The Hallway

Serah was depressed. She admitted it to herself. She hadn't been making friends. She had basically been sitting around, doing what she had to do to get by.

Serah decided that, as soon as she could, she would go back home. Maybe she'd transfer. Maybe she'd just go to the Muggle World and try to forget that magic even existed.

She was sitting in the hallway outside of the Montagnard dorm, watching kids file in and out. No one seemed to notice her, and that was okay.

She took her notebook out of her backpack and did what she did best: complained to her journal/sketchbook/whatever-she-felt-like-book.

Marie-Laure was of two minds about her final year. She would finally be able to get out of Beauxbatons and find where she truly belonged. Yet at the same time she was still so uncertain about what she wanted to do after graduation she didn't want to leave just yet. On top of that conflict she had a heavy workload. Seventh year was not peaceful with all the pressure and extra work.

With an armload of books after her recent trip to the library thanks to the essays from four different professors all due on the same day she almost tripped over the figure in the hallway. Marie-Laure stopped and the top book fell to the floor with a clatter. The witch cursed and lowered the rest to the ground near the younger girl and picked up the fallen book. "You are aware aren't you that this is not a safe place to sit?" she asked the girl caustically.

Serah was in her own little world. She didn't notice when another student walked dangerously close to her.

Serah curled herself up in a little ball right before the witch could trip over her. Serah looked up just in time to to see a book fall to the floor.

Serah thought about picking it up, but the other witch crouched and snagged it before she could move.

The older student looked at Serah with annoyance. Serah immediately went pale (paler) at the tone of the young woman's voice.

"Y-y-yeah," Serah answered. "N-not my best-t idea, I suppose. I just... I don't know." Serah shook her head, realizing that she didn't have a legitimate excuse. "Do you need some help with those books?" She offered, embarrassed.

Marie-Laure shook her head. "I can handle them on my own when people aren't in my way." The books were all stacked neatly again but the seventh year didn't yet pick them back up again. Instead she gave the younger girl a closer look. She sounded rather nervous and Marie-Larue felt a pang of guilt at the possibility she may have had something to do with that.

"Why are you sitting out here anyway?" she asked in a much softer tone than the previous question. "It'd be much more comfortable in the common room than this hard floor out here." Marie-Laure shifted closer to the wall so that she would be less of an obstacle to any other Montagnards which may come down the hallway. "Not to mention the risk of being hit by flying books again by someone else carrying a pile."

Serah rested her head against the wall behind her.

"It-t would be more comfortable. But-t the silence is deafening," Serah responded.

Being alone in her own thoughts was something Serah didn't want to experience. She'd never really been upset before.

"And honestly, I'd rather get tripped over or get hit in the head with a book than go be alone."

Serah was used to being alone. She spent entire days not talking to anyone back in Estonia. But she'd never been lonely. Now that Serah had the opportunity to socialize and had experienced rejection, she was realizing the pain of not having friends.

Ma olen luuser,* Serah thought.


*Estonian for "I'm a loser"

"Silence?" Marie-Laure asked. "I would hardly call the common room silent." It was in fact the complete opposite when you factor in the Millers and others who were just as noisy as them. Actually a lot of others who made a lot of noise at the worst times.

If she thought the comment on silence was odd, the next one was even more so. Actually maybe not quite as odd as the first. You could after all be lonely in a crowd. Marie-Laure wasn't at all sure what to say to this. One thing was for sure though. The girl could not stay out in the hallway. But how on earth was she to convince her to get back into the commonroom? She could let her wallow in her self-pity out here in the hallway but for some odd reason her conscience wouldn't let her.

Marie-Laure leaned her back against the wall and studied the young girl next to her. "So why are you alone?" she asked bluntly. Best to start with gathering the information she needed to get the girl moving.

Serah had a number of answers for that question:
Because life is dumb.
Because Milan is hanging out with some 'dreamy' guy.
Because no one would talk to her.
Because there were barely any first years.
Because making friends is hard.

But Serah didn't like those answers. "Because no one wants to t-talk to me, regardless of if I talk-k t-t-to them."

Of course. The stutter is back. Full swing, she thought.

Serah began to wonder why the older girl even cared. Seventh years (assuming that's how old the witch was) had lots of things to deal with. Exams were just around the corner. And they had the very important task of making a life for themselves.

With the way the girl spoke Marie-Laure wasn't surprised. "You need to learn to speak with confidence," she said decidedly. "Right now you sound like a nervous wreck, afraid that you'll be snapped at. That puts people off." Marie-Laure couldn't understand why some people were so afraid. It was like they thought everyone was going to judge them just for breathing.

She shifted the book pile as she settled in for what she thought might be a long talk before she could get this girl off the ground and into that commonroom. One way or another she had to convince her to go try again with kids her own age or she would never survive the next seven years. "Now first of all introduce yourself to me," Marie-Laure ordered. "And do it without stuttering. I'm not going to eat you so there's no need to sound scared."

"My name is Serah Palmer and I legitimately have a stutter," she answered curtly.

Serah didn't really care about being rude at this point in time. It was too late to be kind.

"It's worse when I'm upset, not paying attention, or embarrassed," Serah explained. "Sometimes I stutter, sometimes I don't. I can't-t just turn it on and off."

Why was Serah explaining this to a girl who probably couldn't care less?

None of the people who she had actually been able to have a conversation with -Harley, Ruby, and Milan- had said anything about it. Serah didn't think it was that big a deal.

Whatever, Serah thought. This girl will either have sympathy or not give a fuck. Either way, whatever.

"You didn't stutter just then," Marie-Laure pointed out. "If it comes and goes like you say then perhaps it is nerves." Not paying attention and embarrassing situations sounded very much like it was emotion based. That was the problem with emotions in Marie-Laure's opinion. They mess you around and in this girl's case make it hard to speak clearly.

It shouldn't really bother Marie-Laure at all. It wasn't like this girl was her responsibility. She wasn't a prefect and Serah wasn't on the Quidditch team. Yet here she was trying to come up with a plan to help this first year. Forget the stutter. That was obviously a symptom of a deeper problem. "It's time you had some lessons in self-confidence," she said decidedly, "by the way I'm Marie-Laure."

Serah sighed. No one ever understood how her stutter worked. And she didn't understand it either. She had stuttered since she was a toddler. She never grew out of it. And it really wasn't that bad. It was worse when she was a kid.

But speaking French with a stutter sounded strange. In Estonian, Russian, Latvian, Ukrainian and Tatar, (the mix of languages her town spoke in) it was a little more clear.

"Hi, Marie-Laure," Serah greeted. "What-t exactly is a-a 'self confidence lesson'? And does it require homewor-rk-k?" Serah asked jokingly, not sure if Marie-Laure had any sense of humor. Or if her joke was even funny.

"I must admit that I don't know what a self-confidence lesson entails," Marie-Laure replied.  "It just occurred to me that since you obviously aren't very confident that you need some sort of help."  That was a small issue that Marie-Laure was certain she would find a solution to.  Most things had a solution of some sort though not usually when it came to other humans.

She gave the first year a small smile and shook her head.  "I don't think homework would be involved.  Not at least in the same way professors give out homework."  She shifted on the floor thinking how much harder it was getting.  Was it worth casting a cushioning charm on it for a talk she hoped wouldn't last much longer?  "I think just practical exercises to get your more confident might be enough."