Mason grabbed his coat from Ravenclaw tower and met Thea at the front door of the castle. Sonny pulled on his coat and made sure his wallet was inside. With that, they walked down to Hogsmeade together, chatting and talking about things unrelated to the holiday that was currently being celebrated by most of the Hogwarts students and staff. Even as they walked down the steps from the castle, they could see that Hogsmeade had a distinctive red and pink glow. Mason suppressed a groan. They finally made their way onto the streets of the small village.

"To Puddifoots first!" Sonny exclaimed, leading the way to the small tea shop that smelled of an elderly woman's perfume. Puddifoots had gone all out for Valentine's Day. Doilies covered almost every surface in the small space. Couples sat in booths, and in the white wire chairs. Their normal window table was open. Mason wove his way through pairs of young witches and wizards until he got to their usual seat.

The sale he'd heard of was plastered over the front of the menu. Half-off all couples drinks. The amount of vibrant red hues amounted into a huge eyeroll from Hawkins. He saw something that interested him. "I think I'm going to try the peppermint hot chocolate, what are you thinking about?" Mason asked across the table to Thea. He looked at the glass case near the register, he eyed a red-velvet cupcake. He was hungrier than he originally thought he was.

The air in Puddifoot's which had seemed pleasantly cozy after their walk over i n the biting February cold, was now beginning to seem stifling. Thea shed her sweater and looked around at the stop. Frilly under the best of circumstance's Valentine's Day had brought to the little tea shop an absolute explosion of doilies and non-anatomically correct hearts.  Fat little cupids, complete with tiny diapers and bow and arrows zipped to and fro, buzzing excitedly in voices too high pitched to make out.

Thea bit her lip and glanced at the menu, trying to ignore the fact thateeverywhere around them were couples in various states of romantic bliss. A booth to their left emitted disturbing toilet plunger like sounds that had Thea on the verge of either laughing or gagging.

"I was trying to decide between that and the cinnamon. Can I try yours?" She asked Mason. A particularly loud smooching nose reached her ears, and Thea couldn't help giggling. "God, can you believe these people? Why would you even want to behave that way in public?"

“Sure” Mason said, putting his menu down, trying to ignore the loud suction sounds coming from behind Absinthe. He kept his head down, trying to keep his breakfast in his stomach. “I have no clue why anyone would, it’s kind of gross in public. Good in movies, bad in reality.” Sonny said, peeling his bubble coat, making him sweat in the cramped tea shop as hot as an oven. He draped it over the back of his chair and leaned away from it, putting his elbows on the table, even if it wasn’t proper table manners.

A small waitress walked over and took their orders, Mason surprised himself by adding that amazing looking cupcake to their order. Once the server had left he turned back to Thea, “I’m craving something a little sweet, it’s Valentine’s day, I can spoil myself.”

Thea giggled--and then took a moment to be surprised by such an airy sound tinkling from her own mouth. "Yeah, I suppose you're allowed. But...you sound like a girl." She flicked her eyes up to meet his and then looked back down at her hands, which were knotted together. She felt an ache in her chest with every grotesque sucking noise from behind her, riiding the heels of a brief spike of nausea. Pathetic as it was, she was sad to be alone.

A long-forgotten memory briefly surfaced in her mind. Her father and grandmother, on their annual Valentine's date date (the kind of dorky thing apparently done by all men living at home with their mothers, even the absurdly rich ones. She had always thought it was sort of sweet, one of the only sweet things that went on in their house). They were in the sunroom, clinking bone china tea cups while her father counted down the minutes until he'd be released. They didn't know that little Thea was crouched outside the door, trailing her hand over the yarn hair of the doll she felt no particular attachment to but dragged around out of a sense of odd toddler-y obligation.

"Son," her grandmother had said, in her creaky voice, "I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a disappointment that your date on Valentine's Day is your mother. If you hadn't run off with that...whore..." her voice trailed off, and Thea heard the clinking of something that sounded less like a teapot, and more like the crystal bottles of amber liquid that filled the cabinet in the sitting room.

"Mother," Father had replied tersely, "I hardly think that's fair. You know as well as I do that she was...abnormal. I was..bewitched and--"

"Shut up! God, what if the child hears you? You let your foolish need to rebel ruin your life, and now you've got a child to look after.  And she's out there waiting to ensnare another foolish, idiotic~"

And then Thea was screaming. She threw the doll down and covered her hands with her ears. For some reason she couldn't explain, listening to this was stabbing at her somewhere she'd never felt. "My mummy" a word she'd never used before "was not ...whore!" The dirty word felt foreign on her tongue.

Needless to say she'd been sorely punished, the doll taken and the door to her room locked. "You have no idea what you're talking about," her father told her, voice low and taut like a drum. "You have no idea."

The memory dissapated like a smoke, and Thea felt tears stinging her eyes. It took her a moment to realize where she was, and then she looked up at Mason. Things like this were happening with alarming frequency--she'd fall into a memory, most often involving her mother, and suddenly the present would break away. Abruptly, she couldn't act as though she was happy, or normal, when she felt like she was blurry at the edges. "Mase..I think I'm going crazy." 

It was fantastic to hear Thea laugh again, it brightened Mason’s day with each giggle, je couldn’t help but laugh himself. He was kind of acting like a girl, but it was Valentine’s day and he felt obligated to act somewhat feminine to make up for his lack of romantic relations. He chuckled and picked up the knife sitting at the table. He twirled it around and placed it back down on the napkin. Thea had gone silent. Her body was sitting in the chair across from Mase, but her mind was elsewhere. “Are you okay Abby?” He asked, using his nickname for her to draw her out of wherever she was. “Absinthe.” He used her full name, she was deep in thought. The waitress brought their drinks and Sonny’s cupcake.

Thea finally snapped out of it and returned to reality. Mason took a sip of his hot drink, it was perfect, just what he needed. “Thea, you’re the least crazy person I know, well, i could also be rubbing off on you, but I don’t think it’s anything to worry about.” Mase tried to joke, but her face and tone of voice were serious. He tried to lighten the mood by taking his butter knife and slicing through his cupcake. He put one half onto his napkin and slid it over to his anti-Valentine. “Here, I can’t eat the whole thing.” He lied, wanting to eat the whole cupcake, and the cupcake in the glass case near the register and the biscotti’s in the jars and the croissants in the kitchen, but he picked up his fork and lightly took off a corner of his cupcake half.

He scooped it into his mouth. “It’s good.” He assured her, taking another small sip of his beverage.

"Thea, you're the least crazy person I know...."

The words were like balm, warm and relieving. Thea bit her lip and nodded slightly. But she couldn't just let it go. "Well I'm boring," she murmured, "But that doesn't make me sane. I keep having these...episodes, if you will. I just fall backwards, through time, and...I talk to myself..." her eyes met his as he slid the half-cupcake across the table, and she trailed off. He looked so sure, so happy. And she could tell by his expression that he wanted that cupcake. But he was letting her share, to make her feel better.

Suddenly it sounded so stupid. Out loud, her voice was wheedling and unsure, her concerns blown out of proportion--annoying, perhaps, but not insane. She lifted her fork and scooped a bite out of the cupcake. It was warm and moist and everything cupcakes, in general, should aspire to be. She immediately reached for another bite, and before she knew it she'd consumed a half of her half. She felt better already, as if the darkness that had plagued her was swirling on a lower level than normal, dormant.

"I mean, it'd just be terribly inconvenient for me to go losing my mind? We've still got exams to take." She tried to play it off lightly, searching Sonny's face for a reaction that might indicate he found her ridiculous or unstable or something--and trying to ignore the way his eyes twinkled and the corners of his mouth curved up and his cheeks were stained with a red she found adorable.

Mason laughed at Thea's jokes here and there, he was glad his cupcake had made her feel a little better. “You’re not boring, or sane, if you were sane you would have stayed far away from me. If you hadn’t noticed yet, I’m sixteen years old, collect comic books, bake, get my butt stuck to the inside of igloos, and enter deadly age-old wizard tournaments, I’m not exactly the image of sanity” Sonny pointed out, ditching his fork and bare handed his cupcake. He took a massive bite and smiled with his mouth closed as he chewed happily.

“Sometimes it’s more fun to take exams as a nut, more creative responses come about. In Ancient Runes one time, our professor asked us to write an essay on what our favorite thing about Gringotts was, and instead of saying like, the architecture, or the magical security, or something somewhat normal, I wrote on how I enjoyed the shortness of the goblins, no joke.” Mason paused and frowned a bit. “She didn’t think I was serious,” But his eyes and ears perked up a bit, “but I did get a good grade on it, so that’s all that matters.”

At the mention of the Tournament, Thea's eyebrows knitted together again--although in an almost relieving way, as if to say "here, this is something any sane person would worry about". The idea of Mason risking his life set her on edge, but she didn't want him to see her losing it yet again, so she shook her head indulgently and sighed, "Mase, if you get killed my life will be so much less interesting." This, at least, was true.

"You really got a decent grade...by saying you like their shortness?" Thea laughed in response to Mase's essay topic. "Why do you like it so much?" she put on a mockingly understanding grin, "Does it make you feel less midget-like?" Of course, Mason was of pretty normal height--certainly taller than her, although that wasn't a difficult milestone to achieve. But poking fun at him made her feel normal and happy, and besides, she knew he could take it.

"Thank you for coming here with me, and listening to my psychosis, and just...existing," Thea said after a moment, smiling at him shyly.

"Yes, I compensate for my shortness by saying that I enjoy the shortness of others, especially tiny, ugly goblins. I have a great respect for Goblins, but it's so hard to have a decent conversation with them because they're so serious and so short you want to crouch down and pat their head!" Mason laughed, trying not to keel over in a much-too-loud laughing fit.

"Well I like to exist, it's one of my favorite things to do." Sonny smiled with an impish grin. "And anytime you need an amateur therapist and a cup of cocoa, I'll be here for you." Mase tipped his mug back for the last drop of peppermint delight, a whipped cream moustache sitting on his lip. He pretended to stroke it thoughtfully, "You think I'd look good with facial hair?" He licked the whipped stache off his upper lip and his mouth curled into a smile that was a few sizes too big for his face.

"You wanna go to Honeydukes after?"