Beautiful Silence (Luka)

[Dante Black]

Finally, some well-deserved peace and quiet. Between recovering from the Sectumsempra incident, getting back to attending classes, homework, and slight girl complications, Dante was exhausted. He had almost forgotten why he hated school, but that week had given him a not-so-friendly reminder. Things were piling on top of him relentlessly, one after the other.

Hogwarts did not have a lot of places to go if one was looking for solitude. Even the less frequented areas still had some people hanging about. The only place Dante knew to go where he wouldn’t be disturbed was his dorm room. There he could make it blatantly obvious he wished to be alone without having to literally put up a ‘do not disturb’ sign. All he needed to do was sit on his four-poster bed and pull the curtains around him. Simple as that. The only ones who could potentially invade his space were his roommates, who were barely in the room anyway.

As he thought about it, he really didn’t know his roommates that well. Sure he slept in the same room as them every night, but none of them were talkers which made for little to no dialogue between them. And that was just fine by Dante. He shrugged off the unnecessary thought and picked up his wand. He twirled it slowly, watching it carefully as if it were going to do anything other than dance between his fingers. Very quickly he lapsed into a daydream-like state, becoming increasingly less aware of his surroundings.

[xianlotule]

Luka couldn't believe it. He was having more memories of the strange girl. At first, it was only with things he could connect her with. They kept becoming more frequent every day. Now, they just came in random spurts to annoy him. It angered him to have so many memories of just one person without knowing anything else besides their physical appearance. There was no common denominator in the dreams besides her. Not location, or people, or climate. Nothing. Luka didn't know why they started up now with him on the verge of being 17. Why not before? This question and so many others ran through his head every second of every minute of every day ever since the second memory of the child sprouted.

While he ate, another memory came to him. This time it was nighttime. They were outside. It was humid and warm. Luka guessed it was summer. He and the girl were sitting on some porch steps. They were looking up into the sky and naming constellations. Only the famous ones were mentioned for they were still young and could not memorize complicated ones. That was all he was able to see of the memory because he threw his cutleries unto his plate and stormed out of the Great Hall.

"Where to go?" Luka thought, "The lake will have at least one person. I don't want to deal with any creatures of the night, so the forrest is out. I can't go to the towers after that memory. I don't feel like getting punished for going to the dungeons tonight. I guess my dormitory is all that is left. That's ok; no one ever goes there anyway." He slowed his pace and controlled his breathing. He didn't care what people thought of him if they saw him storming down the hall like a lunatic. He just didn't want his emotions to get the best of him and give people a show. He got up the flight of moving stairs to the portrait in front of the slytherin common room. He uttered the password that would get him in. He was trying to block off his emotions. It wasnt working well. He had kept the reactions to all of the previous memories bottled up and now the bottle was full and overflowing. He could only make it to his room now; that was all he could hope for.

Once he was inside safely, he shut the door briskly. Luka started to take off the excess clothes he was forced to wear as if they were on fire and he feared they burned him. He took of his scarf and tossed it roughly on top of his trunk. His cloak he took off and stomped on top of it until it looked like it was part of the floor decor. His shoes he flopped off with difficulty. He was too lazy to untie them and so it took a couple of tries before each shoe loosened. His button up shirt had buttons no more. He ripped it off with the last bit of anger that was left within him. All the buttons popped out and flew at random places. He was left in only his pants, socks, and white under shirt, panting.

That was when he actually paid attention to his surroundings. He wasn't alone. He didn't need to turn around to face the other bunk to know this. He could smell his scent. Not in a creepy way of course, Luka had a sharp nose. He wanted to put a face with the scent, however, so he did turn around.

He saw a man who seemed slightly older than him. He had light colored hair. Luka remembered slightly that his guy was a death eater which made Luka respect him... to an extent. He stared at the other slytherin for a long while until, finally, Luka said, "I would explain to you why I just did that. However, I don't find myself in the need to explain myself to you or anyone else for that matter."

[Dante Black]

The sound of the door crashing back into its doorframe abruptly snapped Dante out of his thoughts and back into reality. It gave his heart quite a jolt, as he trained himself to prepare for the worst. At any moment it could have been Voldemort or a swarm of vengeful Death Eaters crashing into his room. Dante was prepared to fight with has wand held high at the new presence in the room, though he lowered it when he realized the boy was no threat to him. In fact, it didn’t seem to Dante as if his roommate even saw him. Dante was aware of his blood pressure and pulse dropping after spiking.

Dante watched curiously, highly amused, as the boy stormed around the room in a rage. He ripped off his clothing as if he had just fallen off the brink of insanity. Dante only hoped the stripping would stop at a reasonable point or else he would have to make himself known. Not that it wouldn’t have to happen eventually, but Dante wanted to enjoy this show as long as possible. As the boy’s shirt came off, the buttons were catapulted all over the small room, one landing on Dante’s bed next to him. He picked it up and began dropping it from one hand to the other.

Dante wondered what possibly could have happened to him that would leave him in such a tiff. The possibilities were endless considering he was a teenager at Hogwarts. Perhaps his girlfriend broke up with him. Or maybe he failed an important test, or fell out with a friend. Frankly, Dante didn’t care that much. It wasn’t any of his business; he just got to take pleasure in the after-effects. Schadenfreude was one of Dante’s less positive qualities.

A stare down of sorts commenced. It was the awkward kind that happens when one catches another doing something they thought was in private. Dante understood embarrassment and didn’t want to say the wrong thing, so he waited for the other boy to speak first. Perhaps he would redeem himself, or something like that. When he finally did speak up, though, Dante did gain some respect for him. He didn’t bumble and babble, trying to explain his actions. He kept what was his business private. Dante liked his mindset.

“Don’t worry about it, mate,” Dante responded bluntly, “I’m not interested.” Dante continued playing with the shirt button before he looked back up and added, “I think this is yours,” tossing it lightly across the room to the other boy. It was then that he realized he didn’t even know his name. Dante didn’t recognize any defining features that would connect him to a family the Blacks would know. He could only assume that he was a Pureblood, as a majority of Slytherins had untainted blood. As a gesture of greeting Dante stood up and held out his large hand, “Dante Black.”

[xianlotule]

Luka was relieved that the man didn't care about his personal life. If it had been someone else, they would have been persistent in knowing and would have said that it was good to talk to someone about your feelings. Luka knew this was a load of BS. When the guy tossed him one of his buttons, Luka caught it like any respectable person of the male gender would. "Thanks," Luka said. Dante introduced himself as a Black. "How lucky of me to be rooming with a Black."Luka thought bitterly. He hoped that the death eater would not brag about his status as a follower of the Dark Lord. He might stop respecting Dante if that happened and would not hold him back from punching him as a way to shut him up.

Dante held out his hand which Luka took with a firm grip. "Luka Pulaski" he said simply. "You know, it is quite nice having a tolerable person for a roommate. I'm surprised we hadn't met before." Luka smirked, "I'm assuming you aren't a gryffindor lover, correct? So many slytherings are now actually hanging out with those blokes. " He hated how so many slytherings still called themselves followers of the Dark Lord's ways even though they talked and associated themselves with gryffindors and hufflepuffs. Ravenclaws were tolerable depending on who they were. It was despicable.

Luka then realized that Dante had been able to distract him completely from his memories and that he had had no other memories in the expanse of time they had talked. "Thank you." Luka said seriously. This was the first time his mind was clear of the child for a long time.

[Dante Black]

Pulaski, Dante thought. He’d never heard of that family before. They obviously weren’t a wealthy Pureblood family or else Dante would at least recall the name. When he still lived at home his parents introduced to him to too many high-status families to count. The Pulaski’s definitely were not one of them. Dante began to doubt his first guess at blood status. It was more likely that this Luka kid was a half-blood. There was far more of them running around those days.

Luka’s Gryffindor comment made Dante chuckle deeply. Apparently Dante still held himself like a true Slytherin. Looks can be deceiving, my friend. Dante’s thoughts flickered to Emilia and Alaya, his only real friends at the school. It was ironic that the only two people he could stand happened to be Gryffindors, beside Luka. If it counted for anything, though, he used to want them dead. He used to be just as much of a Death Eater as any of Voldemort’s loyal followers. Unless he was a new recruit, Dante knew Luka wasn’t a Death Eater either or else he would have seen him at the meetings. Of course there were always the people who supported the cause but not enough join it.

Dante took some time to think about his response. “I’ve personally found a select group of Gryffindors to be quite bearable. It’s the Hufflepuffs I can’t stand, the load of pansies,” he spat. Hopefully he would be able to avoid a disagreement with Luka. He had hoped they would be able to become friends, as Dante was in need of another boy to spend his time with. All his time with Emilia and Alaya needed to be balanced out with a healthy serving of testosterone.

The serious tone in Luka’s voice spoke to the honesty of his thankfulness. It took Dante back slightly, as that was the last thing he expected out of his mouth. The only thing Dante did for Luka deserving of thanks was returning his button, but Dante knew it wasn’t that. “Thank you?” Dante echoed with a quizzical look on his face.

[xianlotule]

Luka was surprised to hear that there were some gryffindors that Dante found tolerable. Surprised and outraged. He didn't say anything against that topic because he didn't feel like ruining his chance to a male ally in the school. The only other person who talked to him and who he would actually talk to was Inri. Luka needed some guy time. Someone to share beefy jokes with and to have chugging contests against. He chuckled at the pansy commented because that was the truth at its purest form. Hufflepuffs were the biggest load of cowards there ever was. "Gryffindors that are tolerable? I have yet to meet one. Well, I don't exactly go around talking to them either or to anyone for that matter. You are actually the second person I have ever had a conversation with that has lasted more than 2 minutes. This excludes professors that get me in trouble of course" He did need to be more social; his life would suck if he didn't do it soon.

"Damn,' Luka thought, "I shouldn't have said thank you out loud. Now I'll have to explain myself." Luka scratched the back of his head. He did this whenever he wanted to stall for time. He squinted his right eye trying to find the right words to explain his gratitude. "You see, Dante. I've been having... a war with my brain. It keeps sending me these memories that I have no idea where they come from, and... well... you were actually a distraction from that whole mess in my brain that was going on before I turned around and realized you were in the room." He hoped that would suffice. "I guess I ended up explaining myself to you after all."

[Dante Black]

Dante almost groaned. He thought Luka would be respectable enough not to dump his life problems on him. It even seemed like he would keep them to himself for a while. Dante had enough things on his plate to keep him busy for a while; he didn’t need his new mate turning out to be psychotic. It was nothing against Luka, it was only the fact that Dante had hoped his friend to be a sort of escape. Everything around them was frustrating, dramatic, chaotic. Dante had wished for some sort of normal male relationship. One of those guys he could go to when he wanted someone to ogle at girls with or someone to cause trouble with. As stupid as it seemed, every guy needed a friend for that, and Luka was so close to qualifying for the job.

Emotional, real deep stuff was never Dante’s strong suit. It just wasn’t in his genes to be particularly sympathetic. Luka’s situation was probably something tough to deal with but frankly it didn’t concern Dante. He hadn’t wanted anything to do with it in the first place and he was going to get out of it as fast as he could. “Don’t mention it,” he said, not sure whether he meant it literally. Dante could feel a sort of heavy awkwardness just ready to pour into the air. It was time to change the topic before it got there.

With a quick glance behind his shoulder to his bed, Dante stepped backward and returned to his perch atop his dark green sheets. The old bed creaked softly under the boy’s weight. He figured if they were physically more comfortable then the conversation had a better chance of leaning toward something he was more comfortable talking about, assuming Luka followed suit. Dante was curious about something. It certainly wasn’t a lighter topic, but it was one he was interested in. Depending on the way it went, it could solidify or ruin their new relationship. “So, you’re not a fan of Gryffindors. I can only assume you’re a Death Eater?” Dante was almost sure he was going to have to dance around his responses for the sake of holding back some of his not-so-decent past.