peace disturbed | Benji

[Liliya Eira Zdravkova]

a random afternoon
the last days of summer break

She still couldn't quite believe it. Never again would she have to go back to Cardiff and that awful muggle orphanage, never had to look that old hag in the face and bite her tongue, never again endure the other children and their bullying.

Peace; finally.

Here she spent her days simply relaxing without the constant anxiety and oppression. She could take walks through the village, watch the busy witches and wizards go about their days and feel like she belonged and was accepted like she never had been in Cardiff.

It was heaven. She'd never felt lighter in her life. It was as though an invisible weight had been lifted of her heart, her mind, finally allowing her to live without the constant burden weighing down her mood, making her bad tempered and moody by default. Now she was almost skipping through town, every damn day, the corners of her mouth tilted upward ever so slightly.

Just now Eira was entering the common room of the orphanage after another one of her strolls, excited to find a quiet spot to start one of her new school books. After all it was only a couple days left until the new term would start and she hadn't done much yet on preparing for her upcoming classes. With a quiet hum on her lips, Eira rounded the corner when, suddenly, she froze.

No.

No, no, no ,no.

She couldn't move. She could only stand there, rooted to the ground, and stare. Stare and stare at him.

Benji.

What was he doing here? Was he visiting someone? Was he living here?! This couldn't be true.

Someone bumped into her shoulder and Eira came back to reality. He couldn't see her here. No one was supposed to know that she lived here. Besides Tigran and Nael, but they didn't count. She needed to move. Now.

With panic gripping her every fibre, Eira hoped against hope that Benji hadn't noticed her there and that she could simply vanish within the safety of her dormitory until she had figured out a solution to this. "Oh god...", she whispered under her breath and turned on her heel, braid flying, to flee from the room.

[Benji Cuddrun]

He still couldn’t quite believe it. Never again would he have to go back to the house of his “parents”, and endure their neglect, hostility and worse. Benji Cuddrun was finally, legally free of them, and if he chose not to, he would never have to see them again.

Peace; sort of.

Benji, of course, had absolutely zero desire to be associated or otherwise with the Hogsmeade orphanage either. They called it a children’s home to be polite. To make its occupants feel like they had a home, a place they belonged. In truth, it was the place the Ministry dumped unwanted, unloved, unparented children. Benji was one such child, yes, but that didn’t mean he had to embrace the idea.

Nabih and Nael had dropped him here yesterday evening, after Nabih had picked both boys up from camp a day early. Nael and Nabih had some sort of fancy wedding to attend, and probably for good reasons, Benji wasn’t allowed to come with them. So here he was, at the orphanage. With Nabih’s promise they’d be back to pick him up in two days.

Good, because this place smelled like old carpet, bananas and despair. Benji hated it here.

His little sister being here didn’t change how Benji felt about it. He was glad Kate was safe and out of harm’s way. But that was the only silver lining.

He was perched on the arm of one of the couches in the common room, a book in his hand that Nabih said he should read while he was here. Normally, Benji would have looked for any excuse to not read, but there was literally nothing else to do in this prison for kids. Ren was around here somewhere, but he was probably reading or something too. That’s all anyone did around here.

Benji glanced around the room as he began to absently shift through the pages and he caught a quick swish of blonde braid and a swift attempt at an exit. Benji’s eyes widened.

“Eira?” he called out to her, and he stood, tossing the book onto the armchair. What was she doing here? She didn’t live here, did she? Like him? Nael hadn’t mentioned anything about it. And he was good friends with her. Why wouldn’t he tell Benji if he knew Eira would be here.

He hurried after her, a smile spreading across his face. Sweet! He was pretty sure he annoyed Eira on the best of days, given her eyerolls whenever he spoke at or even near her. This would be awesome!

“Wanna hang out?” Benji asked cheerfully, “You live here too? This place sucks. It smells weird to you too, right? I can’t wait to get back to Hogwarts.” The look on the girl’s face looked almost horrified and he looked at her in confusion.

“Don’t tell me you think it smells nice in here?”

[Liliya Eira Zdravkova]

Shit.

Eira abandoned her plan of escape when Benji came running up to her, immediately drowning her in questions and comments and Eira sighed. This was the worst possible thing that could have happened on her last few days before school. She would have taken anything else. But instead the universe was punishing her -yet again; for a reason unknown- by sending her the most annoying person on earth.

"Hello Benji", she said, surrendering to her fate without even putting up a fight. "Yes I live here, obviously." She couldn't help the eyeroll. Why else would she be here? At least with one thing Benji was right though. She too couldn't wait to go back to Hogwarts. Especially because they weren't in the same house and Eira didn't have to see him as often as she knew she would have to here at the orphanage.

"Maybe it smells like that because you're here now. It didn't smell like that yesterday." Not a good one. But good enough for Benji. He would probably ignore the comment anyway and just continue on with his rambling. And something just told her, that she would have to deal with this for the next few days until she would be free again.

"Don't you have something to do - or somewhere to be? Anything at all?"

[Benji Cuddrun]

Benji didn't blame Eira for being in a shit mood. This orphanage reeked of depression and melancholy, aside from the old carpet and bananas. Who wouldn't be in an awful mood? He had been too until a moment ago. Now things were finally looking up, even if Eira didn't seem a quarter thrilled to see him as he was to see her.

Benji grinned widely when she insulted him and he gave a little shrug, "I don't know about you, but I took a shower this morning. And brushed my teeth. So, it's definitely not me." He leaned in and attempted to give her a little nudge with his elbow. "It's probably the cook," he whispered, so the other adults wouldn't hear. "She doesn't change her apron. I was watching her yesterday. She just reuses the same old one over and over."

He studied her for a moment, noticing all-too-easily that she was annoyed to be standing here having to talk to him. The polite thing to do would be to leave her alone, let her sit in misery by herself, or whatever it was that Slytherin girls did. But what fun would be in that?

"Actually no," he mused and he crossed his arms over his chest, smirking at her with bright hazel eyes. "I have literally nothing else to do, or anywhere to be. Count me in with the miserably bored occupants of this place they call a 'home'." He glanced down at the book in her hand, and he reached for it, trying to snatch it out of her hand.

"What are you reading then? It's got to be better than the texts Professor Al-Azma assigned me for the weekend." He paused for a moment, not really waiting for her answer. "You like Nael, right? Does he know you live here?"