Think I'm Gunna Lose It [Abe]

[Cait Sayer]

Death day parties were never something Cait had taken joy in. Mainly because hers fell on Christmas day so everybody was I high spirits and being drunkenly joyous. So, like most years, she spent Christmas on her own, in the prefect’s bathroom, staring at the tiles she had slipped on. She could have spent her day taking her mind off of the fact that she was very much dead, but what else could she do? She became less corporal around her death day, being so depressed about it, so she couldn’t even mess about with Idris’ office.

Since, Idris had been nothing but his usual grumpy self with her, and considering around Christmas people started talking about them more, and the fact that he ‘killed’ her. So he tried to keep away from her as much as possible. January now here and he was still avoiding her. If she appeared in a room, he left. If he saw her in the corridor he’d turn around and go the other way. With no other friends in the castle, Cait found herself loitering the fourth floor.

She’d floated through the library, attempted to mess with the books and make a nuisance out of herself there, but her hand went straight through; which only served to anger Cait further. She screamed to herself and disappeared from sight.

She appeared in an office that was much familiar to her. Usually any time she didn’t spend ruining Idris’ life she spent here. She’d transported herself across the school before, but never before had she ended up here. She usually ended up in the bathroom. It always went back to there.

Sighing she turned to look behind the desk, finding Abe sat before her. ”I’m bored,” she stated, ”And depressed,” she sighed, ”And incredibly lonely,” she floated through the desk and floated just above it, with crossed legs, ”Entertain me,” she ordered, ”You can’t be so old you’re no longer any fun,” she started playing with the shorter hair around her face, it was most depressing that it o longer grew or could be cut, it was always the same and incredibly dull.

She threw herself backwards as if she would lie on the desk and plummeted straight through the desk and to the stone floor, which stopped herself from falling through. If she could cry she probably would, it would be better than being bored.

[Abraham Grey]

Abe used to enjoy his birthdays. He got to be another year older and by default another year cooler, everybody paid attention to him and told him how great he was and people gave him gifts. Admittedly sometimes those gifts were socks, or a bottle of butterbeer or a slightly melted chocolate frog, but that was a hazard he’d learned to expect from being the Hufflepuff Head of House. At least he got presents from his students and last year Silas had got him a stripper (well sort of, he’d put it on Abe’s tab, but it was the thought that counted right?) which more than made up for any of the lacklustre gifts.

Somewhere along the way, though, he’d realised that at around 25 you started getting less cool with age, at least in the eyes of his students and since they made up about 90% of the people he knew that was a pretty big deal. That took increasing amounts of enjoyment out of the big day until concluded that when he hit 30 his life was pretty much over. Abe really, really didn’t want to turn 30, but the day had, rather inevitably, crept up on him anyway. He’d been moping in his office about it for nearly a week and also tried not to give in to the niggling realisation that he really didn’t feel all that different. He hadn’t suddenly decided that tartan slippers were the footwear of the future, nor had all the hair on the top of his head fallen out forcing him to resort to a comb-over.

There were only so many hours in a day you could spend sulking though and, while Abe was quite sure Connery would have lasted a lot longer sighing dramatically and staring pensively into the fireplace, he soon grew bored and decided perhaps marking a few of his student’s essays might do a little bit to break up the monotony of brooding. Settling down at his desk, Abe picked up the first roll of parchment he saw and skimmed quickly through the essay. Interesting theory, unfortunate really that it was completely and utterly wrong, still he couldn’t bring himself to give the poor kid a T. He dipped his quill into the bottle of ink near his elbow then promptly dropped it, splattering ink onto the wooden surface of the desk as Cait appeared in front of him.

”Merlin Cait, can’t you knock?” He teased, lips quirking into a quick smile. It hadn’t escaped his notice that Idris was being especially grumpy recently, refusing Abe’s invites to go out for a drink and claiming he didn’t want to listen to Abe bitching and moaning about Jacaranda and being 30. Idris got like that sometimes and he and Cait had long ago learned it was easier to show a united front of ‘having a good time without him’ until he got over it, miserable bastard. Of course this time round they’d been a little slow on the uptake, both of them too busy moping about their own problems to realise that the three of them were becoming incredibly dull and boring. And wasn’t that what Abe had been worrying about happening when he turned 30 in the first place?

”You’re right, it is dull around here.” Abe agreed. ”With the students back after the holidays the castle has got so...” He waved a hand vaguely, searching for the right word. ”Scholarly.” It might have been a bit hypocritical of Abe to be complaining about that when he was probably one of the most scholarly people in the school, but he was feeling rebellious and he wanted drink and Cait was never going to perk up if she hung around the castle any longer. ”Let’s go to the pub.” He said, because secretly that was Abe’s solution to every woe.

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[Cait Sayer]

A small, brief smile appeared on Cait’s face as Abe jumped, she still had it. Where was the fun in knocking, and besides, it wasn’t like she could at this time, not that she would if she could anyway. Appearing, and scaring the hell out of people was about the only entertainment she could get. That and pissing of Idris, ”Never,” she replied, taking her seat on his desk.

Being 30 was never anything Cait had really considered, it wasn’t as if she looked 30, and she had long since stopped counting birthdays when she died. Now she was on death days. But if she was going to go by her ‘age’, she looked bloody good for 30. But then, she’d rather be alive than constantly look that good forever. You can’t have any fun when you’re dead. Well, not much. She’d been haunting Idris, and the castle for 13 years, it was hard to come up with anything original, but sticking to the same old tricks seemed to have the same effect on Idris, and she could still do the same to the first years in the Hufflepuff Common Room, before they realised she was a teenager, just like they were going to be, and she wasn’t all that scary.

”Because it’s not normally,” what bugged Cait about this time of year, more than her death day, was the fact that people then remembered it was her death day ad started up the whole ‘Whodunit?’ shebang. She hadn’t been murdered! So it was pointless trying to figure out who had committed the ‘crime’, she was the one dumb enough to slip, it wasn’t like there was much anybody else could be blamed for, not really.

The Pub? Cait raised an eyebrow at him. Firstly, how would that help her in anyway? She couldn’t drink away her sorrows, hell she couldn’t even drink. Secondly, she couldn’t leave the castle. This was where she died and she had never left. Thirdly, even if she could drink, and could leave, she- no, there was no thirdly, the first two pretty much cover it. ”Go on then,” she moaned, standing in the middle of his desk and the middle of all his papers, ”Leave me behind,” she tried to concentrate enough to hit the papers off the desk, in order to be an annoyance, but her hand just went straight through, rather annoyingly. It didn’t serve to help her mood, so she groaned rather loudly, and felt rather like throwing a temper tantrum.

”I was better off trying to haunt Idris,” she said, ”Saying that, is it haunting when you just know he wants me there?” she asked contemplated. Knowing Abe would probably start to get annoyed with her and her constant obsession with what Idris really thought about her. She had, in the past, tried to get him to get it out of Idris, but he had very much disagreed. Then she had worn him down and he’d failed in his mission. Useless.

[Abraham Grey]

”Yes well,” Abe said sagely, not bothering to hide the amusement in his voice, the two of them bickered pretty much every time they saw each other and this was just one of many topics that they rehashed every so often without reaching any conclusion. ”At least my Hufflepuffs treat me with more respect. You should set a better example, wouldn’t want them barging in here.” He couldn’t have his House behaving worse than the Gryffindors, who Connery seemed to keep in line by looking sour-faced all the time. Either that or they were too busy running around the castle after curfew breaking rules to bother visiting their Head of House, who knew.

He knew full well why Cait didn’t like this time of year and also why Idris got especially grumpy and now that he knew the two of them he couldn’t help feeling the whole situation had been blown completely out of proportion. Yes Idris was a grumpy sod, but he wasn’t capable of murder. ”You know magical folk can’t resist a scandal, especially teenagers.” He said, scratching a messy D on the essay he’d been about to grade before Cait appeared. ”And yours is particularly juicy; romance, murder, intrigue, I’m surprised nobody has written a book about it yet.” Abe let the parchment roll back up into a scroll and stopped his teasing long enough to give her a sympathetic look. ”The people that matter know it isn’t true.”

The sceptical eyebrow Cait raised at him wasn’t lost on Abe and it occurred to him that she’d never left the castle to go for a drink in Hogsmeade before. ”I can’t go on my own, a man drinking alone is just sad.” He put on his best pleading expression a puppy-dog stare that hadn’t worked when he was a kid and just looked faintly ridiculous now. ”You have to come with me Cait, my only alternative is Connery and he practically sucks the joy out of drinking, he’s so stuffy.” Abe made a mental note to drag the Gryffindor Head of House out more often, he needed to loosen up.

He resisted the urge to roll his eyes as Cait posed the question about Idris. He should have known the conversation would inevitably end up there, it was like being back in school. Well, technically they still were in school, but while Cait still looked seventeen they were all a lot older than that so he didn’t see why he had to be stuck in the middle of two people that so obviously liked each other. Yes that love was slightly doomed what with Cait being dead and all, but still! Abe huffed internally. ”I’d call it haunting by mutual agreement. After all you still have the whole ghost thing going on.” He said, waving at her semi-opaque form. ”Not that you’ll ever get Idris to admit that.”

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[Cait Sayer]

Cait considered what Abe said to her, a small smirk playing on her face; ”Well,” she elongated, ”I am one of your Hufflepuff’s. You should have better control of me Professor,” she grinned, sidling closer to him, and leaning towards his ear. Over the many years that she had been in the castle, she’d started taking a lot of pleasure out of tormenting the Professor. Well, professors. Both Abraham and Idris made it so easy for her. She knew Abe was pretty much easy to any advances and Idris she was in love with. So she knew exactly how he ticked. She knew she made Abe feel a bit uneasy. She was technically older than him, but looked like a school girl, in her pyjamas, ”You know I don’t lead by example when I’m bored,” if she was having a day where she would actually be able to touch him she would have.

Cait couldn’t care about what teenagers wanted, it wasn’t the truth, why couldn’t they just leave it all alone? Scandal or not, it didn’t warrant a yearly gossip column based on them. That bloody newspaper recycled the same story every year to get the first years talking and the older students theorising the situation further, all it served to do was get Idris is a worse mood and put Cait off tormenting him because she lost all capability to do so. ”Tell ‘em about wolf girl, then they’ll find something else to talk about,” she commented off hand, at least then they wouldn’t be talking about her, ”I don’t care that we know he didn’t kill me! I want the world to know, I’m fed up of repeating myself. ‘I’m a klutz. It’s my fault!’” Cait grumbled under her breath about the book idea. People would be better off writing a book about Moaning Murtle.

”And a man drinking with a ghost is so much better!” Cait practically cooed over Abe’s puppy face. She’d have tapped him on the cheek in pity if she could, ”Maybe you could get Wolfgirl,” it wasn’t like Cait didn’t know her name, but if she was referred to as Ghost Girl by students she had to get her own back somehow, ”I hear she’s into older men,” she said, laughing to herself. So that paper was useful for some things. ”Though I don’t know if I could be held responsible for him boring you to death,” then she had a thought and clicked her ghostly fingers, ”Maybe I should let him bore you to death! Then I’ll have a ghostie friend!” a wicked smile spread across her face. It really was a good idea.

Abe and Cait did tend to always end up talking about her doomed relationship. ”I don’t want the whole ghost thing going on. I’m dead, why couldn’t I be that way? Dead. Not floating around being bored!” if she wouldn’t fall through it, she would have slumped into the chair by his desk. He seemed so flippant about it all, ”Maybe if I didn’t have the ghost thing going for me he would have admitted it by now! If people didn’t think he’d offed me he might be more open to it!” she argued only working herself up more. Maybe going out and drinking with Abe wasn’t such a bad idea, though it would be no fun for her. She couldn’t drink. She’d most likely have to sat up the whole time. And she’d never even tried to leave the castle, she didn’t even know if she could. It sucked to be a ghost. Especially when you’d not had a chance at life first.

[Abraham Grey]

Abe scowled, not really all that put out, but acting so for the sake of appearances. When he’d first started working at Hogwarts and had taken his job far too seriously it really had annoyed him that Cait didn’t listen to a word he said when it came to the school rules. Then he’d realised he was being an idiot and when it mattered she’d help him out, otherwise she was pretty much free to do as she pleased.

”Miss Sayer you are simply uncontrollable.” He complained, picking up on her own formality and giving a little awkward cough as she leaned in towards him. The hair on the back of his neck prickled when the cool air that surrounded all ghosts hit his skin and Abe waved a hand to try and shoo her, his tips of his fingers passing through her nose. ”Perhaps you should get a hobby?” He suggested with a smirk, knowing that the hobbies for ghosts were pretty limited. ”Bird-watching, train-spotting... Uhh...” Abe trailed off as he realised both of those sounded about as interesting as voluntarily spending time with Moaning Myrtle

”Or you could go on that professional haunting course Arabella is always blathering on about.” Arabella, the ghost who usually hung around the library, had become quite upset when even the first years stopped finding her scary and so had decided to learn how to do things properly. As yet, even with her newly honed skills, she had failed to frighten anybody. ”Who knows, you might pick up a few new ways of annoying Argall.”

He frowned at Cait when she mentioned Amelia Pace, wondering what exactly the Gryffindor had done to earn the Hufflepuff ghost’s scorn, especially as she of all people should understand keeping something secret to avoid unwanted attention. ”I can’t, Minerva made us swear we wouldn’t reveal anything.” Abe said with a shake of his head, knowing that even if it wasn’t in his contract he wouldn’t out the girl. Connery was already annoying enough without him looking all reproachful all the time and quite possibly punching him in the face again.

”I could write the book for you. A sort of ghost writer, if you will.” Abe chuckled at his own joke, even though he knew Cait wouldn’t appreciate his attempt at humour. ”Then everybody would know what really happened. It wouldn’t be much of a page turner without all the rumours though.” Personally he quite liked the idea, not only would it make him some money (even if didn’t need it he wasn’t going to complain about having more dosh) and he’d been pressing his publisher to let him write something other than Arithmancy Papers for a while. His publisher wasn’t keen on the idea, probably under the impression that Abe was going to attempt write some flowery romance novel.

”You’d make a great drinking buddy.” He disagreed. ”For a start you aren’t going to try and nick my drink. Besides I think Miss Pace is doing quite enough on her own to encourage those rumours without being seen out with another of her professors.” Abe wasn’t completely oblivious to the fact that there was something going on with Connery and Amelia, but he hadn’t broached the subject with the Gryffindor Head of House because he was saving it for a moment that would produce maximum embarrassment.

Abe wagged a finger at Cait, matching her wicked smile with one of his own. ”Ahh, you see I have a secret defence against Connery’s ability to calm even a blast-ended skrewt having a fit with his monotone and that is to get immeasurably drunk.” It has already been suggested that Abe’s solution to every problem involves copious amounts of alcohol. ”All those Head of House meetings I have to go to, yeah I’m totally smashed in them.”

He grew serious as Cait continued to complain about Idris, wondering how many times they could go over this while neatly sidestepping their suspicions that there might not be a solution to the problem. ”Do you really think Idris would move on if you were dead and gone?” Abe asked carefully. ”He’s hardly the type to let things go, he still hasn’t forgiven me for pouring whiskey into the thestral feed.” He said, trying to make light of the situation. ”And unfortunately that stubbornness goes both ways so I can’t see him admitting anything any time soon.”

[Cait Sayer]

In Cait’s defence, she didn’t listen to anybody. She was dead, she lived by her own set of rules. Ghosts didn’t attend school, didn’t go to lessons, she sure as hell wasn’t going to listen to Abe. He was younger than her for one. And she sure as hell wasn’t going to listen to Connery – but she wasn’t going anywhere near him. Besides, Abe had given up trying to make her follow rules and helped to break them instead.

”Thank yaw,” she grinned, she liked being uncontrollable. Nobody could touch her, so she couldn’t exactly be contained and the second somebody came at her she could just disappear. She crinkled her nose as his hand went through it, backing up away from Abraham, ”I have a hobby!” she exclaimed, frowning at him, ”It’s called haunting Idris and winding him up. And plotting your downfall. That’s another,” she grinned. She missed her old hobbies. There would be a time when January would mean ice-skating on the lake. Other months when she would board or lade around in the courtyard. She had many a story to tell about assorted injuries she had acquired.

Cait raised an eyebrow and her face contorted, talking to Arabella was Cait’s idea of hell. She was a try-hard. At least, over the years, Cait had attained a sense of class in her haunting. Or tormenting, or whatever you wanted to call it, ”But the classics work so well. And if all else fails, I call him on loving me, and we have a brand new argument!” she beamed, even if the arguments annoyed her and despite appearance put her down, but if she could laugh through them, she could ignore them.

Amelia hadn’t done anything to particularly upset Cait, but steal her limelight. Cait had been the next best thing to sliced bread before she’d come along and she didn’t like it. That and the girl was a complete slut. At least Cait stuck to one person, ”She didn’t make me!” a wicked grin passed across her face, ”Who needs Arabella, I can come up with my own original ideas!”

”You are not amusing. And I am not amused. Page turner or not, I refuse to endorse any rumours. Unless it’s to woman that express any interest in Idris at all! Cause then they run off thinking he’s a mass murder. Or they would if he let them near him!” the thought of it made Cait smirk, and slightly proud. Her continuous presence made his life impossible. Sometimes she wondered what he would have been like if she hadn’t come back. She wondered where she would be if she wasn’t there.

Cait snorted a laugh, ”Yeah right,” she laughed at the idea of Amelia feeding rumours. Last she’d read in that bloody paper he’d been encouraging it too. Then he’d saved her life just before Christmas. Saving a life, elicit affair, same thing? ”Well I’m sure she’s easy enough,” when your life sucked as much as Cait’s death, you had to bitch about something, and wolf girl just so happened to be Cait’s chosen topic.

”You seem to drink for the both of us. All the time,” she started, ”I can’t say I’ve ever been drunk,” she moped, one of the many things she hadn’t done before she’d died, ”And I’ll never have a chance!” she finished cheerily. Smiling at him, she could understand needing to be drunk through any interaction with Connery. He might be hot, but he needed leashing and tying up.

”Would it be horrible of me to say ‘I hope not’,” she smiled sadly, it soon turning into a laugh, ”He cares far too much about those creatures. And the bloody bang-topped skunks,” or whatever the hell they were killed. She’d never liked the creatures, and the feeling was mutual. She had several burn marks all over her hands and forearms. ”What if you get him drunk? And then you can get him to admit it! Polite persuasion of an incredibly drunk Idris. He can’t control himself forever!”