A/N: I forgot to mention that I've set this in Scotland, probably because I live in Scotland so it's familiar to me, but for those of you who aren't familiar with Scottish schools and stuff, 5th year is the equivalent year 11 in England and 10th grade in America. Just thought I'd mention that. Also, I don't know if I need to say this but I just thought I'd put here that I quite obviously don't own the Harry Potter books, which are mentioned in this chapter.
Enjoy!
Shutting the door behind him, Blue leaned back against it with a heavy sigh. The first day back at school was the worst. He felt like he'd survived a massacre rather than a couple of tortuously pointless lessons and the critical, persistent nagging that teachers labeled as "lectures" about studying, exams, paying attention, etc, that came with almost every class he had, free of charge.
A massacre would would at least have been more interesting.
He trudged through the kitchen, dumping his schoolbag on a rather wobbly chair, and scattering a heap of mail onto the floor in the process. Sighing, he picked the letters up. Typical. Mum never opens her mail in the morning, she always leaves them on that chair, he though, absent-mindedly leafing through them. Bank statements, something about morgage, something about tax, blah, blah blah. Oh, and a dentist appointment for Yve. Nothing of interest.
"Mum!" Blue yelled up the stairs, shoving the unopened letters on the kitchen table. "Mum, you haven't opened your mail."
A short, slight woman bustled down the stairs, a huge smile lighting up her face, her fine, light brown hair coming loose from the hair pins that were doing a rather poor job of securing it in place.
"Blue! You're home," she beamed, completely ignoring his remark about the unopened mail. "How was your first day of fifth year? I didn't hear you come in."
Blue shrugged awkwardly. "Uh, it was okay, I guess." His mum was staring at him expectantly, as if waiting for an advance on this.
"I... made a new friend," he continued lamely, just to please her. He thought about Silo. If he could even call her a friend. She was kind of... well, strange.
"That's great!" Blue's mum smiled enthusiasticly. "Who's that?"
"Just... never mind," he said quickly. He couldn't really explain Silo, and he didn't particularly want to. He didn't even know her well at all, but somthing about Silo... well, freaked him out. Besides, much as he loved his mother he was already buckling under her enthusiasm."I saw Katie again too," he added, changing the subject a little.
"Oh, yes, " she nodded. "Though I don't see why you didn't meet up during the summer holidays, she does live next door, after all..." she frowned.
"She was in Thailand, remember?" Blue reminded her gently. "Only got back last night. She phone me, though."
"Oh, of course, " His mum laughed. "Must be getting forgetful..."
Smiling, Blue rolled his eyes and leaned down the hug her (which was a little awkward, seeing as he was pretty tall and she was tiny), before letting go and reaching over grab the mail from the table and hand it to her. "Mail. You always forget to open it," he reminded her. She laughed quietly and shook her head.
"I did say I was getting forgetful, didn't I?" she said, as if scolding herself. "Thanks, honey." she added, standing on her tip toes to plant a kiss on his cheek, which Blue swatted away and greeted with a mocking glare.
"Mum! I'm sixteen, not six, remember?" he moaned, his mother simply giggling like a little girl, flicking briefly through all the letters Blue had handed her.
"Mmhm, and you're also my son," she grinned, her chocolate brown eyes twinkling cheekily. "And as your mother, it's my job to embarrass you as much as possible." Blue countered this with another moody glare. "Oh, don't give me that look," she said, still giggling. "Hm... oh, Yve's got a dentist appointment... tomorrow?! What? Shouldn't we be given more notice than this?"
Blue frowned and craned his neck to see the letter. "Sent on the twenty-ninth of July... You've had this for two weeks and haven't bothered to open it..?" he said, raising an eyebrow.
His mother blushed sheepishly. "Well... I might have done..." Blue shook his head pityingly.
"Sheesh, mum... just as well I made you open it now." His mum blushed more and handed him the letter.
"Shush, you," she tutted flusteredly. "Now go and give this to your sister. She'll want to see you anyway."
Sighing, Blue took the letter from her. "I highly doubt she'll want to see me. Especially as I happen to be carrying a letter explaining that she's going to get her teeth drilled out..."
"It says nowhere on that letter that she's going to get her teeth drilled out," his mum said sternly. "Now go and give it to her."
"Fine..." Blue sighed grudgingly, trudging up the stairs and leaving his mother to sort through the other letters. He knocked reluctantly on Yve's door.
"Come in!" sang a cheery voice, and Blue opened the door to find his sister lolling on her bed reading a book, still dressed in her school uniform. Blue gave her a weary smile. She frowned. "You're not allowed in my room," the eight-year-old huffed, folding her arms and pouting.
"Mum told me to give you this," Blue shrugged, passing her the letter, a malicious grin spreading across his face. "Gonna get your teeth drilled out, huh?" he smirked.
Yve looked alarmed. "It doesn't say that!" she frowned. "...Does it?"
Blue smiled and collapsed on the bed beside her. "I'm just teasing you..." he explained, causing the girl to look somehow put-out.
"Oh... well, I didn't say you could stay in my room," she muttered darkly, looking away.
"Tough. I'm staying," Blue grinned, kicking off his faded black converse as if to make himself comfortable.
Yve looked frustrated. "I'll tell mum on you!" she whined.
"Well, mum's the one who told me to give this to you, so good luck with that," Blue retorted, sticking out his tongue with childish yet typical older-brother dominance. He looked down at the book she was holding. "What'cha reading?" he asked.
"Oh... Harry Potter," Yve replied off-handedly, apparently trying to remain distant and huffy. Blue nodded, acknowledging this, but knowing Yve well enough to know that nothing could come between her and her favourite books.
"Mm... what one?" he said curiously.
"The Prisoner of Azkaban," Yve replied.
Again, Blue nodded. "Which one's that?"
"The third one."
"Great," Blue smiled. Not being much of a reader, he had never read them himself, but if he acted interested enough, he knew Yve would stop huffing with him. "What's happened so far?"
"Well... all the dementors are on the train," Yve started uncertainly. "and Harry fainted but this guy with a suitcase gave him chocolate so he's okay now."
"Dementors... what are they again?" Blue frowned.
"Oh, they're these evil things that attack you and suck out all your happiness," She stated proudly, apparently too pleased with herself for knowing this information to keep it all to herself and carry on sulking with Blue.
Blue grinned suddenly. "What... like this?" he said, springing to the side and tackling a squealing Yve to the bed.
"Get off me!" she shrieked, giggling and screaming at the same time with typical eight-year-old precision. She squirmed and wriggled in her brothers grasp, eventually managing to kick him rather viciously in the stomach, causing Blue to reel back in defeat.
"Ow, watch it..." he muttered, and Yve sat cross-legged and folded-armed on the bed with a smug, satisfied expression, which changed dramatically to a silver-eyed glare in response to a very similar one belonging to Blue.
"No. They don't do that," Yve said matter-of-factly, her long, black hair pooling in her lap and her arms still folded proudly. If Blue had bothered to read the Harry Potter series, she probably would have reminded him of Hermione. He frowned, taking a moment to realise she was still talking about Dementors. "They kiss you. Sort of," she continued, before her eyes narrowed and her glare became more concentrated. "But don't you dare try that..."
Blue rolled his eyes and smiled. "Don't worry, I draw the line there," he laughed affectionately. "I'm not gonna sort-of kiss you," he added, before standing up and dropping a kiss on top of his little sister's head, causing her to squirm.
"Hey!" she pouted as Blue picked up his shoes and made his way out of her room. "You said you wouldn't-"
"Yeah, yeah... at least I didn't suck out your all your happiness, right?" he smirked, shutting the door behind him and ignoring Yve's indignant cries of "yes you did!"
Finally escaping the tight grips of family greetings, Blue hurried into his own room, collapsed on his bed and stared at the ceiling, the crumbling cracks in the plaster and the dim bedroom light staring back at him. Blinking, he dropped his shoes beside the bed and sat up again, relaxing in the comforting relief that the first day of term was finally over. And not as bad as he initially thought it would be either. He sighed deeply.
Wrenching off his tie, Blue walked over to the window, beside which was a slim, deep brown accoustic guitar. The one thing in the entire world (or at least his entire room) that he wouldn't let anyone so much as go near to, let alone touch, and most certainly not play. Yve had found that out the hard way, Blue remembered as he picked it up, smirking at the memory. Sitting back down on the bed heavily, he strummed out a few chords with a dark, mottled green guitar pic. The sound echoed around the room, vibrantly bouncing off the walls before fading to a distant hum. He grimaced, twisted the ebony tuning pegs until the chord moulded itself into shape. Happy with the sound, Blue strummed it again, the chords sliding into eachother and fitting like pieces of a puzzle.
After a moment he stopped, pausing and letting the sound ring out, before digging deep in his pocket and fumbling around until his fingers found the crushed, crumpled piece of paper he was looking for, smudged with graphite and torn around the edges. He smoothed it out carefully, and grey, barely readable words made an appearance. Lyrics.
It was kind of a hobby of his, though not exactly one he would boast about. In fact, he didn't tell anyone about it, not even Katie. Maybe it was partly because it seemed a little embarassing- it did seem like such a girly kind of thing to do, after all (unless you were in a famous band, because somehow that made it cool), but mostly it was just... private. It was his thing, and just the idea of sharing it with anyone was completely unthinkable. Some people like painting or poetry, some people act or sing or dance. Others make things or draw or write stories. Blue... well, he wrote songs.
He couldn't remember how or why or even when he had started. Some time after he got his guitar, he supposed, which had been a present from his mum to cheer him up after they arrived here. Six years ago. The day after... no, he didn't want to think about that. He didn't need to anymore, he didn't have to tell anyone. He didn't care that Katie knew, she knew because she was the one who stopped him. And if she hadn't, he would never have known her. He was only ten at the time, for god's sake. He didn't need to think about that anymore. He didn't have to tell anyone.
He hummed a vauge melody, occasionally mouthing the words and strummed the chords written above the words more confidently, eventually singing so softly it was almost whispering. He wasn't the sweetest of singers, and if it weren't for the fact he wrote songs, he wouldn't sing at all, but he could at least hold a tune, and that counted for something. From time to time he would stop and scribble out a word with a very blunt pencil he found lying beside the skirting board, adding in words, taking out things that didn't fit, changing chords. He chewed his lip, scrawling a few final lines to the end of the song.
"Something in your being,
Tells you to keep running,
No matter what you're seeing,
No matter where you run.
Your paper lips are tearing,
And you didn't see it coming,
But the nightmare you're declaring
Is whiter than the sun."
It was odd and abstract, and so maybe he didn't write the most cheerful songs in the world, but darker songs have so much more feeling, Blue thought. They're more compelling, they draw you in. You feed off them, you feel every single painful emotion that is conveyed and so much more, not in a way that makes despair, in a way that makes you catch your breath and fill with dizzying understanding, a way that makes you crave more.
Something about the last two lines puzzled Blue. He was sure he had seen them before somewhere, though off the top of his head he didn't know of any song that had these lines or words, but they rattled around his brain, chasing eachother in circles and demanding to be discovered. He frowned, pondering this for a while. He was sure he had made this up, so he couldn't be stealing someone elses lyrics, could he? Unless he did it without thinking. After a while he gave up thinking, placing his guitar back beside the window and clumsily shoving the lyrics back in his pocket, but the lyrics were printed clear and bold on his interweving thoughts, puzzling Blue even more.
"But the nightmare you're declaring
Is whiter than the sun."
Hm.