 astronomizzle ♧ gryffinDORK | & the rest is drag ♣ #badluckDerf
CJ blinked at her.
"But Marinara is a pasta sauce."
The protest came out with the earnest bewilderment of someone being accused of calling a dog a dog or the sky blue. His brow furrowed as he tried to untangle the problem, fingers drumming against the side of his butterbeer while he searched for whatever part of the conversation he'd apparently missed. Because the thing was, he knew Marina and Marinara weren't technically the same word.
Obviously. One was a person. The other belonged on all forms of pasta (except macaroni).
And yet somewhere between his brain and his mouth that distinction had apparently been getting intercepted by hostile forces.
Or maybe Nargles. Those were the ones that made the brain all brain foggy, right?
It wasn't even a new problem. Mom still delighted in reminding him that he'd spent entirely too many years saying 'supposably' before anyone successfully corrected him, and there had been an embarrassingly long stretch of childhood where he'd believed escape goat was a completely reasonable phrase. Truth be told, he still used this mixed up phrases in full confidence.
"I dunno," he admitted with a helpless shrug. "I wasn't trying to call her pasta. I was saying Marinara."
Which, unfortunately, explained absolutely nothing.
The mention of his nose derailed the conversation so completely it might as well have been hit by another goblet.
"Oh!" Rubbing at it, he turned sharply to one side and presented his profile with all the dramatic seriousness of a model posing for an aggressively niche magazine. One finger pointed toward his face. "Give it to me straight. Symmetrical?" He held the pose for a moment before slowly rotating to the opposite side. "Or do I have the rugged look now?" A grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. "You know. Mysterious foreign transfer student. Survived terrible hardship. Fought a dragon. Wrestled a troll... Lost a fight with dinnerware."
It was exhausting being so confidently obtuse.
The more she elaborated on the ghost thing, the further CJ leaned back in his chair. His expression traveled steadily from curiosity to concern, then from concern to the dawning realization that he had wandered into information he never wanted to possess. By the end of it, he looked like he could make a hole through stone just to exit the conversation. Both hands came up in front of him, making a physical backing-away motion.
"Nope. Nope nope. Nopity nope."
Dark wizard business immediately lost most of its appeal. He liked Defense Against the Dark Arts well enough, but that was mostly for the action of spellcasting and duelling and less the...moral peril of it all.
"Wait." One finger now pointed across the table at her ― not rude at all. "How do you even know all this stuff?"
Every conversation seemed to follow the same pattern. He would mention something in passing, and Lemondrop would somehow produce an explanation, a historical detail, or an entire branch of magical theory he'd never even heard of. He was still untangling the the whole ice cream logic she had convinced him of. Kept him up some nights, truth be told.
His chin settled into his hands as he studied her openly.
"Seriously. Every conversation feels like somebody accidentally gave a textbook a personality. Which, actually, that makes sense the more time I spend over this way. Especially since your a Raven's Claw and Professor Cox is your Head of House."
Not because Cox was scary, exactly. Well. Maybe a little. A lot, a little? mostly because the professor carried himself like someone who probably knew seven hundred dead languages, could explain every single one without notes, could brew the whatcha-ma-call-it Potion in his sleep, and somehow remembered homework deadlines from three years ago. The sort of person who read impossibly dense books for recreation and then complained when they weren't challenging enough.
CJ shuddered dramatically.
"Imagine you all read for fun too."
The horror.
CJ's attention finally returned to the enormous mug sitting in front of him ― the famous butterbeer. The thing everyone talked about. The thing he'd spent months hearing about before ever setting foot in Britain. And, for perhaps the first time since sitting down, he actually stopped talking. His gaze dropped to the mug. Foam clung to the rim. The smell was sweet, warm, and mostly unfamiliar. He lifted it cautiously, took a sip, and paused.
Then he took a much larger sip.
His eyes widened.
Another sip followed almost immediately.
Then another.
Slowly, CJ lowered the mug, foam clinging to his upper lip something fierce, and stared at it as though it had just revealed a profound truth about the universe.
"...oh."
The mug was lifted again for further investigation.
"They just let people BUY this all unregulated and stuff?" Another sip. "No wonder British people put up with the weather."
He set the butterbeer down with the reverence normally reserved for his broom and guitar.
"Well, cross that off my Hogwarts bucket list then!"
__________________ We broke into a million pieces, and we can't go back.........................................
But now we're seeing all the beauty in the broken glass.....................................
The scars are part of me, darkness and harmony
My voice without the lies, this is what it sounds like
Last edited by sweetpinkpixie; 06-06-2026 at 12:01 PM.
Reason: not me typo-ing my own character's name ... and then editing my new reply into this post instead of a new reply window
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