tippest och Unicornhorn [PRS]

His face was even pink-er when she turned around to look at him. What was wrong with him?
Her response sounded awkward in his ears and he felt rejected. Really fucking rejected. Not that he had expected to be anything else - hell, he hadn't expected anything. Just a mean laugh and a goodnight, or something like that. He held the door open for himself, but didn't walk inside before she was way up the stairs. He could never, ever, face her again.
As usual, he walked slowly towards the dungeons. He didn't care about his duty as a Prefect anymore - he had already been out for a while. Snape didn't say how long they were supposed to be out, either. He cursed mentally to himself all the way down to the common room. It was completely empty. And cold. Why was it almost always cold? He shook his head and sighed loudly, before he went into his dorm. Everyone was already asleep, so as quietly he could, he changed into his pyjamas. He layed down in his bed and tried his best to fall asleep. He couldn't. Audrey was all over his mind.

Audrey woke up, well rested. She hadn’t had nightmares. Her dreams had been full of her and Noel, dancing together on the ice. She shook her head when she sat up. Why did he dream about guy who hated her guts? At least he didn’t hate her face, apparently.

She stood up, and went into the bathroom. She braided her hair, put on some makeup and a pair of black trousers. She put on a green top and put on her shoes before working her way down to the entrance hall. She didn’t see Noel yet, so she leaned against a wall and looked towards the entrance to the dungeons. She considered going inside the Great Hall and take a seat and wait there, it felt less awkward. She decided to do it, and hoped that Noel would understand where she was. She took a seat, and waited for the food to appear. For once, she was hungry. She glanced at her watch, and looked at today's date that was displayed on it. She groaned and leaned back in her chair.

Noel was awake the entire night. He listened to the snoring boys around him and got quite stressed about not being able to sleep. Every time he closed his eyes the memory of him blurting out those words to her played out.

Even though he couldn't sleep, he didn't want to be the first person to arrive at the Great Hall. So he waited until one of the boys stepped out of bed, which was Klaus. Obviously. He didn't know if it would be very wise to tell him about the whole "you're pretty", thing. Noel decided not to tell him. He went out of bed and looked himself in the little mirror that he had placed on his bedside table. He looked terrible. His hair, was as usual, a mess. But he had bags under his eyes. He never hade bags. He didn't want Audrey to see that he had lost sleep, but at the same time he didn't want to use magic on his face. It could go wrong!

He started to put on his school uniform but as he did, he glanced at the unused clothes that he had tucked under his bed (for some weird reason.) They were muggleclothes. His mom had been very interested with their culture and what not, so she bought what the muggles deemed "fashion." It didn't look bad, not at all. It looked better than the clothes a magician would usually wear. He pulled out a red sweatshirt and some grey trousers. Putting those clothes on made him feel less insecure. Sure, he still had those bags under his eyes but... The new clothes would maybe take everyones mind off of that.

He waited until Klaus was ready and then the two boys went up to the Great Hall together. They didn't talk much, Klaus just said something about his buddy and that was pretty much it. Noel had expected Audrey to wait for him in the entrance hall, but he couldn't see her. Was she still asleep? He yawned and entered the Great Hall. Maybe she was already in there. He looked around and almost immediately saw her. He felt his face burning and his stomach got this weird feeling. He walked up to the table where she sat and sat down on the chair that was furthest away from her.
"Good morning", he said, avoiding eye contact.

Audrey was in her own world, thinking about the day to come. She knew she had to avoid Eric at all cost, hopefully she could do it with the unaware Noel, maybe blame it on Prefect duties? She didn’t like birthdays, at least not her own. She always forgot, since Eric was the only one who knew when it was. She looked up when she heard a good morning, and saw Noel. He looked.... different. Not only the traces of tiredness in his face, his whole appearance was different; it pretty amazing what a change of clothes could do with a person.
“Morning. Nice shirt” she said nicely and smiled. She turned her attention to the food that had appeared, and filled her plate. She was really hungry.

At the same time she started eating, hundreds of owls flew into the Great Hall. She was always fascinated about them, even though she never got anything. However, today a grey owl landed in front of her, with a letter tied to its leg. She immediately recognised it as a muggle letter, since it had a stamp on it. She took the letter, and looked at the return address; Hannah’s Orphanage. Audrey threw the unopened letter on the table.
“As if you care any of the other 364 days of the year” she muttered under her breath and put some eggs in her mouth.

"Thanks", he said, quietly. At first he wanted to compliment her too, because well... She deserved a compliment. She looked great. But he couldn't. Not after what he had said the previous night.
He filled his plate and started eating. Not with the huge appetite he would usually eat with, but he still ate. He looked at all the owls that flew into the Great Hall. Just as always, a brown little owl landed in front of him. It was Fiona, the family owl. He took the letter that was tied to its leg and opened it. Fiona flied away again. Before reading the letter he looked over at Audrey, who didn't seem like she was going to read hers.
"You're not going to read that?" he pointed at the abandoned letter.

Audrey looked at the owl that landed on the table. It didn’t look like a school owl. She shook her head at his question.
“I can guess what it says” she said expressionlessly and looked at the letter, which stared back at her. She hated the word orphanage. It sounded so...worthless . As if the people there were small and insignificant.

She already knew the content of the letter; the obligatory “happy birthday, Audrey” that the orphanage’s warden had written on a computer and hastily signed, as an attempt of looking like a nice person. Audrey looked over at Noel’s.
“How about you?” She said and nodded towards the letter his owl had brought him.

Even through the expressionless tone in her voice, Noel could almost understand that it was from her parents. (It had never occured to him that some people didn't have parents; it was, in Noel's defence, quite rare.) He knew that many students had a strained relationship to their parents; Klaus, for example. Even William seemed to have some issues with his. Noel himself had a great relationship with his parents.
"Just my parents weekly letter", he said, shrugging. He started reading it. It was his mom's handwriting. She wrote about what was going on in the neighbourhood, how grandma was doing and stuff like that. And the obligatory question in the end "how is school going?". Of course it was doing well, but it was his parents, they had to ask. Otherwise they'd be bad parents or something.

Audrey nodded.
“How cute” she said and leaned back in her chair. How much would she give to have parents that sent her weekly letters? Probably a lot. But this wasn’t the case, since her parents had to go and die on her. Not that she missed them, she considered her to be better off at the orphanage than with them. And that said a lot, since she hated the orphanage. It was just filled with idiots that were afraid of her.
“I guess your parents are living together?” she asked, to make conversation. She didn’t realised that she would probably get the same question thrown back at her. Damn. Not that Noel cared, probably.

Some people would be embarrased by having a close relation with their parents. Noel, though, didn't. He was pretty proud of it, actually. Not many teenagers had such good relations with their families. Why would he be ashamed?
"Yup", he said and nodded. He shoved some eggs into his mouth and swallowed it before he said something else. "Yours? I guess that they don't because you asked if mine did and well-" He stopped himself because he felt that he wasn't coming anywhere. He let his sentence hang in the air and hoped that Audrey would just answer.

“They don’t. Or, well, I wouldn’t know. They’re dead” she said and put in some eggs in her mouth. She shrugged and leaned back when she chewed.
“Siblings?” she asked, and kept eating. She wanted to keep the conversation going, but Noel felt so... awkward today. She didn’t think that he might feel weirded out by last night. She scratched her neck and sighed. She took the letter from the table, crumbled it into a ball and put it in her pocket. She shoved a mouthful of bacon in her mouth, waiting for Noel’s response.