The Keepers' Evil: The Shattered Star

It's raining and you will be cold

The world held no obligation to Gabriel to move as slow as he would've liked, but he still held an irascibility built on how fast Christmas had gone. He didn't particularly like being home, but being back at school was somehow of equal likability. He didn't quite understand the desire to learn nor to study, even the social aspects of friendships for that matter, when his future was already woven into the Selwyn business.

Gabriel's eyes glazed immediately as he tried to forge an interest in watching his classmates tumble into their seats. He had always had a rather unique vantage point from the very back corner of the potions class, he had just never used it. Nine months remained within the walls of the castle, and whilst there was a relief that followed the countdown, there was a world beyond that he would have to find himself in.

"I bloody well hope this year ends quickly so I never have to come back into this classroom again." Gabriel chuckled briefly through a low sigh as Corvinus tumbled to the seat beside him, his negativity rather normal. Gabriel wasn't sure that he could consider Corvinus a friend, perhaps because the Gaunts were too closely contacted to his father and he had been reminded countless times that the Sacred Twenty-Eight don't have friends.

"Nice to see you too, Gaunt." He didn't take his eyes from his lacklustre stare towards the others piling in around them, his interest unable to peak as it usually did from his intent people watching. Gabriel rolled his eyes violently as he listened into far too many how was your Christmas or the small squeaks of excitement at the reunion of students who had only been apart for a month.

"You both look like you had fantastic Christmasses." Hugo slumped his books to the other side of Gabriel, narrowly missing his fingers that rested gently on the countertop. Hugo was the depiction, the definition, of happiness. He was constantly and consistently full of joy, and Gabriel had wondered what it would truly take to sadden the boy. He liked Sallow, despite his one flaw of sarcasm.

Hugo ruffled the parchment in his fingers, rummaging through book pages and quills until he felt adequately set up for the lesson that he was not going to listen to. Hugo liked this particular seat in this particular class, because he had a rather wonderful view in front of him. Hugo Sallow was utterly enamoured, but entirely too stubborn to say a word. Gabriel smirked silently as he watched Hugo from the corner of his eye, his pupils scouring every inch of the class until they fell onto one girl.

"Be normal, Hugo." Corvinus hummed as he watched Hugo's eyes light up, his heart almost visibly pounding within his chest with a strange sort of nervousness that Gabriel had never before felt. He knew nothing of Josie other than what he had been informed of her through Hugo, and he had never cared enough to speak to her, yet his lack of knowledge on her became evidently clear as his own eyes found a familiar sight beside her.

He hadn't ever noticed her either for that matter, not before that day, not before the previous. The deep blue of their robes suddenly made a difference to the class, the infectious aura around their laughter tugging a smile to his cheeks. He watched her with an interrogative squint, a part of him eager to find out how the girl who had been forced to let the cobwebs of a wooden shed calm her in the previous night became someone with such a serene radiance.

"Just speak to her, you prick." Hugo's eyes began to droop at the understanding that Josephine wouldn't notice him unless he made himself known. That was a lesson that Gabriel's life had taught him, it was a message that had wound itself around multiple duties in his life. Corvinus' words were harsh, but entirely the truth.