challenge accepted (amara)

As his Dad insisted on spending the entirity of his free time on house and garden projects during the summer, Jerome couldn't take too much of his bellyaching over cramps and cricks and pains, so he was forever dosing his morning cuppa with various potions to alleviate his suffering. This was the third time he'd gone back to Diagon since returning home but he wasn't complaining: the wonderfully bright, warm sunlight was blaring down on the streets that late afternoon.

He took a turn towards the apothecary and stopped short. It may have just been where she was stood or the light playing tricks with his eyes, but Amara Jordan's skin had a sun-blessed, glowing sheen to it. Her curls flittered, feather-like over her face and tickled the corner of her mouth, which brought his attention to her lips: round and small, but deliciously plump. He could feel the thudding inside of his chest as he gaped stupidly at her, but his brain, along with his sensibilities, had abandoned him.

@Amara Jordan

Amara came to Diagon often enough. There were plenty of stores and things to browse around to occupy her time when she couldn't be with Ashton or had nothing else to do. That was where she found herself today. There was no real reason for her presence aside from that of boredom. She was standing there, peering into the window of one of the shops along the alley when she got the strange feeling that she was being watched. Maybe the feeling on her skin was just the sun beating down on her and not someone watching her at all? But she looked away from the window and glanced around none the less.

That's when she saw him. Jerome Estrada stood a short distance away, mouth almost agape as he undoubtedly stared right at her. A smirk came to her lips as she approached him. "You alright there, Estrada?" She asked in her mischievous mocking tone as she waved her hand in front of his face as if he might just be frozen and unknowing of what was going on around him. She knew that she should have just ignored him... But where was the fun in that?

@Jerome Estrada

When she started walking towards him, his brain kicked in and started urging him to look away. His eyes weren't responding though: he only saw her getting brighter and brighter, until her hand was waving around in front of his face.

The realisation of his stupidity hit him like a bludger to the face and at last his eyes averted, his cheeks instantly swelling with heat that had nothing to do with the blaze of the sun. Furrowing his brow in annoyance, he shot back at her crankily: "I'm fine. It's just the heat." Slowly his eyes swept back to meet hers, but with her gleeful expression and taunting smirk, he could only imagine that she was enjoying every second of it.

"I'm surprised you can walk without being able to drape yourself over Harrington. Where is he? Playing 'hex the mudblood' with Burke?"

@Amara Jordan

Amara took in the color that flooded his cheeks as he responded to her. Whether it was from the heat as he claimed or embarrassment, she couldn’t be sure but there was no way she was going to let it go. ”Sure, blame it on the heat when you get caught staring. Didn’t your mother ever teach you it’s impolite to stare?” she spoke of impoliteness but there was nothing serious about her tone as she teased him. She rolled her eyes when he next spoke. ”Such an awful term to use. But actually we don’t spend every minute together. I like my freedom as well.” She was pretty sure that she loved Ashton but she was too free of a spirit to need to be tied to someone constantly. She had to be able to get out and stretch her wings, so to say. ”What about you? I thought you’d be enjoying all the muggle world has to offer.” she said, crossing her arms over her chest.

@Jerome Estrada

Urgh. As if she was teaching him decency, when she wavered around most of the time with disgusting cigarettes perching from her lips...

Her lips.

Jerome shook himself from the momentary trance to lower his brow at her.

"It is an awful term to use."

His jaw clenched as he recalled the incident. "But your boyfriend seemed to throw it out as casually as any of those other puffed-up Pureblood types. To me, in fact. It's a relief to know you don't agree with that sort of blatant purism, but did you even know he used that term?"

@Amara Jordan

Amara’s arms were crossed over her chest, how could he even refer to himself or others like him with such a term without even batting an eye. There wasn’t much that Amara would call someone out on but that was one thing. Then he mentioned Ashton and that he had been apparently calling Jerome and possibly others by such slurs! She knew that she should defend him, she was his girlfriend after all. But she couldn’t come up with a single instance where it would be considered okay in her mind. She chewed at her bottom lip for a moment, trying to get her thoughts in order. ”No, I didn’t know. He would never use such a term around me. He knows how I feel about it. I’ll talk to him.” she said with a sigh. She had really thought he was different. And maybe he was. Maybe he just let his temper get the better of him and his family’s teachings just happened to slip out. She knew how so many pure bloods were taught such things almost from birth. But she wasn’t making excuses for him to anyone but herself. It just seemed like she would be adding insult to injury if she were to voice those justifications she tried to convince herself of. Gosh, she needed a joint right now.

@Jerome Estrada

"Yeah. You probably should. It wasn't only the term itself - but the whole attitude surrounding it. Something about me being lower down on the totem pole because of it."

Frowning, Jerome has his own contemplations as she was having hers. He didn't understand why that sort of blatant discrimination was overlooked by other muggleborns: MacKenna seemed to wear it like a suit of armour and take it in his stride, and Cherry was always very quiet around the subject and wished to talk about something else. He didn't blame either of them, but he was getting tired of it being treated as 'just one of those things'.

When he lifted his head again to look at her, she still appeared to be mulling over something.

"Amara?" he prompted gently, not liking that expression on her face.

@Amara Jordan

Amara sighed. She knew that Ashton thought very highly of himself. It was one of the things that she found so appealing about him, his confidence. But she didn't like to think that he might be following in the footsteps of other purebloods and put people down because they weren't purebloods as well. Hell, she wasn't a pureblood but he had never seemed to look at her as any less. Maybe it was just because she wasn't a muggleborn either but she had never taken him for that type. Maybe it was just Jerome in particular that pushed his buttons. She was lost in thought, standing there just chewing at the inside of her lower lip until he said her name. Then she blinked at him for a moment. "sorry, I was just... I don't know. I guess I sort of zoned out. Seems to be going around today." Because isn't that why she had approached him anyway? Because he had been just staring at her in a daze? Of course, she didn't admit she had been thinking about the indiscretion Ashton had apparently committed.

@Jerome Estrada

"It's okay," he said, a hint of surprise in his voice. It wasn't like her to say sorry about anything. Could that mean that she was beginning to see him as a friend, or was she merely put off guard by the nature of the conversation? Whatever it was, he felt as though he should at least make his intentions clear.

"I didn't mean to hurt you by telling you about it," he said earnestly, "I just thought... it would be something I'd want to know, if our positions were reversed."

Oddly enough he didn't like seeing her troubled, even if it was because of Ashton bloody Harrington. He could have decided to keep choosing his words carefully, but instead he reminded her haughtily: "You're probably used to bloody zoning out with all the weed you smoke. I thought your idea of a good time was smoking until your eyes glaze over."

Jerome may have had some virtues but tact wasn't one of them.

@Amara Jordan

Of course she had wanted to know. Okay, maybe she hadn't wanted to know because she hated to think that her boyfriend would hold such prejudice. She had always thought he was different. After all, he was with her and she wasn't some fellow pureblood, sure she had always wondered if his family was disappointed that she was who she was and not some good little pureblood girl but there was nothing she could do about it. It was what it was. "No, it's fine. I'm glad you told me." She said with a small smile that she hoped would be reassuring.

This conversation was so odd. He wasn't calling her out on anything or trying to convince her that she was better than she was. Then they were right back to the norm and she finally felt a bit more comfortable. This was the Jerome she knew, the Jerome she could handle. "It's fun, you should try it sometime." She said, lifting her chin a bit in challenge. "Oh sorry, I forgot that might cut into the time you set aside to be boring." She could handle this type of banter, it was normal between the two of them. It was when things got serious and hit too close to home that she became uncomfortable.

@Jerome Estrada

He felt his cheeks radiate with fluster and fury before he could think of reacting coolly to her challenge. It wasn't just her who had that opinion, it was everyone in the bloody school. They always liked to remind him that he was a bore, a stiff, a spoilsport: that the only reason he liked to tell people off was so they could be as miserable as he was.

But that's not true. It isn't.

"Gargling through liquor and giggling at the shape of my own hands isn't my definition of fun. I have my fair share of it whilst being completely sober, and I don't have my evening concluded by throwing up over the toilet!"

How could she live her life like that? If anything had made him vomit before in the past, he'd markedly avoid it at all costs in the future. Why would she put her body through peril, why would she poison herself just to get a few laughs? It was so beyond his comprehension that he always felt he and Amara could never see eye to eye. And yet there he was, thinking about how plump and juicy her lips were...

It didn't make any sense!

@Amara Jordan

Amara held one hand out in front of her. "Why would I laugh at the shape of my hands?" She flexed her fingers for a moment as if inspecting them to see if there was anything funny about them. Nope, she didn't see anything. Though, the large ring on her ring finger was still taking some getting used to for sure. "And luckily, I barely ever get hangovers unless I really overdo it so what's stopping me?" She said with a smirk. Sure, sometimes she might get a bit of a headache sometimes but rarely actually ended up throwing up. She pulled her hair up, securing it with an elastic band in some sort of messy bun to try to beat the heat before she gave him a challenging look. "Tell me then, Estrada, what do you do for fun?"

@Jerome Estrada

"Isn't that what people do when they've taken drugs?" he asked dismissively, his attention drawn to her hands as well.

There it was. A big, horrible rock from an equally horrible boy. Perhaps the only reason he thought it was ugly was because he knew the source was uglier: that stunted, impish creature in his dream was very much how he perceived Ashton Harrington nowadays.

She was pulling up her hair. It was such a normal thing to do, but he couldn't help admiring how long and slender her neck was, and her masses of curls were being pulled together like a cluster, sultry and bed-headed like she had just woken up next to him...

He swallowed. "Er... well. Lots of things. Going for walks, playing games, visiting places, going swimming, watching films and sports," he said, listing them off his fingers, "Recently I've got back into ice skating. There's an indoor rink right where I live, where I used to play ice hockey before going to Hogwarts."

Suddenly he was looking smug. "I think even you would find that a lot of fun."

@Amara Jordan

Amara rolled her eyes. "Of course not, I don't turn into a bloody fool." The drugs just took the edge off of everything but what would he know about anything? So, she didn't bother to say as much since it would fall on deaf ears or earn her some lecture on how she was trying to be someone she wasn't or some such nonsense that she didn't want to hear today.

She was still trying to tame her wayward locks when he began speaking again, telling her all about the things that he apparently enjoyed doing. She had to admit that a lot of them sounded very dull to her. Taking walks? Why would that be considered fun? She did enjoy swimming, maybe watching the occasional film when she was able to escape to one of the muggle theaters. "Ice skating?" She asked, must be some sort of muggle thing. She tried to learn about muggle things because she didn't want to be confined to the magical world. She wanted to be able to go wherever she wanted, do whatever she wanted. "I'm intrigued..." She said, wanting to know what it was he liked to do that he was so sure she would enjoy it as well.

@Jerome Estrada