Mainstream Streams Mainly Modern Posers And Post-Modern Junkies | Rose & Carmen
It was the weekend and therefore no classes. Carmen had left the Ravenclaw common room around mid-day, because she knew that her pity-me act would wear thin if she kept it up for too many hours at a time. The incident with Derek Lowe had occurred nearly a week ago now. She had set herself precisely two weeks to recover from the ‘trauma’, so that meant she ought to be about fifty-percent recovered at the present. It was just maths to her. The incident had done several good things including letting her act withdrawn and antisocial without it being out of character for the act she always put on. Getting away with near-murder was also pretty pleasing, though she had encountered some conflict with Ace Pruitt there. She wouldn’t be talking about that one, though.
As far as anyone was concerned, Carmen was doing homework. Really, she was supposed to be doing homework because she had a Loring essay due on Monday which she hadn’t started, and any student in their right mind would be panicking right about now. But instead of reaching the library she was now in the second-floor corridor, perched on a narrow windowsill, very much like a bird in the way that she squatted, balancing her thin body on her toes. It was as good a place as any to avoid people. She could fix a blank gaze at any student who looked her way. A few partook in the staring contest. If they won, she let them get away without harm. She they lost, she charmed their hair grey. It was a charm she had learned just a few weeks ago. There were now three people walking around Hogwarts with old-person hair, hopefully without knowing the culprit, though a detention wouldn’t exactly put Carmen off.
Waiting for the next student to make eye contact, she found her next victim in Rose Weasley. No blinking, that was her rule. And her eyes had already gone a little watery from the last few staring contests, but it have given her practice. She would quite like to make that vibrant ginger hair grey. Rose Weasley and Carmen Wild were on opposite ends of the scale, in a way. Carmen always did everything in her power to appear completely normal and mainstream (and perching on a windowsill really wasn’t that odd, considering the type of pranks usually pull by students), whereas she knew Rose to be anything but. Normal and anti-normal. Carmen didn’t understand the point in trying to stand out and trying to be different. It was more practical to blend in. Her inability to feel had left her with no desire to stand out from the crowd, so she didn’t understand the point of Rose’s mindset in the slightest.
Getting to her. That’s exactly what she was letting it do and exactly what she had vowed not to let things do a good while ago. It was getting to her and she wanted to stop it from getting to her, so forgetting that there was even anything that could get at her was the easiest alternative to what she had been doing - frowning and pacing and sighing and frowning. Tugging on a cardigan (her muggle grandmother’s, stolen from a suitcase of old treasures from the sixties) she left the blank piece of parchment and the quill that hadn’t written anything and left her worries behind in her dorm. (Except she didn’t ever leave her worries behind her and that was her problem, not the letter she hadn’t written.)
She walked at a quick pace. Too fast for anybody to talk to her; quick enough for words to be lost if anybody tried calling out. She liked walking alone, preferring the sound of her shoes tapping against the floor to the natter of conversation that she wasn’t even interested in. To others, it was more than a matter of her simply wanting to be alone. It was her being cold and aloof and so much better than everybody else because they were oh so mainstream. Although she hardly helped the situation. Her only response to being asked why she acted the way she was usually included the words ‘too’ and ‘mainstream’ in a half ironic display of irony that wasn’t even ironic. As she walked, she stuck her thumbnail in her mouth. Didn’t bite, just pressed her fingers to her lips in thought. Thinking, thinking always thinking. Her head felt like it would tick over if she thought some more. Briefly raising her eyes, she surveyed the milling students around her. Most didn’t care for the odd, too tall ginger girl and those who did catch her eyes looked down out of politeness. At least she hoped it was politeness. Adding ‘intimidating’ to the list of words use to describe her wasn’t something she would be particularly happy to do. Her reputation was ridiculous already - she didn’t want to be seen as scary on top of that. The exception, however, was a small blonde creature perched on a ledge, watching her. Intently. Staring unblinkingly.
“Terrifyingly sweet and terrifyingly… terrifying, little blonde one,” she said by way of greeting as she walked a few steps closer, tipping her head to one side but not breaking eye contact. The recent news would have been enough to make her wary of Carmen, but more than once her eyes had flicked to her across the common room as she sat in her corner armchair and observed those around her. She appeared as being made of sugar and spice and all things nice. But windowsill perching and staring as well as being able to cast sectumsempra made Rosie skeptical of her outward appearance.
Regardless of whether she was or wasn’t totally creepy, she wasn’t going to let somebody just outstare her like that. Perhaps it was that bit of stubborn Gryffindor in her blood. Folding her arms across her chest she raised one of her eyebrows, as if to say ‘game on’.
