Lucinda shuddered in her tiny ball, unable to stop herself from continuing to cry. She hated that she couldn't, she hated that she wasn't as strong as she hoped she was, she hated more it was in public, and even more it wasn't near someone she felt safe with. Rigel wasn't attacking and was trying to help, but she barely knew him, their only interaction was him outing her infront of a group of people and then calling her a creature.

As much as she did hate it, she half wished it didn't end, soon she would be going to the ministry again, soon she would be torn apart and rebuilt again. "I-i shouldn't of survived..." She muttered weakly. "It would of been better...i..i can't go through it again..." She said even quieter. It was a never ending cycle, that she would have to live with, never getting easier.

"Tell me a story..." She asked softly, loud enough to escape her ball properly but not to travel far from her, every time he touched her she would flinch and shudder, but she didn't make any move or action to try to get away from it.

He reacted to her shudders and pulled away. He smiled with an expression of pity she couldn’t see. He pivoted opposite to her, his knees faced hers. He pulled them up as well and thought.

“Okay, I’d love to.” He paused. No one has ever asked him to tell a story before.

“When I was a kid, I had a friend named Matteo. He and I would play soccer in Florence, down this little alley way. With cobbled stone walls as our goal posts. We’d usually play to ten or so goals. I always won. That didn’t matter with Matty. See he just liked hanging out with me. I don’t know why…” He paused. Rigel talked about Matteo with admiration and a sort of glow that accompanied someone who recalled a gleeful past.

“Him and I would play these soccer games every summer. Everytime I came to visit. Soon enough we were 16 and 17. Still playing these games. In fact, this became a tradition of sorts. We kept score on the same cobbled wall, ‘R & M’ with a big line under it with tally marks. Do you know how many games Matty won? Three.” He chuckled.

“Three games that kid won against me. He never was a sore loser, he never was a sore winner either. He was humble and modest and always said, ‘I’ll get you next time, Rig’. Those three games that I lost were the hardest games of soccer I have ever played. It was never an easy match. He always gave it his all. He didn’t care about the precedent that was set by his past games, not one bit, he took each game, each battle and looked it head on and gave it his all. After he lost, he would come back the next game losing an entirely different way, see he practiced. Which made me have to practice. He never lost the same way twice.” He shed a tear, he pulled the green grass out from its roots from his white knuckled hands, grimace and grinded his teeth to hold back a sob.

“To this day, everytime I’m in Florence, I go see Matty and I’s wall. The tallies are still there, the locals know of the games that we had; even sometimes watched us. His name is etched into the wall. When I die - so will mine.”

Lucinda groaned and got up, wiping her eyes again. "I-i guess normal stories are too happy for you aren't they? I bet the original Mulan where she offs herself is what you fall asleep to." Her voice, still shaky started to sound angry again. "How is that meant to help me calm down? Maybe I should just die and hope I get remembered fondly?"

She shook her head more and moved back from him, trying to get some space as she gripped her hoodie tighter, then put it on properly. "R-really nice story." She sniffled and wiped her eyes again as she can't hold back her crying still, despite trying to act tough again.

"I'm sorry y-you lost a friend but do you not k-know.." She struggled to catch her breath for a moment before continuing. "Any actually happy stories? You just want me to get sadder? You like it?" Her voice started to raise as she got angrier. "Do you get off to it? Just wanting to have people be miserable all the time so you can feel like the best person in the room? As you do a very good job it by revealing me and saying I'm not human, then trying to make a crying girl worse. Your girlfriend will just love you."

“Did you only listen to the negative aspects of that story? I don’t have a very happy life Lucinda, I’m not practiced in telling happy stories.” He said with a smile.It seemed he could only manage a phlegmatic smile during this interaction. His patience was being tested and he passed. He looked to his right and took a deep breath.

“Try not to focus on the negative, okay? Tell me what else you heard me say about Matteo, why did I tell you that story?”

She shook her head more, seeming to get angrier and more flustered as she's being questioned now. "I don't know! That you've managed to have friends that you could trust? That you took trips to Venice that didn't result in being mauled?" She gave a snarl, unable to think clearly now.

"What, is practice meant to help with something? You can't exactly practice having your body being ripped to shreds then reformed into Cousin It!" Slowly she took another step back. "It isn't that hard to think up happy stories! Have you never heard of Little Red Riding Hood? Or the Three Little Pigs? Or the Boy Who Cried Wolf?" She shouted her...questionable taste for happy stories.

“You know all of those stories originally are horrid right? We’re not kids any more Lucinda, you aren’t either. Yeah I get it; you’re a victim. Bad things happen to people all the time. Be an adult and figure out how to accept it. If you are going to yell at everything I say to you, then I’ll leave.”

He stood up, book in hand.

Lucinda clenched both of her hands into fists. "Stories aren't just for kids. So what if they originally didn't have happy endings. Stories are there to bring us something or to give us some happiness. If you saw someone standing on a roof would you tell them something happy or a story about how ultimately they don't matter?" She spat as she did her best to not Rigel again.

"And I'm trying to get over it. But it isn't helpful with you taking away stuff from me, or constantly wondering if the next person you meet will spit in your face. Or having so many people I loved and who cared for me suddenly telling me I was better off dead. When I first transformed I couldn't do anything at all, it took ages for me to even talk more then basic asking for things. All the while I was being questioned like a criminal for having the nerve to not die."

“My story did bring something. You’re too busy hating me to actually heed my advice. You’re not the first teenage werewolf I’ve met. Matteo was a werewolf. He was killed because of it.”

He sat back down, opened his book as a tear fell down his left eye.

“I understand. He was like a brother to me. I was the one who manned the hatch when he was transforming, the one who held the doors barricades so he couldn’t kill his best friend. The one who clothed and bathed him on his first night when he killed a family of deer. I found him in the vineyard when he was attacked. I understand.”

Lucinda snarled angrily. "And yet you call us creatures." She cast Accio again to get her flask and cup back. "How was I to know he was a werewolf from what you told me." She gave in a growl. "I'm not a bloody mind reader am I?" She crossed her arms and cast a spell to dry the cup from its fall into the water. "And no, you don't understand. I don't understand. The amount of pain, even after drinking poison for 7 nights is unbearable."

She took a breath, the amount of times she had fought the guards to try to escape before her transformation already, and the amount of times she's pleaded for them to end her was more then she would like to remember, thankfully she could manage to forget those, but the transformations themselves...

“You realize I’m a creature too. It’s species neutral. Maybe if you listened rather than get mad at everything I said you could see my message. Calm down.” He gritted his teeth, he was starting to get upset and it showed.

He missed Matteo.

"Of course you can't read my mind. You didn't bother to listen. Even now I bet you'll attack me for how insensitive I am. If you won't listen to me and stop assualting me I'll leave."

She glares. "Then leave." She says in a snarl, not backing down. "I'm not on the same level as something like a Dementor. Those are creatures." She says angrily as she clutches her items tighter, ready to strike at a moments notice.

"Where in your story did you say he was a werewolf? All you said was he kept losing to you and one day he died. That was it." She put her thermos flask back together, leaving a hand spare as she slowly reached for her wand. He wasn't making things better at all, he will just keep mocking her for her condition and acting superior.

"You're just going to continue acting like a rich snob. I'm not afraid to hex you."

He saw her hand slowly preparing to draw her wand. Rigel’s blood began to boil. He took a deep breath. He returned to his tree, having removed Lucinda from his summer bubble. Sat down in the nook he carved himself in the first year.

Opened his book and sat, stared at the pages.

“Leave if you’re not going to listen to what I have to say. I’m too tired to fight you.”

Lucinda gave another snarl as she muttered. "I bet he's happier without you, if he knew how much of an arrogant ass you are." She turned around and started to walk off back to the castle, her hand still on her wand as she walked. More awake then when she had left the water and more alert, but definitely in a worse way then before. Now her nerves were on edge and she was likely to shout at the first younger year that bumped into her.

Although it was all his fault, everyone must of known by now because of him. There isn't a way he wouldn't of told everyone in the school. She thought and glared at him as she moved away.