all that's left``

[bran]

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Maybe it was masochistic of him (or sadistic? Bran didn’t know), but Bran’s most-favoured possession had to be his mint condition copy of The Amazing Spider-Man, #121: The Night Gwen Stacy Died.

Bran couldn’t really explain why he liked Spider-man so much. Maybe it was because Peter Parker was just a young kid, and he wasn’t born a superhero. Parker reminded Bran a little of himself, he supposed: very few friends, bullied, a bit of a geek… but Parker was brave, much braver than Bran, and a better person, too. See, Bran wanted to be better than anyone who ever picked on him. He wanted to be in charge of them someday and make them feel as weak and stupid and powerless as they’d once made him feel. And Bran didn’t think he could ever, you know, take responsibility of his superpowers (if he had any) and protect the people he knew were jerks. In fact, Bran was pretty sure he’d use his powers to scare people into doing things for him.

Really, though, Bran just… admired Spider-man. He was a kid thrown into a big, terrifying mess, and he made mistakes but he persevered. Now, he wasn’t Bran’s favourite superhero – that honour went to Batman, and honestly, he liked Batman the best because he didn’t have any superpowers at all and still kicked ass – but The Night Gwen Stacy Died was still his most prized possession. He’d cut grass in his neighbourhood for two full summers to earn enough money for it, and had taken extra special care of it ever since. He liked it because it defied the norm of comic books: it killed a major character, the hero’s girlfriend, and the reason she died was because of said hero’s powers. Her neck had snapped because of the way he’d caught her with his web. It was the first comic that made Bran’s stomach twist with some sort of emotion, an empathy for a fictional character, though he’d never actually admit that. He wasn’t crazy.

It was really quite sad, though. Gwen was a lot better than that Mary-Jane Watson. To be frank, Bran wished she’d died instead.

He’d been reading his copy the night before, and as always, he’d made sure to tuck it carefully inside its protective seal and put it at the bottom of his trunk so that it wouldn’t get bent. Bran had been unusually tired the night before, so he only got about partway through, but was planning on finishing it today after supper and before he started his homework. So, after his last class of the day, he’d gone down to the Slytherin dorms, keeping his head ducked low to avoid paper balls that were flying through the corridors, and avoided as much human contact as possible as he headed to his dorm and pulled his trunk out from under his bed.

Except when he opened the lid, his comic wasn’t there.

Oh, sure, there were dozens of other comics – more Spider-man, his Batman comics, some X-Men and a couple random other ones – but The Night Gwen Stacy Died was nowhere to be seen. His heart began to race and Bran checked his bed, even inside his pillowcase, but it wasn’t there. Okay. Okay. Sometimes he did take comics with him to classes, in case he ever got bored. So maybe he’d (stupidly) taken this one. It was possible. He’d been very tired this morning and not really thinking. Wait, no, he did take it today, because he was supposed to show Alice Prewett. She loved Spider-man too, and Bran had told her before he’d finally gotten this edition and was gonna show her, but… he hadn’t done that. He knew he hadn’t shown her because he was sure Alice would’ve had some weird enormous reaction, which was something he wasn’t likely to forget, no matter how tired he was.

So he just had to retrace his steps, then, right?

Oh boy.

Well, he’d just come from supper. He’d start in the Great Hall, then. Leaving everything but his wand behind (in case he needed to defend his comic book’s honour or something), Bran started off in a hurry, ducking more flying parchment and other items as he passed through the Slytherin common room. Honestly, the lot of them were animals; he couldn’t wait till he had the authority to tell them all off. “Move!” he barked at a little first year, who sneered at him but moved nonetheless. Bran normally wasn’t so bold, but his comic book’s mint condition was at stake here – and he wasn’t really afraid of first years. … Most of them, anyway.

Luckily, he didn’t have to search all over the castle for it. As soon as he entered the Great Hall, he saw his comic book still sitting on the table. With a sigh of relief, Bran started for it in a hurry

The trouble was, someone else had beat him to it.

OPEN

[Alice Prewett]

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Today had been rather an exhausted day for Alice. She had woken up unusually early for apparently no reason at all (although she remembered feeling hot and bothered and she had a sneaking suspicion as to what she'd been dreaming about, even though she couldn't quite remember most of it, just that it definitely hadn't been of the nightmare variation) and had been thusly unable to go back to sleep on account of her sheets being uncomfortable twisted around her legs, so much so that it took her an entire ten minutes to get them off (although the length of time it took might also be attributed to how groggy she felt while she was doing it, and how quickly she became frustrated with them, so much so that she considered taking out her wand and using a spell to rip them off, but then she would have to find yet another spell to repair them because reparo didn't work very well with fabric and she couldn't start researching mending spells at four in the morning. Once she was free of the blood things, Alice had laid back in her bed, with the tangled sheets at her feet, her eyes closed tightly as she tried to go back to sleep, but she was too worked up from the (dream) effort she'd made in getting loose that it was almost impossible to fall back to sleep. Instead, she took advantage of the fact that she was the first to wake up and was the first to take a shower, taking her time and enjoying the warm water cascading over her. Once she was clean, she returned to her bed, where she proceeded to lie and stare up at the canopy until breakfast.

Her morning and afternoon classes were even more of a drag than they normally were, probably because she'd only had about five hours of sleep and her body preferred eight to nine hours. She sat with the book propped up in front of her face in an attempt to sneak in a small nap during lectures, but she'd made the mistake of doing it in Tranfiguration class and McGonogall caught her and was so utterly disappointed she took off five whole points from Gryffindor because she believed Alice was slacking off (which she kind of was). The brunette had spent the rest of the class with her head lowered so that her hair could hide her face, which had turned red due to mortification, and her hand speeding over parchment as she took quick notes. She wasn't used to getting told off by Professors during class, especially not McGonogall, and especially not because of napping in class. The few times she had gotten in trouble was because May and/or Lucy had dragged her into a prank, or because she'd been caught talking to one of them, or to another friend. Suffice it to say that Alice didn't fall asleep in class again that day.

Unfortunately, she had also scheduled a cheerleading practice for the team during the hour before dinner since that was when the Gryffindor's had practice, and she couldn't possibly reschedule because this was only the third practice where she was actually the head cheerleader and rescheduling would make her look bad. And since she was the headcheerleader the practice was, of course, even more exhausting than it usually would and by the end of it Alice had to excuse herself to lie flat on the stands with her eyes closed since her legs felt like they could collapse at any second. By the time her limbs didn't quite feel like jelly anymore and she'd dragged herself towards the lockerooms for another shower, she'd missed half of dinner and barely managed to snag some food from the main course before it became dessert. When Lucy offered to stay with her (since Lucy was always one of the last to leave for obvious reasons - namely, because she was now eating for two and her appetite had grown to enormous proportions, not that Alice would ever say that out loud because that was an incredibly hurtful thing to say to a pregnant woman), Alice quickly shook her off through a mouthful of pudding, swallowed and insisted that she was perfectly capable of walking back to the Gryffindor common room on her own. Or she hoped she was, anyway, but she'd been sitting down for about half an hour now and she wasn't sure whether her legs had given up on her yet or not.

When she was done, Alice pressed her hands against the tables and stood up shakily, testing her weight on one leg and then the other. To her relief, it was only a little sore, but not unbearable and she didn't feel like she was going to collapse. Slinging her backpack over her shoulders, Alice started for the doors when she noticed a suspiciously slim-looking book in a plastic cover. It almost looked like a comic book, which was unusual since she knew only a handful of people who actually read those here (most, if not all, of them muggleborns), and none of them would have been careless enough to leave it behind like that. Half-limping towards the table, Alice tilted her head and looked at the cover, her eyes widening when she read the edition. Dear Merlin, it was The Amazing Spider-Man, #121: The Night Gwen Stacy Died, as in also the edition that had completely broken Alice's heart and she'd had to carefully put the book away before her tears ruined it. Her jaw dropped and her mind worked feverishly as she tried to recall if any of her friends had it. She vaguely remembered Bran telling her that he had it, and had promised to show her but she'd secretly always thought he was joking about that since, well, it had been weeks and she'd seen nothing. Biting her lip, Alice carefully picked it up, knowing full-well how protective comic book collectors were about their comics (she was the same way) and wondered what to do with it next. She looked up when she heard footsteps, raising her eyebrows upon seeing Brennan. "I'm going to assume this is yours?" She carefully held up the comic book, shaking her head in mock-disappointment with a faint smirk on her lips. "Shame on you, Doherty. You know you can't just leave these things lying around. Anyone could pick it up and keep it to themselves."

[/color] She was teasing, of course, but it was fun to get Bran all worked up anyway, since she knew she'd be exactly the same way if the roles were reversed. The girl liked her comic books.


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[bran]

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It wasn’t often that Bran forgot things, so it was rather humiliating that he’d gotten so worked up emotionally that he’d actually failed to remember leaving his comic book in the Great Hall. Then again, he supposed it wasn’t exactly like he forgot, because he hadn’t known he’d left it there in the first place. This whole time, he thought he had it with him. It must have slipped from between his books when he gathered his things after supper, and he just hadn’t noticed. Still, he doubted anyone else got so panicked over losing a comic book (though maybe they would if it was a copy in such good condition – the pages were still white).

Maybe he just had a brain fart. When it came down to it, Bran had almost lost one of his most prized possessions, and it was just out of plain stupidity. And now it was being picked up and he’d never see it again and oh god he might just panic a little and –

Oh.

Okay, it was only Alice Prewett. It was all right, then. She liked comics as much as he did, and had a bit of a crush on Spider-man, and – hang on, was she actually thinking of keeping his comic or just teasing him? In any case, it was enough to get his feathers a little ruffled, and he felt his cheeks puffing up as his temper began to flare. Honestly, it was nothing against Alice – it was his comic book’s safety at stake. “Yes, it’s mine, and you’re hilarious. Give it here,” he said, thrusting out his hand. It was rare for Bran to be so bold, but it was different with Alice. She was actually nice to him, and a geek – an actual geek. She liked comic books and also something called ‘Star Trek’, which Bran had never seen, as far as he knew. But he had seen that ‘Star Wars’ movie and it was all right; he wasn’t a big movie fan. They never really got it right the way comic books could. It all looked so fake. And anyway, his family didn’t own a television set, so it wasn’t like he could watch that ‘Star Trek’ thing anyway. Bran liked the paranormal; he definitely believed in aliens and ghosts and all that stuff, but for some reason the show didn’t interest him at all.

“Alice, c’mon, it took me two summers to pay for that. It’s my favourite thing in the world.” His eyes were trained onto the comic book, hoping that Alice had no traces of food or anything on her fingers that could wreck the pages. Why wasn’t it in its protective sleeve? Where was that? Ugh, it was a good thing Bran had spares in his trunk just in case he lost or ruined one, but now he had to get his comic from the Great Hall to his trunk without it getting wrecked.

Ugh, if it did, Bran was pretty sure that losing his comic would be just as heartbreaking as Spider-man losing Gwen. The thought even gave him a lump in his throat. Part of him knew that he was just being teased because right now it was so, so very easy, but another part wanted to leap at Alice and savagely defend his comic because it was his. Fortunately, Bran managed to hold himself back. (He was pretty sure Alice could beat him up in a fight anyway.)

The comic itself looked all right, from what he could see; there were no wrinkled pages or food stains or footprints, which was good. Maybe he was just really lucky. He’d check it over again anyway when Alice handed it back to him.

If she handed it back.

[Alice Prewett]

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Maybe that made her kind of sadistic, but it was kind of funny to see Bran get all worked up about his comic books. Oh, she knew that if the roles were reversed she'd do more than just get worked up, she'd be all out panicking and probably trying to grab the comic book herself. Except maybe she wouldn't because then she would be worried about possibly tearing it and Alice wouldn't be surprised with herself if she started all-out bawling over a torn comic book of hers. Or anyone's, really, because it would be such a waste. And even if it didn't tear, if it just got roughed up a little, her eyes would probably still water because comic books were supposed to be pretty and neat and glossy and lovely. Okay, that was an understatement. She would probably still cry if one of her comics were ruined, because those things were precious and came out of her allowance, which motivated her that much more to protect it with everything she could. If Bran was the same way, then...well, okay, now Alice just felt bad for teasing him. The guilt only increased when he said he'd saved up two whole summers, which implied it wasn't just allowance but his own money and sigh okay she supposed she should just give it back. She was much too nice to torture him for too long.

With a little sigh and then a smile, Alice held it out to him, careful to show him that she'd only held it with the least amount of fingers and cover the least amount of surface while, at the same time, making sure it didn't bend from her hands, because if she held it from one side and with the tips of her fingers, gravity would do it's work and cause it to curve, and that might cause little zig-zags in the pages. She knew because she'd tried it before and she'd hate to do that to Brennan. It was bad enough she'd teased him enough as it were, but to actually ruin his comic book? And one that was so precious to the both of them? No, she wasn't that cruel. "Here you go, you can calm the vein popping in your forehead." There wasn't any vein, but she was still in a teasing mood. She could practically hear May's approval in her ear. And she said practically because, well, hearing things was always a bad sign and if she was seriously hearing May's voice then either she was going insane or May was pulling a prank on her. She liked to think that the latter was more likely. But then again, who wouldn't? No one wants to actually believe they were crazy, after all. "I promise my fingers are clean, so I didn't get any stains on it. You should really keep it in it's protective sleeve. And not leave it around. You're lucky I'm the one who picked it up. Some people who don't understand what comic books are might throw it away. Like the house elves. That would have been a tragedy."

[/color] She gave him a fairly friendly grin and pulled her hands back when he took the comic from her, folding her hands behind her back and rocking on her heels a little.

"So, I guess that was the edition you were telling me about before,"[/color] she commented idly, not exactly in the rush to get back to her dormitory. She didn't have that much homework waiting for her, since she tended to get her work done as soon as she received the assignments, so the only things she had to do was what they had been given today. Plenty of time to socialize. Plus, there was nothing Alice enjoyed more than talk about comic books and such with a fellow geek. "I thought you were taking the mickey because it took you ages to bring it to me. Were you worried I'd steal it from you or something? Because I'd never do that. I was just joking earlier. I'm not mean."[/color] She smiled again and bounced on her toes. "I know you probably won't let me borrow it, but you want to read it sometime together? I won't even touch it, you can completely have control over turning the pages and such. Pretty please?"[/color] She batted her eyelashes a little, knowing it was probably bad of her to use feminine wiles or what-not on him, but whatever. She really loved that comic, okay? "Fair warning, though: I'll probably be a blubbering mess when it gets to the part about Gwen. It always gets to me."[/color] Just thinking about it got her all emotional, to be honest.

ooc: eek this is sucky and short i'm sorryyy.

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