(Untitled)

[erikcohen]

Week Name / Date / Time,: 'Trick or Treat' / Monday, October 31st / 8 AM
Location: Gryffindor Common Room
Open to: Slylicious
Currently Involving: Lauren-ified! Erik (Happy Halloween from Cohen!)

Comments

[erikcohen]

The problem was not that Erik didn't want to tell Sly, the problem was that he didn't know where to start. It had all seemed to just grow from nowhere in particular into this massive thing that he couldn't deal with on his own. And the fact that it wasn't something he could handle on his own? Yes, well that was one of the most frustrating and frightening things about it. Because while he was always supported by his mates, Erik Cohen had never actually needed their help with something on this sort of level.

Erik muttered a spell to make sure they wouldn't be heard and turned to face Sly. Best to begin at the beginning.

"It all started with the week of the love potions, you remember? Well, I managed to get some in my goblet, and the object of my affection became this Slytherin girl my age. She was trying to play it to her advantage, of course, but I accidentally gave her some of the potion too. Before you knew it, we were snogging and hand holding and all that nonsense. But when we got the potion taken off of us? Well, I was already her least favourite person in the world, and this just strengthened the hate. A week or so after, it's all sort of a blur... time I mean, she ambushed me when I was leaving Gryffindor Tower," Erik told his story, looking more at the floor than at Sly.

He paused a few moments so the boy could process it all and keep up, and then moved on.

"She had Wesley Broderick with her, probably meant to intimidate me. They gave me a talking to about my place and all that, but I wasn't keen on listening. It was rubbish, and I knew it, and I figured they were trying to provoke me into attacking them. Wesley started warning me... warning me about Nikolaus...and I didn't believe he had any sort of... I didn't take it seriously," Erik stumbled through this part of the event. He'd almost forgotten the threats had been made, but they had. Whether Wesley knew anything for certain, Erik had no idea.

"I knew it was a waste of time, so I turned my back on them, and the girl starting throwing hexes out. You can imagine it was a bit of an unfair fight. I can barely take on a seventh ALONE, so having him there to help someone else was trouble. I was doing mostly defense work, and Wesley seemed to be doing not much of anything, and then..."

Erik hadn't meant to pause at this point, but all he could think of was the pain. He considered himself to be strong! And that moment of time? He'd let out screeches of agony. Not only was it physically the worst pain he'd felt in his life, but he'd been humiliated.

Unless you'd had it used on you, there was no way anyone else could possibly understand what crucio was like. But it was unforgiveable, and that said enough.

He looked Sly in the eyes, trying to express what he was remembering without having to say anything more than what he said next.

"...he used crucio on me."

[slyautolycus]

Sly regarded Erik carefully for several moments, absorbing the information, and the way the boy had withdrawn in on himself as he relayed the events. His jaw went rigid and his fists clenched, nails making deep half-moon crevices in his palms at the mention of an Unforgivable. And that was precisely the right name for such a curse, for to use it really was unforgivable. Especially for someone like Sly. He couldn't believe it was happening right here in his own school, under his nose. To his friends. After all he'd been through with Muirne, to think that they would still ...

And Erik had suffered enough. Too much.

Steadying his breath so that the seething would not seem so obvious (because, bless him, Sly was trying to be patient for once), he finally demanded in a quiet voice, "You were just in the Hospital Wing again. You've been in there a lot. It's been Broderick all this time, hasn't it."

Slowly, his fists clenched tighter, so that his knuckles turned white. He felt as if he were swallowing nails, and his nostrils flared in silent fury. He knew what it was like to actually see red...

[erikcohen]

Sly seemed as though steam were about to burst out of his ears, but all and all? Erik thought he was taking the information pretty well. Erik would thank him for that later, but for now? Questions needed to be answered.

"Yeah, it's always him. I don't know what I've done, Sly. I can't recall ever doing anything to make him single me out more than any other muggleborn or even Gryffindor here," Erik started, running a hand through his hair.

"I'm not saying I won't deal with it, because I wouldn't want to see anyone else in this position, but the last one? Well, it wasn't worse than crucio, but it was bad. He knew I didn't want to fight him. I ended up with a serious cut on my forehead, a concussion, and two missing fingers. It was a bit of a shock, had me a bit messed up mentally for a day," Erik continued to explain and sighed heavily.

Looking around the common room for a minute, he leaned in slightly, an unreadable look in his eyes.

"If I hadn't gotten him with rictusempra right before he cast crucio again, I would have had more than just a concussion. And well... when Tobias found me, he was gone. He obviously wasn't ready to finish me off," he stated, and leaned back against the sofa cushion.

He'd not been able to talk about that bit yet. He really didn't want to think about how close he was to... well... not having this conversation, that was for sure.

[slyautolycus]

Sly's jaw was set grimly, and his left brow arched slowly toward the towering ceiling. A very bitter taste gathered in his mouth, and it had a name: Wesley Broderick. It was about time to do some pallet cleansing.

"Ye don't know what ye've done?" he asked sardonically, though the sarcasm was obviously not directed personally at Erik. "It's clear enough. You exist. Ye represent something different, something foreign, something good that people like him could never begin to understand. An' so he sets his mind to make ye pay fer unsettling him, fer confusin' him, fer shakin' the foundations of his tiny, primitive, outdated world." Sly stared down at his fist, slowly unclenching it to find his nails had broken the skin. Small crescents of dark red bloomed to the surface, angry and alive.

"An' ye had the courage -- and stupidity -- t'face him alone," he finally continued, looking back up at his young friend. This was something he vowed to amend, if it was the last thing he did. Sly would not stand by and let another innocent person suffer while those bastards toyed and maimed and laughed their cracked up heads off. "We Gryffindors are known fer that, it's a common mistake." A grim smile was bestowed there before quickly disappearing. "But not anymore, Erik, d'ye hear me? No more. From now on, you do not take that slimy motherf*cker on alone. We're a team, this house. Me an' the other boys -- we have yuir back. An' we're goin' to put a stop to this, mark my words."

He'd not sounded so serious in several months. His schoolmates had probably never heard him this way. Sure, he got in plenty of fights. But this? This sounded like war.

[erikcohen]

Erik listened intently to what Sly had to say, nodding his head just slightly to indicate he was paying attention. He'd never really thought that Wes might have been attacking him because Erik confused him, though it did remind him strongly of Emilia. She refused to believe that a muggleborn could be good at magic, and Erik was. She had been starting to see that when she got so frustrated, and now Wesley was witnessing it too. He might not have been admitting it, but deep down he must have had some sort of idea.

When Sly told Erik it was a mistake to take Wes on alone, Erik said nothing, but bit his tongue just enough so that he could taste a bit of blood. It wasn't a mistake he wanted to make, obviously. The time he'd tackled Wes? That could have been avoided, but the staircases? If Erik had turned his back on the fight, he might have ended up worse off than missing fingers and a concussion, and that was saying something. But he still felt relief at Sly's pledge to help him.

"I know you do! I know almost all of Hogwarts, save some Slytherins, would help me if I asked them too. It's more my freedom that I'm worried about. I can't take two steps out of the common room alone without thinking any minute I'm going to be... well, death comes to mind," Erik admitted, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly.

And if he couldn't deal with the fear, how could he expect his friends to?