[Great Hall] Famished

[Emmalynn Barkley]

Ugh... morning, yea... don't want to get up! Emmalynn stretched her arms, legs, and then popped her back. Morning, she was not a morning person. She threw her pillow and the floor and kicked her blanket to the end of her bed. Yawning she sat up and glanced around. Damn, breakfast must have already started! Emma thought as she glanced around at all the empty, beautifuly made beds of her dormmates. She got up, her eyes half closed, and bent down to feel around in her trunk. Looks like today she'd be wearing a pink and white striped tanktop, denim shorts, and pink flipflops. Perfect for a hot, neausiating day like this one. Emma slipped the outfit on and put her hair into to sloppy braids to each side.

Emmalynn grabbed her bag of reading books, quills, and lipgloss and walked out the door. She was starving, Em was a very picky eater, but at the moment she would anything put in front of her. As she walked sleepily to the Great Hall, she plopped down next to one of her dormmates and smiled as she began to fill her plate with lots of breakfast goodies. Yum! Emma took one bite of her eggs and thought she would never eat again. Something happened to her appeitite, but what was the question in order. She pushed her plate back against some other ones and got up to leave.

As she was leaving her eye caught a very pretty Hufflepuff boy who looked quite nerdy, maybe a few years younger than herself, but wow she needed to talk to her. Changing her direction, Emmalynn walked the completely other way so she could pass. Emma wanted to make some comotion, but what she recieved wasn't exactly what she had in mind. Em tripped on a Hufflepuff's foot and completely fell to the floor. Yea no food on me! Emma smiled and tried to get up, but that didn't seem possible. When she looked up all she saw was that boys face. Great!

[Dean Hogarth]

Dean had not slept much last night; he had had astronomy the night before and as always was all a buzz after that lesson. It was the most fascinating around and Professor Owen taught it so well and this just made Dean push himself even more in her lesson and even now, barely five hours after the lesson had finished he was already half way through the assignment that had been set. Gently placing his quill down on the table the Hufflepuff reached for his goblet of pumpkin juice and sipped it slowly as he stared at the open text book that was just next to him.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw a girl from the Ravenclaw table stand up and move away, he gave her a passing glance before returning back to his essay not really thinking anything else on it. However it was this same girl that soon caught the attention of many in the Great Hall when she went flying and landed on the flag stoned floor of the hall. Dean joined the realms of people just watching on as she pushed herself up, but he was not one of those insensitive ones who were laughing at the poor Ravenclaw.

Before Dean knew what he was truly doing he had swung his legs out from under the table and was off the bench heading towards the Ravenclaw. Crouching down beside her Dean tried to get a look at the girls face to make sure she was ok when her eyes locked onto his.

“Are…are you ok?” Dean offered her a small nervous smile in the hope that seeing a friendly face would help block out the sound of the jeering that was going on, mainly from the Slytherin table. “Here, le…let me help you up.”

Giving his hands a quick rub on his trousers so his palms were not too sweaty he held out his hand to offer the Ravenclaw girl some aid to get back on her feet.

[Emmalynn Barkley]

A few wet drops began to slide down Emmalynn's cheek, then they would hit the floor. She watched from the eyes that were producing them. Emma could here the jeering, teasing, and laughter. She guessed this is what happens to bad Ravenclaw's that do things all for the wrong reasons. More and more tears came. It was becoming a routine. Em couldn't get up by herself, so she just lay there waiting for someone nice enough to help her.

Before she knew it, she saw some denim jeans and tennis shoes. Was this a person getting up to help her or walk away. Aw help! As the boy bent down to help her their eyes locked. Oh he had beautiful brown eyes and Emma never wanted to look away, but to her surprise he got on his hands and knees to help her up. He asked her if she was okay and Em was speechless. "Uum... yea Iii think i'll be fine." Emmalynn uttered a response to his question. She gave him a quick smile in return of his own and then took his hand to help herself off the ground.

Once she was up she tried letting go of his hand to stand on her own, but looked like that wasn't going to happen, as she went to slip, but then grabbed on to his arm. "Tthanks..." she whispered as she continued to hold onto his arm.

[Dean Hogarth]

Oh lord, she was crying. Dean’s ears started to burn red as her looked on nervously at the Ravenclaw who was in front of him, glistening tears slowly trickling down her cheeks. Dean was hopeless anyway when it came to the opposite sex so this was the equivalent of diving into the deep end of the pool and not knowing how to swim. Nervously glancing around at the one lookers the Hufflepuff knew that he needed to try and act manly and the only thing that was spurring him on was the hope that news would spread (as it always did around Hogwarts) so quickly that Professor Owen would hear about his good deed and come to personally congratulate him for helping a member of her house.

‘Come on Dean like that would ever happen’ His commonsense kicked in and he snapped back into the real world with a bang. The Ravenclaw girl was actually holding his hand, he was holding hands with a girl…the Hufflepuff’s cheeks were now turning a rosy red as he helped pull her to her feet and as he quickly tried to let go of her hand and save himself from anymore embarrassment she latched onto his arm.

So there they stood in the middle of the Great Hall, a crying Ravenclaw and a red faced Hufflepuff Dean could feel the eyes of many turning to them. He needed to blend back in as soon as possible and get away from all this attention, not even Professor Owen was worth this. Leading the Ravenclaw to where he sat her offered her the free space next to his and quickly sat down himself wishing he could just fade into the background once again.

“Ca…can I get you anything Miss?”

[Emmalynn Barkley]

The students in the Great Hall were finally getting over the scene. Here they were a Hufflepuff Boy and a Ravenclaw Girl standing in the asile in front of everyone. Once Emmalynn snapped back into reality she realized what had happned in the five-six minutes she was away. First; she had slipped during her attempt to catch the boy's attention, Second; she had began to cry, Third; the wonderful boy helped her up, Fourth; she held hands with him, and now Fifth; he started getting red in the face. Oh goodness what had she done?

Emmalynn stared wide eyed and shocked around the Great Hall. What a morning! This beautiful and fantastic, whom Emma still had no identity for, helped her to a seat. There was a lump welling up in Em's throat. The boy sat down next to her. Being center of attention was not Emmalynn's cup of tea. Her cheeks must have been as red as strawberries.

She tried to change her face to not looking so terrified, but what was she supposed to do. Em wasn't popular and she certainly wasn't a boy toy, so this is all very new to her. The boy turned his head to ask her if she needed anything. Emmalynn lowered her voice and spoke,"Um if you don't mind... could you help me outtt... of the The Ggreat Hall... i'm kind... of... eembarasssed!" Em could feel her cheeks grow hotter. This was not going as planned at all!

[Dean Hogarth]

Slowly Dean could hear conversations turning away from them and the direction of the howls of laughter changed as well when the evil Slytherin’s turned their attention to a poor Gryffindor who had her skirt tucked into her underwear. Quickly picking up his goblet of pumpkin juice Dean tried to quench his thirst by glugging back the whole thing, he also took this opportunity to hide and gain some form of composure once again…well as composed as Dean could be when around members of the opposite sex.

At the Ravenclaw’s request of helping her get out of the Great Hall Dean could only offer a rather nervous smile. In his earlier years at Hogwarts it would not have been a rare thing to see him lying on the floor collecting dust and getting laughter at by passers by, so he felt qualified to offer this girl a little bit of advice.

“I…I always found that it was best to stay put. If you were to stand up now people would remember you as ‘that girl who fell flat on her face’. Give it another ten minutes and they would have forgotten all about it and moved onto their next target.”

Dean tried to offer her a small comforting smile, he knew what it was like to be laughed at and so was willing to sympathises with the girl as much as possible and offer her as much help as he was able to give. With a small glance back to his astronomy essay Dean gave a small sigh and looked back at the Ravenclaw almost thankful for a bit of company.

“Trust me. Everything will be ok.”

[Emmalynn Barkley]

Emmalynn was glad to be listening to her former classmates and hearing their chatter turn from her incident. She hated being talked about or pointed at, although Em knew people did it behind her back, she prefered it that way, because she didn't know exactly what they were saying. Emma was going to take a risk and she looked nervously over at Dean. When she caught a glimpse of him, he wasn't paying attention to her, but chugging some pumpkin juice. She could only guess it was to get the red tint from his cheeks to disappear, so she decided to leave him be.

Relaxing was not something Emma did often, or definetely not in situations like these, but for some odd reason Em wasn't all tense. That was untill the boy spoke, giving her some words of wisdom. She shot him a shy smile,"Alright tthen we'llll wait!" Em could feel her cheeks beginning to get red,"So you practically saved my life... wwhats your nnamee?"

After speaking with the boy Emmalynn just wanted to stand up and scream! Why was she so bad at this boy-girl thing? She must have looked like such and idiot having to use him awkwardly so she didn't fall and just talking to him made her feel retarted, but she forgot about that and just hoped he would reply to her question soon.

[Dean Hogarth]

Rubbing the back of his neck nervously Dean glanced over at the other students who were sitting at the Hufflepuff house table, a few shared the odd nervous glance back, others even ventured out and smiled at him. Dean’s normal role in the whole Hufflepuff hierarchy was to be the silent nerd who got on with his work and faded into the background noise but now…now he was being noticed by others. Turning away from the on lookers the fifth year decided to focus upon his essay, reading the same sentence on Cassiopeia’s third brightest star Ruchbah over and over to make it look like he was busying himself with something, when in reality he was just trying to avoid eye contact with the Ravenclaw who was sitting next to him.

This was made slightly difficult when she started talking again (which really should not have surprised Dean, he could not expect her to sit in silence for the next ten minutes) and out of common curtsy Dean turned to look at the Ravenclaw. His self sense of patheticness was not helped when she comment on how he had saved her life, now that had been reading to much into the situation, but then if that was the version of the story Professor Owen got told then it would suit him fine.

“Dean…Dean Hogarth.” He managed to offer her a small smile. “I…er…don’t know your name either.”

He could think of no other way of putting, he has seen many times before that those who oozed confidence just were able to reel of line after line and leave the girls in such awe that they are putty in their hands. Not that Dean wanted that power or attention he just thought that from time to time it would be nice to have the confidence to look someone in the eye for more then three seconds.

[Emmalynn Barkley]

The Great Hall began to clear out. Although there were still about eight minutes left of breakfest, a lot of students left early. Emmalynn was never one of them. She liked to stay and read late or work on homework in the Great Hall after most of the people have gone back to doing something they thought was worth the time. She glanced at Dean, who she caught looking at his friends for reassurance, but she guessed they didn't give him any.

Her palms began to sweat. She wiped them secretly on her shorts and continued to sit there. Even though most of Emma's friends told her constantly that she was gorgeous, Em didn't mingle much with the opposite gender. She tended to lean more for her own kind, so this little thing was quite new to her. In her mind she began to freak out when Dean asked for her name. Emma wasn't sure would be able to choke it out, but managed,"I'm, Em... Emmalynn Barkley!"

He was very sweet for asking, and Emmalynn felt good for her response, but today she didn't want to hang around in the Great Hall. She was quite embarassed and if you knew Em she didn't forget things easily. But by the looks of her she wasn't about to go anywhere.

[Dean Hogarth]

As Dean sat in the Great Hall earlier that morning working on his Astronomy assignment he would never have thought that he would have spent the last few minutes of breakfast talking to someone and then to add to it being a Ravenclaw female. So here the Hufflepuff sat with his text books spread out around him, his quill in his hands as he nervously spun the feather around in a way of letting off his nervous tension.

“It…it is very nice to meet you Em.” Dean looked up from the black and white feathered quill in his hand and for the first time this meeting managed to produce a smile that was not forced, although as normal he could not look at a girl for long before he suddenly became rather self aware and his ears burnt red.

Emmalynn was a good looking girl and he knew that if she was to put in some effort she would be one of the girls that most the male population would drool over. But from what he had seen of her Em was a rather timid character like him and just like him was not used to the attention of the opposite sex. With a small sigh Dean placed his quill down on the table in front of him and dared to look around the hall once more. Much like he had predicted the gangs of Slytherin’s were finding new targets and leaving the hall in drones to get to the commonroom to waste more time before lessons started.

“So what lessons do you have this morning?” It was a rather basic and admittedly boring question but he knew this silence could not drag out anymore, and anyway if she was heading off in the same direction as he was Dean would make sure she did not fall over again.

(eeep sorry that was rubbish!)