(Cor)Skipping, not lessons but just plain skipping

[Charlie Peers]

Arising early as was her custom, for no particular reason other than seeing the sun rise, Charlie decended from her dorm in high spirits, again simply because she wanted to be happy. There was nothing extraordinary or extravagent to amuse her, only skipping down the corridor until breakfast began.

So quite contented with the exercise and fun that was skipping Charlie waved cheerily at a group of forlorn Gryffindors who sulked at loosing a lie in. Grinning as the group looked bewildered at her cheerfulness, she wondered quite why they weren't more up-beat; had someone died or something?

The early bird catches the worm, that's what she had been told many a time, by everyone in her family who seemed to take great comfort in a few reassuring cliches. Yet she stuck to it, knowing that there simply had to be some sort of truth in the saying, why else would it be handed down from generation to generation as if their lives depended upon it?

A bright completely genuine smile enlightened Charlie's radiant features, especially when sunlight peirced through the many windows, though of course given her modesty, she would never admit she looked any better than a fish, she in fact was; no offense to fish intended. Risking a peak at her muggle watch a bemused expression clouded her momentarily, she could have sworn she'd well over an hour until breakfast; had she really been up two hours already? Evidently so as the sun had already risen when Charlie gained her usual spot upon the astronomy tower to admire the picturesque view; she'd taken a few snap shots of the grounds and sent them homeward bound, her parents and siblings had been overjoyed at seeing them, and quite jealous too; especially Andrew a year her senior in theory, but really a few years behind in maturity, not solely being male but for his eccentric personality which focused entirely upon cars, football, rugby and cars again.

Sticking out her lower lip in consternation Charlie pulled an exaggerated sad face, it was breakfast time and the day had to begin properly, sure she couldn't wait to see her friends but the peace and quiet, quite literally before the storm of pupils descending from dorms was really peaceful, except for her odd humming under her breath and giggles for no apparent reason. Wrinkling her nose as a faint smell of bacon tingled her senses Charlie set off swiftly for the Great hall, perhaps too quickly as she nearly collided with someone exiting a room...

[Dax Simmons]

Dax had been walking the castle corridors for a long time waiting for the appearance of Loren. He had found himself at the top end of the castle simply sitting on the steps finding it amusing when they decided to move while he was still sitting on them. After almost half an hour of waiting and his stomach growling louder then increasing noise of the student making their way to the Great Hall. Standing up Dax waited for the stairs to reach the correct platform before he joined the crowd.

He wondered silently down the corridor, looking up at the portraits as he went, some were asleep others seemed to be rather awake and one portrait was empty. He knew this to be the home of a rather loud wizard who also had a portrait in the room behind him. Curiosity took hold and Dax pushed open the door and peered inside only to see a group of students seemingly in deep discussion about something. Not wanting to intrude or get in the way of their private plans what ever they were Dax carefully closed the door behind him however as he turned and walked away from the door he banged into someone.

Stumbling backwards Dax feel back into the door which he clearly had not closed properly and it flew open and Dax went with it. Landing with a loud bump on the floor and the raucous laughter of the students in the room. Dax’s face turned a deep red and he quickly stood up and walked out of the room slamming the door behind him. He could still hear the laughter through the closed door but al he cared about was getting as far away as possible. He quickly began to stride away when he remembered that he had hit some. Looking over his shoulder he saw Charlie a fellow Hufflepuff. His tongue became tied and Dax managed to stutter out some form of a sentence

“Oh….Lord I am so sorry….erm….are you ok?”

[Charlie Peers]

Falling with an excitable squeal, strangely enough, Charlie landed on her back, all arms and legs sprawled in a ludicrous fashion, not really meant for humans. "Youchy," she breathed laughing as a tingling sensation coursed through her funny bone. Feeling it go numb Charlie nimbly arose, propelling herself skywards, or rather ceilingwards as they were inside, with her left, uninjured hand. "Hiya Daxy waxy," she chiruped with a broadening grin as she collected her scattered belongings; how was it that on falling everything within her bag made its bid for freedom at once? Gathering scrappy bits of parchment that were littered with doodles rather than actual work, she took meticulous care refolding a charcoal drawing she'd procuded of the grounds. It had only taken a few ticks, so was really rather scrappy and untidy, but her vivid imagination easily pictured what she had meant to display with it. Her basic aim had been to display the transition between the dark forest and the light grounds, highlighting how the daylight shone so brilliantly, with charcoal the effect had been rather ruined, but strangely it had been the only thing to hand. Spur of the moment actions were commonplace for Charlie; she simply did them without thinking. Like right now she opened the door that Dax had fallen out of and shouted happily, "laugh it up guys, sounds like you were in need of a good giggle." Closing the door on the bewildered looks and exclamations Charlie shrugged "it had to be said," in a basic explantion to the quite probably; equally bemused Dax.

Replacing the rest of her scattered belongings, a clockwork mouse that had scampered into a drain but had gotten stuck, and a miniature magical ogres head that spewed a horrid mixture of bogeys and snot, Charlie looked at the ceiling, "I think that's everything. Oh except this," taking a large sticker of Bathilda Bagshot being one of her favourite witches, mainly due to the name, from Dax's arm, she licked it once with a small flickering pink tongue and stuck it firmly emblazoning her bright yellow bag.

"Oh yeah, I'm ok," she answered as an afterthought, "you?" She asked her eyebrows raising to the heavens and inspecting him with apparent scrutiny.

[Dax Simmons]

A bemused look spread over Dax’s face as he watched his fellow Hufflepuff dart around the place collecting her belonging that seemed to make a bit for freedom. Rubbing the back of his head he could not quite work out how she got so much stuff into one bag and in saying that why did she need to much stuff. His attention was fixed on the small wide up mouse, he really could not believe that someone would have something like that in there bag, although Girty would have given her plenty of competition with her pockets. However Dax was snapped out of his pondering by the fact that Charlie was reaching out for him. He took a step backwards and flinched worried that Loren would work around the corner and start firing accusations all over the place.

He was able to let out a huge sigh of relief when he noticed that she was just reaching for a sticker that had made its way onto his robes. After she had placed it back on her bag and she had confirmed that she was ok he was half tempted to head back off in the search for food. But as she asked him if he was ok he felt obliged to stay and talk.

“Well apart from making a complete fool of myself I think the few bruises that will appear upon my lower back will be nothing.“

He shot Charlie a rather toothy smile accompanied with a small wink. However that last action seemed to take him by surprise. His smile vanished and he tired to work out what he had just done and if he would be able to use the excuse that he had got something in his eye. Yet again his thin face turned a pale pink and he diverted his eyes to his feet that he nervously shuffled along the floor.

“Erm…sorry about that…erm….a reflex really…Loren would kill me.” Dax broke off and looked up at Charlie biting his lower lip. “I am off to the great hall for food. What way are you going?”

[Charlie Peers]

Hitching her heavy bag onto her shoulder Charlie gave Dax a bemused look followed by a swift amused grin as he claimed making a fool of himself. "Pah that was nothing, you've done worse I'm sure, well I have, I remember one time I slipped on a skittle, you know the muggle sweets, and fell flat on my back, now that was painful. In fact I dislocated my elbow doing that." Grinning happily, which seemed rather strangea as she could still remember tha pain like it was yesterday, mostly because it had been yesterday. Her bones had been fixed in a jiffy though, so no everlasting harm had been done, especially not to her overflowing confidence.

"Least you'll be remembered, ooh look," she breathed pointing excitedly at a small dot flittering down the hallway, "it's a butterfly."
"I've good eyesight," she explained guessing as everyone did that he'd be surprised with her noticing it, most people never noticed the wondrous natural world around them, it was a shame. As Dax aplogised for no reason Charlie asked, "why what did you do?" She'd been completely oblivious to his wink, not being rude but simply because she was enraptured by the beautful insect coming their way.

Whispering soothingly in a gentle voice her hazel eyes followed the flight of the butterfly, which landed lightly upon her outstretched forefinger, she didn't realise it but her mouth had reeled off a light spell that drew nature towards her.

"Oh I'll let my nose guide me to the food, so this way then." With her yellow bag upon her right shoulder and butterfly perched happily upon her finger, she linked arms with her left and asked absent mindedly "you said something about Loren? Oooh are you two going out? I'm a little forgetful sometimes." She said with a grin as an apology.

[Dax Simmons]

To Dax’s utter relief it seemed that Charlie has a rather absent mind and seemed to get distracted by the smallest of things. A very useful trait in Dax’s opinion as it meant he could get away with doing and saying the most stupidest of things and managing to continue as if nothing had happened. Although his confidence was slightly shaken worried that he would do something without even thinking about it, the wink being a prime example.

Watching Charlie talk in some rather strange langue tot eh butterfly Dax could do nothing but stare rather dumfounded because he had no idea what she was saying. It must have been French, Dax could never get the hang of French but he felt like he should know it. With a shrug Dax turned on his heel to head off towards the hall when he suddenly noticed that Charlie had linked arms with him. Once again his cheeks turned a light shade of pink as he kept giving nervous glances down at their joined arms. If he had any courage he would have said something but he knew that Loren could not complain about anything, they were just friends, just friends. However at the mention of Loren Dax forgot about these worries and he managed to break into a small smile at the simple mention of her name.

“Well I think the word trying is the best way to describe it. We both care for each other a lot but we never have the time to see each other. And when we do it normally mean something bad is happening or about to happen….normally involving a certain Head of house. Actually it always involves that certain head of house.”

Dax broke into a frown as the simple thought about Dan and Loren’s conflicts came flashing through his head. Nothing was simple with Loren, she was such a drama queen about everything and that is what he loved about her, he loved everything about her even the terror that filled him every time he thought he had done wrong.

[Charlie Peers]

Moving at a gentle walk, so as not to disturb the butterfly perched precariously upon her genteel finger, and partly because she wasn't terribly famished either, Charlie grinned absentmindedly, only half listening to what Dax said as she gazed in complete awe at the wonderful butterfly, which seemed quite contented to catch a ride towards the outside world. Always she became so enraptured by the beauty of the earth, even the very smallest and most ugly of creatures and insects. Ants fascinated her with their tribal instincts working as a full community, helping and supporting each other but she loved birds above all, she was envious of their graceful flight, especially when all she could manage was a rather shaky glide when she concentrated purely upon walking. Some girls had natural grace, Charlie wasn't one of them, at least she thought not.

Someone smiling always made her smile too, so when Dax began to smile for no apparent reason, how was she to know his mind wandered to his Loren? Charlie joined in beaming from ear to ear, "young love is wonderful, and you seem to care a lot for her, I can tell by the far off look in your eye, you're probably not even hearing me now." She said with the smallest of giggles so as not to break his dreamlike state.

"Oh is is Professor Fagin? I've heard bad stuff about him, I can't think why though, he seems fine when I see him, though he does shout a lot." But then Charlie's slow brain clicked into gear and screamed the correct answer, "ooh ooh," she exclaimed happily almost sticking her hand up in the air to jubulantly shout the answer, "Professor Hubbles, I remember now. But he's nice, why would he have anything against either of you? I haven't met Loren but I'm told she's lovely, or was that you who told me that?" She asked with a grin as they passed a portly ghost who bobbed his overlarge head in greeting. Curtseying in an elegant fashion, for Charlie that is, she beamed at the ghost remembering him vaguely from a time when she had been trapped in the Astronomy tower for a few hours, he'd been great company. "Hello," she called brightly only realising afterwards that he'd already drifted through a wall and gone. "That's the funny thing about ghosts, they can so easily leave a conversation." Stated Charlie keeping her arm loosely curled around Dax's as they rounded a corner.

"How long have you been going out then?" Wondered Charlie.

[Dax Simmons]

Well one thing was for sure, this girl was very absent minded and Dax could not help but laugh with her. There was something about her spontaneous and out of it attitude that made Dax feel strangely at ease. He knew he could say anything, do anything and not have to worry about what others will think or what the results of his actions will be. It was nice. He could not help but laugh along with Charlie’s guessing and found it particularly hard to keep a straight face when she mentioned Professor Hubbles.

“Ah well he is all nice to us, and actually most people but the thing is that him and Loren, well they never got on well. It is actually scary to be in the same room as them as you fear for your own life.”

Dax was then distracted about how she was conversing and curtsying to a ghost. Dax normally ignored the supernatural beings that floated along the halls, they normal shouted pointless stuff at him like his shoe laces were untied or someone was about to hex him but other then that it was pointless. Although now he was walking down the corridor who was acting up to them he almost felt compelled to join in. With a small wave and a nervous smile Dax pulled Charlie along further down the corridor almost thankful when she started rambling on at him again and he did have to try and strike a conversation up with a dead person.

“Erm…actually together together a few months, but we have been close for almost 2 years. Actually even when we first met I was pretending to be with her to stop a very scary looking witch hitting on me.”

Dax gave a soft chuckle thinking about all the times him and Loren have spent with each other and how it soon may come to an abrupt end when they leave school and enter the real world. Trying to ignore this rather scary and daunting prospect Dax tried to move the conversation off him and Loren and towards Charlie. He was walking down a corridor explaining his life story to her and he knew nothing about her.

“What about you? A girl with your looks and personality must have a few boys chasing after you?”