Ghosts | Orion

Sunday, October 2, 1921
5:30 PM
<3

Benji sighed, his head falling back as the smoke billowed from his nostrils and out over the lake. It was his first smoke in more than a year, and the familiarity of it soothed something within the boy that had ached for far too long. His arms hung limply over his knees, the red glow of his cigarette a warm ember against the setting sun.

His talk with Rae the night before had left him in a place where he'd realized he wasn't doing enough to manage the feelings he'd been reeling from the better part of four months now. And while he knew she'd be disappointed and angry if she knew, he figured a smoke here and there wouldn't hurt and he could hide it well enough.

His sketchbook sat at his side, flipped open to the half-finished drawing of the Black Lake. Likely the fiftieth he'd done in his time at Hogwarts, but there was something about the dark waters that had always called to him. Calming, peaceful. Fucking cold in the middle of winter on the rare occasion he'd 'fallen' into it.

He brought the cigarette to his lips, letting it dangle between them for a moment while he pulled his robes tighter around him for warmth. The evenings were colder now that autumn had arrived, but it was better than the sweltering heat, he figured.

Footsteps sounded beside him, and for a moment the boy almost panicked, knowing if it was Rae he was in for it. When he glanced up, he rolled his eyes, plucking the smoke from his lips again and let out a long exhale. "It's only you, you bloody idiot."

He grinned up at Orion, snuffing the cigarette into the ground beside him. "Well sit down then. Quit your lurking." Orion was like the fucking grim reaper the way he wandered about with that dark look on his face half the time.

"Don't tell Rae, yeah? Don't fancy my ears bleeding for the next week over it."

The sickening amusement and tremendous guffaws echoed throughout the Slytherin common room. Even after having escaped its joyful prison, Orion could still hear the boisterous laughter bouncing inside his skull and oh so graciously delivering him a migraine.

He loathed weekends. Too often students lazed around, forgetting homework to exploit the beauty of procrastination and enjoy two days of relaxation. The darkened Slytherin common room resembled what he must imagine the pathetic Hufflepuffs’ one to be like, with everyone chatting and running around. Especially on this rather cold autumn day, students huddled in the little alcove they called their home and did not fucking. Stop. Yelling.

His feet had led him outside with no destination in mind. He kept his head low, shoulders high, enjoying the bite of the soft cold breeze against his skin. It seeped through the soft knitting of his sweatshirt, having left the common room in a hurry and forgetting to grab a jacket.

He finally reached a stop by the Black Lake. He breathed in fresh air, but froze the moment a shrill, annoying voice broke the silence he thought he could finally bask in. His face didn’t reveal the pure aggravation of hearing Benjamin Fucking Laurence speak to him. The boy was a menace; a thorn stuck in his side that somehow never got away. For some reason, the Hufflepuff didn’t seem to mind the heavy, dark aura that enveloped Orion, unlike many others who happily looked the other way when he walked past.

Then again, Benjamin Laurence probably had brain damage.

‘She already knows you’re a pathetic loser. I don’t need to remind her.”

Without looking at Benji, he lowered himself beside him on the ground, crossing his legs. He extended his hand, unfurling his index and middle fingers, leaving a space between them, silently waiting for a cigarette to be placed there.

“I don’t know why you think you’re so fucking suave. You smell like nicotine, shithead. She’ll know.”

"She does," he grinned, shrugging at the jab. Rae did know all his faults and had been at the receiving end of most of his disappointing takes. Orion was right; Benji knew good and well that Ruth Elliot could do far better than an idiot like him.

Still didn't mean he wanted to barked at over a smoke. Rae could scold with the best of them, if a scold looked like shrieking and throwing shit and calling him every name in the book. Sometimes, he even got a punch or a slap for his troubles.

Glancing sideways at the extended hand, Benji raised an eyebrow before reaching into his pocket. There weren't many people on either side of the aisle that could handle either Benji or Orion on a good day, much less both, but somewhere along the lines the two had managed to find something of a tolerance for one another.

Benji knew good and well who he was, and the types of people that were drawn to and away from him.

Plucking two cigarettes from the box, the Hufflepuff figured he'd already had one - what was another? Plopping one in Orion's palm, the boy stuck the other between his lips, raising his wand to light it with a light drag.

"Nothing a good scourgify can't fix." It worked well enough anyway. He knew his girlfriend wasn't stupid, but he did what he could.

Flicking the ash away Benji finally looked at the boy who was now sat beside him. There always seemed to be something ruminating behind the kid's eyes. "What's got your knickers in a twist today?" His smirk widened, "Someone be polite to you and wish you a 'good morning'?" He brought the cigarette back to his lips.

"The horror."

For all its prestige and wonderous possibilities, magic could not fully get rid of the stench of nicotine. While it could subdue its odor, whenever Orion lay in bed, he could smell a whisper of his bad habit on his pillowcase, could feel the comfort of his vice on his robes and his jacket. Which further proved that a) Ruth Elliot could tell whenever her boyfriend was being fucking stupid b) that she was just as brainless as he was for sticking around despite him continuously failing her.

They did say that love made people do stupid things. But whoever said that was just looking for a justification for their faults if you asked Orion.

Shifting on the ground, he retrieved the crumbled pack of matches in the back pocket of his weary jeans. Magic, this time around, could offer a quick and simply solution for fire, but Orion preferred to feel heat blossom right at the end of his fingertips.

Cupping the end of his cigarette, he turned its tip cherry with the flame and awarded Benji a grunt. Benji would know that rare were those who tried to speak to Orion or even wished him anything once they got used to silence or frigid stares as a reply.

“And you’re here contemplating all your shitty life decisions? Shocker.”

He leaned back on his forearms, keeping the cigarette nicely tucked between his lips. His dark gaze remained on the horizon.

“Or running away from your girlfriend?” He hummed. “What did you do this time? Didn't get the guts to kill yourself by throwing yourselff off a roof?”

For all he knew, that might have actually happened.

"I'd say as usual," Orion's perky, sunny demeanor did nothing to dissuade the smirk playing at the corners of Benji's mouth, "But no, actually. Contemplating someone else's." The Hufflepuff wasn't one who fell easily to insults anymore. Where a few years ago, a name or insult about his background may have earned someone a swift punch in the eye, Benji took most of it on the chin now.

He'd learned to use it and who he was as his armor, and it served him well.

"Come on now," Benji tutted, letting his cigarette dangle between his lips as he took up his sketchbook again, "She likes me enough to not want me dead." He studied the drawing for a moment, clouded only by the thin line of gray smoke billowing upwards, before resuming his smudging with the edge of his hand. A small blend here, refining there. Charcoal coated one side of his pinky finger and palm, but it was a usual occurrence.

"Color me surprised you're still here though," he said absently, glancing back up at the waters before smudging another small area. "All that wallowing and brooding, I thought for sure you'd off yourself by now. Look at you hanging in there."

He looked at the Slytherin again. "It's just as well I guess. If you're gone, who will lurk in the dungeons and terrify the house elves?" Maybe they could get Blackwood for the job. He seemed a brooding sort, but luckily for Hogwarts, the enormous ousting of former staff a couple years ago had taken a lot of the assholes with it.