Sortinghat RP

Well, well, well, what a fine turn-up this is. What a shocking twist has popped up in this series of events! I tell you - you think you got the whole story figured out, think you know exactly how everything's gonna play out, ho-hum... and WHAM! Something shows up to surprise you. That's such a fine microcosm for life itself that I can barely even stand it!

So what is this, Hogwarts? Here I am, sitting in the Gryffindor common room like my presence here isn't quite the oddity! Are you coming crawling back to me? Are you on your knees, crying regrets and pleading for forgiveness? Are you reaching up to caress my face imploringly?

That's nice. That's swell.

Are you gonna unbreak my wand??

[ooc: AU!Graham wound up using a bit of magic along with his fists during the big brawl he got into during the Quidditch World Cup over the summer. As a result, he wasn't kicked off the Quidditch team - he was outright expelled. He never returned to school for his 6th year and has been full-time muscle for the magic mafia Russo crime family.]

Let me tell you a sad, sad story. It's a story filled with tragedy and the slings and arrows of cruel, cruel fate, so get some tissues ready. You'll be bawlin' your eyes out!

You see, once upon a time - a time that is now - there was a boy. Is-was?! Tenses. What am I supposed to do with tenses in a framing device like this?! I'm talking about now, but convention dictates past tense for tales of tragedy and woe like this, ones on par with the sad stories of the Ancient Greeks, where people accidentally married their mothers and the like. Which frankly I never understood. Now, I like older women - I like them a lot! - but there comes a point where you just gotta look at the situation and think, "This broad could conceivably have given birth to me." I'm just sayin' it should give you some pause so you can evaluate your life choices.

Now what was I - RIGHT, the tale of anger and frustration!!

Anyway, this boy kept seeing people moaning about getting on a certain sports team - let's call it Shmidditch for anonymity's sake. And this boy - ah - he loved Shmidditch. And he was good at it. Great, even. And while he'd normally be a shoo-in for getting on the team, a pack of cold-hearted wizards who spend all of what little time they've got on this great earth sitting around in dusty rooms and always, always, always sneering down on anything and everything that doesn't fit just so into the neat little boxes of conduct that they approve of conspired against him to prevent him from even trying out!

So the boy was sad. No, the boy was angry. No, the boy was... - the boy is a lot of things all of the time.

But what you should take away from this little fable is that the boy hates it when people don't appreciate what they have, especially when they rub their false, pretend tragedies in everyone's face. And the boy has very particular ways of dealing with the things he hates.

Where do I even begin?

What words could I possibly use? Are there even enough words, STRONG enough words, to cover what is percolating in my brain right now?!

I'm taking, of course, about my uncharacteristic silence in regards to the Quidditch results. I'm sure some of you have been watching the journals. Waiting. Seeing each. and. every. excruciating second tick by, wondering when I'd finally say something. Heightening tension! Making easy but accurate bomb metaphors!!

Well strap yourself in because that time is now.

I know what went wrong with that damn match. I didn't throw myself into the match as much as I could have - SHOULD have! A Quidditch victory is like the birth of a majestic phoenix: only achievable with the flames of destruction ripping the previous body apart in an all-consuming inferno! Yes, yes, yes, that's the problem; my self-destructive tendencies were weakened. And that is why we failed.

And yet what a stunning success it all turned out to be! The egg Shinra and I were charged with hatched gloriously, and when I stared into Ladd Jr.'s mad, beady eyes, it was worth it. To sacrifice one's own dreams is the fate of all parents! Trampling hopes and aspirations into the fertile soil used to cultivate the next generation is the cycle which links us all inexorably, end over end, past blending to future, forever!! It's natural to make that sacrifice! Accepting a harsh fate for familial love!!

Oh and speaking of Ladd Jr., I haven't seen him for about 10 hours now. I don't know if Shinra has him or if he's off on a wonderful adventure, but the phrase "severe psychopathic proclivities" came up when his health was being evaluated. So take that as you will.

Ladies and gentlemen of Hogwarts, I have been doing a great deal of thinking! Oh, this in itself is nothing new, nothing new at all! To make myself excruciatingly clear, I must say that I can't remember the last time my head didn't have at least five thoughts inside biting and clawing and scratching and screaming, screaming, screaming for attention at once!

Of course, that's normal, as everyone knows. But this week, ah, this week! An abnormality is upon me! Most of this week, my thoughts have been dominated by only one subject and, frankly, it's troubling! What an existential crisis! What atrophy, what unknowable terrors lurk beneath the still surface of a placid mind!!

But let me explain what has me in such a sad state: last Sunday's Parents' Day. Or Guardian Day. Or Surprise Ghost Day, let's be inclusive!

Specifically, I am troubled by the cowardly, rotten family trees from which so many of you bud! WHERE is the honesty, WHERE is the pride, WHERE OH WHERE OH WHERE is the fortitude to stick with one's personal choices and convictions!

My most cherished family member can never come for Parents' Day because he will not back down from the choices he has made, yet liars and hypocrites and the spineless are patted on the heads as victims of convenient curses and orders from higher-ups!!

Such transparency!!

OHH, MY TEAM, YOU ALL HAVE CARVED YOUR NAMES ONTO MY HEART!! SLICE OPEN MY CHEST AND SEE YOUR NAMES, WRIT IN EVERLASTING INK - OBSIDIAN BLACK ON SCARLET RED -, EXPANDING AND CONTRACTING ON THE MUSCLE, FLUTTERING AT HUMMINGBIRD-SPEED, THAT PROPELS ME FORWARD!!

What a beautifully happy story you have written for me! What a win! I could kiss all of you right now!! Each and every one of you!

Oh but look at me, look at my tactless arrogance! See how I discount the tragedy, the heart-stopping despair our actions have dumped upon fair Hufflepuff House!! Is this what it means to live in a corrupt universe, a dog-eat-dog landscape where happiness for one inevitably begets tragedy? Happiness, sadness, victory, misery, all swirling together in a wonderful, beautiful, confused mess.

Hufflepuff, rest assured that I am a conscientious predator, and I acknowledge and revere the loss you had to suffer to sustain us.