Put my money where my mouth is.

The key to becoming a proficient Occlumens is the mastery of one's emotions to effectively defend the mind against another mind's intrusion. It is an ancient skill that not many are gifted with, but some can learn to a degree under proper tutelage.

Davina had read the same sentence about four times before she realized that she was getting nowhere. She had barely slept the night before, haunted by her nightmares of the beautiful boy. After all these years, all of her hard work crumbled with 30 seconds with a boggart. She felt like the twisted 12 year old on the Hogwarts Express, heading back to her muggle home to act as normal as possible to her unsuspecting muggle parents. Davina quickly slapped the book closed and rubbed her eyes. It was too late for Occlumency; the damage was done and now she had a dreadful suspicion that it couldn't be undone. The thought made her chest feel heavy, which she tried to fix with a sigh.

Levitating the book she'd given up on, Davina spotted the place it had come from on the top shelf. She guided the small tome with the magic from her wand, wiggling it back in place. It didn't quite fit anymore so she tried an extra push from her wand, but it still stuck out more than half way. The Slytherin found herself standing on top of a table in the middle of the Library again, this time with the fortune of not having Dale hounding her. Reaching the top with the tips of her fingers, she pried the space open to slip her book in, still finding it a tight fit. Getting angered at the simplest task, she hit the book with her fist, effectively knocking off the nearest books, and the ones behind it, to the other side.

"Shit," she mumbled, followed by a jumbled string of other expletives, uncaring of who heard her nearby. Hopping down from the table, she turned the corner where the books fell and saw another student, his face obscured by the hoodie over his face. This castle was full of freaking weirdos. "Uh... sorry, I didn't know anyone else was here," she offered dryly, waving her wand to magick the books back on the shelf.

The truth was, Noel was scared. After that evening in the woods he had spent much of his time reexamining the same articles to an almost maddening degree, in desperate hopes that there had been something he had overlooked or missed. Numbers on a calendar loomed sinisterly over his head as he counted down the thirty one days. Each night he watched as the moon waxed and waned, bracing himself for what would surely be his repeated ruin. Personal accounts from the beasts themselves described a similar dread of their impending transformations, and some even said the feeling never went away. It simply became habitual. A hand grazed the mending wound on his chest that would later be replaced with a scar of stark alabaster. A permanent disfigurement for a permanent illness. The corners of his mouth turned downwards, and at the sounded crash of books his hand lurched away from the scabbed over wound. 

Without looking to see who the offender was, Noel replied hotly. "You know, some sincerity goes a long way. Why the hell say sorry if you don't mean it?" he snapped, pulling the hood off of his tangled disarray of sick bedhead hair and standing from his chair with an alarming screech. One of the books had landed onto the table in front of him, and with it came tumbling an entire stack of creature-oriented literature that now proliferated itself upon the library floor. Also drawing his wand, he neatly stacked them up onto his table once more before turning to offer a glower to the offending party- which faltered, when he saw Davina.

"Davina," he regarded, surprised. The last time he had seen her she had been still a fledgling of a witch. 

The books Davina was rearranging had made a floating line, slowly making their way up to the top again in an orderly train. Her hand faltered a little when the weirdo in the hoodie stood up and told her off about some sincerity crap, knocking over his own books. He said her name and Davina turned to look at him, rolling her eyes when she realized who it was. When was he just going to graduate and leave the castle already? After treating everyone like shit for years, no one cared about how broody and emo he was. Though Noel's effect on Davina had been minor compared to his other victims, it was the first time Davina realized the existence of her own ego. At 11 years old, it was a hard lesson to learn. Since then, the Slytherin hadn't run into him much, which was difficult since the castle wasn't THAT big. If they happened to be in the same room, Davina's ability to  ignoring him had become second nature.

"I actually did mean my apology, Beckett, I just don't care whether you care to accept it or not," she answered heatedly, giving her wand hand a curt twirl to give her task a little speed. "But please," she begged with sarcasm, "do share with me your infinite wisdom on the virtues of sincerity and courtesy. I didn't realize you'd become the expert as of late." Snapping her wrist, her displaced books all found their homes and they snapped together neatly next to each other with a series of satisfying thumps.

Noel's run in several weeks ago with Kaimana Ohme was still fresh in his mind, and like the Hufflepuff yet another ghost from his past life came to haunt him, this time far less receptive than Kai had been, which he found surprising considering the feud had been twice as bitter, at least on Noel's behalf. Davina was... Well, she was not the young witch he recalled so long ago. Neither naive nor artless, her response struck the keen Noel as snide. Unlike his experience with Kai, however, Noel felt no ill-will towards the Slytherin girl. After all, hadn't they just been kids? It felt like a century ago. Had another boy taken his place, he would have believed it, to speak of how foreign of an encounter it had been. The cruelty that had possessed his tongue back then felt more and more alien as the days passed, especially as of recent. Sometimes it took a good hypothetical smack in the face to set Noel straight. 

And she had changed of course, no longer a child but coming into her own, as Noel had the year prior. Like all men he endured a certain weakness for beautiful women, and it influenced his conduct substantially. His mouth opened stupidly before closing again. Well, she was right, wasn't she? Where the hell did he get off talking about sincerity with a track record like his own? 

"You're right." Really, it was like some sort of fucking hypnosis or witchcraft. What was worse was that Noel was completely conscious of his tongues betrayal and went along with it wholeheartedly. "I mean, where do I get off talking like that to anyone," came his sincere response. He watched her pick up the pace, standing idly by his pile of books. "Especially you, I guess," he continued with a shrug, looking down at his afternoon of work and seizing the parchment, rolling it up and shoving it into his back pocket. 
Davina Jade

It would have been satisfying to simply walk away and leave Noel in the middle of his useless conversation after she fixed her books, but for some reason he answered in a way she had not anticipated. Arguments, insults, threats... that was the currency of those she didn't get along with. Noel had now backpedaled and actually acknowledged that his accusation was ridiculous. Well of course she was right. It happened to Davina often, but it wasn't usual for someone to concede just as Noel had. His sudden submissiveness made her suspicious and suddenly alert. She turned to face him, crossing her arms defensively and taking a good look. Well, he looked like shit, but she wasn't exactly feeling great either since she had barely slept since Daniyah's party.

"Not me, especially," she answered sternly, lifting her chin slightly in defiance. "From what I saw, others had it worse than I did." It was difficult for her to even admit that. It was a confession to him that he truly had affected her enough to hold on to it, an later notice what he had done to their other classmates. Now, she saw a disheveled version of this person everyone used to fear, and she felt... nothing. It was a huge difference from a few moments ago when she was panicking about the state of her mental health. Not feeling felt better. Taking a step forward, her chocolate eyes scanned the titles of the books Noel had piled around him.  "Public humiliation is nothing compared to the other things you did. In fact," she continued, shifting the edge of a book to see the rest of the title, "I think I got off easy." In a way, she truly believed that, though she didn't mention the energy she spent for many months trying her best to ignore him and not cross his path. If he was actually sincere in what he was saying, she wasn't look for his guilt for herself.

"We're not talking about others though," came his quick response. Noel's words were always nimble, even as a child, though in this instance it was missing the caustic edge that usually accompanied his usually proficient diction. All the while, his eyes followed Davina's survey of his reading materials. There was a moment of confidential panic and his tenacity flatlined. The logical side of Noel chimed into his internal dialogue and gingerly reasoned with the beast. There wasn't much she could gather from his texts anyway. Besides, as far as Davina was concerned, Noel was just a fucking weirdo with some futile hang up on incredibly dangerous beasts. He'd always had a preoccupation when it came to defensive magic, too. He backed up against the desk he'd been working at and gently nudged a negligibly specific stack of titles in reference to personal accounts of transformations behind a larger vague stack about countless beastly creatures. 

Who the hell was Noel trying to fool? Davina was a clever girl. Amidst his internal dilemma his mouth kept running, however, much to the Lion's chagrin. 

"Don't you worry about that. Karma's a bitch, I'll get mine," he responded sourly. "Life's fucked up like that. If it's not me that's fucking you, it will be someone else." 

As soon as the words left his mouth his jaw dropped gracelessly to the ground and he turned about as crimson as the crest he bore, a series of expletives minced with flustered apologies spilling forward. "Shit- that- I didn't mean it like tha- Fuck. S-sorry. Sorry!" This was followed by the inept sound of more books dropping to the ground as he leaned too far back on the stack he'd been pushing and overshot the edge of the table, resulting in yet another pileup of hardbacks. 

ooc: please excuse this hot mess i cannot be held responsible for this

The titles of Noel's books were slowly propelling the gears in Davina's mind, though she was primarily invested in his strange behaviour and comments. It was unexpected to say the least, and obviously something she had to figure out before she left it alone. Noel couldn't quite contain his questionably eloquent comments on the symmetrical qualities of Karma, which made the Slytherin's eyebrow perk. Before she could even answer, he was apologizing, making a bit of a mess of his work space. "I know," she answered quickly, lifting her hand, when he started apologizing. "relax." Even if he did mean it like that, the Gryffindor wasn't exactly on her list. The list didn't even exist. As for his true meaning, well... he had no idea how right he was. In fact, she could never admit how badly she would have preferred his flavor of torment had she been given the option.

Crossing her arms again, she allowed herself to shift her weight from one foot to the other, leaning on the bookshelf that had been separating them. She gave him a thoughtful look, her brow wrinkling just a little in concentration. "I'd heard you were being really weird this year," she reported dryly. "I usually don't listen to what people say, but I guess I can't ignore that now, can I?" It wasn't exactly an insult, she was just confirming what others had been talking about. Until she'd actually witnessed it, she hadn't even bothered wondering about it. After deciding on someone's character and watching them stay true to that judgment, it wasn't often one saw a change like the one she was seeing now. Of course, it could all be for show, and only Noel would know his true intentions.

Davina was silent for a moment as her mind wandered, and she rubbed her eyes, tired from the lack of sleep. "I don't know about karma, though. Sometimes it takes to long to balance things out." She scratched her elbow, deep in thought, before she shook her head. "Uh... well I don't really know about you personally, of course. Just... you know." It was unusual for the 5th Year to not be able to express herself, but her fatigue, impending panic and the fact that she was talking to practically a stranger about karma was a bit overwhelming. "I have to go."

Turning around and quickly packing her things up, she felt a surge of anxiety rush up her stomach, making her queasy and needing to urgently leave the Library. Thankfully she had only brought her DADA notes and her textbook. "Listen," she spoke a little louder just so Noel could hear her over their barrier while she put her things together. "Whatever you're researching is none of my business and I don't care. But recently some other people have made it their business to sit around here and spy and eavesdrop and shit. So if your werewolf stuff is private, you should study somewhere else." For some reason, she was starting to run out of breath and she needed to be alone.

Noel's mouth gridlocked when Davina rose her hand.  

Weird? What did that even mean? Was that a good thing, a bad thing? Noel let the books that he knocked over remain on the ground this time, heeding Davina's words during his moment of inelegance, reaching up to instead to rub his perpetual five-o-clock (honestly, it was verging on a six-o-clock) shadow in a frenzied attempt to save himself from the awkward confrontation and his mush-mouth of words. He didn't offer an explanation for the 'weirdness', honestly feeling a bit sore about her choice of words. Or was it the choice of other peoples words? And why was he letting it bother him anyway? Where in any other instance Noel would have offered his usual shrug of aloofness and gone on his merry fucking way.  

And as the topic of karma continued, Noel went to open his mouth again but decided imperatively against it before he spouted off something else marginally offensive. He wanted to tell her it was true, that it would happen, and that whatever was on her pretty little troubled mind would likely right itself in the end. That he was walking proof of Karma's cruel legitimacy, and she was a paragon that deserved better- er, what? Then her words fell flat, and instead Noel said nothing because saying shit like that would have been truly weird. 

Then crossing his arms rather uncomfortably deliberately nodded his head when Davina said she had to leave. He couldn't blame her. 

Arching his hips up off the edge of the table he approached the divide and spoke again, hesitancy in his voice. 

"Hey Davina?" A pause. "I really do mean it. I am sorry. I'm sorry about a lot of things I've done, and I know it doesn't mean much to you now, but I'm trying to... er... I guess, make things right." 

Or something like that. If he was being honest, he didn't really know what the hell he was doing anymore. He didn't even know who he was. 

"And thanks. I appreciate the warning." 

Turning around he angled his wand and began to glide the books back into place on their shelves.