tippest och Unicornhorn [PRS]

Noel's brain stopped working. What? How could they possibly be dead? Did peoples parent actually die? He knew that it did happen - but he never thought that he'd meet someone whose parents were dead. It shocked him. How could she be so neutral about it? He didn't understand Audrey. He didn't ask more about it, even though he wanted to. It had to be hard for her, and he didn't want to worsen it all by bringing stuff up.
"Nope", he answered, trying to seem unbothered by her parents being dead and all. He probably failed. "Mom wants another kid though, so maybe in the future."

Audrey looked at him, he had the same reaction as everyone else when you told them your parents were dead. She nodded.
“Another kid? That’s a big gap” she said and smiled. She looked at him and put her head a bit sideways.
“You’re okay? You seem a bit.... surprised” she said and studied his face. She thought it was because of the information she had just dropped on him, but at the same time, did he really care? But to be fair, she was a bit cold about it. For good reason, though. She scratched her neck again and growled quietly. She hated itching, it was so annoying.

He shrugged. It was a big gap, but he understood his mom. His parents where very young when they got him and they probably hated being the youngest set of parents all the time.
"Yeah it's just...", he begun, not really sure about what to say. He didn't want to say anything stupid. "I don't know. It's just weird. I'm sorry." He looked down at his plate and made a mental note that he would avoid eye contact with Audrey for the rest of the project. Merlin, why couldn't he handle social situations?

“Didn’t mean to ruin your breakfast” she said and shrugged. She kept eating, and thought about it. It was probably weird for him, hearing her speaking so easily about her parents deaths.

“I’m used to it, that’s why I can speak about it easily” she said and leaned back on her chair. Why did she even tell him? It wasn’t like she wanted him to know, he just looked so uncomfortable. She wondered if it was about the topic they now had a conversation about, or what he had said last night. Or both.

"No, no you didn't", he said, shaking his head. Well, she kind of did ruin his breakfast. But her parents were dead, for christ's sake! He took a sip of his pumpkin juice, still avoiding to look at her.
"How could you ever get used to that?" he asked, now with a weak voice. He had a lump in his throat. How could one ever get used to their parents being dead? He just imagined his own life, without his parents... He'd probably dropped out of Hogwarts last year. His parents kept him motivated.
He looked up at her. For some reason it felt wrong to avoid her. Her parents were dead, not his. She had the sucky life, not him. He would not avoid her.

“Let’s just say that they weren’t fit to be parents” she said quietly and started to poke around in her food. It was true though, they had been crappy parents, unbelievably crappy. Which made their passing a lot easier to handle. She looked at him.
“I’m happy for people that have normal parents though, Erics parents are amazing for example” she said and smiled. She looked around, but didn’t see him, which today was good.
“I guess your parents are normal, considering the weekly letter” she said with a smile. She scratched her neck again, it always started to itch when she spoke about her parents. Annoying.

He forced himself to smile, even though it was the last thing in the world that he felt doing. The subject was... depressing. He wanted to change it up a bit, but he couldn't come up with anything good. He really didn't want to address his comment to her last night and other than that, he was blank.
"Yeah, they're great", he said, nodding. He gently dropped his fork and (tried to) fixed his hair. He sighed a bit, the subject really made him uncomfortable.

Audrey sighed and looked at Noel.
“I guess I have to go face Snape now” she said, to change the subject, and put her fork down, she wasn’t going to eat her food anyway. It was a bit sad, getting punished on her birthday. Not that anyone knew, but still. She tightened her braid and took a sip from her glass.
“Is he in the dungeons? He’s not up at the head table” she said, nodding towards the big table in the end of the room. Snape’s chair was empty. He was probably in his office, making up some stupid thing for her to do, as a punishment for having fun. Stupid rules. Maybe she should have become a Prefect, just to have an excuse of moving in the castle by night.

Noel nodded slightly before looking over at the head table. Not many of the professors were there, actually. He turned his head back and locked at her. It wasn't any news that Snape didn't like Gryffindor students - Noel could just figure that the punishment for last night would be bad.
"Maybe you should talk to McGonagall first?" he proposed. He didn't want her to get a big punishment or anything. Last night he kind of did, but now he really didn't. "She's the head of your house, after all."

Audrey shrugged.
“I can try” she said and stood up.
“Wait here, I’ll be back soon” she said and walked out of the Great Hall. She dodged Eric’s searching eyes on the way out, and went towards McGonagalls office.

Eric walked in the Great Hall, saw Noel alone and walked up to him.
“Hi, how are you?” he asked and sat down on Audrey’s empty chair.
“Good that you’re alone, are you going to Hogsmead today? I need to know if Audrey’ll be there he said with a big smile.