suffer ((open))

Ew! The dusty, disgusting library was one of the last places Jeneva wanted to go, but one of her professors gave her zero choice in the matter because it was important to prepare for the OWLs. She didn't need the OWLs! It wasn't like she was planning on lifting a finger anytime soon to do anything but preen and keep up her astonishingly good looks. Her nose was scrunched distastefully as she walked down an aisle of books, staring at the shelves as she continually brushed off her striped mini-dress.

Touching a book, she shrieked in horror. Did some of the dust go up her nose? Ewww, she was breathing loser germs! Jeneva began panting out the dirt like a dog in the blazing sun. This was the worst afternoon ever!

"Could you die a bit quieter?"

Ravenclaws liked the library, or they were supposed to. Piran only liked it when he could get a good reference book, and most of the reference books he'd already got through to get what he needed. Studying was another thing, but he could do studying anywhere - just check out the books and return them later. That's what he was intending to do now, but this girl was sounding as though she'd had the wind kicked out of her.

... Why?

She was pretty in the most annoying way. The sort of prettiness that was a means to an end.

@Jeneva Avery

Turning, Jeneva immediately turned her nose up at the boy. Ew, he was one of those kind of weirdos. Like Bel, he wore black a lot except he also only wore white? Anyway, she found him strange and she wanted to be as far as him from possible. What if his freakiness ruined her fit?

"I've been poisoned by the dirt in here!"

The poisoning in question being a slight hoarseness to her voice.

"Ew, ew, ew, ew, EWWWW!"

She could taste the chalky dustiness of a book that hadn't been touched in what might as well be centuries.

"A DEAD person breathed on it!"

@Piran Vaulkley

Good, he wanted to say, but instead he said:

"Probably. A lot of people have touched it as well. It's a library book."

How could someone be so dramatic over something so insignificant as dust? He watched her as though she was a poorly performing clown at a party: unfunny and pitiful, but still had the look of a clown.

"Or have you never been inside a library before?"

@Jeneva Avery

"Duh! I know what a library is, I'm literally in one, weirdo!"

Rolling her eyes, Jeneva trailed down the aisle, checking her nails for any dust that ended up trapped underneath. Ugh, what was the point of OWLs? All they did was cause breakouts by stressing her out! Don't they know how important it was that her skin wasn't marked by the slightest blemish?

"I usually study with Bel, but she and Burke are probably snogging right now. Yuck! Where are the books?"

@Piran Vaulkley

"I didn't ask if you knew what it was, I asked if you'd ever been inside one. There's a pretty big difference," he pointed out.

She may have not been where she needed to be, but Piran was exactly where he needed to be. He scrolled over the book titles in front of him and pulled one out that he needed, then slid to the next row of shelves and pulled out another deftly from the bottom shelf. Raising his eyes to her, he wondered if she would make any actual progress whilst in there.

"That depends on what you're looking for, obviously."

He could have just left her about her clueless plight and watch her suffer in it, but she was very dumb. Dumb people were good to bargain with.

"So what are you looking for?"

@Jeneva Avery

Picking under her nails to get any dust out, she rolled her eyes once more. "I've been in one, I know where it is, duuuh!"

She didn't have brains, but Jeneva was smart enough to know where rooms were. That might've been basic muscle memory however.

"My charms professor said we had to study for the OWLs," Jeneva answered boredly before a look of distress appeared on her face as she examined one of her nails.

"Ahhhh!"

@Piran Vaulkley

"Somehow, I don't believe you."

He straightened himself upright, tucking the books underneath his arm.

"Studying this early on sounds like a big waste of your time," he reflected craftily, puckering out his lips plaintively as he observed the next aisle through a gap in the bookcases. "Do you even know how to study, or make study notes? Just reading from books, or pretending to read from books, is going to be very long and arduous for you."

He glanced down at her hand, then back up to her again.

"You might break another nail over it."

@Jeneva Avery

"It is a waste of my time! I have my entire wardrobe to unpack! I need to figure out which outfits I already wore so I can avoid them for a few months, I have to schedule a hair appointment for first Hogsmeade weekend!"

And studying was completely cutting into it! But she needed to at least show the professor she tried. Just checking out a book or two should be enough to give the impression of effort.

With her nail's polish being slightly disturbed by the dust, she now also needed to schedule a mani-pedi session.

"It's so tough looking this gorgeous! You wouldn't understand because, urgh, look at you. Try looking at me and saying I don't have problems!"

Creasing her lip, Jeneva looked as if she was struggling over a nail situation most would simply brush off.

"My manicure is ruined!"

@Piran Vaulkley

"Uh-huh."

Was he listening, though? No. He wasn't. She may have tried to insult him, but he didn't take it as an insult. He would have hated to be a beautiful - or handsome person. They always had bad personalities, and the finest example of that was standing right in front of him.

"What if I did everything for you? Leave me to look over the books and make key points in notes from it. Then you can just look over them before Charms class, and keep the Prof happy."

He'd probably end up just using his own notes from last year: just simplify them.

@Jeneva Avery

Her eyes widened and her mood perked up.

"You'd do everything for me?!"

Maybe he wasn't that weird. Well, she just loved it when she didn't have to do all of the heavy-lifting or if there was a miracle cure for whatever predicament her body was in.

Smiling, she pulled out her bright-pink bejeweled clutch from somewhere. "How much do I have to pay?"

@Piran Vaulkley

So she was dumb, and she was rich too. An ideal combination.

"Thirty galleons should be enough."

He was looking eagerly at her coin purse. Should he have gone higher? Perhaps he didn't have to worry about that, really. She now knew that he was willing to do these things and get paid for it, so he imagined she would become a recurrent investor.

@Jeneva Avery

30 galleons? That a drop in a bucket!

"That is such a bargain!" Jeneva exclaimed as she opened her clutch purse and dug through it until she pulled out the correct amount of coins.

Smirking, she handed the payment for him. "Where are the charms books?"

@Piran Vaulkley