[Owlery] A queer fear

[pippa]

All eyes in the room were watching her, following her every movement as she crept into the owlery every single bird's eagle eyed gaze bored into her, suspicious immediately as she stopped, staying stock still hoping they hadn't spotted her, taking the tiniest step back produced pandemonium as the owls shrieked and as one launched themselves at her pecking her to shreds.

She had a strange imagination, and a queer fear of the owls, everytime they managed to get her, pecking her eyes out, ripping her to shreds then feeding her entrails to their chicks, were baby owls even called chicks? She didn't have a clue, all she knew was that her imagination was running even wilder than usual, it was probably the thought of sending this letter home, with the definite reply of "bla bla bla so when are you going to bring a boyfriend home with you? Bla bla you need a new haircut darling bla bla you can buy me that French perfume from Paris for Christmas if you want?" It was never given as a question always you will buy me such and such, well that was her mother for you.

So Pippa was stood outside the owlery feeling like a lemon poking her head about the door, but each time an owl's beady eye swept her way and she ducked back, "damn them owls," she whined to nobody in particular, she knew it was most likely her fear fuelling her imagination making her see things but still, she saw them looking at her funny, and it freaked her out. sure they might look cute and cuddly to some people, but so where bears and they could rip you limb from limb in the blink of an eye, talking of eyes that particualrly viscious looking owl was peering her way, its steely gaze piercing the wall and seeing right into her.

"Eugh," she muttered, "stupid fear, why can't I just be scared of spiders?" Hearing footsteps she wheeled around with a glare, she hated people seeing her looking like an idiot, standing outside the owlery like a lemming.

[Harrison Greg]

There was a problem, a major problem, so unexpected and irrational that no one would ever be able to comprehend it! And that problem was that Harrison Greg was thinking. And it was not just your bog standard thinking it was making creases appear in his close to perfect skin to appear, frown lines across his forehead it was not a pretty sight. So what then, you might wonder, was the thing that got Harrison thinking so much? Well it was in his hand, a small slip of parchment witch contained his mothers hand writing and eight small, rather simple words.

‘Your Uncle has gone missing. Write back. Mum’

It was not the fact Harrison was concerned about his uncle’s welfare that was making him think but how do you respond to an eight letter worded note. He knew if he ignored it a Howler from his father would turn up next breakfast so he had to write something but what? And this was still bothering him as he made his way to the Owlery, slowly climbing the steps lost in his own thoughts…or at least he was until he saw a girl standing outside the door way.

“You know what…” He started, his voice was light-hearted and a cheeky grin replaced the frown lines. “…it normally helps if you step inside the room.” He leaned against the door frame and folded his arms, blowing his fringe out of his eyes as it flopped down obscuring his view of the girl. “You do know how to walk through a door way don’t you?”

[pippa]

Pippa's eyebrows raised fractionately as somone who looked as lost in his thoughts as she usually was ascended the stairs, his slightly creased brow which suggested he could be a bit of a thinker was instantly replaced to a cheeky, ever so slightly lopsided grin, the transition was so smooth it was too natural, he gave that sort of grin to every girl he came across probably. Ok she was being completely prejudice but her mother's annoying words resonated strongly in her head, "find yourself a handsome guy," course she rebelled against it, she was still holding onto the old notions of true love, at heart she still wanted to be that fairy princess, so him running up the steps just wasn't the same as a brave stallion trotting along and him slipping gracefully from it. Jolting herself from that little daydream she gave a small smile of greeting, she didn't want to be rude, but her mother's "kindly" advice smashed into her and it swept into a scowl, especially with the patronising words, yes his tone was light hearted and he was only joking but..."Yes genius everyone knows how to, but cause of my ridiculous, stupidly irrational fear of the owls," her voice broke in frustration, it was about time she got over this, "I can't."

She rolled her eyes slightly, annoyed with his nonchalent way of leaning against the door, free of any worries by the looks of it, and the way he blew his fringe out of his eyes; eugh guys just shouldn't have a fringe that long, the only reason was too show off and look 'cool'.

"Hey Jessie James why don't you be a gentleman and take it in for me...I'll like, be in your debt forever or something stupid like that." She shoved the crumpled letter into his hands, glad to be rid of the burden, "please," she muttered eyes downcast to her toes, she wasn't going to beg and she was never going to give him puppy dog eyes but she'd definitely be grateful if he did this little thing for her.

"Go on," she urged giving him a playful shove towards the entrance, "I'll wait for here and you can walk me down and feel good about yourself for having a girl on your arm." A hint of a mischevous grin flitted across her features before she looked away, already drifting into a daydream.

[Harrison Greg]

This girl certainly was determined not to enter the Owlery and as she gave Harrison a rather witty come back (maybe she was a Ravenclaw, geez that house annoyed him) he simply gave her joke a nervous chuckle before giving her his own little come back, not meaning to cause any offence of course and his cheeky smile should have proven that point.

“Do I look like a house elf to you? I don’t have pointy ears; my eyes are not the same size as sodding tennis balls and I have a sense of fashion.” Of course Harrison was referring to the fact that he did not walk around barefoot and only in a pillow case. Today for example he was in jeans, a bright orange t-shirt and his black and white stripped jacket was open and fluttering about in the breeze. “You can send this message yourself.”

The Gryffindor stepped forward and slipped the slip of parchment into the girls pocket with a small wink. He knew that she would object is she had such an irrational fear of owls (strange thing to be scare of if you asked Harrison…but then he guessed that is what made it irrational) but then Harrison always liked to think he has a way of being able to convince people to do things so he was going to give it his best shot, although he normally sweet talked air headed girls, this one seemed to have a bit of wit.

“Come on, I have over my fear of talking to girls…”He gave her pleading eyes. “I am sure you can face a fear little owls.” He stood up straight and walked over towards the girl, standing behind the girl and giving her a small shove in the back helping her on her way through the archway. At least this little meeting had stopped Harrison from worrying about how to reply to his mother.

[pippa]

Why would someone spurn the chance of acting like a gentleman? Even Darcy wouldn't have been so rude, then again every guy had a bit of an idiot inside of them.

"Actually they are slightly pointed Legoless." When he claimed he had a sense of fashion she had to smirk, yeh there were guys and girls who looked far worse, but also those who looked muhuch better too.
"I'll give you that stud," she quipped rolling her eyes. "The jacket doesn't make your chest look bigger though, and the t-shirt isn't tight enough to show off any tiny abs you have either," she shrugged, sure she wasn't any better with torn and tatty jeans, that her Mother would kill her for wearing, and a baggy red t-shirt with fake Japanese symbols scrawled upon it, she would never wear the low cut tops her mother had picked out for her. The long, bright scarf was stitched by her own hand in all the colours of the rainbow, and it was looped only once about her neck so nearly trailed in the mud. In fact it was spattered with mud and some of the stitching was coming undone too, but that didn't stop her liking it anyway.

If she could have managed a decent pout, she would have given her finest with a narrowing of the eyes at the guy not just for the comment but the utterly repulsive wink, "eugh, gross, you need to keep practising that sultry wink in the mirror everynight for a decade to pull that off." Leaning away as if he was about to pass a highly contagious viral infection that would smite her down instantly, Pippa for one terrible moment thought he was going to try kissing her, eyes widening in shock as he shoved her letter back into her worn jeans, she exclaimed mock seriously, "woah assault dude, I could report you for that," before she knew it he was grabbing her shoulders and shoving her fairly gently towards the dreaded owls, "no way," she muttered in response trying to dig her heels in and grab a hold of something to stop her being shoved in, now the thing was that Pippa was naturally very clumsy and so even the slightest shove when she was panicking had a drastic effect. Today she stumbled over her own trainer laces, or her own feet depending on where you saw it from or who you heard the story from, before she could stop herself she was tripping over the step and landing face first upon the stone flagons. Nose first in fact, "oww," she yelped her face screwing up in pain, as she felt the onset of the inevitable nose bleed, it might even have been broken for all she knew. "Ah, ye bugger." She spluttered, fear of the owls still driving her on, picking herself up she didn't even notice if he tried to help her up, later she knew it wasn't really his fault, but he'd tried forcing her into the angry owls, so she tried to brush past him, in her panic as she heard a defeaning rustle of feathers and screeches from the flustered owls.
"Hothpital," she spluttered her hand thrusting into her pocket and drawing out her checkered hanky, pressing it against her bleeding nose, unintelligible murmurs and exclamations ensued as she grumbled about the blistering pain barely able to see what with the hanky, blood, hay and what she feared was owl droppings all over her. What she tried to splutter was "don't just stand there, help me!" But it came out more like;
"bon't bust ba-stand 'ere 'elp ee." Firmly holding the hanky on her nose she began to descend the stairs, nearly falling several times in the process, "Bowels," she spat venomously.

[Harrison Greg]

If he was not trying to keep up an act then Harrison would have most likely lashed out at the girl when she commented about his fashion sense. That was something that Harrison prided himself on, even though his father was German and he had picked up a few of his quirkiness but never enough for someone to look him in the face and tell him he looked less then perfect. ‘she can talk’ he thought to himself as he looked the girl up and down a few times…but of course he would never say that to a girl, he was a gentleman after all!

Well, he thought he was but the fact that his rash actions to get the girl into the owlery seemed to have back fired the tiniest bit, so not only was she protesting about being shoved into the room she soon fell rather unceremoniously to the floor. A snort erupted from Harrison as he stood, hands on hips, bent double with laughter as he watched the girl on the floor moaning and groaning and the factor that meant it so funny was her fear of the owls. After taking a deep breath while standing back straight Harrison started to make his way over towards her, a wide grin still on his face as the action replay of the fall was on repeat in his mind. The noble Gryffindor was about to offer the girl his hand to help her up when she got up by herself and then barged past him muttering something quite incompressible.

“Come again?” Harrison questioned as the girl stuffed a hanky to her nose, the chequered material slowly turning red. “Either in English or German…I am fluent in both.” He shot her a cheeky smile but the girl, one of the most determined females he could ever think of meeting, was already heading down the stairs of the Owlery. “WAIT!” Harrison shouted as be began to walk down the stairs after her. “You should not be walking off in our condition, aren’t you meant to pinch your nose and tilt your head back or something.”

[pippa]

Not even Pippa's vivid and weird imagination could have quite predicated what was currently befalling her; she had feared far worse and was getting off rather lightly compared to what she could think up. Still it sucked that she had fallen as gracefully as a fish out of water to land slap-bang on her nose, her grimy face was now covered in God alone knew what, crimson blood near spouted from her nose and she swore she could taste something that tasted very nasty indeed; probably rabbit droppings, fighting agains the instinct and near overpowering urge to hurl, all over the bloody gryffindor would do nicely, she refrained, it was difficult to tell whether she rolled her eyes through pain and dizziness or the abysmal showing off, knowing two languages wasn't exactly helpful right now. Pippa could think up a hundreds of comebacks, she just couldn't say any of them, his laughter still resounded in her eyes, yeh laugh it all up fuzzball, she thought and the cheekiness of the grin he shot her nearly sent her over the edge...but then he, finally, pulled through for her, getting over the hilarity of her fear and falling so ridiculously and actually offering some constructive help...sort of.

Doing as he said, she wondered if he'd done any medical courses, and laughed at her own thought, which sent another nasty spray of blood from her nose; laughter, bad idea. Tilting her head right back she pinched her nose tightly, but continued to walk on regardless, her feet did kind of know the way, so long as he did he half-decent thing and guided her, though if he grabbed her waist she would have to bite him.
"I ban balk," she spluttered, knowing she actually couldn't, just don't faint into his arms she thought furiously, oh God it's going to happen, feeling a dizzy spell she reached out aimlessly, actually hoping he'd support her...wait was she actually accepting his help...the answer would be yes.

[Harrison Greg]

Harrison was not really the person you wanted to be around in a moment of crisis as he was a Gryffindor and had never really paid any attention to many things in life other then the female species. So chasing after a Hufflepuff without the thought of flirting with her was a definite new experience for him and he even managed to feel the tiniest bit of concern for the girl, although that soon vanished when she started to laugh and the steps got a sprinkling of blood. Pippa then did what she had advised, which was another first that someone actually had listened to him, and then she started to head back down the steps.

“Wait!” Harrison shouted once more as he quickly reached forwards, taking hold of her free hand to help guide her down the steps. Pippa had already shown she was not the most stable of people on her feet and he could imagine walking down the stairs and not looking where she was going could turn out to be a deadly combination for her. Suddenly she took hold of his arm and together the two of them managed to, albeit slowly, managed to walk down a almost fifteen steps until Harrison had a revelation.

“Forwards!” He shouted suddenly, letting go of Pippa’s arm, placing his hand behind her head and pushing her head forwards so she was now looking at the floor. “Not backwards cause then the blood will run down your throat and chock you!” Another first, Harrison Greg was actually thinking. “Come on you’re a Hufflepuff you should know more about this then me, ain’t you the house that fall over all the time?”

Ok so his sympathy did not last all that long but he was not used to be the responsible one, he was the one who was meant to be running around the corridors in suits of armour, pulling pranks on un expecting first years and staying up till four in the morning blitzing an assignment that he had left to the last minute.