Tay walked along the gate. She sat down after a bit and started playing her lute. Taylor sang as well to the song she played.

Pacing back and forth, Zach made sure to kick any pebble in his path. Stopping periodically to lift the brim of the top hat that threatened to swallow his head whole, the American boy had much on his mind. Digging his heel into the ground at the sound of music, he folded his arms across his chest, the brim of his hat falling over his eyes. "Hmph! Who's there!?"

Tay looked up and stopped singing and playing. She wasnt scared of the older boy since Damon was the same age. In her scottish accent, "I'm Taylor McIntyre and you are?" Taylor looked at the boy.

"I-I'm not a wizard." Turning in the girl's general direction, he tipped up the brim of his hat, squinting his blue eyes. "I'm a magician. Zachary Zatara. You've heard of me." It wasn't a question. Of course she had heard of him. He was famous after all...At least he thought he was.

Tay shook her head, "I'm sorry but i dont believe i have." She gave a half grimaced to the boy, "But it is a pleasure meeting you, Zachary." Taylor smiled and stood up, dusting herself off. "What year are you? You are a hufflepuff right?"

"You should watch more television." Zach said with a laugh. "Unfortunately." He replied disappointingly, adjusting his gold striped tie. "Fifth year, I think. Hard to keep track of time here."

"I never watched.... erm was it a television?" She shrugged, "Not liking being a hufflepuff? Sounds like one of my friends." Tay laughed then grimaced. "At least i think we are still friends.... i dont really know now....." Taylor sighed, "A fifth year? Nice!"

"You've never watched--!?!?" Putting his fists at his hips, Zach's hat fell over his eyes again. Tipping the hat up just far enough to glare at Tay, Zach took a step forward. "I'll try to void my vocabulary of any pop culture references you may not understand." While he may have sounded a tad rude, there was a sense of warmth in his smile. "What do you people do for culture?

Tay frowned, "Not everyone has to watch whatever you called that thing." She shook her head but softened her sneer at the warmth of the smile. "We travel, read, go to plays and go to festivals."

Almost there. Allllmoooost there!

*pant pant*

Almost.....just a few more feet.....

DONE!

Ronnie collapsed onto the soft ground by the front gate. She had taken a run from the lake to the playground, to the duck pond, then to the front gate. A long, long run. Just what she had needed, what with all the stress of classes and the nightmares that she had been having the past few nights. She shuddered at the thought of the last one.


She sat for a moment, and then stood up and wiped a little dirt off of herself. She stretched her legs and then her arms and wished she had brought a bottle of water with her. Ah well. Maybe next time.

She spotted a nice comfy looking spot on the ground to sit down, and plopped down.

Ella was walking around the grounds, feeling kind of down. She was a bit lonely now that classes were in full swing and everyone was caught up with relationship drama or school work or whatever. She hadn't been paying much attention to where she was walking and glanced up, surprised to see the front gate. How on earth had she gotten here? With a shrug, she continued on, noting a familiar face sitting on the ground. Walking over with a little more spring in her step, Ella sat down next to her friend. "Hey Ronnie, you look out of breath. Were you running?" Hopefully not from a blast-ended skrewt or worse, a spider!

During his exploration of the grounds, Lucca somehow found himself at the front gate of the school. He peered out between the bars of the big iron gates wondering how easy it would be to scale the fence and get out of here. Were they charmed to stop kids from leaving when they just felt like it? He had no intention of leaving whatsoever.. he was just curious.

He reached out and curled a hand around one of the bars and looked up, sizing the gates up. But his attention was drawn away from them when he felt someone plop down near his feet in the soft grass. She looked rather flushed after her run.

“H-hey.” Lucca said shyly, announcing his presence there so's not to startle her. “That.. that looks like far too much work.” He added with a little smile. Running that was.

It was then that a smaller girl arrived who obviously knew the older girl. He gave her a small smile before he turned his attention back to the gates.

Ronnie smiled as she saw Ella walk up to her. "Hey, Ella!" she said with a little wave. She then laughed. "Yeah, I was!" she said. "I thought it'd be nice for a little run.." she said, glancing at her left arm. It had begun to really bug her once she had 'plopped' onto the ground by the gate. Maybe she had landed on it wrong. . .?

Ronnie hadn't realized someone else was at the gate. And she had landed right at his feet.

Oh. Well. . .that was slightly embarrassing.

She chuckled and hopped up from the ground. "Hi!" she replied. She laughed. "Maybe...just a little." she said, looking at the boy. He looked maybe around her age...but she'd never really seen him before. "What's your name?" she asked, hopping on her heels a little. She was feeling very energized after that run, surprisingly. Shouldn't she be tired. . .?!

She wasn't honestly thinking about trying to leave. No matter how much she missed Matt, Stella wasn't about to abandon school. She'd wanted to graduate from Hogwarts ever since she'd known about the school, and that meant she was going to actually go through with it. She still had taken to wandering the grounds more while the weather was still nice, though. It helped knowing that being outside would make it easier if he'd sent Gidget again with another letter. She wanted him to enjoy her country, though, and that meant she couldn't expect him sending letters all the time. At least she hadn't felt quite as lonely lately. Classes were helping with that, or at least distracting her. Along with still knowing she needed to buckle down and study for NEWTs.

Finding herself near the gates, though, she couldn't help but lightly wrap a hand around the bars. It was still tempting, even if she knew the gate wasn't going to open for her. She wasn't about to try and climb the wall either. It was just interesting to wonder if it was possible. Nobody else was paying attention to her, either. She didn't move from just looking out at the pathway to Hogsmeade, though. She'd get to go home soon enough, and for now she could just try to enjoy being at Hogwarts. It still felt more like home than Beauxbatons ever had.

Lucca smiled at the girl as she hopped to her feet. She seemed really energetic. “Hi.” He replied. He shook his head and chuckled slightly. He wasn't much of a runner himself. He preferred swimming.. or flying.

The girl looked like she was in his year, but it was hard to tell he was finding, what with all the classes being mixed ages. It was all new to Lucca, but he was becoming quite accustomed to it and liking that way of learning. “I'm Lucca. Lucca Kennedy.” He introduced himself and noted the quizzical look in her eyes. Yep. He was the new kid. The one with no mates and was finding it hard to squeeze into the little cliques and friendships around him. “I'm new here.” He explained. “Just transferred from Salem.” Despite this little titbit of information, the boy had a definite Northern English accent.

“What's your name?”

Evelyn wandered around the grounds for a while, feeling quite depressed. She had absolutely no idea what she was going to once she graduates. No idea at all. She was planning on attending muggle university but at the same time she wanted to work at the Ministry of Magic. But, she couldn't do the latter since she had decided to move to Scotland once she finished school. She sighed, hoping she would be able to figure it all soon. She hadn't given it much thought recently since classes kept her occupied most of the time..sigh.

She made her way towards the gates, not sure what she was even doing there. Anyway, she had to head towards the library soon and do some studying. She was about to turn around when she noticed the girl she'd met on the train, standing nearby and..she had her fingers wrapped around the bars and seemed kind of..upset? She wasn't sure. Um. Maybe she should say hello.

"Erm.. Hey, Stella." Evelyn gave a nervous smile.

"Lucca.." Ronnie repeated with a little nod. "It's nice to meet you! What year are you in?" she asked.

Then, as if he had read her mind, he said he was new. Ohh, that explained it. "Oh really? That's cool. How are you liking Hogwarts so far?" she asked. She was sort of new this year, but not really. She did attend for the first two years, but had to go to a different school when her dad got a job in France. Then she moved back after begging to be back at Hogwarts. It was a really amazing place, she loved it.

Oh. Ronnie hadn't said her name yet. She blushed in embarrassment, how silly of her. "I'm Ronnie. Ronnie Weasley." she replied.

Still simply watching the pathway outside the gate, Stella had barely paid attention to what was going on around her. Instead, she just let her thoughts take over for a bit, even if they made her get dangerously close to being lonely again. At least when she thought about everything else, she was fairly confident. She hadn't found out if she'd be able to get into WADA after graduation yet, but at least she knew what she wanted to do. And she knew she'd get to see Matt again basically all the time, considering he'd be starting university too. All she had to do was survive this term, and manage to pass her NEWTs. Plus, there was still Christmas to think about, as she still had to organize certain gifts.

That was more important than most everything else, since she only had a couple months before the holidays. She couldn't exactly buy a guitar in Hogsmeade, either, so she'd have to send an owl to Talia soon to get her help. She could definitely find one in London. Immersed in thoughts of how she was going to make sure that happened in time, she'd definitely not noticed footsteps approaching. She did turn as she heard the voice, though, and smiled slightly as she saw Evelyn. "Hello, Evelyn," she replied. "What brings you out here? Wandering, like I had been, or something else?" She didn't quite understand why the other seventh year looked nervous. She didn't think she was scary. Perhaps it was more worry about interrupting.

Evelyn raised her eyebrows. It looked like Stella was deep in thought about... something and she probably shouldn't have said anything. Biting her lip, she was about to just turn around and wander some more before she headed back towards the castle when Stella turned towards her. Right.

"I just wanted to take a walk and think about..stuff." Evelyn said, with a light shrug. She walked over to the side and sat down on the grass. She wanted to relax for a little while before she headed back. Her feet were starting to hurt. "How about you? Why are you here?" Evelyn asked, curiously. She flushed slightly before she added, "If you don't mind me asking, that is." She wasn't being nosy or something..she was just curious since Stella had looked so serious moments ago.

Maybe she hadn't been as unnoticed as she'd thought she was. Well, before Evelyn had spoken, that is. It had certainly seemed to Stella that the Hufflepuff had been about to give up on her ever responding, as the other girl had been just about to turn away when she'd finally spoken. She was half-tempted to just outright apologize, but then that would entail actually explaining everything that she'd been thinking of. At least some of it, she imagined, wasn't appropriate to confess to a prefect. Not to mention she wasn't certain that talking about how much she missed having Matt there at Hogwarts with her would actually help much anyway. She wasn't against talking about it if the topic really came up, but that didn't mean she had to voluntarily say anything.

"What kind of stuff?," she asked, letting the bar of the gate go as she walked over to where the other girl had sat down. "If you don't mind me asking, that is," she added, smiling a little as it had echoed what Evelyn had said last. At least amusement made her feel a bit better, and she carefully sat down facing the prefect. She really didn't mind telling her what she'd been doing out at the gate, as long as she didn't have to give all the details. "I just can't stay cooped up inside the castle right now. I wasn't trying to escape or anything. I was just thinking about Christmas, how I still need to buy presents." Yes, it was still only September. But really good presents took time to get.

Damon walked up and sat down with his guitar. He just need a moment to himself really to get away from all the confusion, for both himself and his girlfriend and for his best friend... Ugh, yep Damon's fifth year was shaping up to be pretty crappy... He started to play his new favorite song. He sang along of course. He wished he had his keyboard more then his guitar, he had to practice that more but it was upstairs shrunken into his luggage.

Maxwell was walking toward the gates, he was exploring around the grounds and he'd never been to the gates it never seemed interesting enough to him...He saw Damon but thought it best not to say anything, it could be awkward or bad since Maxwell was angry with Damon again, everything could have been fine but why did he make Taylor lie to him? And why did she go along with it? Damon was trying to steal her again. But there was more at stake this time, Min could get hurt too...

Damon looked up as the song ended, pulling out his notebook he made a note of the parts he'd known he'd messed up. Laying back down on the ground he spotted Maxwell walking by. Hey the day was already bad enough... Why not make one death attempt? Might be a tad bit entertaining, as long as he didn't take another swing of course, "Hey Maxwell!"

Maxwell sighed. "Hello, What are you writing down more of your lies?" He asked in a very rude tone, he was tired of this, he gave Damon a chance and was lied to. He would not make the same mistake. He didn't hate him he just didn't trust him.