Unbreakable Vow [n.s.]

04

"Are you okay?" He asked quietly, a surprising lack of stutter in his voice.

Calliope looked up at the boy, recognizing him quickly. She had always been good with faces, and his unusual injury and shy nature had him stuck in her head quite often.

"Oh, uhm, Newt. . . I'm wonderful." She said, forcing a smile, though it seemed strained and sarcastic.

"Oh, it's Calliope right? You help in the Hospital Wing." Newt said, finding himself crouching down, as if he were talking to a creature.

She nodded and wiped her face, nearly gagging as she caught a whiff of the vinegar.

"What happened to you? Why are you crying?" Newt found himself asking rather gently. Why was he prying, he wondered to himself. This was very unlike him.

"Oh, it's nothing, really. And I tapped the barrels wrong, hence the. . . vinegar." Calliope said.

Newt mentally berated himself. She had no reason to tell him anything, and whatever had her crying was obviously very personal, if it had her sobbing that hard. He should just open the common room for her and leave her be. They were not friends, they had only talked once.

"I don't believe that. You're crying quite hard, even though you seem to think you've stopped." Newt said, watching as Calliope touched her face again and realized he was right.

He spotted the crumpled letter in her hand.

"Bad news from home?" He ventured gently. He immediately regretted asking as she burst into tears once more at the mere thought of the letter. At least he knew the letter was the cause.

Newt moved to sit cross-legged, the position more comfortable to sit in for long periods of time.

"Do you want to talk about it? I know we aren't friends, but if it's something you are worried about getting out, I have no friends to tell." Newt told the girl, the self-deprecating comment only being the truth.

"I-I don't know," Calliope admitted quietly through the tears. She cried quietly. "I just want my mum."

"You'll see her soon. The term will be over before you know it," Newt suggested, thinking her tears to be homesickness. He got that quite often, and knew how terrible it could be.

"No, that's the problem." she stressed the word. "I'm never going home. Not my home. I'm going home to strangers and I don't even get a say in the matter. Two random people will be my parents and my mum didn't even ask me."

Newt certainly wasn't expecting the confession, his eyes widening in slight shock.
"Oh," was all he could get out.

Calliope's cheeks flushes a violent red.

"Oh my Merlin, I am so sorry, I just dumped that on you." She shook her head at her own stupidity. Sure he had offered to listen, but she knew that he hadn't been expecting that.

"No, it's okay. I asked." Newt told her. "Do you want to keep talking about it, since I know now?"

"I smell terrible. You're just being nice, you don't have to pretend to want to sit here with the girl who smells like vinegar, Newt."

"I've smelled worse. But if you want you can go shower and then we can talk?" Newt suggested.

This was so out of character for him. He didn't understand why he was offering to be her shoulder to cry on when they had hardly talked before. He didn't understand why he was trying so hard.

Perhaps it was the thought that maybe he could make a friend. She had been nice to him when he was in the Hospital Wing, and had seemed to be genuinely interested in talking to him. Plus, even now she seemed like a nice person since she wasn't just telling him to mind his own business.