vodka soda / PETER

[Michelle Beckett]

ooc. - THIS IS UNQUALITY SORRY I'M IN PAIN
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It had taken quite some time indeed, but Shelly had managed to convince her foster parents that she was simply staying the night at her friend's house, careful to be incredibly pleasant all day and not fabricate her tale too much lest they believe it to be a lie. In fairness, she had intended to stay at her friend's house; the one detail she had forgotten to mention was that the party of the summer was to be held in that house. A party dress, music and too much alcohol to even begin to think about later, however, Shelly found herself tottering down a street not too far from where the party was, past midnight and not quite able to recall how exactly to get back to her friend's house. She'd told them she was only stepping out for some air - she'd been dancing, feeling utterly blissful at being able to let loose after so long cooped up, when the heat had gotten to her and everything felt too cluttered, too noisy, too much - but that had been a while ago. Ten, perhaps fifteen minutes? She swayed a little, halting outside a closed shop and and clutching onto a metal bar outside of it, trying desperately to steady herself.

In doing this, she managed to catch sight of her reflection in the mirror, and faltered again, almost losing her balance in her too-high heels. Despite the fact that she was on a dark, lonely street where any sort of guy could come along and take advantage of her - especially given the too-tight dress she was wearing, that barely managed to cover her arse - she had drank too much to really care, and her reflection was too disarming to tear herself away from. She looked like - she wasn't sure what she looked like. A sozzled girl in a pretty dress, with streaky make-up and bad balance, but underneath it all - under that carefully perfected layer - there was something like desperation. Starting to feel nauseated, she clumsily turned away from the window, almost falling off her heels again.

Making a sort of strangled noise in the back of her throat, she bent down, still clutching the metal bar with all of her might, trying fruitlessly to wrench one of her shoes off and yet still stay upright. Upon failing miserably, she slid down onto the ground, not caring at all about sitting in the gutter, and began fiddling with the straps, fingers rendered rather clumsy in her current state. All she knew was that she needed to get her bloody shoes off.

[Peter Hawthorne]

(OOC - OH MAN, i can't with the thread title...)

Peter walked briskly across the street, finally on his way out from his house to the bar that he knew was nearby his home. It was a bit late to be venturing out, but he'd found that his afternoon nap had lasted longer than he'd expected, and he'd only woken up from it a couple of hours ago, after which he'd done a bit of cleaning, written a few letters, and then gotten dressed. As he walked past a closed up shop, he spotted a girl in his peripheral vision, who was in a very short dress and looked very young and, he told himself, seemed very unfamiliar. But as he squinted in her direction, glancing a bit closer, he knew that the moment of brief ignorance he'd just experienced had passed because he did indeed recognize the girl.

He'd tried to shrug it off as nothing, just another pissed out of their mind teenager looking for a good time even though she hardly looked like she could stand up on her own two feet, but no, he knew her. Beckett, he could vaguely recall, was her last name. She was the student - third, fourth year, possibly? - who tried so hard to look angelic and innocent, sitting in first row of his classroom nearly every morning for her History of Magic lesson, and it was much worse that he'd just put a name to her face because now he couldn't categorize her off as "just some stupid girl."

Now that he had an idea of who she was and had stopped suspiciously in his tracks, he felt a strange resentment regarding the entire situation. Why had he had to stop and observe her for long enough to recognize her? If he kept walking on with that knowledge pressed in the back of his mind, he would no doubt spend the rest of his night distracted, his plans interrupted by his thoughts surrounding her and whether or not she had managed to reach a safe place. But if he did something - opened his mouth to speak, to ask her if she was okay (when it was obvious that she wasn't) or to ask if she was waiting for someone to come get her (probably some older boy who would take advantage of her later on), he would risk having her realize that he was familiar looking, maybe, even though she was highly intoxicated. If she recognized him as well, figured out that he was one of her professors, and survived to tell the story of how one of her teachers had approached her in the middle of the night when she'd been drunk - well, the outcome wouldn't be the greatest.

Taking a deep breath, he took a few steps forward in the other direction, wincing as he looked back and saw her struggling with her shoes. He knew he couldn't just walk away now like it was no big deal. If anything bad at all happened to her and he somehow heard about it later, it would haunt his conscience for the rest of his life that she had been there, utterly helpless and drunk, and he hadn't stopped to help her out. Though he wouldn't ever admit it, his desire to do the right thing - or what he believed to be the right thing - in such predicaments strongly overrode his need to keep his job.

"Hey," he said loudly, waving at her as he turned around, wondering if she would put two and two together and see that he was talking to her. It would be difficult for her to ignore, since the street was fairly empty and they were the only two people on that particular block, but she looked drunk enough to not be able to rationalize anything. "Are you alright?" It was a rhetorical question - pointless, even - because anyone could see that she wasn't. However, he was testing whether or not she recognized who he was when she looked up, because if she did, then that was a problem, but if she didn't and instead believed he was some pervy guy looking to take her back to his home for the night, then that might also be a problem...

[Michelle Beckett]

ooc. - knew you wouldn't have been able tooooo
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A voice rang out, but it didn't register properly in Shelly's brain. The only thing she cared about, the thing of most importance, was getting these damn shoes off, and yet they were the trickiest sort to unclasp, far too impractical for an intoxicated young girl. As she fiddled, she found her frustration growing, immersed in the task as she desperately gave up on the idea of undoing the clasp and began to yank fruitlessly at the shoe instead, determined she would drag it off if she had to. "Fuck, fuck, fuckitty fuck..." she muttered mutinously under her breath, and, with one last desperate yank managed to free her right foot from the shoe. The shoe was chucked unceremoniously to one side, Shelly's breathing unsteady from the aggravation and the fact that she felt so warm - why did she feel so warm? She exhaled deeply, forcing herself to breathe as slowly as possible so that, perhaps, time would slow down along with it.

As she tilted her head back to attempt to allow some sort of calm to wash over her, the figure that had spoken was spotted. A boy from the party, perhaps? She had danced with a few, but one in particular had seemed interested in her, raking his gaze up and down her body, skimming his fingers down along her hips. The figure bore a certain resemblance to him - perhaps - Shelly couldn't quite tell. He was tall and had dark hair, and she vaguely recalled the boy she'd danced with to have similar features. Deciding that it must have been him, she offered the man a beam, a weaker version of her usual smile, holding the heel she'd managed to drag off her foot aloft and saying, "Hi! Hey. I got my shoe off. Look." Her brow furrowed at his question, eyes wandering as she tried to piece it together. Are you alright? he'd said, which seemed like a simple enough question, but if you looked at it - if you really looked at it - it wasn't such a simple question. If you pondered it, it had far much more weight, more gravity than it would ever let on. "Yeah," she said brightly, after a long, confused pause. "Yeah, I'm totally - I'm totally cool..."

[Peter Hawthorne]

Peter looked thoroughly unimpressed with the girl as she fought some more with her shoes - why had she worn such high heels if she couldn't manage to handle them? Why was she even wearing high heels, anyways? He wanted to say that she looked to be about twelve, but even though she was fairly short with huge eyes and primarily girl-ish features, he knew that couldn't be true. He sighed, shaking his head at himself at the mess he'd gotten himself into by announcing his presence. If he hadn't spoken up in the first place, she wouldn't even have known that he was there, regardless of whether he'd walked away or not. He could have just stood around the corner for a few more minutes and watched her to make sure she didn't hurt herself or get taken advantage of, despite what a stalker that would make him look like to anyone passing by. That wouldn't have worked for too long, though, because he really didn't have all night to make sure she was okay, so the only viable option had been to speak up and ask her if she was...

He was skeptical of the accuracy of her answer and whether she'd even understood his question, because she didn't seem to give off the vibe that she had, answering far too brightly to be normal. He'd observed enough drunk girls in his lifetime to know the variety of types of reactions you could get from them. Some would just be totally out of it, wildly loud and unaware of their surroundings, and others, like the girl in front of him currently was, would put forth that they were extremely okay, even sober - that, however, could be tested if you attempted to get them to walk in a straight line or any other mundane task that would prove to be quite complicated for someone who happened to be drunk.

"Yeah, I'm not feeling that," he said nonchalantly, taking his hands out of his pockets to run them through his hair in a moment of frustration, "because you really don't look alright. What's your name?" he added, taking a few more steps over so he was now standing right beside her. She had a small frame to begin with, he'd noted, but she looked even smaller in comparison to him because she was sitting down in the gutter and he was standing up on the edge of the sidewalk. "Are you planning on going somewhere? It'd probably make sense for you to stand up if you are, or if someone's coming to get you..." He made no move to help her up, however, already wondering if that would be going too far.

[Michelle Beckett]

Shelly was not particularly interested in this boy (at least, she'd convinced herself he was a boy) and was far more preoccupied with the other shoe, which was proving even tougher to free her foot from than the previous one. As she wrestled with it, the skirt of her dress hitched higher up her thighs, revealing even more of her milky-pale skin than she had been already, coming dangerously near to flashing her skimpy underwear. Not that that bothered her - those sort of things never really bothered her, not even when she was sober, but especially not now, when she was too drunk to even function properly and she felt nausea rising in her stomach and she was warm, she was far too warm...She felt as though the dress was sticking to her skin, as though she was sweating bullets, as though her entire being was being roasted alive. And then, of course, there was this man, casting a shadow over her and breaking her concentration and asking stupid questions.

"I can't get this off!" She cried, stopping mid-wrestle with her shoe and sprawling both her legs out in frustration. "And I feel - I feel really - really..." she trailed off, fixing her unfocused gaze on the boy above her. There was something wrong with him, something she couldn't quite put her finger on. The way he stood, his jaw, the solemn tone. He seemed far too big, too tall, to be anyone at that party. None of that usual adolescent awkwardness was in his gait; he seemed self-possessed, assured, and even in her intoxicated state Shelly could dimly come to the consclusion that this wasn't a boy, this was a man. And yet she recognised him.

There were far more pressing matters at hand, however, primarily the fact that she needed her other shoe off as soon as possible. She tore her gaze away from the man - although she hadn't realised it before, she'd been positively staring at him blearily for the past couple of minutes with her lips ever-so-slightly parted - to glare at the offending shoe, rearranging herself into a cross-legged position in order to have another go at removing it from around her foot. The tricky clasps proved to be her worst nightmare, however, a solid defense against freeing her foot from the awful things.

And then a sudden, positively stellar idea occurred to her. Lifting her head to gaze in awe at the man for being there at the right moment, the perfect moment, the moment she needed him most, she kicked her foot out towards him, struggling to sit up a little and retain a dignified enough position, although nothing could overcome the sheer eagerness in her facial expression. "Could you - could you please - it'd be so nice of you if you tried to take it off..." surely he would have better luck than her with it; although the world seemed rather unsteady at the moment, he appeared to have perfect balance. "Please, I can't...keep it on."

[Peter Hawthorne]

Watching the girl struggle with her other shoe was obviously going to go nowhere, Peter realized quickly, and decided to refer to her by the name he though he knew. If he was wrong, she probably wouldn't even notice, but maybe if he was right, she'd pay a bit more attention to him. "Beckett," he began testily, his patience beginning to run low, "could you calm down for all of a few seconds? Please, I'd quite appreciate it," he went on, suddenly realizing that he'd never be able to talk to her as sarcastically as he was if they'd been at school and he was her teacher and she was his student, because that's what they were at Hogwarts. However, here and now in the middle of a lonely street in the middle of the night, he was just an older guy trying his best to help out an overly intoxicated teenage girl - a situation that was rare and couldn't end well in any case, even if you ignored that he happened to be her professor during the school year.

He made a slight tsk-ing sound from the back of his throat when she all but disregarded his presence and his question, and he had to force himself to resist the urge to scream or walk away, or both. He made sure to avert his eyes to the ground when her dress hitched up even higher than it already had before, knowing fully well that at that moment, she was more vulnerable than he'd anticipated. In addition to being drunk, she looked as though she was also anxious, for some reason - that or she couldn't place where she was or what she was doing there, nor that he was not in fact there to take advantage of her, but to assist her.

He was positively displeased when she finally found it in her somewhere to look up at him and acknowledge his presence, and that too only so she could ask him to take off her shoe for her. Her shoe. Who did she think he was? He opened his mouth immediately to instinctively say no, but stopped himself just in time with the reminder that she wasn't just some woman on the side of the street - she was a girl, definitely underage, and certainly too messed up presently to help herself do what achieve what seemed to be her biggest goal then, which was getting rid of her shoes.

"I'd really rather not," he told her, almost in a reprimanding tone, but by the time he was speaking he was also leaning down on his knees in front of her, his fingers fumbling with the straps of her high heels. He was entirely sober, and even he was having trouble getting the shoes unhooked from her feet, which should have been a testament to her that she should never wear them again. He finally untangled them with a bit of effort, throwing the shoe off to the side on top of where she'd thrown the other one. "Now your shoes are off, yeah? Now you have to answer my questions," he said firmly, looking her in the eyes. He was risking recognition from her by looking straight at her now that she had no other distractions, though that was far-fetched considering how intoxicated she was...

[Michelle Beckett]

It took Shelly a moment to grasp the fact that he knew her name. It hadn't, like any of the other things he'd said to her, registered. It hadn't pierced through the intoxicated bubble she'd managed to surround herself in. It was just her name, after all, and the only thing she managed to make herself even dimly aware of, sprawled in the gutter in a clingy dress and ridiculous shoes, was his admittedly somewhat testy tone of voice, a voice that sent bells ringing in her head. She'd heard that tone before, could recall it from a foggy memory. Eyebrows knitted together, she raised her eyes once more to meet his, and they were widened even further than usual, immediately achieving the classic deer-caught-in-the-headlights look. "How do you - I'm fine - you're fine..." it was all quite funny, really, this man ordering her to calm down while she was slumped on the side of the street, sweaty and sticky and off-balance with everything else in the world. Another smile, a wonderful, infinetely bright smile appeared on her face. "I'm fine - I just need my shoes off - that's all. That's all."

Shelly had expected him to stay the way he was forever; framed against the night sky, his back to the moon and his face the definition of displeased. And yet he stooped down. He bent to his knees and began to fiddle with the straps on her shoes, just as she had asked him to, and this was enough to restore some sort of happiness inside of her. She wriggled her foot in what she thought would surely be a helpful manner, although in her state all movements were steady and probably only slowed down the process. As she managed to ease her foot out of the shoe and that one was chucked beside the other one, she gave a squeal of joy. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!" Her aching feet seemed far happier out of those monstrosities, as did she. Sitting up somewhat straighter, Shelly ran a hand through her tangled black hair, eyes alight. "Thank you so much, you darling, darling -"

The last word died on her lips when their eyes locked. Now that he was level with her, there was no doubting that his features were too familiar for them not to know each other. Something clicked inside her brain; memories of lessons at Hogwarts swam into focus. And yet what would he be doing here? This setting was out-of-place. This setting was not the setting for a Hogwarts Professor. And yet a gentle smile graced Shelly's lips, face softening as though she'd been waiting for him. In fact, she looked utterly appeased. "Professor Hawthrone," she stumbled over his name, paused a moment, and then corrected herself. "Hawthorne. Hawthorne, I mean. You took off my shoe," this was spoken with utmost wonder. Professor Hawthorne wasn't the sort of man who would get down on his knees and ease your shoe off. This wasn't like Professor Hawthorne at all. "You're so sweet."

[Peter Hawthorne]

Peter was stressing, that much was clear, though not to her because it was likely that literally nothing was clear to her at this point. Unimpressed and displeased were both understatements - he was feeling annoyed at her, but also angry at himself for even considering that helping her out would be a good idea. It was going nowhere so far, since she was just going on mindlessly about things that he couldn't bother understanding, and she wasn't answering his questions, either. It was still as if he wasn't even there. However, that changed within the next moment, his bitterness and frustration quickly being taken over by another feeling when she met his eyes. He knew that look she was giving him, like she was looking right through him and all his deepest, darkest secrets. But she couldn't possibly be, of course, because she was just a desolate young girl in an even more dangerous world. Anything could have happened to her had he not come along at the right time and someone else with other intentions had stumbled upon her sitting there all alone. It bothered him immensely that he, in his sober state, understood this threat, and she, in her drunken one, probably did not.

When she recognized him, he could almost feel his heart skip a beat, but he didn't think it would be wise to look surprised at her realization, since he really wasn't. She was bound to have figured it out at some point, and he couldn't tell whether it was better that she'd put the pieces together sooner rather than later... "Yes, that's me. Professor Hawthorne. You shouldn't know that, but you do, and I did just take off your shoe, so that should tell you that this is all getting more and more pointless by the second," he remarked with an air of casualness about him, although on the inside he was having a bit of a panic attack, "you need to tell me your name, and what your plan is for the rest of the night. How are you going to go about getting home?" He kept his voice loud and clear and his gaze firm in order to come across as being serious and maybe even slightly cross, just so she wouldn't think he was joking around. He ignored her comment about him being sweet, though he also didn't move from his position on the ground in front of her, bent down on one knee now.

He shouldn't have stopped at all, he thought again, the fear of all the possible outcomes of the situation repeatedly forcing their way back into his mind despite how hard he tried to shrug them off. He didn't owe this girl anything. She was just another one off his students, and he was sure that the majority of his students got drunk and did drugs and went to parties and had sex during their holidays - so why did she matter? If he lost his job over this, it would be all her fault, really, not his, because she'd been in the wrong place at the wrong time and he'd recognized her. He walked down this street at least twice a week, sometimes late at night, and there were never any intoxicated students hopelessly collapsed on the gutter, their biggest wish to get their high heel shoes off...

[Michelle Beckett]

Since she had freed both her feet from the clutches of those silver heels that lay tossed in the gutter by her side, Shelly pulled both her legs into herself, oblivious to the streaks of dirt running up her calves, attained by being collapsed in the gutter, and settled herself in what was a somewhat more comfortable position. Or, she supposed, as comfortable as one sitting on the edge of a street in a clingy dress and no shoes could achieve. Her Professor was still speaking to her, but she'd long since averted her gaze, curling a tendril of hair around her finger absently. His voice was clear and loud and demanded attention, though, much to her distaste. She was perfectly happy to lay on the side of the street, marooned somewhere between real life and the party, with a perfect view of the stars up above her. And yet his voice didn't soften, his words didn't slow. They were practical and firm although his tone had a distinct edge to it, one she couldn't work out in her current state.

"Professor, Professor..." as she spoke this soothingly, Shelly reached out blindly, grabbing both of his elbows and tugging the material on them. "Professor, relax. You're okay. You need to relax..." she was half-laughing by this stage, trying to assure him that it was fine, that there was no need to speak in such a tone, to have such an expression on his face. Still gripping his elbows, although holding him at arm's length, she continued in what seemed to her a perfectly calm, practical tone, and yet fell out of her mouth slurred and clumsy, "I'm fine - I just needed some air. I just need some air, and then I'll go back to the party. It's fine. You need to chill!"

Her certainty at him being Professor Hawthorne faltered, however, when he asked for her name. Surely he knew her name? She'd always made a point to sit at the front of his class, flash him a dazzling smile. She did that to all of the Professors. How could he not know her name? An utterly puzzled expression took over her face, looking at her Professor in sheer confusion. "Shelly," she managed finally. "My name's Shelly - I thought you knew my name? I thought you were Professor Hawthrone?" This time she didn't notice her butchering of his name, too wrapped up in what she saw was a major dilemma. "I'm Shelly - and I'm fine," both of these pieces of information seeming enormously important at that moment in time, her grip on his elbows became even stronger. "I thought you knew me..." her voice laced with disappointment, she looked away from him, lowering her gaze down to the gutter. Without another word, she released him from her grip, letting her arms fall loosely by her sides.

[Peter Hawthorne]

Peter was taken aback as she continued to ignore him for a few moments, choosing to pay attention to a strand of her hair instead of him. He was putting important aspects of his life on the line to ensure that she was safe, but she obviously couldn't be bothered by that. Maybe, he began to think fleetingly, maybe she did this sort of thing every night... if so, it suddenly seemed less of his responsibility to see to it that she didn't get taken advantage of, because what if she'd been in the exact scenario in the past when he hadn't walked past her and things had gone an entirely different way? That wasn't his fault, so why should her being in the current state that she was be on him to fix?

Despite these thoughts, he still didn't move, even when her hands clasped tightly around his elbows. He could have shaken her off easily enough, but she'd already made up her mind, it looked like, and he would let her do what she wanted for a few more minutes - no more, because his capacity for bullshit was running quite low by now. "You're not fine, that's the thing," he shot back in a burst of annoyance, "You. Are. Not. Fine. And you don't even know how much trouble I'll get into if you tell anyone about this, because it would sound so horrible and you just have no idea," he went on, a bit more calmly as he shook his head at her.

"You're drunk out of your mind, which renders you incapable to travel too far without having to sit down like you are now, and you're definitely not old enough to apparate, let alone sober enough to. Can you at least tell me that you're getting picked up by someone? Do you have any concrete plan at all for the rest of the night?" A better question to ask her would have been 'Can you tell me if there's someone else who can take responsibility for this other than me and get you home safely?' but that hardly would have registered with her. Rolling his eyes involuntarily at her statement that he should have known her name, he responded slowly, "Shelly. I have hundreds of students. I don't know all of their names, regardless of how often I see them." It was a wonder that he'd managed to recall her last name at all. He sighed as she let go of her elbows and continued to say his name wrong, finally moving to stand up on his feet. Reluctantly, he extended his hand out to her. "C'mon. Get up. You have to at least try to stand up."

[Michelle Beckett]

His annoyance was somewhat startling, but Shelly felt almost as though she was a third-party observer to this encounter. She didn't feel particularly affected by his aggravation at her, unperturbed despite the face that it was obvious he was losing his patience. She smiled again, head tilted to one side, fighting back a sudden urge to laugh that had overtaken her. "But I am fine, sir...you needn't worry - although it's nice of you to..." she'd always thought that Peter was handsome, and without the atmosphere of school all around him, he was even more so. She felt a swell of an inexplicable emotion inside her body at his perfect features - his eyes, his nose, his lips, his jaw. She couldn't concentrate on one thing for long, however. The world continued to spin around her and she was forced to surrender to it and spin along, and when you spun you weren't able to focus. You just had to tilt your head back and let it happen.

"Picked up?" She repeated, this time allowing herself to giggle. "What, you mean is someone going to shag me? Pick up like that? I don't know. Maybe. Maybe not tonight...I don't feel well..." the tone of voice was light, impossibly breezy, the tone someone would adopt when discussing something perfectly innocent at a tea-party or brunch. "I feel a bit...you know," to underline her point, she widened her eyes expressively, eyebrows shooting upwards. "You know - a bit...like that." His slow response, his reason for not knowing her name, was brushed away by Shelly making a 'pish-posh' gesture with her hand. "I know your name. You should know mine. It's polite, see?" With this, she clasped his hand firmly in hers, saying cheerfully, "My name is Michelle Beckett. You can call me Shelly. Nice to meet you. Sir." This was tacked on as an afterthought, one last attempt at politeness.

She'd not expected him to get to his feet so suddenly, and yet he got up with ease, standing straight and tall and proud in such a dizzy, spinning world. Craning her neck to look up at him, mouth popping open once again, she watched as he extended his hand, and took it before fully realising what he was going to try and make her do. Making her entire body limp to prevent being pulled upwards, she protested pleadingly, "But I can't. I can't get up, sir. My feet hurt...I can't..." her feet truly did ache, the result of hours of spinning around, hurtling and twirling and jumping through her friend's house in midst of many other sweaty, intoxicated teens. "Sit down. Sit with me," as though to encourage him, she pushed her shoes away to make room beside her, gesturing grandly to the ground.

[Peter Hawthorne]

Peter frowned, heavily contrasting the bright smile present on her face. "Do you actually think this is funny, of all things? This situation isn't humorous in the least. Not for me, not for you. Do I look like I'm laughing to you?" he questioned rhetorically, knowing that his persistence in getting to recognize the seriousness of his current predicament was pointless and also unjustified. She couldn't be more than fourteen, maybe fifteen years old by the looks of it, and even if she'd been slightly more sober, she likely wouldn't have understood the consequences that him doing anything to help her would pose.

"No, I didn't mean it like that," he clarified in a rush, "that's not what I meant at all. I meant picked up as in maybe a friend or someone else you know coming here to get you and dropping you off at your house...?" he trailed off, leaving the half-question, half-statement hanging in the air for moment as if that would allow her to process it better before he continued speaking. "You're feeling sick? Don't throw up, alright? Whatever you do, don't throw up," he insisted, though he knew that there was no way he could really stop her if her body reacted in such a way to what she'd drunk that night.

At the moment, he couldn't fathom what he was going to do. Most of the time, he needed a proper plan to get things done in his day to day life - he needed to make lesson plans weeks before the actual lesson he would teach in order to keep himself organized, he needed to plan carefully when to buy enough coffee to last him a month at a time so he wouldn't have to go to the store multiple times, and all in all, he just needed to know what he was doing before he did it. That was the way he'd always gone about things in an effort to get them done well and effectively, but this situation had been so unexpected that he couldn't begin to map out what do to next without wanting to slam his head against a wall.

What could he do? There were only a few options, none of them all that realistic. He could ask her where the party was that she'd spoken about earlier and drop her off back there and hope that she'd be okay once among all her peers again. He could ask her where her home was and side-along apparate her there, even with the risk of getting her splinched because she was so drunk. And then there was always the option of his own flat, which was only a few blocks down from where they currently were - hardly a ten minute walk - but he couldn't contemplate that option for too long because it just wouldn't work. There had to be something else he could do if the first two possibilities ended up failing because she wasn't accurately answering his questions...

"You have to get up," he repeated stubbornly, ignoring her protests and suggestion that he should sit back down, because he didn't want to go back to square one all over again. He just wanted this to be over, to get her someplace else. Anywhere other than the middle of the road would be better for her, considering she had stated that she wasn't feeling well. "Please. You have to, Shelly," he said again, this time leaning down to take off both his trainers and hand them to her, leaving him in just his socks, still standing up and also holding his arm out to her. His shoes would no doubt be too large to fit her small feet, but at least having them in her possession would lessen her complaint of not being able to walk because she was shoeless...

[Michelle Beckett]

"No!" Shelly responded, followed by another unsteady laugh, looking cheerful still despite how angry her Professor had become, not deterred in the least by his frown, the sharpness of his words. "No, you don't look like you're laughing, sir! And you should fix that. You should laugh more!" She dragged both of her legs underneath her body, forcing herself to kneel although her feet ached in protest. He was too far above her to talk to properly, however, and so she straightened her back, drawing herself upright. "Laughter is the best medicine, Professor. Didn't you know?" In a sober state, the weight of what Peter was doing would've been clear to her, but intoxicated the top of her priorities was how serious he seemed, so painfully solemn. She desperately wanted him to return her smile, to wipe the frown from his face, to tickle his sense of humour.

"My house?" Shelly repeated incredulously, the smile slowly melting off of her face, replaced by a look of sudden fear, a defenceless animal realising it is in the line of sight of a predator, ready to be slaughtered. Her foster parents couldn't see her like this - they knew, of course, they knew that the innocent facade she fought so hard to keep in place was a lie, knew that her wide eyes and sing-song voice were only a game - but they couldn't see her like this, that much she knew, even when she felt the way she did now. They couldn't see her. They just couldn't. She'd sleep on the streets if she had to, find a corner to collapse in, wrap her arms around her knees and wait there until morning. Not home. His desperate plea for her not to actually throw up only made her body seem to want to more; her stomach clenched and another wave of nausea passed through her.

"I can't, sir, I really can't..." Shelly continued to protest, speaking obnoxiously over Peter's encouragement of her getting to her feet. The ground was far safer. A better place to spin. Not as dangerous. When he began to take off his shoes, however, Shelly was silenced, wondering vaguely why he would do such a thing - but then, of course, hadn't she just taken off her shoes? She cast a glance at her sparkling silver shoes, abandoned in the gutter, the shoes she'd been so proud of when she'd convinced her foster mum to buy them for her. They looked beautiful, but they were positively deadly. "Are we swapping shoes, then, sir?" Shelly returned her attention to her Professor, another weak smile appearing on her face, lost for anything else to do but joke. "Do you want to wear mine?"

Her resolution to stay on the ground was gone, however, as she was immensely touched by him taking off his own shoes. She saw it as a show of solidarity and although she could never begin to articulate how smashing she thought he was at that moment in time, she attempted it anyway as she grasped his hand and hauled herself upwards unsteadily. "You're so sweet, sir - you're so sweet - thank you so much..." finding herself standing up was so surprising that she almost overbalanced, clutching onto the railing to prevent such a thing. "I'm up. Bravo. Well done me." This was murmured half to herself, voice hushed as she used her bare feet to manoeuvre his shoes towards her. Taking slow, easy movements, she carefully slotted both of her feet into their respective shoes, finding herself amused at how big they were on her.

[Peter Hawthorne]

"I do laugh," he protested, forgetting about the situation at hand and looking rather offended for a brief moment, "it's not as if I never laugh. I'm just not laughing now. Because this isn't a laughing matter. At all." His sentences were short and choppy, and though it hadn't been intentional on his part, it occurred to him that she was likely going to find the way he was speaking to her now - as if he was humoring her - even more amusing than she already did. He didn't realize, however, that she was purposely trying to get him to smile, because he still believed that she was legitimately out of her mind for the time being, as intoxicated as she was.

He threw her a confused look at her exclamation after he suggested taking her back to her home, wondering what it was about where she lived that had turned her from bright to gloomy in the span of a few seconds. He wasn't one hundred percent sure, but he could see the hints of a strange expression on her face - possibly dread, or even fear, or maybe it was just the nausea he was positive she was feeling. He didn't press her on the matter, though, because she swiftly changed the topic again.

"You can," he reassured her as she ignored his request for a second time. He felt a wave of relief go through him when she showed signs of standing up, finally, taking his shoes that he'd held out to her. He proceeded to test the ground beneath his feet wearing only his socks, finding it rough and generally uncomfortable, but having to push these feelings aside because it seemed that giving up his shoes to her had been a deciding factor in her choice to try to stand up. He couldn't take them back, especially because she didn't look like she had any plans to put her high heels back on, and nor did he have any desire to exchange shoes with her. He would just go in his socks and hold out hope that wherever she wanted him to take her wouldn't be too far away.

"You're welcome. And no, I don't want to wear your shoes. You can just leave them here, if you want, or take them with you. Doesn't matter," he managed with a smallest hint of a smile growing on his features, though it disappeared as he went on, attempting to look as serious and knowledgeable as possible. "Alright," he added gently, not wanting to overwhelm her with many questions because it was unclear whether she was steady enough on her feet yet, "where would you like to go? You already made it obvious that you have no plans to go back home..."

[Michelle Beckett]

"You don't," Shelly laughed fondly, reaching upwards to pat her History of Magic Professor consolingly on the elbow (she couldn't quite reach his shoulder from where she was sprawled). "You don't laugh, sir, and that's why everyone - all the girls - all the girls at school like you so much, because you're so excellent, all broody and good-looking and nice eyes although I hope you do excuse me for not thinking you're so lovely as everyone else does. Nice eyes though," she tacked on hopefully, fearful of hurting his feelings after he was being so very sweet to her.

Standing up wasn't as bad as she'd predicted it would be, but it was still something of a struggle to retain proper balance. Swaying slightly, although still gripping onto the railing as though her life depended on it, Shelly fixed her Professor with a cheeky grin, saying happily, "Oh, but I think the heels would look so good on you, sir! And they're expensive ones - not cheap - sparkly and silver..." her voice trailed off as she bent carefully down towards the ground, clumsily scooping both of her heels up from the ground and almost tipping over in the process. "I couldn't leave my shoes here. My trusty shoes. I just couldn't," she explained, becoming totally straight-faced as she told him this, clutching both shoes to her chest. She didn't elaborate, obviously deciding that this information was enough to assure Professor Hawthorne of the importance of the silver stilettos.

"We could go back to the party, if you want?" Shelly suggested, beaming at him. Her hair, which had been tightly curled earlier on that night, had become limp and messy, the bobby pins that she had jammed onto her head sliding down her dark tendrils and losing the shape she'd worked so hard to make it. "'S not far - I think - down that street -" she pointed an unsteady finger down the street, having a vague idea where exactly the party was although not a completely solid one. "It was quite a good party," she told him conversationally, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear only for it to spring back immediately. "I think you'd like it - you could meet my friends -" she made a sudden move to go forward, fully intent on sauntering all the way down the street and locating the house she'd come from, and stumbled, having to grab at the railing in order for her not to end up splayed on the pavement.