Of Apples and Slingshots (Zara)

[zara celeste o'riley]

Great! She was stuck with an actual vampire in the confines of a common room and she could not remember a single lesson being taught on how to defend herself if attacked. He got up and began to gather all of his weapons again and Zara panicked. She was almost certain she was going to die. How the hell had Dumbledore let this happen? Wasn’t he always careful with who could get in and out of the castle? Hadn’t there been a talk about upping the safety measures?

His words made her head hurt. ”I don’t understand.” Her arm dropped next to her. ”I died? How is that even possible? I’m standing right here.” Now she needed to sit down. Taking her original seat Zara rubbed her hands over her face trying to get the wave of nausea to pass. ”Am I meant to know you?” Zara asked starting to get upset. ”Is this some sort of prank?” Part of her hoped it was. Part of her really hoped he was about to tell her this was some elaborate joke, set up to mess with her.

Carefully she placed her wand on the table. ”Please. Just explain things as clearly as possible. You seem to know me but I have no idea who you are and right now I am more than a little scared of you.”

[auraquinn collins]

Aura sat on the floor and drummed his fingers on the table as he thought how to best answer her question. "It would really be a shame for the cheesecake to go to waste." He tossed that out there making it clear that he was trying to think of a way to best explain it. He could bring up memories, but that would only be more confusing. For now, he focused on trying to make this as simple as possible.

"You know, I kinda wish this was a prank. I really do, actually. At least then I would have a reason for what is going on." His words were slow and well chosen in his mind, though they came out as if he were answering the question on instinct. Aura was tired of this game that his fate was playing on him. It was one thing to encounter others of his kind that had to deal with the deaths of loved ones one after the other, but he had to be the only one that had to experience the same one over and over again.

"I don't know how to explain it, Zara. I really don't. please forgive me for holding the past up to you, but this has happened enough that I feel it is going on once again." He took a deep breath and leaned on the table. "The last time I saw you, you said you had to go get supplies. It was for a campout our last year here that we got the staff to agree to. That was 20 years ago. My guess could be that you had it all figured out last time and that was that you had been reincarnated to keep me balanced out. I laughed and told you that reincarnation wasn't possible. Two days later, you left. It was three months before we found out what happened. It was another six years before the locket came back to me. That is all I know. It took two deaths and over 40 years to figure out that part and then you were gone again."

Aura took a deep breath and readjusted his position on the floor before looking at Zara again. "I told you last time that I would give my life to protect you if that is what it took, and I failed. You even came just short of begging me to turn you and I could never do it. Still pretty sure I don't have it in me. That alone is why I can tell you with one hundred percent certainty that you are safe here." He nodded to her wand and shook his head. "That merely scares me because I will not use mine against you, even if it is to defend myself."

[zara celeste o'riley]

Fang boy was worried about the cheesecake?! Zara pulled the thing onto her lap and began to shovel the dessert into her mouth, wanting something remotely normal right now. She let the sweet and savoury cake taste spread out over her tongue and began to calm down ever so slightly. She let him talk and continued to take bites whilst trying to absorb what he said.

”So this has happened before?” Zara asked for clarification. ”I’ve known you and I’ve died and what? I keep cropping up?” That was a hard thing for her to try to come to terms with. She quickly crammed another bite into her mouth before realising she was being rude and shoving the plate towards him. ”Want some? Oh God, do you even eat?” She choked a little on her bite and then swallowed.

”Okay, so, I die. I died. Um, but there’s no way that can happen again. I mean if you just told me I just get to be more careful. I live. You don’t have to get upset. Right? Simple?” Zara asked him. She needed to talk to someone not involved in this crazy situation. ”How? Um, okay. If I died how do I keep coming back? Why do you keep bumping into me?”

[auraquinn collins]

Aura fell over laughing as she went off about the cheesecake. There was a long string of laughter as he rolled on the floor. He forces himself to calm down as he laid on his back. He continued to laugh here and there as he worded his response in his head. "I can eat, but it burns. It's not that I don't like to, it's just that my body is built more for liquids. The cheesecake was a precaution."

His mind wandered a bit as he sat up. "It was the last thing I promised you before you disappeared." He stared at the table before him and took a deep breath. His eyes shift from a dark brown to liquid gold as he tried to organize the memories. He needed them in chronological order instead of the order that was important to him.

"I have no idea why this keeps happening. I have long forgotten my youth, seeing as how I have no bearing as to what there may be important. All I know is that this isn't the first time and I knew it was you when you walked in purely by smell." He sat still and focused on a single spot as he continued to think about it all. The whole situation seemed farfetched and he knew it, but it kept happening and he hated it.

Her next statement was met with a shake of his head. "You've said that, too. We trained you in all the magic I know, kept you hidden from things outside the school and Hogsmeade, learned combat using muggle weapons, and everything else we could think of. I have no idea how it keeps happening, it just does." He took a deep breath and looked up at her. His eyes remained the color of dark molten gold as he waited to see what she asked next.

[zara celeste o'riley]

She jumped as he laughed but a small smile pulled at her lips and eventually she broke out into a grin. "Sorry, I'm not knowledgable in vampires." Zara explained to him with a small shrug. "I'll be sure to just off you liquids from now on." For two minutes it almost seemed normal. Comfortable. She still wanted to see the headmaster but for now she didn't feel like he was a threat even if he was naturally a predator. 

Zara nodded slowly at what he said. "This time could be different." She had no intention of dying. This time she had Tyson and Bert and Jay. A question niggled in her mind and Zara almost swallowed it but found that she couldn't. "You never changed her. You said she wanted to be changed. That could have kept her alive? Well, obviously not she'd have been dead but alive. Living dead?" She was stumbling over her words now. "If you didn't want her to go wouldn't you have done that?"

Zara put the cheesecake back on the table and slipped off the chair to sit on the floor with him. "I don't get what's going on. I really don't. But can't we just forget this weird conversation. Like, hi I'm Zara O'Riley." Zara stuck her hand out at him. She honestly would love to forget everything they had spoken about. She'd even keep talking to him like friends if he promised not to be weird about this again. Anything for an easy life. Or at least until she could find some logical explanation behind everything.

[auraquinn collins]

Aura sighed and shook his head. Her logic probably made sense to her, but to him it was not that simple. "Don't get me wrong, I get where you're coming from. However, let me explain what kept me from turning her every single time." He held up a finger as a confused loom crossed his face. His body rocked from side to side, lifting slightly hugher each time before he finall yat back down. "Sorry. Butt felt weird. Anyway, back to that story."

He stood and walked towards the massive window looking out into the courtyard. "I was 17 when I was turned. My understanding is that I was missing for a week and a half and presumably dead god knows where. The last thing I remember about being human was that I was burning to death from the inside, locked in a broom closet on the seventh floor, and no one was going to be able to save me or help me. I got trained in combat and feeding from the others that were here at the time. There were a couple that taught me to hunt, focusing on larger animals that needed to be taken out. Centaur blood is nasty. Anyway, when the muggles started up their blood banks, a few of us knew exactly how useful that would be. It's how I survive without ever taking a human life, though I wish some people would be honest about the diseases they carry. Some of them taste a lot worse than they sound."

He knew he was getting sidetracked, but the truth was that he no longer had an issue with what he was. His issue came about from other people wanting to be one. When Zara had asked years ago for him to turn her, he never once thought about the possibility of her becoming a monster like so many of his kind were, but more of the thought of the pain that she would go through and never once be able to make a noise for fear of being killed. He shrugged and watched the lights dance outside with a small smile on his face. Truth be told, he had been paying more attention than anyone would have guessed. Her gradual calm made him grin as he looked at her hand.

"Like, oh my god! I'm Aura." He purposely sounded as gay as he possibly could. He took her hand lightly and kissed her knuckles, trying not to laugh. "Hunny, your hair is an absolute mess and you are freaking the hell out. We need to fix this. Do you want your hair accessories or mine?" He made a model pose that would have made most women jealous as he tried to flip his shoulder length hair. He busted out laughing halfway through before falling into the nearest chair. It had been a long time since she left things open for a chance to do a 180 shift. It was going to be an interesting night to say the least.

[zara celeste o'riley]

A slight unease fell over her again as he spoke about his feeding habits. She was sitting there with blood coursing through her and even if he wasn’t going to try and take a bit she felt slightly antsy. ”You got turned when you were 17?” Zara looked at him. It must have been hard to have gone through something so drastic so young. Zara pulled her knees up to her chest and leaned her back against the chair behind her listening to him. She was glad he wasn’t out taking a chunk from people he didn’t like although she was still a little sceptical and unsure about how much to trust him.

”I’m just saying, maybe things would have been different if you turned her.” Zara explained. ”But living with what ifs is crappy.” If what he said was true, that he had lived through similar meetings before she couldn’t imagine just how painful and exhausting that must have been. She was tired from just this conversation that they had had over the course of the evening.

She felt the heat rise to his cheeks when he kissed her knuckles and then she found herself laughing heartily at his flamboyant attitude. For those few moments he reminded her of Bert and there was a small ache in her chest that she had yet to catch up with her favourite Hufflepuff. ”Okay, is that really the second first impression you want to give?” Zara asked between gasps for breath. Her stomach ached slightly but it was the most at ease she felt. Maybe she could forget the craziness of the earlier outburst.

[auraquinn collins]

Aura shrugged and dropped his hands into his pockets. His head turned to the window, the moonlight glistening off his eyes as they became a deep emerald green. "Why live in what if's? I made my choice and I had to live with it. For a world constantly riddled by war, I guess I am getting away from this relatively unscathed. Though, history repeating itself blows." He shrugged again and turned back to her as she questioned his actions.

An eyebrow raised and he let his hair fall over his face. The long groupings if chocolate brown hair with golden blonde streaks his his right eye as he thought of a response. He smirked slightly and shook his head. "Would you rather I keep up with the way things were? I mean, you wanted something different and I am more than happy to oblige."

He looked at what was left of the cheesecake and groaned. The longer it sat there, the more it looked like it threatened to desolidify. He smirked and looked at Zara almost as if he were challanging her, when in truth, he was about to. "Thirty Galleons says you cant finish that in under 5 minutes." His hand went deeper into his pocket before coming out with a handful of the small wizard currency. He flipped a single galleon into the air before catching it between his index and middle finger. He would roll it back and forth across his knuckles as he waited to see how she responded to the task he had set forth.

[zara celeste o'riley]

”Everyone fights their own wars.” Zara said with a shrug. The big picture was that the wizarding world was preparing for something unhealthy and scary but that didn’t mean people stopped living their personal lives. It may have seemed ridiculous and selfish to worry over things that seemed trivial when looking at the bigger picture but it didn’t mean those things didn’t happen. She was often wrapped up in things going on in her own life.

”Your hair is rather fabulous.” Zara admitted with a grin and followed the statement with a laugh. ”You don’t seem so scary when you’re … less intense.” Zara told him. She let out a small yawn and apologised. ”I’m terrible at travelling.” The train journey to school always made her sleepy as did any other long journey. The only time she could travel without suffering that side effect was by broom. The thrill of being up in the air kept her wide awake.

”Keep your galleons. I really don’t want to throw up in front of anyone which is exactly what will happen if I take you up on that challenge.” Zara told him. As delicious as it had been there was no way she was finishing it off. She watched him play with the coin, rolling it along his knuckles and smiled. ”Did you bake it?” Zara asked him. ”Or was it bought?”

[auraquinn collins]

Aura looked at the cheesecake and shrugged. "Made it. Sleeping and I don't get along half the time, so I need something to do." Something on the wall caught his attention and he dropped the coins into his pocket. His feet made no noise as he paced over to a mark on the wall. The male would stare at it for a good long while before there was a gasp.

"Spray paint?" He walked over to a picture and mouthed an apology before lifting it off the wall and looking at a paper taped to the wall that held two letters in hand written old english font. "R. P.?" He placed the picture back on the wall and turned back to Zara, a spark of amusement on his face. An old friend was here and he needed to know how bad it had gotten so far.

He paced over and dropped to a seated position next to Zara. He beamed like a child and pointed to where the paper was. "I am going to go out on a limb and say there has been a spree of graffiti and vandalism over the past few years, most of which has been targeted at Slytherin?" He waited in an anticipation for an answer as the look on his face gave way to the fact that he knew exactly who the Ravenclaw Pirate was.

[zara celeste o'riley]

She raised an eyebrow, ”You’re baking skills are pretty impressive. I can’t make anything without messing it up somehow. It was amazing.” Credit where credit was due. He pocketed the coin and was up off the floor. She turned her head and watched him quietly, taking him in properly for the first time. He was somewhat unlike the others at the school in the way he carried himself.

Aura was soon sitting next to her and asking her about vandalism. With a small furrow in her brow she nodded. ”Yeah there have been a few incidents. But it’s hardly surprising and most people are happy to see them get some karma. I mean I know not everyone in the house deserves it but some of them really are a pain in the ass trying to shove their views down everyone’s throats.” Zara told him. ”Why do you ask?”

She stopped hugging her knees and stretched her legs out in front of her. No doubt the feast would start wrapping up soon and students would begin to make their way up to bed before starting lessons the next day.

[auraquinn collins]

Aura laughed and shook his head. "They could be perfect angels and it wouldn't stop the Ravenclaw Pirate. He does not discriminate against house. I just wonder who has taken up the mantles of the Gryffindor Ninja and the Hufflepuff Ranger. That's when things will get interesting." He smirked and stood again.

He offered a hand to help her up and smiled. "Sounds like we both have a lot to think about. Don't get me wrong, but I think I need to talk to Albus about postponing my stay here." He smiled, the glisteb of his perfectly white teeth and the fire reflecting on his green eyes made him seem no where as dangerous as he really was.

He realized how calm he had become around her and froze where he stood. His breathing became shallow as he almost became statuesque. This wasn't right. This wasn't good. He needed both Rory and Orion as soon as possible. Luckily, one of them was already here and accessible. He smiled, breaking the form of a piece of art. "You gonna stand or let your ass go numb on that cold ass floor?"

[zara celeste o'riley]

”Ravenclaw pirate and who?” Zara asked him looking bemused. ”I’m not entirely sure I like the sound of that. Band of vigilantes is what is sounds like. And with the Marauders around I’m not sure how much more disruption the school needs.” But she was smiling as she said it. In the dark times it was people like them who made things easier. Who reminded people there were things to smile and laugh about.

”Why do you need to postpone?” Zara asked him suddenly slightly upset at the thought. Sure, things had not been great for a first meeting but now that they had spoken she felt they could probably strike up a friendship. If he disappeared she felt it would be a shame. Zara took his hand and stood up from the floor, brushing herself down. ”I think you’re actually colder than the floor.” Zara stated but it was not meant in a mean way.

[auraquinn collins]

Aura smiled and then caught her second comment. He quickly withdrew his hand and slipped it into his pocket. The warmth was one thing, that he could handle. However, his mind was having enough trouble with her scent and the feeling of her blood pumping against his palm almost threw him for a loop. "Side effect of the race, I guess."

He walked over and grabbed up his hoodie, slinging it over his shoulder. "I guess I will leave you to your evening." He turned towards the stairs without a second thought and made his way across the room. His head shook from side to side as he tried to make sense of the evening. It was one thing to come back here, but another to have to do this again.

He stopped halfway to the stairs and turned back to her. Maybe it was the angle, maybe it was bias, Aura wasn't sure. However, the way she stood between his body and the fire, letting the glow of the flames surround her frame was enough to cause his brain to stop. The breathing ceased as he stood in awe of what was before him.

For the first time that evening, every pretense that Auraquinn held washed away. There was no joking or malice that played at his face. There was no trying to process his thoughts into words as his jaw dropped slightly. His mind reeled with what he was going to say. He didn't even realize he wasn't breathing, though he didn't really have to. The breathing was habit and instinct to keep humans off guard, but instead, he stood there as a statue that someone had clothed and put in the middle of a walkway to merely be in the way.

[zara celeste o'riley]

He removed his hand quickly and she frowned but quickly replaced it with a smile. ”I guess there’s a lot of those.” There were probably a list of things that were different now than what he had been when he was actually seventeen years old. Aura had seemingly had enough of their evening and was now colleting the last of his things. ”Oh, um, okay.” He had ended their conversation just as abruptly as it had started making her wonder if she had done something wrong.

Zara watched as he went towards the stairs and sighed before picking her wand up off the table and stuffing it in her pocket. She then gather the book and chocolate that she had brought with her when she had gotten changed. When she turned back she noticed that Aura had stopped about halfway and was standing frighteningly still. ”Is everything okay?” Zara asked him. She moved towards him, the staircase to her dorm to his left. ”Did you forget something?” She glanced behind her to see if there was anything he had forgotten to pick up.