Nicotine (Godric)

[Elizabeta Anne Beilschmidt]

Smoking was a filthy habit; Hermione had been trying to get Eliza to stop for as long as they'd known each other. A few times, Eliza had even bothered with trying, if only to make her friend happy. Ultimately, though, she always found herself sneaking out to the Stone Circle to smoke a few and clear her head whenever something bothered her. She would deal with the unfortunate side-effects (like cancer) when they came up. Wasn't that what she'd always done? Dealt with things as they became relevant? She was probably a master of that, by this point. It was likely a good thing, because she had a lot of contingency plans to revise and change to attempt to make up for the wild card that was Godric Gryffindor.

She sighed and exhaled smoke at the thought of Godric. She hadn't actually spoken to him since their disastrous attempt at a date a few days before; she'd been trying to figure out her opinion of him. He was confusing, yes, and there was a part of her that was still simmering with anger about some of the things he'd said to her, but...he hadn't seemed all that bad, besides the occasional bout of rampant stupidity. She concluded that, yes, she liked him in a romantic sense, but, no, she wasn't likely to really pursue it. This was partly because Elizabeta Beilschmidt didn't pursue guys, and partly because she figured he would be uninterested anyway. She'd sort of snapped at him and then left; it was bitchy.

Perhaps she should apologize? No. She didn't second-guess; it was a waste of valuable time. What's done is done, and she would deal with the fallout when and if any of that ever became necessary. Until the necessity arose, she would continue to deal with complicated emotions by watching them drift away in a cloud of cigarette smoke; it was pretty cathartic.

[Godric Gillian Gryffindor]

Godric had conned Dumbledore into getting him a nice blade, as his actual blade was a 'priceless treasure' that shouldn't be handed over or questions to as to why he had the blade and perhaps who he really was would arise.  The blade he got was not a bad blade, actually.  He had it delivered by an owl to the table with a note from Dumbledore that read:

Gillian,
Do not open this at the table, as it may cause unnecessary complications.
Please refrain from using the blade in the building, and keep it hidden
as much as you can when inside Hogwarts. 

Godric scoffed at the warning from Dumbledore.  He needn't reminding.  Dumbledore had told him what was proper and not proper with a sword these days.  He took the unwrapped package from the table and began heading out of the door.  It was odd how, as he walked out of the building and down the long bridge to the grounds, his thoughts turned towards Elizabeta Beilschmidt.  It seemed to happen fairly often since their meeting, albeit a heated one, a few days ago.  Even if their conversation had ended with a sort of fight, he liked their conversation, and learned so much about her and this world, but he cared more about learning about her right now.  She was so interesting... and beautiful.  He'd get distracted when thinking of her beauty and the way her smile was slightly different than most smiles he had ever seen, unique, even now after he had met other woman in this time.

By the way, what was wrong with the woman of this time?  He understood treating woman as equals now, but he had girls follow him to dinner yesterday, all giggling in a gaggle behind him.  Godric had turned around and asked if there was anything wrong with them, such as a prank that would have tied them to him, or a giggling concoction (he invented that, and used it on Sal one day... Sal got angry).  Godric didn't understand.  It actually got extremely annoying.  At least as he left the hall today, there was only one girl sneaking behind him, which he remedied by calling her out and asking if she needed something and if not, if she would kindly not follow him.  He almost suspected that these girls were spies, and supposed to follow him around.  But that was just paranoia... or was it?  Godric held firmly on the package, ready to rip the sword out, just in case woman assassins attacked him.  Then again, he wasn't in his time, and woman couldn't be assassins.  Right? 

Shaking his head of such paranoid thoughts, Godric hurried through the bridge, to get to the grounds, to have a go with his sword.  However, just as he exited the bridge, and entered the area known as the Stone Circle, Godric inhaled some sort of smoke which make him cough. At first he believed it to be a fire, but upon seeing the source of the smoke was some small tube in the hands of... He quickly looked at her face, more specifically her eyes. He nearly forgot to breathe, but when he did breathe in once more, he cough again, inhaling the smoke the tube gave off. Godric dropped his package with his sword, nearly diving for her, quickly knocking out the tube from  Eliza's hand (in a smooth movement so it wouldn't hurt her), throwing it on the ground, as he pulled out his wand at the same moment, casting a water charm to put out the heat. 

"Why were you breathing in fire?" Godric asked, thinking the tube must have been some sort of container that had fire on the inside, "Did someone force you?  I'll punish them for you, just tell me a name!  I will not let anyone curse you to breathe in the fire.  They could have killed you!"

[Elizabeta Anne Beilschmidt]

She was more than content to ignore the person that had interrupted her quiet time, until they turned out to be Godric. Even then, she might have ignored him, except he knocked the cigarette out of her hand and put it out. Now she would have to light another one. Fucking time-travelers; they all seemed to lack manners in some way. Clearly, Dumbledore had not explained enough to this kid. Leave it up to the old man to not take it upon himself that some things, like knocking a hard-smuggled cigarette out of someone's hands and then making nonsensical accusations, were considered very rude and were not to be done by anyone that appreciated the presence of eyebrows on their face.

She rolled her eyes as he put out the cigarette and started up with his rambling, rooting around in the pocket of her bomber jacket that she wore when she didn't have to be in those damnable robes until she found the carton, holding it up to show to him. She chose to ignore the butterflies in her stomach when he looked at her like that, because she was rather annoyed with him. Cigarettes were expensive, and not to be destroyed by ignorant time-traveling wizards with a chivalry complex.

"That was called a cigarette; they're very common, and what the hell are you rambling about? Breathing in fire? Please calm down and bring your imagination back to reality, where nobody is that stupid," she sighed.

[Godric Gillian Gryffindor]

Godric was taken aback by her reaction to him saving her from breathing in the tube of fire.  Why else would smoke come from the tube?  He couldn't even imagine what it could be!  Cigarettes, she said they were called, and they were in the carton.  He looked at the carton curiously, reaching for it before stopping himself.  Obviously he had been caught a fool again by these times, and he had been rude.  It would be rude again just to take the carton from her.  He didn't want to upset her, it just seemed to happen with his instinctual way of going about everything, including speaking, because he normally just confused himself if he thought about things before he said them.  It just turned out bad... normally.  Though when he thought things out, and he wound up not confused, it was a lot better.  Like the last time he spoke with her, he thought through things after the proposal.  But now, he had reacted completely on instinct, and proved himself a fool in this world again. 

"I don't understand," Godric replied with a confused and curious look, tilting his head slightly to the right, "It's not fire?  Why does the smoke come out of it?  The only thing I know to smoke like that is fire."  Godric was also a gentlemen, and added, "I am very sorry, Eliza... It seems that I've made another mistake.  I really am... sorry."  At this point the confused and curious look had turned into a sincere, apologetic, and slightly embarrassed expression.

Why couldn't he just get this world and stop making these mistakes?  Why did he have to be here in the first place?  And why did he have to be so ignorant of everything?  He had already read more about this world, and knew about the wall, and the Soviet Union, the US, and the Cold War.  He learned about the Great Depression, World War I and II, and everything within the last 70 or so years, except of course, the book didn't mention things such as the cigarette, just the events and big things he needed to know.  He cursed himself internally for spending most of his free time yesterday looking for Merek in the sky.  He actually thought he saw the bird once, but the bird didn't come to him, despite him trying to whistle for the bird as he did in his time.  He should have studied history and social norms in this time, including things such as these odd cigarette things instead of look for his bird.  After all, to him he had seen the bird not long ago, and searching could wait for later. 

"Please forgive me," Godric added quickly, before he looked at the box again, "Could I... examine the box?"

[Elizabeta Anne Beilschmidt]

She sighed a little and pulled a cigarette out of the carton, lifting it to her lips and lighting it with a snap of her fingers. It was the only spell she could really do without a wand, but it had come in handy; she'd picked it up from Gabe, who had in turn been taught how by his grandfather, Gio. Lighters were sort of hard to smuggle into Hogwarts, harder than even the cigarettes, so it was useful in that application; in combat, the ability to set things ablaze with a snap of her fingers had saved her life on more than one occasion. She couldn't light large fires, but she had never needed to, either. Just small enough to prove a distraction, or light a cigarette. That was all she ever really needed to do.

"It's...similar to incense," she attempted to explain. "Warmth and smoke, but no flame. Stop apologizing; sit down."

She didn't like it when people were standing while she sat, especially tall people like Godric. It gave her the unpleasant feeling of being caged in, and she had a horrible phobia of enclosed spaces. Well, walls mostly. That's why she tried to come outside so often; she had never managed to feel totally at ease amid the school's imposing stone walls. They reminded her too much of another wall that she could see from her bedroom window, and gun turrets and barbed wire and large snarling dogs. Those were all things that she tried to avoid thinking about whenever she could.

She blinked when he asked to see the carton of cigarettes. He genuinely seemed to not know what they were, and she decided to forgive him for that. It wasn't his fault that he was such a fish out of water. She smiled sheepishly and handed them to him.

"Go ahead."

[Godric Gillian Gryffindor]

Godric sat as she requested, in front of her with his legs crossed, criss-cross applesauce, then taking the carton into his hands and looking inside at the little tubes inside.  He pulled one out and held it in front of him.  Incense?  Warmth... no fire?!?  Not any sort of fire at all.  That was just crazy!  Then again, there was always the smoldering remains of anything that caught on fire.  And those smoked too.  Perhaps they simulated that.  But there had to be more.  Otherwise she wouldn't inhale it willingly, as the smoke from a fire hurt one's lungs.  And the little he breathed in didn't feel very good when he breathed it in.  Perhaps it wasn't so bad if one breathed it in from the tube directly.  He wondered, did it have medicinal use?

"Could I try one?" Godric asked his head tilted again, looking at the small tube.  He had to admit her little snapping trick was a nice trick.  One he'd have to learn one day, but it wouldn't take too long.  He did learn quickly, after all, even faster than Sal or Puffy, though Rowena did tend to learn things, literally, in a snap.  It could be useful one day, especially against the Frenchman, in this war that was going to be fought.  The good guys versus the Frenchman.  It could provide a distraction, or burn an enemy.  If he could make a fire with a snap of his fingers, then it could mean a lot of new strategies, even back in his time.  Here he was, a master of a lot of different kinds of magic, but a simple finger trick he didn't know.  It made him feel even more behind.  Really, in the grand scheme of things, the magic he knew was a lot of magic even in this time, but he didn't know that.  There were several spells invented, but the majority dated back to his time, and him and his friends.  Or at least a good amount.  And he was a master of most of it... not apparating though.  He wasn't planning on using that ever again. 

"Eliza," Godric said, looking towards her again with that same sort of look of getting lost in her eyes, not knowing why, but not wanting to look away from her, and not just her eyes, but her face, her body, everything about her he never wanted to look away from, which he hadn't really experienced before, "I am sorry about the other day.  I-I just don't understand this world, and where you live.  I was trying to understand where you were coming from, truly.  I did not mean to hurt or offend you." 

[Elizabeta Anne Beilschmidt]

She chuckled softly as he examined the carton. It was funny, seeing him in these types of situations; he was sort of awkward, wasn't he? She'd noticed that before, but more so now. It was endearing, actually, and that was something she never thought she'd find herself saying about anyone besides Viktor. She laughed a little when he asked to try one; she wouldn't be doing him any favors.

"Nein, mein freund, they're bad for you," she responded. Many of the spells that had been invented (or rediscovered) in her lifetime, were the work of Giovanni Cavaliere, who was some sort of magical genius. Of course, Eliza knew Gio well and could attest to his brilliance, but it seemed sort of self-explanatory. He had attended Hogwarts in the 1940's as a Slytherin and returned in his adult life to teach. He also taught at the Medici Institute, which was an Italian school of higher learning for magic. Part of Eliza wondered how Godric would react to being taught magic by an Italian, whose people had burnt down Diagon Alley in 1941.

"I told you to stop apologizing," she grumbled. "I meant it."

It was as close to saying "It's fine, Godric." as Eliza was ever likely to get. She was still trying to adjust to being looked at like that; she wasn't even sure how to place it.

[Godric Gillian Gryffindor]

One of the things he had forgotten to look up was the Italians.  He didn't know about Diagon Alley getting burned down, and had focused more on the muggle version of history, as that was the most simple way to look at it to start.  And he had memorized most of it.  There was still the Depression and a bit before that he didn't know by heart.  But the Italians, Godric had thought to look up, but he never got around to it.  She had mentioned a civil war, and the Italian her sister fell for, which had gotten his interests peeked, but he was more worried about stuff that would be more directly related to her, such as Germany. 

"Then why do you have them?" Godric asked, once more, curiously.  If it wasn't good for her, then why was she inhaling the fumes?  It was like catching something on fire just to breathe in the smoke they made.  It made no sense.  It hurt his lungs every winter when they had a fire to keep them warm, sometimes to the point he'd rather be cold than breathe in the smoke.  He didn't understand.  It made no sense.  Why hurt your body when it hurts anyways?  "Doesn't it... hurt your lungs?"  Was she torturing herself to make her seem tougher?  He had read in his book that woman had wished for equality.  Perhaps this was her way of trying to seem tough.  By torturing her body, and hurting it so badly?  He didn't want that.  "I don't want you to hurt yourself with these... cigarettes." He didn't want her to die from them either.  That would be sad.  Losing another friend to something he couldn't control. "Can you... just not inhale the fumes?" 

Godric quickly shushed her when she said his name.  He looked around paranoid.  "Careful calling me that," Godric said quietly in an urgent whisper, "There are some people following me, woman specifically.  They could... be spies or assassins.... if they find out who I really am.... that could turn out bad."  Godric reached behind him where his package with his new blade was, pulling the blade out and looking behind him, the sword ready. 

[Elizabeta Anne Beilschmidt]

She considered his, admittedly valid, question. When she was younger and started smoking, it had been because her brothers did, and she'd always wanted to be more like them. Now that she was older and as much like her brothers as she, or her parents, could stand, she primarily smoked because it helped calm her down when she worked herself up into one of her borderline-manic moods where just about anything that she said to someone else was probably going to be hurtful. People left her alone with her thoughts when she was smoking, and she usually smoked because she wanted people to leave her alone with her thoughts.

"When I was around eleven, and I started smoking, I guess I was emulating by older bruders, but now it's really only because I have to calm down somehow," she shrugged. "There wasn't much else to do back then. I just got into the habit."

She stared at him blankly. Poor man; he'd gained a fan club. It was bound to happen, but she had to squelch the instinct to laugh. He thought those girls were going to hurt him! He honestly believed that! It was too funny; she wouldn't laugh. There were female assassins, and spies, but none of them were ever so sloppy as to get themselves caught; she'd know. One of her generation's best had been her closest friend, a very long time ago.

"Calm yourself; they're not going to hurt you. They're following you around because they find you attractive," she snickered.

[Godric Gillian Gryffindor]

Godric considered her answer for a moment.  To calm down.  But she was hurting herself.  Just to calm down.  Wasn't there better ways?  Godric had grown up in a time where there wasn't any of this... inhaling of harmful gasses to calm oneself down.  He was all on his own when he was angry, and had to learn to calm himself down.  Though, Row and Puff did help a lot, especially when he fought with Sal, and which ever wasn't calming him, was with Sal calming him down.  Both of them really had bad tempers, though Godric's was much more under control than Sal's.  Sal could get really nasty if he wanted to...  But that wasn't now.  They both had someone to help them calm down anyways (Helga was usually with Godric, as Row seemed to be the best as calming them down, and Sal was usually angrier), so perhaps she just needed someone to help her, as his friends had helped him.  He wondered why none of her friends did the same.  It was curious, but it did take a special kind of person to put up with his, and a super special kind to put up with Sal's, insults and angry comments. 

"If you just need to calm down, why... why don't you just talk with someone instead of hurt yourself with those... fumes?  I know when I'm angry, Helga talks with me, and calms me down... sometimes Row, too," Godric said curiously, "I could be your Helga... or at least try.  I'm no Puffly-Poo, but I can do a good imitation of her... here..."  He made his voice go up really high.  "Why are you letting him get to you?  That's just how they want you to react, Goddy."  He lowered his voice and smiled a goofy smile at Eliza.  "How was that?"  If Helga just heard him... he'd be in the world of a slap upside the head... though that was more of Rowena's thing, Helga would have slapped him and then laughed.  Because she was just like that.  Sometimes she was annoyingly sweet, but she was amazing at the same time, not in any sort of romantic/marriage sort of situation, but a great friend of his. 

"But they aren't attractive," Godric asked with a raised eyebrow, his new blade still at the ready, but lowered to the ground, so he was ready to attack if necessary, but not holding it up, "How's a man to court a woman who won't speak to him?  Silly women.  You lot don't seem to change that much, after all, or at least some of you don't." 

[Elizabeta Anne Beilschmidt]

Eliza had one of the wickedest tempers in Gryffindor House in her own time, and a disturbing penchant for suspending people in midair by their ankles. It was probably the result of how carefully she policed her every reaction and stray emotion; they all built up until she snapped over small, inconsequential things like someone being late. In fact, she could be irredeemably crabby sometimes. As she'd gotten older, though, she'd also gotten better at keeping those reactions under control, primarily for the sake of her new friends in England. She was always willing to lend a listening ear, but found herself unable to accept the same from anyone else, to Hermione's endless chagrin. She couldn't count the number of times she'd been reamed out for it.

"It's like this," she began softly. "There's an expectation that I'm strong, steady, infallible. I'm supposed to be the one that stays calm under all circumstances, faces even life-threatening situations without flinching, because, at the end of the day, I was one of the only members of my immediate group of friends that totally understood what would happen if we failed. I had seen, done and gone through things by the age of eleven that others have nightmares about well into their forties; after being subjected to the Cruciatus Curse when you're just a little kid, people tend to have an image of you in their head. I offered a listening ear and advice where I could, and the others knew that I would fight for them until I died. They needed me to be strong, so I couldn't do anything to change that and just...got used to internalizing everything, I suppose. Better that I deal with it alone then shake the confidence that the people I care about have always had in me."

She smiled a little at his impression of Helga. Having dealt with Pyre, who the Sorting Hat referred to as "a quintessential Hufflepuff", she got the idea that Helga would probably have hit him for that, but it was funny nonetheless. She was a little surprised, having not realized that he even possessed a sense of humor.

"So are you saying that you'd "court" them if they spoke to you?" she teased him, putting air quotes around court. "And they're mostly younger girls; they tend to be silly."

[Godric Gillian Gryffindor]

While Godric hadn't experienced the same as she had, he knew what she meant.  After all, it was his idea to become outlaws all over England, unable to return to Rowena's home, and at first go through the pain of being burned at the stake, while staying alive, as he hadn't planned on being burned at the stake, and barely lived his first time at the stake, being one of the first people burned at the stake for practicing magic, as the practice didn't pick up steam for a few centuries.  But it wasn't that bad, and it was a small village there.  The torture curse hadn't been made when he was alive, that he knew about, and even with the stuff he didn't know about, it hadn't been made yet.  He knew he hadn't gone through the same as she did, but he could relate a bit with her about that. 

"There's me," Godric said softly, before he picked back up his normal volume, "I'm here now, and... I could be there for you now, to help you, if you would accept my help.  I know I haven't gone through the same, but I have gone through pain, and hurt, and I know how it feels to feel like you can't let anyone know what you are feeling on the inside, but I also know how it feels when you can talk with someone."  It was a bit funny, normally men in his time didn't like to talk things out, but he had learned from Helga and Rowena that talking actually did make him feel better.  "It's something you learn when two of your best mates are woman."  And there was Morgana, but she wasn't.... well, she was a friend, he supposed, but she didn't talk to him about talking things out or anything, so it didn't matter. 

"Oh, well, probably not," Godric admitted, rubbing the back of his neck with the hand he had on his sword, leaving the blade next to him, "I'd much rather court you."  Hold on.  Did his mouth just say that?  His mind expressly said not to do so.  "Er... I mean..." Godric Gryffindor, at a loss for words.  Well, that was always a second. 

[Elizabeta Anne Beilschmidt]

She narrowed her eyes at him a little, trying to gauge how serious he was. It was hard to tell, but he seemed genuine enough; she almost sort of wished that she could accept his offer. Well...actually...why couldn't she? He was trying to be friendy. What was the harm in letting him, really? She liked Godric, even when he was driving her up a freaking wall. Ugh, walls. She hated expressions that involved walls; why were there so many of them? The English language and its disturbing obsession with walls aside, she couldn't actually think of a genuine reason to reject his offer. Maybe it was a sign that she needed to think harder, but she didn't feel like it at the moment.

"Maybe," she conceded. "I'm...bad with feelings. Well, my own feelings."

The look on his face after he said that was so funny; she'd been trying to not laugh at the facial expressions he was making, but she couldn't help it this time. That was just too funny to ignore.

"Hah, I'm not laughing about what you said," she reassured him. "Mein Gott, your face! Hahahahaha, maybe I wouldn't mind you "courting" me, although I also have no idea what your concept of that is."

[Godric Gillian Gryffindor]

Ah, so she was willing to open up just a bit to him.  He hoped she would, not because he wanted to hear all her secrets or hurt her, like he suspected she might think of other people who offered such help, but because he did genuinely want to help.  There was something about her that he didn't want to ever see sad or angry or hurt, and he did want to make her feel not quite so lonely having to be the pillar of strength.  It was something he went through, and he thought he'd go insane if he hadn't had his friends, even Sal, no matter how frustrating he could be sometimes, helped him out.  They even became those pillars so if he were to relax, there would still be something for the others to look to for the strength. 

"I'm not either," Godric laughed with that sort of goofy smile he seemed to have fairly often, "But I can still see if I can help.  If there's one thing Helga and Rowena taught me was how to help other people with feelings, even if I don't understand them myself."  He really was very attached to his friends.  They were his very good friends, and the only ones that hadn't left him and were always with him, and not dead.  He had plenty of friends besides them, but they either died, didn't agree with his stance on magic, or were Morgana. 

"My face wouldn't look like this if my mouth hadn't —" Godric began before he realized she said she wouldn't mind him trying to court her.  He looked at her for a moment, curious as to if she had actually said that, before he talked once more.  "You see, ever since our meeting, I've been studying your world, and your courting rituals... dating.  I find you attractive, and you are far more not-sneaking-around like those women who followed me." 

[Elizabeta Anne Beilschmidt]

She was, admittedly, sort of paranoid. She'd had to be to survive; everything she'd done as a child was inherently dangerous. The paranoia that had served her so well as a child was probably a flaw in her personality, now. It was too late to change it, though. There was a good chance that she'd go through her entire life thinking that everyone who ever offered to listen to her problems was out to get her, and she would just have to deal with that.

"Other people's feelings aren't the issue; it's talking about my own," she admitted sheepishly.

She had, since coming to England, formed very strong attachments to the friends that she'd made there. She was still convinced that no nation was better than her native Germany, but England was, in her estimation, a pretty close second.

"Is that a really backwards way of asking me out?" she questioned him curiously.