The Real Me Inside My Head

Annaliese ran from the hallway where Linette had tried to console her. She sunk down to the floor and buried her face into her arms that were resting on her knees. "Danny....please....come back...I'm sorry....I should've....I...." She broke down sobbing again. "Oh, I'm sorry." She didn't notice the other person in the hall.

Osmund's eyes were focused on the match-stick before him. Though he excelled at defense against the darks arts and any subject that he could learn from a reading a textbook about it, he was lagging in the art of transfiguration. He tried to picture the match-stick as a needle, like he was told to do, focusing on every detail of the metamorphosis. In his mind, he could see the wood changing metallic and the red end where the fire would be brewed caving in to form the tiny hole to receive the thread. He utter the incantation once again, concentrating with all his might until he heard the cries of a girl coming down the hallway. His focus broke and looking down at his practice material, he saw the now metal match-stick tragically caught in between the transformation. He sighed.

The girl was apologizing through wails, but it soon became apparent that the apologies were not for him. He picked up his half-match stick, half needle and pocketed it before going over to tell the girl to shut up. Only when he came closer did he notice who it was.

"Annaliese, or whatever your name is. This is the middle of a corridor and is hardly private. Do you think you could keep it down?" Osmund criticized, immune to the sadness that swallowed the girl whole and rested around her head like a sick blue aura. Her face was tear streaked and as he noticed her helplessness, he softened slightly, then shifted awkwardly. He wasn't good with his own emotions, let alone other people's. He hated it when Xavior was on the verge of tears and always did his best to cheer the lad up before he made a mess of his face. However, for Annaliese, it was too late. "Here, don't get your dress all messed up," He said and handed her his monogrammed handkerchief.

Annaliese looked up at the 3rd year and took the handkerchief he had offered. She wiped her tears off her the cloth. "Sorry...I interuppted your practice.." She said mildly, hardly putting forth any emotion or real intention into the apology. She handed back the handkerchief to him.

A memory sparkled in her head of the emotionless people who had wronged her. She winced at it...and broke down again...."I'm sorry...I couldn't save you..." She said with tears running down her cheeks again, but this apology was again, absent and directed towards Osmund. Trying to hold back her sobs she looked at Osmund...he probably wouldn't care....but she needed somebody...anybody to listen.

When her face had dried, Osmund expects everything to be fine. She was probably having a bad day or something. Perhaps an older student had pulled a rude trick on her and this is how she decided to cope. He didn't really know and wasnt as concerned about it as he was about the matchstick in his pocket. "There, there," he said, quite unconviceably. "Shit happens." He accepted his handkerchief back and then repocketed.

Feeling that he was done with his business there, he turned his back on her and started to head away when he heard her apologizing again. "It's fine! Don't worry about it!" Osmund nearly snapped, positive she was still feeling guilty about interrupting him. However, she said something about not being able to save him. Raising an eyebrow, he faced her again and with a slightly spooked tone in his voice, replied with, "save....me? I don't need saving. Not really, anyway." To say in the least, he was confused and slightly frustrated that she cooked up a new batch of tears on her face.

Annaliese's face harden. "I'm not talking about you! You bloody idiot!" She spat in a fit of rage. "I'm talking about Danny!!!" She screamed, tears still pouring down her cheeks. She went silent for a few moments and wiped her tears yet again. "You're arrogant thinking every little thing is about you! And everyone has to accommodate you! Who do you think you are! You're worse than the bastards who killed Danny!" She cried. It was out...or part it was anyways.

Osmund took a step back at the unexpected reaction he recieved. One moment she seemed crippled by her sobs and next she was standing up for herself and yelling at him. Osmund had to admit he was starting to fear emotional girls at this point. His hands raised in his defense and his voice remained sturdy and firm. "Well given that we are the only two in this hallway, it doesn't seem like such a crazy idea, does it?" He reasoned bitterly. Who was she to call him arrogant? She hardly knew him! And maybe he was arrogant but that was only his birthright. If she knew anything about pure bloodiness, she'd surely be showing him the appropriate respect.

"Listen girly, I don't know what your problem is but there is no reason to be making accusations like that!" He was worse than a murderer? As cold as he was to the general public, Osmund wasnt one to physically harm anyone. It seemed unfair to him to be compared so. "Fine! Take this hallway as a token of my apologies!" He said, his voice moving in a way that hinted at his sarcasm. If she wanted space, he'd give it to her. He turned around once more, folding his arms across his chest and headed off mumbling. "Bastard. I am not a bastard."

Annaliese had gotten her anger out and paused. "I'm sorry...." She started. "Danny was my younger brother...he......and my um...mother and father were killed in front of me when I was 8...." She fidgeted painfully. "I shouldn't have yelled.....I just get memories of them....all the time.."

She knew it was stupid but she hadn't told anyone. "It was Christmas....we coming back from my aunts...we lived in the woods you see....and it was cold outside and my brother and I were eager to get inside the house...my father opened the door and four men were there..saying my father owed them money...they held a gun to him...and then..." She paused a tear fell down her cheek. "The shot him...in the head..." She shook her head, wincing at the memory. "Next was my mother....they slit her throat when she screamed from my father being shot. Danny ran for her but two of the bigger men grabbed him and tied him to a chair..." She took a deep breath. "The threw a match in the house...they held me there..." Salty tears fell down her cheeks. "All I could hear was his screams for me... 'Anna! Anna help me!'.....I tried to move from their arms, but I couldn't help him...." Biting her lip she looked down and looked up at Osmund. "They left me there to die in that wood...thinking I'd freeze...or starve...but I found my way to a village and the sheriff got me to my aunts...she made me study...and study....since my family were pureblood's she made sure that I kept up my studies and was a proper Montoya...like she wanted me to forget about all of them. Like they didn't even exist......my mother....my father....my brother....I tried to help but..." She started crying again.

Helena had taught him that females could often change in emotions quickly because of hormones or something, but nothing could have prepared him for Annaliese's waves of emotions, panning between sad and angry. He was starting to forget his lessons of acting like a gentleman around an upset lady as his eyes widened and he stared in disbelief of her.

Suddenly she started talking again, this then calm with the occasional released tear. Her story started slowly and vaguely and then picked up pace, relaying things that made Osmund stand quietly, his mouth opened uselessly. He didn't know how to react.

"Why?" He finally managed, after the story was done. He didn't clarify for he didn't know what exactly he was asking, either. Why had the men wiped out a whole family for money? Why was she telling him this? All he could do was take steps backwards away from her. "Why?"

Annaliese shook her head not knowing the answer to his question, "I haven't told anyone that story...except for you..." She softly.. her crying had ceased and she was just quiet, not apologizing like she normally did. What she had said was still sinking in.

The girl had fallen back to being unusually quiet and in the silence that had filled between the two, Osmund still didn't know what to say. He had found, from past experiences, that when one didn't know what to say, it was best to keep their mouth shut for prevention of saying something discombobulated or daft. He only nodded when she spoke again after that silence, saying she had never told the story before.

Osmund wasn't a doctor or well learned of psychology but he could tell that the girl was metaphorically drowning in her past. It seemed unhealthy to him, but once she had let off a bit of steam, she seemed, in the slightest, better. "Perhaps you need to tell it more often. Poetry sort of helps." He couldn't believe his own suggestions, being things that he used for stress relievers. He usually didn't speak of these things because he didn't want people to think he had problems. He'd rather they think he was a stone-cold ass wipe than a boy running from emotions. "The best part about poetry is you can burn it and destroy the evidence."

Annaliese looked at him, listening to the words he was saying. 'Maybe poetry would be her salvation...as he continued she nodded, but then he came to the end. "The best part about poetry is you can burn it and destroy the evidence." he spoke.

The words echoed in her head as the memory flooded back. She wouldn't cry this time though. She sighed and winced at the memories though. Looking back up at him. She nodded. "Thank you..." She spoke softly again and smiled small.