Bait and Switch: a Tale of Revenge and Friendship, tag Jordan @ the Library

[Luiz Cardoso]

"Hey... hey, Luiz!"

Luiz Cardoso had done nothing - nothing at all, except to walk into the Hogwarts Library. He glanced up at the bane of his existence, a table full of twittery young fifth year girls, who were all eyeing him the way he imagined a pack of hungry wolves would stare down a steak on a string. He quickly lowered his eyes to the floor and tried to shuffle past them as if he had not heard them.

"Maybe he doesn't speak English?" one of them suggested, as a bored-looking blonde Gryffindor rolled idly by with a book cart. He gave her an impatient look but she just lifted an eyebrow at him, and he didn't have the courage to say anything. The table of fifth years continued unabashedly.

"Maybe he doesn't! Let's see what he does to this. Hey, Luiz! Voulez-vous coucher avec moi, c'est soir?"

Crash.

A flurry of giggles went up from the table as the very red-faced Ravenclaw bashfully helped the Gryffindor girl put all her books back onto her book cart. "I'm - I'm sorry," he stammered as he hurried through the motions. "I didn't mean --"

"Sssssh!"

The librarian stared at him malevolently, and he snapped his mouth shut instead. With a flick of his wand, the books all righted themselves, and he tugged his own up off the floor like he was afraid it would catch on fire. He darted around the next set of shelves and there he paused to catch his breath, allowing a large sigh to escape him as he fell against the shelf behind him. Merlin! Why had he agreed to this foolishness? He knew going into public places was bad news for him. Was he really such a nerd about Charms that he would risk being mind-raped by fifth years just to tutor some classmate??

Ugh, he really was pathetic.

"Jordan?" Luiz recognized the Slytherin at the table near the restricted section, the furthest from the librarian's desk -- just as Aislinn had indicated he would be. "Hi..." he said, a bit awkwardly, and then he pulled out a chair at the table and began to settle himself before he had even given his explanation. "Um, Ash told me to tell you she couldn't make it tonight, so, she asked me if I would come and tutor you instead. She said you were having trouble with the essay Professor Guinet assigned us?" Luiz looked up into the clear blue eyes across from him with the wholesome innocence of a young man who had no idea he had been completely and utterly duped.

[Jordan Hetley]

For quite some time, probably since around the time in fourth year when Aislinn started up her idea of writing papers for other students, Jordan and Aislinn had a standing study date in the back corner of the Library. At first it had been Jordan's attempt at actually doing his homework. As their relationship shifted from friends, to attempted dating, to actual false-dating, the time quickly turned into another piece of the rather intricate cover story that Jordan was attempting to use. It was much easier to keep his friends convinced he was just the same as before. His odd and precarious position in his social circle had managed to stay intact.

In all actuality, it wasn't that Jordan minded the time. Aislinn was usually working on some variation of an essay, and he typically flipped through some ridiculous Quidditch book or another. They would talk about whatever really came to mind in hushed voices, but in all it was just time hanging out with his friend. Usually it would end with Jordan having a few different people to deliver essays to in Slytherin, but in all not an entirely bad way to spend some time. Jordan had made his usual excuse to 'the guys' as they were leaving the great hall, that he had a study date, and as usual aside from a small amount of ribbing, he was on his way in a few moments none of them the wiser.

Jordan had shuffled back to the table that he and Aislinn usually claimed and was a bit confused not to see her already there. It wasn't terribly unusual, given that she was occasionally caught up talking to someone or another. Jordan tossed his bag down on the floor and poured himself into one of the chairs with all of the elegance of an elephant falling over. The chair scraped noisily against the wood and tipped precariously on two legs before coming back to a rest with a loud thunk. The noise gained him a rather shush from a few of the tables that were out of sight, but still close enough to hear his clatter.

With a rather useless shrug he folded his arms on the table and laid his head down in the hole that they created. He was rather contentedly 'resting his eyes' when he heard a rather dangerously familiar voice. Jordan snapped up to see if he was really hearing Luiz or if his daydreams had just gotten that realistic that he was now full blown hallucinating. He looked a mess, with his hair sticking off at a rather odd angle, and his face some weird state of confusion. Slowly the gears in his mind started turning and he realized that he was either going to have to kill his best friend or thank her, and he wasn't entirely sure which one first.

After what Jordan could only assume was ages (since the few moments seemed to drag out endlessly), he finally snapped out of his weird state. Blinking several times Jordan attempted to shrug off the awkwardness. "Uh, okay. I mean, that's um, hi?" Jordan felt heat flooding up his face as his voice made an obnoxious crack towards the end of his quasi statement. Jordan shook his head in an attempt to bury his embarrassment, but it only seemed to intensify when he looked up and met the brown eyes across from him. He was quite certain in that moment that he was absolutely insane for thinking that he was in any way capable of pulling off any sort of passably normal conversation with Luiz Cardoso...ever.

[Luiz Cardoso]

If possible, Luiz was as nervous about tutoring Jordan as he was about being tutored in the first place. He wasn't uncomfortable with the actual study work. Quite the contrary. If he could keep the conversation about Charms, then he would be fine. Unfortunately, if he kept the conversation on Charms he would probably keep the same nerdy reputation he had brought with him from Beauxbatons, which he was hoping very much to change, and quite obviously making terrible progress at. It was just that his brother expected so much from him, and though he had always far and away passed any expectations academically, socially Luiz was still kind of lagging behind the curve. Compared to Marcelo's curve, he was lagging way behind it.

And the fact remained, Aislinn and Jordan were part of the popular crowd. If he could get 'in' with them, maybe his brother wouldn't have to be so embarrassed about him anymore. Maybe he would stop asking him how things are going, and then giving him that disappointed look when he just said, 'Fine.' If he just had some friends, and not just crazy girls trying to stalk his life, and Professor Guinet. He considered the Charms professor a friend, but, apparently it only counted if his friends were his own age. Fascism.

So he tried to play it cool, at least, as cool as he was capable of being. "Hey," he replied to the greeting with a nod, and he was so eager to make a good impression himself, that he didn't even notice how awkward Jordan seemed to feel. "So," he then added, as he glanced ever so subtly up at the sideways faux hawk the other boy was sporting. He struggled not to look too amused, and cleared his throat into his fist. "What, uh, what are you having trouble with?"

[Jordan Hetley]

Jordan's mind drew a complete blank as he realized that he was going to have to actual form coherent thoughts to get anywhere with this conversation. He half considered simply fleeing from the library in the most un-manly sort of fashion, but he was fairly certain that he would hate himself for it. Not to mention, Aislinn would probably kick his ass for screwing up all her apparent planning.

He attempted to collect himself mentally. He could definitely talk to Luiz, he told himself. He could talk to him about Charms class and nothing else. He would not make any ridiculous statements about how he liked his hair or that he looked nice. The small self-pep talk seemed to work for a moment and it seemed like there was at least some sort of thought forming as to what he was struggling with. He reached up to run his hand through his hair as he thought about it and felt the rather odd mass of hair sticking off the side of his head.

He winced and attempted to flatten his thick hair as best he could while his face burned red. "I uh-, I guess I keep having issues with the aguamenti charm we've been working on...and the essay," he rambled as he looked up at Luiz though he found his mind stalled out again, "Uh, yeah. Sorry, I am having a rather awful case of losing my mind. Don't mind me." He used the excuse of having to pull out his books and parchment to look anywhere but at Luiz.

"So, uh, have you ever done the whole tutoring thing before?" He asked over his shoulder rather lamely, looking for absolutely any reason to ask a question, and be able to just listen instead of having to talk himself. He was rather mortified so far with his less than stellar attempt at being smooth. In his flustered state he somehow managed to push his bag off the table while trying to free his charms book, sending his assortment of school paraphernalia scattering around the floor at the end of the table. He kicked himself mentally as he leaned over the chair next to him and tried to retrieve his things, hanging slightly off the edge of the table for support.

[Luiz Cardoso]

Luiz let out a laugh at Jordan's excuse for stuttering. See? The cool kids were so laid back about that stuff. They could just make up an excuse and never worry about it. If it was him, he would be stressing out and turning red and making up stupid excuses that made no sense at all. Jordan? He just said he was losing his mind, and everything worked out. He was so jealous. He wished he was that chill.

"Yes!" he replied a little too readily to Jordan's question. "But, uh, never in English?" he added. He was still adjusting to the new native language of the place. His English was quite good, and his brother had been able to address any strange mix ups he was having, but he had still found himself a few scrapes of cultural misunderstanding and he wasn't writing off the possibility that still more could occur within an academic setting like tutoring. For all he knew, 'tutoring' was a slang term for something. He really should ask around about the proper etiquette for things like this before running in half-cocked.

Luckily, just at the moment, he had Jordan's epic bookbag fail to distract him. As he explained about his language barrier, he moved around the table and knelt to help the boy pick up his things. As he reached for the pages to help the Slytherin, a smile cut his boyish features, because of the way Jordan tried to pickup all his things without getting out of the chair.

"You are like an ape!" he teased, which was the closest translation to a tease in Portuguese - and, which wasn't exactly flattering in English. He was blithely unaware.

"If you would prefer to have our lesson on the floor, we could," he offered, in an attempt at a joke. He felt stupid for it already, and he cleared his throat awkwardly as he reached for a dislodged quill at the same time as Jordan.

[Jordan Hetley]

From the odd horizontal angle that Jordan was laying in he was able to determine that Luiz was in fact even more attractive up close and sideways, which caused him no small amount of embarrassment for noticing. He was at least derailed from his own embarrassment for a moment by Luiz and his rather amusing teasing. Jordan had absolutely no frame of reference for what it would feel like to pick up a foreign language, let alone having to learn or teach in it, but he could imagine that it would be exceptionally difficult. He smiled a bit at the idea of being compared to an ape. "You know, funny you should call me an ape, my mother uses that all the time when she sees my bedroom," he laughed lightly as he reached for the quill, "Or at the very least some kind of wild animal."

Jordan had leaned forward to reach for the quill, but when his fingers brushed rather innocently against Luiz's he jumped as if he'd been struck by lightning, smacking his head into the table. He rubbed at the side of his head with a groan as he realized just how lame he was. "Ah, sorry," he stuttered, "I, uh, just...sorry." Jordan pushed himself back up into his chair with another swift mental kick to himself. He was in no way prepared for being around Luiz. Apparently he was going to stare awkwardly, spill things, and physically harm himself into acting on his crush. That was the perfect way to approach it, real smooth.

Jordan scrunched his face up and shook his head in an attempt to chase away the awkwardness and embarrassment. He peek up with one eye to see how much damage had actually been done. It was simply too far fetched in his opinion. That anyone like Luiz would ever really consider someone like him. He wasn't even sure that Luiz was even remotely interested in guys. Knowing his luck he would probably end up dating Aislinn and Jordan would become their awkward third wheel. "So, um...charms?" he asked or stated. He couldn't exactly be sure.