When Thea stole the photograph at the ripe old age of seven, it had not been a premeditated affair. Rather, her moment of thievery had come from the sort of heat-of-the-moment impulse that she rarely experienced and therefore stood very little chance against. Having spent her whole life thus far being conditioned into emotional numbness, Thea was powerless against the sudden surge of raw feeling that coursed through her the first time she laid eyes on the creased photo in the top drawer of her father's dresser.

To be fair, if he hadn't meant for her to see it, he should've hidden it better--at least, that was what she told herself. Although not generally curious, Thea had at that age held a keen interest in her father, who was more of a figure in her life than a true personality. As he was usually at work, Thea found herself with a lot of time to do things like snoop through his belongings--the few of them there were. His entire room seemed barren--no pictures, not even of her. When she opened his drawers and ran her fingers over the silky ties, their coolness reminded her of him enough so that she turned away, shoving the drawer closed only to feel it catch. She pushed harder, and heard a tearing sound. Immediately, fear coursed through her. Had she broken the drawer, or worse, ripped a tie? Frantically, she squeezed her skinny, seven-year-old arm into the space between the drawer and the dresser itself, feeling for a blockage. Her finger skimmed the edge of something papery, and she worked it loose.

In her hand was a picture, folded in half and then in half again until it resembled a small paper bundle. When she unfolded it along well-worn creases, careful to mind the tear she'd produced in the upper right corner, her breath caught. Staring up at her was herself. Well, no, that was absurd. This woman was obviously older than her, with darker, wavier hair, and a happier expression than Thea had ever felt grace her own features. However, there was no mistaking the resemblance, and in that instant she was surer than she had ever been of anything before that she was looking into the face of the mother she'd never known.

When her father returned to his room an hour later and found his daughter criss-cross on the floor, staring wide-eyed as though hypnotized at the photograph, she was sure he would kill her. He certainly wasn't one for big displays of emotion, and yet this seemed a severe enough offense to warrant one. However, Marcus Darby had merely regarded his daughter and the picture with an impassive stare. "You can have it, if you'd like." he said finally. And so Thea took it.

The picture remained, for the most part, as tucked away as it had been under its previous owner. It was only on particularly dreadful days that Thea felt the need to pull it out and run her fingers over its glossy surface, half-formed words of comfort drifting through her mind, things she imagined a mother might say. This was one of those days, and yet as her fingers scrabbled along the bottom of her trunk, Thea found the picture conspicuously absent. Not one to misplace things, or keep her belongings messy enough that it might have gotten lost in the shuffle, Thea came immediately to the conclusion that her picture had been stolen. Hysteria tore through her, startling her with its intensity. She squeezed her hands into fists and breathed deeply, stock-still until she was sure that she could open her mouth without screaming. Then she calmly pushed herself to her feet, dusted invisible dust particles off the front of her sweater, and walked at a leisurely pace down to the common room, where she immediately spotted one of her roommates, a girl who went by Evie. She had always seemed just a little off to Thea, and this ignorant judgement was all she needed to form an accusation.

"You," Thea said evenly, lowering herself daintily onto the cushion beside the girl, "Haven't been going through my belongings by any chance, have you?"

Evelyn had a complex relationship with objects. It had started, as many complex relationships do, in her childhood. When you grew up with almost nothing to your name, there was a certain sacredness to be found in every glittery pencil given to you by a school teacher, and in every scrape bloody enough to be worth a band-aid. The most mundane objects took on immense value in the world of the children's home. Every scratch-and-sniff sticker became like currency, and every shiny rock was a jewel. If you actually had something special? There was every likelihood that it would get snatched, or “accidentally” broken, or both. Evie had picked up on the importance of ownership in her odd little society very early on, and even once she was sprung from the children's home and given her own room and her own things, she could never quite lose the feeling that she had to protect every object she was lucky enough to own. There were still several things in her life that felt just as sacred to her as they had back when she was an eight year old orphan, hoarding silver flecked pebbles and dried dandelions as if they were treasures.

She kept the most important things in her knapsack. In fact, she kept everything she could in her knapsack. Evelyn had an uncontested amount of experience with featherweight and shrinking charms, which she used regularly to make every precious artifact portable. The knapsack, packed with everything she'd want to save in a fire (and a little more) sat at the foot of the sofa she was curled up on, right where she could see it. If she had to curl up with any book, a textbook wouldn't have been her first choice, but she'd secured herself a nice, cozy nook. The material had proven to be less dry than she'd initially anticipated, and the spot had been more comfortable than she'd expected, and the Evie-cat was purring, content in the knowledge that she had secured herself the very best spot in the house. She may as well have been on her own pleasure planet, where there was nothing but time and the scent of ink. Her spot was warm and her hoard was safe – which meant she was free to let the content on the page expand to fill her whole mind, sucking her in completely.

"You haven't been going through my belongings by any chance, have you?” 

She didn't realize, at first, that she was being spoken to. She felt the shifting of the sofa, however, and she became acutely aware of the sound of words trying to cut through her thoughts, but she hadn't heard a thing that the other girl said. It wasn't until she hazarded a glance up from her book that her eyes fell on her housemate, who was sitting a little too close to be there by chance, and realized she'd been speaking. Nobody else was close enough to have been the intended target of her words, so Evie was left to assume that Thea was speaking to her.

“What did you say?” she asked, setting the book down on her lap. It must have been important, because Thea wasn't generally in the habit of going out of her way to speak to Evie – though Evie didn't go out of her way to speak to her, either. It was very curious. She sat up a little straighter, sacrificing her cocoon of warmth the slightest bit. “Did you need something?” 

Thea raised an eyebrow. "Did I need...?" she trailed off incredulously. "No, it appears that you were the one who needed something. Something...of mine, perhaps?" She scooted just a centimeter closer on the couch, resenting the coziness Evelyn was obviously experiencing whilst she herself was frantic, a sensation that did not sit well with her. She was well aware of the uncomfortable effect that her overly formal presence could have on people, and hoped to exploit it.

Thea didn't know a lot about Evelyn--actually, she didn't know anything about her. She had never seen fit to make a friend out of the odd girl, and past their introductions at the beginning of their First year, she could scarcely recall speaking more than a handful of words to her. However, in the heat of this particular moment--which could, ironically, be compared to the heat of the moment that had led Thea to snatch the photograph in the first place--it seemed entirely logical that Evie was the reason Thea's photo had gone missing, that she and her sticky fingers had lifted it from Thea's trunk for no reason other than personal enjoyment, and she was struck by the unfairness of it all. Who was this girl to go rifling through her things? Who was she to take something that could not possibly have any relevance to anyone other than Thea? Was it just some kind of sick game?

Blood pounded in her ears, but Thea's voice remained steady, her expression stiff but not aggressive. The only giveaway was her right hand, balled into a tight fist, the knuckles white. "Why would you go through my things, Evelyn?"

Evelyn could not, for the life of her, figure out what this girl might be talking about. She needed something of Thea's? She hadn't yet jumped to the conclusion that she was being accused of theft. Instead, she was wracking her brain for what she could only assume was a missing memory – had she asked to borrow something belonging to this girl and then forgotten about it? She didn't think so. They weren't in many of the same classes, so she was sure she would have remembered needing to borrow some a book or some such thing from this particular dorm mate, if only because it would have been an unusual happenstance. Her face was blank and open as she contemplated this, but she ultimately came up empty, shaking her head slowly out of a combination of confusion and denial. There had been a mistake, clearly. “I don't need anything,” Evie told her, with complete earnestness. It may have looked, to someone who'd already made up their mind, like she was playing dumb, but in this case she really was dumb – or ignorant, anyway. She wasn't used to being ambushed.

"Why would you go through my things, Evelyn?”

It was with those words that she really caught on, though her rather mild, stoic expression didn't change. She began to shake her head again, to suggest that no, she hadn't gone through anything of anybody's. “I haven't gone through your things,” she responded evenly, now entirely certain that some mistake had been made. The thought of someone going through Evie's thing was enough to make her sick to her stomach. In addition to being a very independent sort of person, she was also very private, and liked it that way. She had nothing incriminating amongst her things, but she still cringed to imagine someone pawing through her journals, or, Merlin forbid, tampering with the brooch she'd had since infancy – the one that had ultimately been her salvation. Her hand absently slinked up toward the shrunken journal she kept on a faux leather strand around her neck, and she stroked the cord with the tip of her index finger. “I would never do anything like that. Did someone tell you I had?” 

Thea smiled without any warmth. In fact if anything, the expression settled over her face like a frost. "Nobody had to tell me, Evelyn." She watched Evie's hand float towards the necklace she wore, something that looked vaguely like a tiny book, and anger spiked through her. Look at Evie, coddling some inane little necklace while Thea's own most important belonging was nowhere to be found.

She wondered how Evie would like it if she leaned forward and snatched that little book from around her neck. Even better, if she snatched it away in the dark of the night, leaving the girl reeling. She wondered how Evie would feel if Thea explained what that picture meant to her, how rude it was to take it, how lost she would be without the words of her mother--imagined though they may be--that were sometimes the only thing that got her through a day, the only thing that--

Thea felt her blood being raised to a boil, and took a moment to compose herself. "Look, Evelyn, I don't know why you took it"--if she hadn't already been committed to this path, she may have taken a moment to realize that she didn't even know why she thought Evie had taken it--"and I don't particularly care. If you'd be so kind, I'd simply like you to return it to me."

“I haven't taken anything,” Evie insisted as her stomach churned a bit uncomfortably. She knew she hadn't taken anything – she hadn't even been in the dorm much tonight – but Thea seemed so sure of it! Evelyn's stomach wasn't churning from guilt, but from a kind of anxiety. Why had she been singled out as a thief? She didn't have any way to prove that she hadn't taken whatever it was that she was being accused of snatching, which left her with one very simple, very weak defense. If Thea hadn't believed her the first time she'd said that she hadn't taken it, why would she believe her the hundredth? She hadn't done a thing, but, even so, she feared she was about to make an enemy.

Evelyn dropped her hand from her necklace and shifted uncomfortably on the sofa, completely destroying any hope of going back to that exact, perfectly comfortable position anytime soon. Her hair, fairy-free for a change, was a bit mussed in places, and she looked a bit like a small child who'd woken from a nap. “What's missing?” she asked,  imagining that knowing what it was that she was being accused of having stolen might shed some light on why she was being accused of having stolen it. What might someone else think would be attractive enough to Evie that she'd steal it? A book? A dress?  A beetle? Even if she had envied something of Thea's – which, to her knowledge, she hadn't – then she still wouldn't have helped herself. She had her own collection of precious things to keep track of.

“Is it possible that you only lost it?” she asked, knowing full well that such a suggestion likely wouldn't do much good. She wouldn't have gone out of her way to accuse someone if there was any chance that whatever had been taken was merely missing... would she? That seemed a bit extreme. If something of Evie's had gone missing then she would have turned the room upside down long before she asked anyone else about it. That was responsible. “I can help you look, if you'd like me to.”

The beginnings of doubt nibbled at Thea's brain at Evie's seemingly clueless response, but she shoved them aside. So what if she seemed innocent? People lied all the time--she herself particularly often. Besides, she had already committed to this, and it wasn't as though her only reason for the accusation was that Evie had been the first person she'd seen after entering the common room. That would be crazy. No, Evie looked...shifty. There had always been something a little bit off about her. With those fairies in her hair, it wouldn't surprise Thea if she had accidentally wandered by her trunk and plucked the photo out, with her head in the clouds.

"I don't lose things, Evelyn," Thea spat from between clenched teeth. Her fingernails were digging into her palm now, and she felt the wicked urge to gnaw on them. She needed that photograph. "And I think you certainly know what's missing since you're obviously the one who took it!" All the self restraint she could muster was beginning to fail her as her voice climbed through the octaves, growing increasingly more hysterical.

“You don't need to scream,” Evie chided, her voice emerging extra soft and subdued compared to Thea's frenzied shrieking. She seemed very, very certain that Evie, and no one else, had been the one who'd snatched the... the... well, she still didn't know what it was she was supposed to have snatched! Although it barely showed, Evelyn was really beginning to get frustrated with this situation. It was hard to solve a problem when you weren't sure exactly what the problem was. It was Thea, not Evie, who was withholding information, so there wasn't much else for her to say until her agitated dorm mate divulged a little bit more information. There would be no getting back to reading now, so she shut her book and reached for her knapsack on the floor, drawing the overcrowded thing up and into her lap. If you really wanted to keep track of your things, she thought, it was best to keep them on you at all times. She would have gone mad with all of her dearest possessions scattered all over the dorm, the way some of the girls lived.

She slipped the book into the main section of the knapsack. Although that section did have some magical enlargement charms on it, it didn't go quite as deep as some of the pockets – she could shove her entire arm in a few of those and not quite brush the bottom with her fingertips. She hugged the entire bag to her chest as she scooted forward on the sofa, until she was sitting on it properly, her bare toes resting on the ground. “I really don't know what you're looking for,” she repeated, for what felt like the twelfth time in a minute. “Tell me or I can't help you.” A hint of irritation had finally made its way into her voice. It took a lot to get her to that point – after all, Elijah was her brother. Maybe now she'd understand that when Evelyn asked a question, it was not for a lark – she wanted an answer. 

Thea noted with savage satisfaction that a note of annoyance was creeping into the other girl's voice. Good, let her get frustrated. A thief shouldn't get to sit there so smugly. "Don't chastise me!" Thea shrieked,  "I am not--" her jaw snapped shut and then opened again to emit a much calmer tone. "I am not shrieking. And I would simply love your help. You might help, for instance, by returning to me what is mine."

Nervous energy coursing through her, Thea sprang off the couch, still managing to look like a prissy ballerina even in her hysteria. "Please just give it back. I'm not going to beg, Evelyn. I don't understand why you would have taken it but I just really...I really need...it."

Thea trailed off as it occurred to her that other people in the room might be listening, might be disturbed by her continued outburst. At the same time, the idea that others were listening to this conversation made her increasingly more reluctant to mention what exactly had gone missing. Thea saw herself as unflappable, and to the best of her knowledge, this was the image that she projected to others as well. She couldn't let anyone hear her losing it over some silly photograph. Her resolve that Evie was the thief increased, for the mortifying alternative that she had been yelling about a missing object to someone for absolutely no reason was impossible to bear, and seemed to heap itself upon what had already been a very difficult day.

This girl clearly had nothing new to say to her. There would be no answers, no new information, and no insight. If she learned anything at all about the case of the missing whatever-it-was, it definitely wouldn't be from Thea herself. Evelyn had officially reached her shutdown point, and her brain shorted and then switched itself off. She would not ask any more questions knowing she wouldn't get answers, and she wouldn't listen to a delusional witch like her housemate repeating herself over and over. She was officially opting out of the conversation.

Evie leaned forward, resting her elbow on her knee and her chin on the palm of her hand and stared ahead, seeming to gaze at something fascinating across the room. Her face was thoroughly blank as she gazed into space, her almond-shaped brown eyes appearing unfocused. It wasn't clear whether Evelyn's ability to completely disengage from social interactions at will was a strength or a weakness, but it was a tactic she'd employed since she was very young. Sometimes she just decided she was done, and she retreated into her head, where the people were kind and the questions had answers. Thea could shriek and shriek until she was blue in the face, but she wasn't going to get a reaction from Evelyn Grimlish.

Thea continued her tirade, voice growing steadily more hysterical. She wrung her hands until they ached, trying to resist the urge to gnaw away at her nails. It took her a solid five minutes to notice that Evelyn was not only no longer listening, but had in fact completely checked out. She was staring into space like there was an entire universe scratched on some speck of dust floating between her gaze and the wall it seemed to be directed at.

"Excuse me, could you do me the esteemed privilege of listening to me? I figure it's the least you can do, considering how you stole my phot--belonging, and all." Thea didn't know exactly why she was so unwilling to reveal the nature of the stolen object. It might even be smarter to, especially because whether she wanted to admit it or not, it seemed that Evelyn truly had no idea what had happened to it, and telling the other girl what was missing might at least allow her to help Thea locate it.

Perhaps it was because she didn't want anyone else to know about it, lest they want to see it. Thea's mother was for her eyes only. Or maybe it was the strange sense of paranoia, that someone might somehow know, only from seeing the picture, about Thea's strange relationship with it, about how she spoke to it and how it seemed to answer her--despite being a Muggle photograph. Somewhere deep inside, Thea knew that this was a problem, indicative of something wrong with her, perhaps. But she was certainly not going to acknowledge that option, and so she was left ranting vaguely in the general direction of a girl who couldn't care less, and most likely had nothing to do with this situation. Making an utter fool of herself, where anybody could see. God, what her grandparents would think of her. What her father would think.

Thea's eyes began to water, and she bit her lip furiously, holding back the tears. "For God's sake, pull it together," she muttered, her eyes momentarily darting downward. Great, now she was talking to herself, adding yet another facet to her spectacle. "Do you think this is funny?" she demanded of the Grimlish girl.

Evie was acutely aware of a soft buzzing in her ear, as if she were sitting alone in a small room with a housefly. On the contrary, she was in a somewhat large room with one ranty, ravey mess of a housemate who couldn't seem to quit repeating herself in a variety of snarky and somewhat patronizing ways. Luckily for Thea (or perhaps unluckily, since all she seemed to want was a reaction), Evelyn didn't swat flies. She just let them be, leaving them to lead their little lives. It was one thing to know that she was being spoken to, and quite another to listen. Words were just sound, and any sound that wasn't entirely piercing or unpleasant could easily seem ambient to the meditative mind, especially if the sounds were constant. It was the kind of gift that was easiest to develop while growing up in a children's home, where you couldn't count on everyone in the place to quiet down just because one person needed a nap. Evelyn could fall asleep anywhere and tune out almost anything. Thea's voice may as well have been the whirring of a slightly defective table fan, or the sound of a bus engine as it tore down the road.

They usually walked away by now, she thought. She didn't engage in this sort of antisocial behavior to tick people off, but she was observant enough to know that it tended to have that effect, especially when it came to ineffective authority figures. If she said she didn't get at least a little bit of satisfaction from the way she seemed to passively drive people mad, she'd be lying – but it was still just a bonus. This girl was not giving up, however, which made it infinitely less satisfying to follow through with her spacey avoidance. In the past grown men had given up and lost interest long before now. Thea Darby was one persistent little gnat.

All at once the light seemed to return to her eyes and she turned her head to look at Thea, to try and figure out how far into her tirade she'd gotten. She looked... distinctly sad, Evie thought. Perhaps her little avoidance tactic had affected her more than she'd realized while she was actively ignoring her. She could only feel so bad for the purveyor of vague accusations, seeing as she was the accused party.

”Do you think this is funny?”

“Do I think what is funny?” she asked, covering her mouth with her three tallest fingers as she produced a great yawn. “You're being evasive and I don't have anything else to say. I think I'm going to get ready for bed now.” She gathered her bag in her arms and stood, ready to be done with this confusing ordeal.