Insomnia // Joan

Daphne couldn't sleep. She'd been tossing and turning for several hours now, unable to slip away into the realm of dreams. The fight from earlier swirled about in her mind, the incident replaying itself over and over again. She should have been happy; she had, after all, stood up to one of the school's biggest bullies, earning herself the respect of the house's senior students. But instead she just felt empty. At first she'd felt angry, followed by exhausted, and now she just felt drained and absolutely empty.

Kicking her blankets off her, she sat up, listening to the soft snores and grunts of her sleeping room-mates. Rubbing her hands over her eyes, the blonde let out a soft sigh. She knew she had to get to bed otherwise she would end up falling asleep in her classes the next day (which was never a good look), but her brain just couldn't shut off. Looking over to the top of her trunk, her eyes rested longiingly on her violin. It was in times like these that the only way she wanted to sneak out to the Great Lake or to the Astronomy Tower and just play all night, playing her worries away. But she couldn't risk sneaking out and getting herself into more trouble than she was already in. So that would would have to wait.

Tearing her gaze away from the violin, she grabbed her woolen duvet off her bed (her baby blanket which her mother had knitted for her while pregnant) wrapped it around herself like a cloak, and headed downstairs. Most nights when she couldn't sleep, she would go downstairs and lay on one of the couches, watching the Great Lake through the common room windows. Once or twice she'd seen the Giant Squid, floating by, its unblinking eye staring into the common room. She loved the Squid. She hoped that she might see it tonight; she needed some cheering up.

TAGGED``: joan
OUTFIT``: pjs, blanket
NOTES``: sorry for the lameness; starters really aren't my thing -__-

It had been a rather good day for Joan. She had had a kick-ass Quidditch practice session, she had done pretty well in classes and she had got an owl from her aunt, whose letters always made her smile. Not many people knew that Morganne had been the only support Joan had ever had in life. Her parents had been murdered when she was just a baby, and her mother's sister had adopted her and raised her as if she was the daughter she had never had. She owed everything to Morganne, and that was exactly why she tried to be a good student and a good Quidditch player, because she wanted her aunt to be proud of her. It would have been a pity to happen otherwise, especially since she had suffered so much more than Joan over the loss of her parents, because she was just a baby. But Morganne had lost her sister, as well as her brother-in-law, who had slowly become one of her best friends.

It was good now however. She seemed to have got over the loss, and Joan had got used to only having her aunt by her side. That was exactly why she was so happy whenever she got a letter or a present from her, and she made sure every time that she offered something in exchange. However, as good of a day as it had been, Joan still couldn't sleep. Rarely did it happen to her, because she had a very active lifestyle and she needed rest more than most of the other students. This night however, it was like nothing clicked for her to drift into peaceful sleep. She was either too cold or too hot, one of her roommates kept snoring and there was noise outside. Sighing to herself, she quietly got out of bed. She pinned her hair up into a messy ponytail, put a robe on and grabbed her pillow, then slowly slipped out of the room and on her way to the common room. She tactfully went down the stairs, not expecting to also find someone else over there. It was only when she got to the couch that she spotted another blonde girl standing by the window, staring outside.

"Oh, hi. I didn't expect someone else to be here. Rough night?" she asked politely.


looks.

There was something oddly soothing about watching the Great Lake at night. Pulling her blanket closer around her, she snuggled up, watching the aquatic darkness. She wondered what her father would say when he found out about the fight. Probably nothing good. She wrinkled her nose at the thought of the letter lecture she'd receive, along with the potential Howler. She suddenly missed her mother more than she had all year; her mother had always been the one to calm her down when things got rough. Her mother was much kinder than her dad, and as such she was always the one that Daphne turned to. Her father was just too rough and grizzly for her to want to deal with. She loved him, but he was certainly not the favoured parent.

Sitting up, Daphne pulled her knees to her chest, hugging them and resting her chin on top. She wondered what her punishment would be. If it had been in the common room where she had punched Malfoy, it wouldn't have been such a big deal; Professor Snape would have likely covered it all up and hushed it up as best as he could, like he had with the Hippogriff incident in her third year. But getting into a fight with Draco in front of the majority of the school was something that was going to be harder to hush up. Frankly Daphne doubted if it even could be hushed up. She knew that she'd be getting detention for the next few months at the very least. But she was worried what else would be in store for her; she had a feeling that Snape would come up with some very unpleasant punishments for her humiliating his favourite student in such a way.

She'd just been on the verge of nodding off when someone greeted her. Turning, Daphne saw one of the elder girls wandering in, and to her comment the younger girl just gave a sleepy smile. "You missed all the fun. Well, I say fun. I don't think Malfoy and Parkinson would see it that way," she added, the smile turning into a devious grin. "I think I broke Malfoy's nose..." She'd had fun putting that brat into his place. Maybe a bit too much fun. Her temper was just a tad worrisome sometimes, but Daphne didn't want to think about it. Her anger was rational; she was standing up for a friend. Any decent human being should have done the same in that situation.

TAGGED``: joan
OUTFIT``: pjs, blanket
NOTES``: so i forgot to mention that this was supposed to be set after a topic that michi, leda and i are yet to do where daphne punches draco for being an ass to daphne's new gryffindor friend. pansy probably got hexed in the fight too. daphne's uber proud xD and she also punched draco in her third year, as you can tell

For Joan, it was not unexpected to be seen like that, unlike most of the other girls at Hogwarts. You'd say that they were more innocent and natural than the muggle teenagers, but it was not like that. She was different however, and not necessarily because she wanted to, but because her active lifestyle and her never-ending sessions of Quidditch practice got in the way. That was why her hair was messy most of the time and she rarely had any make-up on. However, no matter how arrogant this may sound, this fact did not get in the way of her being one of the good-looking girls in school. Needless to say, her frequent workouts and usual healthy eating helped a lot with that.

So apart from having a robe on, she did not look much different from any other day. Rather happy to have someone to talk to since she couldn't sleep anyway, she gave Daphne a smile while dropping her big pillow on one of the couches. However, as the younger girl went on telling her what she had been up to while Joan was up in her room, her smile slowly faded away. She was not much of a friend with Draco nor Pansy, but she hated when people fought, especially inside the same House. She did not agree much with the Slytherins making fun of other students either, but it was even worse when it happen inside their own gang, if we may say so.

"Oh my God, what happened?" she asked, obviously concered about the well-being of everyone involved. "Is everyone okay? Is Malfoy okay?"

Daphne watched the older girl for a second, though averting her gaze after a couple of seconds so she wouldn't get caught staring. She'd never interacted with Joan much because she didn't really interact with anyone who was older than her, but she was in awe how Joan always managed to look perfect. On the Quidditch pitch, in class. Even now, in only a robe. She reminded her a lot of her Santana, who also had to be perfect to the outside world except unlike her best friend, Joan was actually kind. It explained why she'd gotten to be prefect, and Sanny got left on the sidelines.

"Unfortunately he's fine. Madam Pomfrey mended his nose pretty quickly so I think the real damage was only to his ego." She couldn't help but smirk at the thought of Malfoy being shamed right in front of so many people. It hadn't escaped her attention that a set of redheaded twins had also seen her defend a Gryffindor's honour and that fact made her smile a bit wider, but she instantly sobered and forced the smile off her face as she remembered she was talking to a prefect. She wasn't exactly sure what Joan's relations with Malfoy and his little pug-faced lapdog were, but she knew that any prefect would frown upon such actions. They were prefects for a reason - to make sure that stuff like this didn't happen.

The girl sighed and ran a hand through her hair, as she began her explanation. "He was bullying a friend of mine. Right in front of everyone. I don't care about our rivalry with the Gryffindors, because bullying is bullying. I told him to lay off, he said make me, and long story short - I punched him. And then of course his little bi--erm I mean, Parkinson, joined in and was going to kill me so I hexed her and..." she trailed off, giving a shrug. "Snape's furious of course, and no doubt I'm gonna hear an earful from my dad, but someone needed to put that little cockroach in his place," she muttered the last half of the sentence, dropping her gaze and playing with the hem of her top.

TAGGED``: joan
OUTFIT``: pjs, blanket
NOTES``: sorry, i forget you like shorter posts! my muses tend to run away from me and ramble, so don't feel like you have to match this length. This is Santana btw

Joan was not in any kind of relationship with Malfoy. In fact, they were not even friends, but she simply wasn't that fond of violence and fighting and showing off with that. Not that she felt like Daphne was showing off at the moment, not at all. She actually understood what the younger girl was saying, because she completely disagreed with some of her Housemates' behaviour as well. That was probably why she had been made a Prefect, despite the fact that she hadn't even tried hard for that position. But there were only seven years of school, and these were supposed to be the most beautiful years of their lives! They were supposed to learn stuff, make friends and have fun while they were young, because more difficult tasks were going to gush over them once they were out of school. Hogwarts was not for making enemies, in her opinion; they had enough time for that afterwards.

The blonde sighed, gently plopping down on the couch. "I hate this type of behaviour. Not yours, theirs... Of course, don't think that I agree with the way you decided to deal with this, but I would have probably done the same if one of my friends was in your friend's position," she said, then chuckled softly, realizing that she probably sounded like one of the teachers. "You know, sometimes I feel like I have been put in the wrong House. Not that I don't like it here. Au contraire - I am a Slytherin to the core of my heart, but I simply can't adjust to this bullying thing. I mean, I am not a good person and I get mean at times as well, but trust me, that's only when I have a damn good reason for that. Not just like that, for fun," she explained, shrugging lightly.

The truth was that Joan had not always been so mature and wise. Actually, in her first two years of school or so, she had taken this Slytherin thingy very serious, and she had turned into a major bitch as well. She was like, the female version of Draco Malfoy or something, but luckily, unlike him, she had realized at some point that there was no use in being that way, and that she didn't get anything good out of it. So at the moment, she was trying to change. Not pose into something that she was not, but truthfully change and become a better person, though she still made mistakes, and enough of them as well.