Everyone's a Bit of a Fixer-Upper (Nikolai)

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Four days had passed since the Valentine's Ball, and each day had only added to Mariah's outrage.

Apparently it wasn't enough to just make fun of Bushrah and Lyra during the fashion show. No, thanks to social media, the two girls had become the subject of schoolwide ridicule, facing regular taunts and namecalling wherever they went. Bushrah had it the worst, of course. Mariah and Lyra were just about the only ones who would even come near her, much less act friendly when they did.

Mariah had been spending most of her time offering comfort and company to the two girls, noticing how Bushrah sat by herself unless she or Lyra made a conscious effort to keep her company. She was actually pretty nice, though mostly shy and quiet. Much like Mariah herself, in fact, which made it easy for her to relate to the other girl, but hard for either of them to keep a conversation going. Still, Mariah was content to simply sit by Bushrah and let her know she wasn't alone, even if they didn't say much to each other out loud.

Mariah and Lyra had grown much closer in light of recent events. They had been friends before, and they'd sometimes studied together or chatted while getting ready for bed, but now they had bonded over something that was apparently frighteningly rare at Hogwarts these days: simple human decency.

They'd spent much more time together over the past four days, mostly because Mariah found she enjoyed Lyra's company, but also because Mariah had suddenly found herself with no one else to talk to.

She'd been avoiding Nikolai ever since the ball.

She didn't know if he'd actually noticed. Their friendship had never been a "spend every waking moment together" kind of friendship, so it wasn't that unusual for them to go a day or two without talking. But now when they passed each other in the corridor, Mariah had taken to averting her gaze and pretending she didn't see him.

She didn't know what to say to him anymore.

Before the ball, Mariah would have confidently said he was her closest friend at Hogwarts. Even if they hadn't talked every day, she had trusted him completely. He'd been easy to talk to. He'd always been nice to her, and he'd always seemed to share her values. He was kind, patient, and thoughtful - like when he'd taught her how to fly, or when he worried about the animals in the Black Lake. That was the side of him she'd known and loved.

Now she didn't know what to think. He wasn't the person she'd thought he was. The Nikolai she knew would never have said the things he'd said, would never have acted the way he'd acted. Had she really misjudged him so completely?

And if she had, what else might she have gotten wrong about him? Could she still trust him? How could she know he wasn't secretly laughing at her the way he'd laughed at Bushrah? How could she know she wasn't just another "stupid American girl" like Lyra?

And even if he had been honest with her, could she still be friends with him knowing how awful he'd been to other people? After all, Lyra was her friend too, and Nikolai had been downright terrible to her. How could she reconcile his behavior with her own beliefs?

She didn't know what to do, so she just avoided him, choosing to spend her time either with Bushrah and Lyra, or by herself. On the night of the ball, after the party had ended and they'd all gone back to their dorms, Mariah had stayed up later than the rest of the girls writing a letter to Mr. Weber, asking for his advice. She hadn't gotten a letter back yet. She hoped she'd been able to explain the situation correctly through her haze of angry tears, but she feared it might have been a little incoherent. Still, his replies usually arrived a week after she sent her letters, so she still had a couple days to wait before she was allowed to start worrying.

Until then, she'd simply try not to look Nikolai in the eye when she passed him in the hall.

She couldn't help feeling sad about it though. Despite her anger and disappointment at his behavior, she missed him. She missed talking to him. Lyra and Bushrah were great in their own ways, but she couldn't talk to them about all the same things she discussed with Nikolai.

Which was why she'd felt the urge to visit the lake this afternoon. She wasn't hoping to see him - quite the opposite, in fact - but the lake reminded her of good times, and after the past four days she really needed a reminder of good times. Maybe if she sat on the dock and stared out at the water long enough, she could pretend the whole debacle had never happened.

She sighed, dangling her feet above the cold water which had finally melted again after its brief stint as an ice rink. She wondered what the Giant Squid was doing right now. She hoped its problems were less complicated than hers.

Since the Ball, Nikolai had found himself caught up in the whirlwind of jokes going around at Lyra and Bushrah's expense. He had never been the ring leader in any of it, Nikolai had never been that kind of boy, but he'd been lurking on the sidelines of all of it, smiling to himself as the other students found new ways to tease Bushrah about the despicable choice of dress she'd decided upon from the Ball.

But, after the second day of jokes at the Gryffindors expense, Nikolai had grown tired of it all. There was no new material coming to light. Bushrah didn't rise to the bait of the jokes. The amusement had fizzled out for Nikolai now, and he had returned to his usual interests, books, and past times that didn't revolve around the other students in the castle. Back to the world of mythical, magical and muggle creatures was where Nikolai found himself.

Except, this time, it was somewhat quiet.

The boy had checked his phone for missed messages by the third evening, and found nothing from Mariah at all. Which, whilst not necessarily out of the ordinary, it didn't seem right. He'd seen her around the castle on their way to classes, in the Great Hall at meal times, but Mariah had... pointedly ignored him? Or, was he just making that up? Was he worried about nothing? Tuesday evening found Nikolai led in his bed writing text after text to Mariah to open conversation, but he deleted each one before sending it because he didn't know that there was a problem?

He'd fallen asleep in to one of the most fitful of sleeping experiences he'd experienced in a long time. The scenes never fully materialised, making the experience much more frustrating as the boy tossed and turned in bed, tangling himself in his sheets as Mariah's disembodied voice kept repeating the same words over and over again.

"What's the matter with you?"

It had been just after three in the morning when Nikolai finally pulled himself out of the dream. The sheet that had ensnared his long limbs was drenched in sweat as Nikolai moved to rest on his back, breathing a little heavier than he cared to admit to himself as he looked at the top of his four poster bed, trying to make sense of his dream that didn't make any sense at all to him in that moment. It had taken more than an hour to settle back down, his mind trying to unscramble everything that had gone on since the Ball, and what had gone wrong. He wasn't sure, exactly, but sleep had come to him when he'd finally admitted to himself that he needed to find Mariah after class that day, and talk to her properly.

Classes had, inevitably, gone much slower than Nikolai would have liked that day, keeping him holed up indoors and away from the Hufflepuffs that day. Care of Magical Creatures that afternoon hadn't even managed to keep Nikolai's attention, but when Professor Venizelos had finally let them leave, Nikolai had hurried off in the direction of the castle before slowing considerably. Looking over to the Lake from his vantage point, the boy merely thought for a moment before turning away from the castle, and hurrying down to the pier that cut in to the Lake.

If asked, Nikolai would never have known how to explain this choice, but he'd followed his gut in that moment.

The Slytherin had not expected this to work out in his favour, there was no reason it would, but as he came to the end of the pier, and the outline that was unmistakably Mariah's, a soft smile touched his lips. Moving carefully along the pier, Nikolai kept his eyes on Mariah, but didn't speak out. He knew the witch to be nervous, and he didn't wish to spook her. Instead, he carefully sat on the edge of the pier, a couple of metres away from Mariah, his own feet dangling off the age of the pier, his shoes barely safe from the top surface of the Lake.

For a short time, Nikolai did not speak. He didn't know what to say, nor really why Mariah wasn't talking to him, but he had an idea.

"You're mad at me." Nikolai stated softly, still not sure about breaking the deadlock of the silence that was between them, but knowing that they really did need to talk about it. It wasn't a question, though, Nikolai knew the witch wasn't happy with him, and he didn't dare to ask exactly why she was mad at him. He hadn't done anything to her. Had he?

Belatedly, the boy remembered something else. Pulling his bag off his shoulders, he undid the zips, and found the object he'd been looking for. Taking it out, the boy put the small parcel between them.
A piece of kitchen roll had been tied up in to a small pouch with an elastic band, a band that Nikolai carefully pulled off, allowing the kitchen roll to fall back flat to reveal a small cupcake. Red velvet, because he'd managed to sway the house elves in to giving him one at lunch time.

It was a peace offering, something to make the witch less mad at him.

But Nikolai didn't say anything more, simply watching the Lake before him, but making sure he could see Mariah out of the corner of his eye as he waited.

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Mariah heard his footsteps on the pier, feeling the soft vibrations of the wood beneath her as the boy approached. She didn't look up, but she knew it was him, and her heart sped up a little with dread as she realized it was too late for her to leave. She would have to talk to him. What would she say?

She kept her eyes trained on the water as she sensed his presence settle down on the dock beside her, though he kept a safe distance. She swallowed, fighting the urge to look up at him as she waited for him to break the silence. What had he come to say? Did he know what was wrong? Had he come to apologize?

If he had, was it even her place to forgive him? It wasn't like he had insulted her personally. Lyra and Bushrah were the ones who deserved an apology.

She'd made a mistake coming here. She wasn't ready to talk to him yet. She should have gone someplace where he wouldn't have found her.

But she couldn't hide from him forever, she supposed.

At long last, he spoke up. She didn't respond. She bit her lip and looked down at the pier, studying the texture of the wood beneath her hand as she ran a finger over the cracks and thought about his words. Was she mad at him? She supposed she was. Mad, disappointed, maybe a little hurt. But was it really his fault that she had misjudged him? It wasn't like he'd lied to her. She had made assumptions about his character that had turned out to be false. She couldn't blame him for that, could she?

So maybe she wasn't mad. She was just...conflicted. She didn't know how she was supposed to respond to him now that she knew the truth. He hadn't changed, but her opinion of him had. Now that she thought about it, perhaps her reaction was confusing to him. She felt a little guilty at the thought.

She was aware of his motion as he rifled through his bag, and she saw him place something next to her out of the corner of her eye. Unable to contain her curiosity, she glanced over at the object and saw that it was a cupcake. Red velvet. Her favorite.

She finally looked up at his face, surprised at the offering. He wasn't looking at her, so she took the opportunity to study his features, looking for some sign of what he was thinking. Was this a birthday present, or an apology?

She didn't remember telling him her birthday. She hadn't told anyone, actually. It had been yesterday, but she hadn't wanted to make a big deal about it, so she hadn't said anything. She'd gotten an email from her parents wishing her a happy birthday and promising a present that was set to arrive in the mail soon. Other than that, it had come and gone without much fanfare, and she really hadn't minded that much. She knew Mr. Weber was probably going to send her something with his next letter, and apart from him and her parents, she didn't want or expect anyone else to do anything for her.

So the cupcake was probably unrelated. But regardless of the occasion, it was sweet and thoughtful, and so much like the Nikolai she thought she'd known before. It only made her dilemma harder. She stared at it for a long moment, before slowly picking it up. She had to say something.

"I don't know if I'm mad at you," she admitted quietly, looking down at the cupcake which she now held gently over her lap. She made no move to eat it, though it looked really good, and under different circumstances she definitely would have wanted to. But if Nikolai had given it to her hoping it would make everything better, she didn't think she could accept it. She couldn't promise that things would be better after this.

"I was before, but now...I don't know. I guess I can't be any more mad at you than I am at everyone else."

The reply to his words was not instantaneous, but Nikolai was patient enough to wait as his eyes scanned the surface of the lake for movement. Not with the usual fervour he demonstrated when looking for the Giant Squid, but with the idle hopefulness of a boy who knew he was currently pressed between a rock and a hard place. The cake did move, though, after a moment, which Nikolai too to be a good sign.

At least red velvet cake wasn't so easy to squash in someone's face, like cheesecake, or cream filled pasties that others might find to their liking. Not that he expected something as outlandish as that kind of reaction from Mariah, but as he waited for her to say something, the notion of getting pied occurred to him.

Finally, though, Mariah did speak up, denoting she wasn't mad with him. Or rather, that she didn't know if she was mad at him. That, in the Slytherin's mind, was better than Mariah being actually mad at him. With a small nod of understanding, Nikolai waited just a little bit longer, to see if the Hufflepuff would expand upon her point, and after only a moment of waiting, she did. She was mad -- or not very happy -- with a lot of people, which meant it boiled down to the Valentine's Day Ball.

Nikolai didn't need to ask what had upset the witch, his nightmare from the night before had displayed exactly where things had gone wrong. The only trouble was, Nikolai wasn't sorry for having laughed at Bushrah when she'd fallen over on stage. Which was when Mariah had grown mad with him. This problem wasn't, therefore, going to be easy to get out of, but Mariah was his friend, and he was going to work something out.

"You know that people laugh at others who fall over, or hurt themselves all the time..." Nikolai started carefully, glancing across at the witch to make sure he wasn't pushing buttons. "It's one of those things that... I don't know, everyone does it..? Sometimes without really meaning to. Bushrah didn't get hurt from the fall, so... so, doesn't that mean we can laugh it off?" Nikolai asked, still going careful with what he said. "Haven't you ever logged on to YouTube and watched videos of people making fools of themselves? Or seen those comedy shows where people send in videos of being doing stupid things? Its... the same thing."

It wasn't the best excuse, Nikolai knew, but he couldn't help things he found funny.

"But, I'm sorry if I upset you for laughing at Bushrah." He added, though he made no move to promise not to do so again. That, he certainly could not promise.

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Mariah shook her head at his explanation, frustrated that Nikolai didn't seem to get it. "There are a lot of ways to get hurt, you know. Maybe Bushrah wasn't injured when she fell, but she was hurt when everyone started laughing. She was hurt when people made fun of her for it. You're saying you laughed because she didn't get hurt, but you're the one who hurt her."

She sighed, trying to come up with the right thing to say. What was she trying to express? She never did enjoy watching YouTube videos of people embarrassing themselves, but she knew a lot of people did. And she knew some people could handle being laughed at; some people didn't mind sharing their embarrassing moments with the world. But Bushrah wasn't one of those people.

"I'm not mad at you for finding it funny," she started, gathering her thoughts. That wasn't his fault. He couldn't help finding it funny any more than she could help finding it painful - secondhand embarrassment always made her cringe rather than laugh, but she knew both reactions were perfectly natural. "I'm mad because...because you didn't stop at just laughing. You made it worse. You didn't need to do that. Maybe you couldn't help laughing at her, but making fun of her, calling her names...that was a choice. And everyone else doing it too doesn't make it better."

She looked down, inspecting the cupcake she still held in her hand, brow furrowed in deep thought. "And I don't want you to apologize to me. I don't want you to feel sorry for upsetting me. If you're going to be sorry about something, be sorry for making Bushrah's life miserable for the past four days. I know that wasn't all you, and I wish everyone else would apologize too, but that isn't going to happen. I just...I just thought you would be different," she admitted, trailing off into a whisper as she felt her throat close up, frustrated tears pricking at her eyes. She hurriedly dashed them away on her sleeve. She didn't want to cry right now. She hated being so sensitive.

It was like being scolded by his mum, Nikolai reflected as Mariah kept going on about Bushrah and her fall and the laughing as if it was the end of the world. Nikolai was a little bit frustrated, truthfully, as he sat listening to his friend beside him. Yes, he could see her side of the argument, perhaps it wasn't nice to laugh when people fell over, but it was a natural reaction. The whole school had reacted in the same way -- or most of the school, anyway -- and they weren't sat next to their best friends being told that they shouldn't be doing this.

Merlin knew if it happened to someone else tomorrow, the reaction would be exactly the same.

So why couldn't Mariah just let it go?

Especially when the witch insisted that she didn't need his apology, and that he should direct his apology elsewhere. If that had been the case, then he wouldn't have needed to be here in the first place, he wouldn't have to be trying to apologise to Mariah because they would still have been talking like normal, not walking on egg shells trying to appease the other. This was frustrating, well and truly frustrating, with no clear picture of what the right thing to do was.

So Nikolai opted for something simple.

"Okay," he agreed with the witch, leaving the point at that. If Mariah wished to stay upset with him -- or whatever this was -- he would let her be so. If she wanted to let it go, they could. Why she thought he was different, Nikolai wouldn't question, they would just simply have to let that be.

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Mariah didn't know what she expected. For him to defend himself, maybe. For him to argue with her. Not that she wanted him to; she hated arguing. But she didn't expect him to just...concede so easily. She glanced up at him in surprise, meeting his eyes with her own hopeful gaze. She sniffled a little as her tears receded.

"Okay?" she repeated, as if she hadn't heard him right and was looking for confirmation. Did that mean he would apologize to Bushrah? Had she actually gotten through to him? "You mean...you'll apologize? To Bushrah and Lyra? Lyra too; she's my friend and I didn't like what you said about her. She's not stupid. I think what she did was really brave and she doesn't deserve all the names people are calling her."

The words came out in a rush as she searched his face with wide, imploring eyes, hoping against hope that he really meant what he said. She wanted to forgive him, she really did. She wanted her best friend back. If it weren't for the conflicted feeling in her chest, she would've forgiven him already. If he really did agree with her, then that feeling would go away and they could be okay again. She just needed to hear him say it.

The surprise on Mariah's features at his answer was off putting. What, exactly, had Mariah expected him to do? The whole thing with Bushrah and Lyra was boring to the boy already, and the sooner they moved past all of this, the better. Yeah, it would probably not die out around the school for quite some time, the others seemed to be enjoying themselves, but in the moments that he and Mariah had together, he didn't want to be talking about other people who weren't important.

The solution to all of it was presented by the Hufflepuff who looked much too eager for him to apologise to both the girls.

That was never going to happen, he hadn't done anything wrong, but if that was what Mariah wanted from him...

"Yeah, of course, I'll apologise when I see them next." Nikolai replied, giving the girl beside him a small, hopeful smile. It didn't feel quite right, lying to Mariah, but he knew that a small, white lie wouldn't hurt anybody. If she found out he hadn't any time, he would just say it slipped his mind. Easy, case closed.

"But, only if you promise we don't have to talk about it any more, and that you'll eat your cake, because I really worked hard on getting that for you." Nikolai countered, almost cheekily in that moment. "Oh, and only if you promise to stop crying, too. I don't like to see you cry." He finalised, his eyes moving back out across the lake as he admitted as much to the witch.

Then, hopefully, conversation could go back to normal. About all the things that were actually interesting, and not two girls who meant absolutely nothing to him.

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With Nikolai's words, a weight lifted from Mariah's chest and she responded with a watery smile, eyes shining with relief. He really was a good person after all. She had desperately wanted to believe it. He had made a mistake, but he was going to make it right, and she could finally put her mind at ease. Everything was going to be okay.

She didn't have to choose between her best friend and her morals after all.

Of course, she told herself, all of her worries forgotten. She put the events of four days ago out of her mind in the light of this new information. She could forgive him. Of course she could. I always knew he was better than that.

She nodded, giggling a little as he laid out his terms, still relieved at the way this had turned out. She dried her eyes on her sleeve, sniffing one last time as she nodded once more in agreement. "Okay," she replied, as eager as he was to put all of this behind them.

She looked back up at him gratefully, then set the cupcake to the side for a moment as she wrapped her arms around him, letting him know that all was forgiven. "Thank you," she whispered before letting go with a small but genuine smile.

Her smile grew more playful as she picked up the cupcake once more and finally unwrapped it. "And thanks for the cupcake," she chirped, shifting a little closer to him and taking a bite. She breathed deeply, gazing out across the lake which looked much more cheerful now that her mood had lifted. Her body relaxed along with her mind as she slipped back into their normal routine, once again comfortable with her best friend beside her. Maybe not everything was right with the world - the rest of the school would take a while to settle down - but some things were good again, and she was glad.

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