her head at him. She couldn't tolerate people who complained about their family life because of something so petty as not getting as much attention as a sibling. She wanted to jump up and down and scream at them about how it is to have no family at all and how they should be grateful. She never did that, though, because she knew it would do no good. People didn't like to hear things that didn't pertain to them. Katya wasn't that type of person, she'd rather talk about someone else other than herself, but there were hardly any people out in the world like that. Katya was just one of the rare few who existed. Regardless, Katya still wanted to scream at Jack; tell him to stop being so damn selfish, to appreciate the fact that he has both a mother and a father, and then she wanted to storm off. She didn't, though, she held her composure and stared straight ahead as he continued to rant on about his "pathetic life" and then when he was finished, he seemed to catch himself spilling his whole story to a complete stranger. He apologised and then asked her what she was doing outside.

She took a good moment or so before turning to look at him and respond. She didn't know what else to tell him besides, "I like the cold and I hate the common room." A small shrug issued from her shoulders and she looked at the darkness again before continuing, "I always come out here when it's this cold, it helps me think even when I don't have anything to think about." That explanation, although a little bit more elaborate, was probably not the type of answer that Jack wanted. Katya really didn't care, however, and so she left it at that. They stood in silence again before Katya couldn't take it anymore, "You know, for a sixth year… I'm assuming you're 16, but even if you're 17 that just makes it worse…for a sixth year, you're rather whiney." She knew that would hit a chord with him, but she didn't care about that either. It wasn't like a friendship was going to blossom from this conversation, sure she'd rather not make enemies but she couldn't keep her thoughts quiet about it all. "I would say you're the whiniest sixth year I've ever met, but I've had the unfortunate experience of meeting Tristan MacCay."

Katya turned to look at Jack now, leaning back against the wall, as she watched him now, "I get rather tired of people complaining about their lives. It's all I ever hear, 'My life is so terrible, my parents don't love me, my sister gets more attention than I do,' wah wah wah." Katya tore her gaze away from him to look up at the night sky, "What they don't see is that at least they have parents. Two of them. At least they have siblings. Everyone takes everything for granted, they don't realise there are people who are less fortunate than they are." She crossed her arms over her chest and continue to stare up at the twinkling stars.