The Game is On! (Henry)

[.Alice Vyrei Trev'na !]

Try not to start a war before I get home - you know what it does to the traffic.

Her lungs seemed to freeze like a raindrop caught in a blizzard as her upright and carefully set posture fell against the back of the chair. Alice would never have admitted it, but for that one moment she was truly and fully impressed by the wizard seated across from her. No one, in the entirety of her life had managed to twist her own logic and pin her down with it. She was taken aback, and a bit aghast by the fact that Henry had somehow gotten past carefully detailed defenses, past her inscrutable logic and reversed the odds in his favor. She was a bit disheartened, and perhaps for that one singular moment Henry allowed the Ravenclaw witch to doubt herself, to consider that she was simply not as clever as she thought herself to be.

Finally she released the pent up breath caught in her chest to take in another, the scent of Earl Grey mingling with black coffee tingeing the air as her mind sobered. Dark tawny eyes rose with an unhurried pace back up to her adversary, her expression clinging to a muted edge of disappointment in herself before sharpening to a frosted edge.

Alice Trev’na was never going to doubt her own skills, she knew her boundaries, her limits, where she lacked, and in this moment, she was hardly beaten just yet. A single brow arched as she neglected to proffer her customary half smile.

Her voice was clear and certain, daring him to tell her different, to pick apart her logic. She allowed a sigh to escape her throat as she pressed her long digits together as though deeply absorbed in thought.

The quiet between them lasted only a scattering of seconds before her fingertips unlaced, her right hand, index paired against her middle digit gesturing sharply off towards the threshold of the café doors some distance away. A woman was there, a bit brutish in appearance, but still feminine and garbed in a military uniform. Her hair was a mix of salt and pepper locks and her nails trimmed neatly but altogether worn from use. And all the while she watched the wife and her husband with eyes veiled in daggers.
“As with every story, there is more than one side, and more than one layer of deception. But surely, a bright wizard such as yourself did not neglect to look over this. No?”

The witch said, the words bearing a sickly sweet edge indicating that a silent sarcasm was slid just beneath her tone.

“Now we can hardly assume that the wife is to blame in all of this, it seems like such a poor match, a desperately adulterous wife with the pool boy? Really now Henry. " Alice said chidingly while offering a mock frown
" Unless of course it was all motivated by a need for revenge, I mean really, a pool boy? Such an easy, accessible target, no need to go out hunting for a piece of meat to flaunt in her husband’s face. The boy suited her needs perfectly” Alice allowed a short stunted laugh to escape before continuing.

“The husband was where it all started, he had some pointless affair overseas or perhaps he fell in love , perhaps he found someone who understood him far better, who saw the world as he did.” Alice said distantly before her gaze hardened with a degree of daring glittering within.

“I am willing to lean towards the latter, he and his wife have been married easily over a decade, and maybe at one point he thought he was happy." Alice removed her gaze from the woman in military garb to the husband, amber orbs boring into his image.

"But something changed obviously, and he found someone else more suiting." She concluded indistinctly, distantly lost to her own meanderings of thought.

"Either way all affairs aside, this is about to become quite interesting.” The witch stated, reemerging back into reality as her body began to relax, settling into the chair as voices rose in the background, insults flying as all the players in the story converged on the two figures the witch and wizard had been inspecting.

“There is certainly a clear difference in our ability Henry, you yourself seem to make a habit of filling your own head with all kinds of rubbish these days. “ Alice paused, considering her words, there was a clear difference between being cruel and the typical banter the two of them exchanged, she made a point to never wander into language that was tinted with callousness.

"The little frail lies, the tiny emotions, and secrets. Even the twisted fetishes are only parts of the road leading to the truth. Next time see to it that you don't lose yourself along the way."





Words: 831
Quote: Sherlock "A Study In Pink"
Tags: Henry

[.henry john longbottom !]

--------------------------------------Ah, breathing. Breathing's boring.

      Henry watched, possibly enjoying all to much Alice's reaction to what Henry had said. He could see her tense up, perhaps mortified that Henry had so cleverly tossed her entire turn at the game aside.

     "You're right. I was too focussed on the woman's side of the marriage that I didn't notice that woman," Henry admitted. That alone pained Henry, but what Alice had said about rubbish in Henry's head. That was something else. " But their marriage- it is so typical! I propose that eighty percent of spouses cheat in England... and the rest cheat somewhere else," Henry scoffed. Marriage, in his opinion, was often a waste of time- it was only in rare cases that two people remained married, happily married, until death parted them. "It is so easy to see that their marriage is falling apart- and it's so boring. Why would I waste my time focussing on that, when the woman's fetish, the pool boy, and the pool boy's lover are so much more interesting?" He continued, "Two plus two is an important equation, but once you see it once, why bother looking at it written again on another piece of parchment when the answer is always the same? That couple- their marriage- is just another simple equation that has been written over and over again for hundreds of thousands of years. So why, Alice, do you find it so important to dwell on the fact that their marriage is falling apart, when there are other people in this equation that are far more interesting?" Henry asked Alice with a raised eyebrow. He was interested- very interested- in her answer. Surely she would say that the other people in this 'equation' were all focussed around the couple, would she not? But in the question of 'Is this couple happily married', the questions that come from the answer are far more interesting than the answer itself.

     Alice had said that Henry was filling his head with useless information, but he saw it as quite the opposite. Alice was far too focussed on the fact that the couple's marriage was near history- anyone could see that (Well, perhaps not anyone, Henry thought as he looked around the street once more).

word count:525
cred:Sherlock
notes: sorry that it's all dialogue. And the fact that Alice didn't hit Henry too hard. Perhaps getting into Henry's fears would be a good thing. Or perhaps having this end with one of them storming off (it would make the wedding and future events much more interesting).

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[.Alice Vyrei Trev'na !]

"Oh, I'm sure something will turn up. A nice murder, that'll cheer you up."

Her lungs seemed to freeze like a raindrop caught in a blizzard as her upright and carefully set posture fell against the back of the chair. Alice would never have admitted it, but for that one moment she was truly and fully impressed by the wizard seated across from her. No one, in the entirety of her life had managed to twist her own logic and pin her down with it. She was taken aback, and a bit aghast by the fact that Henry had somehow gotten past carefully detailed defenses, past her inscrutable logic and reversed the odds in his favor. She was a bit disheartened, Alice deeply absorbed in through in the mere moments that passed between them. Perhaps for that one singular moment Henry allowed the Ravenclaw witch to doubt herself, to consider that she was simply not as clever as she thought herself to be.

Finally she released the pent up breath caught in her chest to take in another, the scent of Earl Grey mingling with black coffee tingeing the air as her mind sobered. Dark tawny eyes rose with an unhurried pace back up to her adversary, her expression clinging to a muted edge of disappointment in herself before sharpening to a frosted edge.

Alice Trev’na was never going to doubt her own skills, she knew her boundaries, her limits, where she lacked, and in this moment, she was hardly beaten just yet. A single brow arched as she neglected to proffer her customary half smile.
Her voice was clear and certain, daring him to tell her different, to pick apart her logic.

“Yes, let’s look at what we are doing. Watching the world go by, all the trysts, affairs, little white lies, and yet I have looked over one of the greatest riddles of all.” Alice spoke, her eyes never leaving the image of disinterest that Henry was putting off. She paused then, waiting, knowing that whether the clever little lion showed it or not, he was indeed listening.

She laced her fingers together, lips moving as she did so.
“Henry Longbottom…” Alice spoke lowly, as her hands locked together as they lowered to the table, whilst she leaned forward.
“Everyone knows of your father, his heroics, rather his legend.” Spoke the witch as she continued, eyes never flinching as she inspected the wizard across from her.

“But what of his son?” She inquired sharply. “The way you dress, never casual, never half put together. Everything…just…so” The Ravenclaw spoke lowly. “So you want attention from others, but only a certain sort; respect, I gather and perhaps a tinge of awe.”
“But that says something interesting in itself, you can’t stand not being noticed, for others to ignore you, but who can blame you? You are intelligent, more so than anyone else I have met, and you want people to recognize you for it, hardly a sin.”

Slowly Alice began to lean back, drawing away from the table, pressing her fingertips together in thought. She knew roughly how far she could go with this before she hit a nerve, and though Alice was a bit frustrated with his impressive little observation earlier, she had no intent of truly hitting on anything that could cause a flare of hurt or anger. Still, it satisfied her to hint at what she presumed was his real weakness, as it was the shadow of her own.

“The manner of your speech, the little gestures and ticks, it is all a façade isn’t it? You are afraid, afraid of the one thing you fight day in and day out to escape.”

The Trev’na girl allowed a short lived silence then, her eyes narrowing faintly, her clasped fingertips lowering just a bit as she finally took it upon herself to continue.

“You are afraid of being forgotten, of becoming completely obsolete to the world. And you fight it so hard, simply to avoid sliding into obscurity.”

The last lines came out with the lightest touch of sincerity, for Alice knew quite well the shaded corners of her mind that whispered of days when no one would care when Alice Trev’na walked into a room, when no one listened when she spoke, no one cared that she was even alive.

"The heart of the details, the human motivations tell so much, even if they appear simplistic." She huffed with a mild sigh. "Even more so, if you understand elemental nature in the heart of the riddle, you can control the body and everything else in-between."

"Understand the most primal of emotions, and motivations, and you glean the knowledge to make men walk where they would not."

This indeed was the core of Alice's dedication to understanding the underlying cores to each and every individual she met, this is why the state of the marriage for the couple was so vital to understand at it's deepest level. The Trev'na witch had been raised within the social realm, and to survive in that brutal environment, the art of manipulation was a skill in great demand. And Alice Trev'na was a master of the art.





Words: 976
Credits: Sherlock : The Great Game
Tags: Henry
Notes: Edited the post, had to do some rough re-writes to blend it together. I hope this will do.

[.henry john longbottom !]

Henry smirked as he watched Alice react to what he had said. He was not a sadistic person, but the kind of relationship he had with the Ravenclaw girl often allowed him to find a bit of pleasure in being smarter than her, and –more importantly- knowing that she knew that he was smarter than her. He could see in her face, in her lowered chin and darting eyes, that she had been struck hard by what Henry had said.

How true Alice was. And how unfortunate it was that she was the only person in the world that could see past Henry’s armour. Henry was terrified of falling into nothingness, and he did everything he could to stop that from happening. What Alice had said had hit him hard, for he had never really thought to himself those things in such a clear manner. But there was still hope for him to win this game…

“And are you so different from myself, Alice?” Henry asked her, trying not to show that he was at least a little bit affected by what she had said. “Do you not wear the cloths that you wear, carry yourself like you do, and speak and act the way that you do for the very same reason? You run around thinking that you’re so much better than everyone else- don’t deny it, I’ve seen you in school with your friends- the only person that causes you any amount of discomfort is me and your older sister.”

Henry wondered if Alice knew how obvious it was that her older sister had caused her discomfort in her life. At first, Henry had thought that she was a squib or something- nothing too terrible, but enough to cause a bit of trouble in the Trev’na household. But after a bit of further inspection, it was clear that the eldest sister had done something much, much worse.

[.Alice Vyrei Trev'na !]

"Nothing is ever forgotten. Not really."

His words came out in a tumult, a backlash equal to her own utterances. Her skin prickled, as her half executed inhale froze in place, her carefully arranged fingertips, pressed together to mimic Henry’s own fell down limply to her lap. She had expected the retort of her fear being similar to his own; it was true enough to an extent, but the pointed remark about her sister….
It made her blood run cold.

Perhaps the Gryffindor did not know the entirety of the details surrounding Adrienne, but in that singular moment, it didn’t matter to Alice his lack of information. The Trev’na household had managed to keep the flight of Adrienne a well concealed secret, along with her promise to return and ultimately punish her family in whatever way she might possibly conceive. But that thought that Henry did not know better did nothing to bring calm to Alice in that scant flickering of a second.

There were few in this world that the Ravenclaw came to call equals, and perhaps even a proper friend. One of them was of course Anna her little sister, the one soul in the universe that every once and again showed Alice that perhaps the world was not such an unforgiving place. It was true as Henry said, Alice had her acquaintances at Hogwarts, those circles that she occasionally traveled in, but none of them were considered in her mind to be worth the effort.

Today, in the café she had thought blindly that the wizard across from her… was potentially worth the attempt.

But whether he realized it or not, his words had been pitiless, dredging up a memory far better left forgotten.
Finally she spoke, though only the faintest tracery of a second had passed, the corners of her eyes stinging vengefully. The mood of their game altered dramatically.

Alice’s voice was low, the edge of her tone ragged from years peppered with dread caused by the final words of Adrienne before her departure. It was quite easy to sense that her carefully constructed visage of well manicured control had shattered.
“You….” She caught for a moment on her words, swallowing away the surge of bitterness to a level where she could talk with some degree of rationality.

“You, have no right to mention her..” Finally her resentment rose out of her control, her hands curling into tense fists as abruptly the witch stood sharply from her chair, sending it screeching back against the agate covered ground. All around the two, Muggles probeing the scene out of the corner of their eyes.

Pallid fists were set against the surface of the table, her eyes neglecting to look upon her adversary, instead her face turned downwards toward her tensed hands.

“You haven’t the right…” She uttered again, her speech brittle and fragmented.
Finally her gaze snapped back to Henry, those orbs burning like stoked embers.

“Discomfort, Henry? Hardly…” She snapped coldly. “You don’t understand, and you never will…” Alice breathed harshly. “You won’t even try because you think you have the world all figured out! Put into your neat…pointless little boxes.”

She stood back then, removing her hands from the table to hang at her sides, eyes stinging against her will. There was a hidden myriad of emotions resting behind her mask of anger, it was hard to put a finger on them as her expression hardened.
“It may make a good little game, some…idle entertainment, but the world is not that simple Henry.” There was a deep tinge of weariness to the shadow of her stare, of years laced with fear for the return of Adrienne Trev’na , and the loss that her appearance would signify.

“You think you are so clever…so superior to everyone around you, but when in your perfect little life have you ever had to look behind you…" She questioned savagely, eyes burning.


"To know that no matter how hard you try, you can’t stop what is coming...”

Alice’s last words has a since of finality to them, her gaze wavering before lowering completely. Perhaps she had said to much, but right then, the witch hardly cared. She had never allowed someone to get under her skin like that before, to cause an outburst of that caliber.
Halfheartedly she pushed the chair back under the table, turning away her gaze lowered to the ground as the Ravenclaw stepped away from the café table, never proffering a glance back as she started away from the Gryffindor.


Words: 806
Notes: Henry defiantly hit a nerve, oh Alice
Credit: Quote from Doctor Who

[.henry john longbottom !]

Henry listened as Alice attacked his lifestyle. It was true that he had it easier than most people, but in his world, he had to keep his ideas cloaked behind a neat little facade. Henry had been longing to say something for years now, and finally he had the chance.

"Why would you want to stop what's coming, Alice?" Henry asked her. "Have you ever taken the time to think that maybe what's happening with your sister and the Death Eaters is a good thing." Henry had no care in the world for Alice's feelings at the moment. Feelings were so... useless. Compared to intelligent thought, emotions just cause you to do insane things. Emotions cause you to not think. "Muggle Integration? Why would anyone want that? If things continue at the rate that they're going, by Christmas Muggle children will be writing letters to the neighborhood wizard instead of Santa. The Death Eaters have got the right idea," he continued, "I'm no blood purest, but we shouldn't go around showing Muggles our wands. And your sister is trying to prevent that. And maybe, just maybe, your younger sister could do some good for the Wizarding world. Keep us from going to hell in a muggle-ordered-magically-made-hand-basket!"


notes: I have to run, I hope that'll get something started!
ps: 10 points to Ravenclaw if you can find the phrase that doesn't fit with the others.

[.Alice Vyrei Trev'na !]

“I’ve been running faster than I’ve ever run. And I’ve been running all my life.”

Alice, froze, her blood going utterly glacial as ever ounce of color drained from her face. Slowly pivoted around, every single muscle fiber taught, every tendon tight against her narrow bone structure. The skin against her jaw tightening as Henry spoke, his words feeling like a bare handed slap across the face. At first the clever Ravenclaw was at a loss for words, a myriad of memories and emotions mixed with a heaping dose of fury paraded about her thoughts.

Before Alice consciously realized what she was doing, her hand had slid quietly into the fine silken sling purse at her side, her fingertips encircling the comforting hazel wood skin of her wand. A delicate pulse of energy blossomed beneath her touch, the faint yet eternally intoxicating pull of magic tempting her wrath to make a move. Oh Henry and Alice, they played their little games, their little jousts of words, the occasional debate, but nothing that could really, and quite properly be called a true conflict. But there had always been a line that neither of them crossed, they didn’t meddle in the tiresome domain of emotions. They bantered and argued, but never did they take a wounding stab at one another, at least until today. Granted, Alice had sharpened her nails on his pride a bit, raking her talons across the nicks in his armor…. picking lightly at his own short-comings. But she had hardly expected this reaction out of Henry’s as a result, and now her face had gone a spectral white, their little game was now taken to a new arena.

A tumult of thought cascaded within her mind, yet one word shone through the rest, as her grip tightened on the still hidden wand.

'Meteolojinx'

She didn’t need to speak it aloud…no Alice Trev’na had mastered unspoken magic some time ago. And the result was quite evident as ever so slowly the friendly white clouds above began to coalesce and darken, slinking together like a half drowned herd of alley cats fighting over a smattering of scraps.

She didn’t need to say anything as thunder boomed dully in the distance, muggles suddenly hurrying about as the downpour became imminent. Slowly the girl drew her wand out, the 12 ½ inch length of hazel and phoenix feather appearing in all its glory. Alice had supposed that it would have always come to this, they were two of a kind, two rivals that were fated to clash in the end.
Though right in that moment, Alice did not care why Henry had spoken those words, she didn’t care that he knew about Adrienne….she only cared about Anna, and the fate that he thought was best for her.

“You of all people Henry Longbottom.” Alice finally spoke heavily, laying a particular sheet of fury upon his last name. Everyone had heard the frightened whispers, the stories…. of what had happened to the headmaster’s parents, Henry’s grandparents….What the Death Eaters had done to them.

‘Muffliato’ she silently thought, the spell floating easily into her mind like a puff of vapor seeking to be molded by her touch.


“The Death Eaters have never done anything for our world…they have never given us anything!” Alice hissed darkly as her knuckles grew white from the tightening grip on her wand.

“They have only taken away…” She breathed lowly, as the wand was slowly raised; a single word reverberating amid her consciousness, anger writhing through her heart. No one was going to take Anna, not even Henry Longbottom.

‘Stupefy!’

Red light blazed suddenly within the café, as the first torrent of raindrops descended, sending the remaining muggles into a scatter out into the streets.



__________________

Words: 687
Credits: Quote- Doctor Who

Spells:
Meteolojinx: Basically causes bad weather
Muffliato: Keeps unwanted people from hearing a conversation
Stupefy: Stuns opponents, potentially knocking them unconscious.

[.henry john longbottom !]

--------------------------------------If something's going to kill you, it's nice that it drops you a note to remind you.

      Still tensed from his short monologue, Henry immediately reached for his Sequoia companion when he saw Alice reach for her wand."'Me of all people?'" he asked, "What on earth is that supposed to mean? 'Me of all people to say what's on my mind'? Alice, you know that what I said was true, don't go off doing anything stupid!" She can't seriously be thinking of- his thoughts were cut off as storm clouds appeared on the ceiling of the café.

      Unaware that Alice had cast Muffilato, Henry breathed, "Repello Muggletum." Even without Muggle/Wizard relations on his mind, Henry would have been as quick as he was to cast the Muggle-repelling charm. "Alice! What the fuck are you doing? Did you not see the crowd of Muggles that were just in here?"

      Henry had no time to reply to Alice's comment about death eaters before her stunning spell shot him backwards, causing him to crash through a nearby table. A bit dazed, he struggled to stand up. Expelliarmus, he thought, flicking Alice's wand out of her hand with his own. At a million miles per minute, Henry tried to figure out what to say. He knew that if he told her to calm down, she would probably only get more riled, but he needed to get her calm before she did any serious damage. At this rate, they were both in for quite a bit of trouble- Henry doubted that any sane witch or wizard would do what Alice had just done.

word count: four hundred!
tags:Alice
notes: Urgh, sorry it took me a millennium to reply! ((Also, I can totally imagine Henry saying "You're going to get us killed, or worse, expelled."))

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[.Alice Vyrei Trev'na !]

“You gave me hope and then you took it away. That's enough to make anyone dangerous. God knows what it'll do to me.”

She hated Henry Longbottom, right then in that moment, Alice Trev’na hated him. A moronic excuse for a wizard, speaking of the Death Eaters as though they were the salvation the wizarding world had been waiting for. Her expression was hollow, just barely echoing the flare of anger flickering just behind her eyes. There was a subtle flare of movement as her wand was torn out of her grasp, the silken hazel object sliding out of her fingers to clatter beneath a table some distance away. Alice paused a moment, the disarming spell sobering her mind slightly as she stood in the bustling café with her chin lowered, biting her lip uncertainly. A dampness stung at her eyes, but Alice did not allow such emotion to be displayed, anger rose up again as a comforting partner compared to grief.

Abruptly the first droplets of the hovering storm began to cascade down upon the streets of London, Alice finally flicking her gaze back up towards Henry.

“Quite honestly Henry, I don’t give a damn about the muggles.” Alice snapped brutally, appearing to calmed to the point that she was not going to be casting another stunning spell at him. She began to walk towards him, her gait having lost its customary grace before she came to a brittle halt no more than a pace from her rival.

“What I do give a damn about, is you thinking the Death Eaters would do some good for Anna.” She hissed, her eyes glaring up at him unblinking, hands clenched as she spoke.

“Adrienne made her choice….and I mean for Anna to live long enough to make her own when that time comes.” Alice whispered callously, her body tensed like a taught bowstring.

“I don’t want to hear your opinion or anyone else’s when it comes to my sister’s future….you have no right.” She uttered, finally deflating ever so slightly, her form losing its self imposed rigidity. Silently Alice was a bit humiliated to allow the bastard to push her up to a point where she would tell him about what remained of her rather secretive family. Still, what’s done is done.


----------------
Credits: Quote from Doctor Who "The Doctor's Wife"

[.henry john longbottom !]

--------------------------------------Good men don't need rules. Today is not the day to find out why I have so many.

     "Well you can't very well go off murdering me for saying what's on my mind, Alice," he told her.

     Henry deemed Alice calm enough to hand her back her wand. "Don't do anything else insanely stupid, please," he told her, before letting her take it from him. He looked away from her, to the street. Her storm was beginning to calm down, though the damage that she had caused was still there. "Are you going to fix all of this," he gestured to the mess, "or will I have to?"

word count: sorry
tags: alice
notes: look! a post! also, that gun you see is actually a wand. stop being so blind.

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