Annie was racing down corridors and dodging students like it was nobody's bizness. She thought of herself as a fairly fit person, after all, and clearly still young enough to shake off a Crazy Claw.

But HE WAS STILL CHASING HER.

"Egaaaaaaaaaaaaddddddgedddawwwaaaaay!!!11!!1" Bunbury half-screamed, half-pleaded with the little breath she had left. MERLIN. Escaping took a lotta energy.

She rounded the corner onto the first floor and paused by a series of portraits lining the wall before the staircase. Shooooo. She had to pause for minute. Panting slightly, the redhead leaned against one canvas featuring two wizards on Safari. They weren't too happy, obviously, if all the wand-pointing and shouting at her intrusion was any indication. Ugh. She wished she was in Africa right now, hunting Nundu.

Wibble. Annie would never get to hunt Nundu again. Ethan probably wouldn't even want to speak to her again. And she'd have to move far, far away from England if she could managed to get out of here before someone.... sssaw Upstead.... or before the Tino boy attacked her...

Tino never realized just how far it was from the Hospital Wing to the first floor. Of course, he'd never hotfooted the whole place in pursuit of a Hogwarts fugitive before, but holy cheese, this castle was big. He was starting to feel like a competitor in the 200K hurdle event. The sad part was that Tino didn't even like to run. He was a 'wanderer', a 'lazy meanderer', and a 'mosier'. Why couldn't Bunbury 'mosey' away? Because she's an evil psycho murderess, that's why, Tino reminded himself.

He reached the main first-floor hall, whose walls were stacked with animated portraits. "Which way did she go? The PINK freak?!," Tino shouted at a pair of old men playing dice. The first looked rather affronted, but his partner jumped up and waved his cap in one direction. "She hadn't no shoes, Buster Brown," he replied. "But she runs like a madcap and she were talkin' to herself. Strange lady." He hiccuped. "Thattaway!"

In his haste, Tino forgot to thank the painting people, but he didn't particularly appreciate being called anything but his own name, either. It reminded him of great-great-grandparents who called all their offspring by general terms like 'Munchkin' and 'Short Stuff'. Let's all remind children of their inherent disadvantages, shall we?

Tino's mind was distracted even as he loped along the corridor, approaching another staircase. Now he was considering the mould content of cheese. He supposed Bunbury hated cheese, too.

Ah....AHH! SHH! Crazy!One was shuffling along right past her and hadn't even thought to look! Well then her hair must have just blended right into that prairie grass. Annie pressed her back against the portrait of Africa, her robes muffling the angry protests of those pictured - not that they would have been understandable anyway. It wasn't like the guys were speaking English.

She held her breath and put one finger to her lips, pleading with her eyes to the portrait across the hall and closest to Tino and the stairs. Pleeeeeease, super tall man with a handkerchief and dragonpox... pleeeease don't sneeze right now... no... no... hold it....HOLD IT..... let the Ravenclaw wander off....!

"Achooooooo!!"

Tino jumped back, startled out of his reverie. "God bless you," he told the man in the portrait, who was burying his face in a handkerchief. He studied it quietly for a moment. "You have purple spots on your face, " he said finally.

"Thank you for your keen observation!" snapped the pox-man, refolding his handkerchief and blowing. SNIIIIIRK.

Tino stepped back again, wondering if it was possible to catch deadly viruses from a painting. He could swear he felt the moisture from that last one. "You should really see a doctor for that," he advised. "Have you tried hot chicken soup? Or how about nasal spray?"

"Oh thanks. In five hundred years, I hadn't thought of that," pox-man scowled, rolling his eyes.

"Wow, really?" Tino was impressed by the guy's lack of focus. Maybe he was even worse than Tino. It gave him a slight glimmer of hope. "Say, I've always been curious. If I painted something new into your frame, would you be able to use it? Or would it block that part of the painting like a brick wall, since it wasn't part of the original spell?"

Um, hello, wasn't the crazy kid on a (wo)man hunt right now? HELLO??? Annie knew for a fact that as poofy, frizzy and crazy as her hair was right now, it did not match the prairie grass behind her head. CLEARLY she was right in her assessment of Tino's brainlessness if he never noticed her.

Shaking her head at the bits of conversation she managed to catch from boy and portrait, Anastasia began sneaking off in the opposite direction from Tino. Fine. She would just RUN RUN RUN RUN RUNNNNNNNNNN (which she did) all the way down the other end of the corridor, sliiiiiide down the banister, and land in the entrance hall to get the Hades out of here.

It would not be fun sneaking out to the Front Gate without shoes though. Alas.

Tino was having a fine time discussing magical paintings with the magical painting man, even if he was a bit snarky about innocent questions. He was right in the middle of telling a very funny story, involving Professor Bunbury's shoes, when he suddenly gasped.

"I did it again!!" Tino shouted, grabbing at his hair in consternation.

Pox man looked interested. "What did you do again? Ask another completely irrelevant question?"

"NOOO!" Tino shouted again. "I forgot what I was doing! I was chasing Bunbury! This way! Where'd she go?"

"You mean that teacher? The one who just went down those stairs behind you?" Pox man smiled mischievously. It was an icky smile with yellow teeth.

The Greek boy wasn't much for cursing, but as Tino fled down the staircase, he let fly all the curse words he knew.

Iris walked down a corridor that she didn't recognise .... Ooooh. Portraits. Talking portraits. Lots of talking portraits. Picture time, I think. Iris looked around, for a fancy or unusual portrait in particular to be the focus point of the photo...

Evan quickly made his way to the Talking Portraits, camera ready. He had seen many people taking photos of couples and best friends, but what he was going to capture was unique as far as he knew, no one could think of the Portraits, that too were inhabitants of Hogwarts. Sort of.

He grinned at the portraits while almost all of them asked what was that thing in his hands. He didn't say a word though and only grinned. He was so clever! He was trying to choose the best portrait when--

"What are you doing here?!" he asked, glowering at Iris Beaumont. Did she have to steal HIS idea of picturing?! Was she among the mind-readers too? He was really shocked how she didn't ruined his ask out to Fallon, she seemed to be everywhere he went, only to ruin HIS plans.

Iris grinned as she saw a particulaly discusting photo of a hag, it would be perfect to use. She twirled her camera around and went to walk to the photo when she heard someone shouting at her. She turned around only to see Evan Cartwright. She looked at him blankly, as if she had just been spoken to in German. "I'm doing my Muggle Studies homework. I wasn't aware that I wasn't allowed to be up here." She said in a sweetly sarcastic, yet honest voice. "Why? Were you up here for the same thing? Thats the portrait I want a picture of, so its not like you can't still pick one of the hundreds of others." She looked at her camera and made her way to the portrait of the Hag.

And now Beaumont was actually grinning at how clever she was to take the pictures of the Portraits? Ha. HA! Like Evan Cartwright would allow it. He took one more step to reach out at her hand, when he couldn't believe his ears. And now she was the honest, cute and mocking girl? Evan narrowed his eyes, looking suspicious. Only. In. Her. Dreams. He grinned evilly: what if he was the main part of her picture?

He ran between the Hag and her, and quickly raised his already-ready camera. He stayed in an angle that it would take the other portraits too, and just as she too raised her camera, he pressed the button. If she wasn't quick enough to lower her camera, Evan's pretty face covered by the camera would appear on her picture.

Iris clicked the button on her camera just as Evan stood in the way of the camera. WHAT THE HECK!!!!! Cartwright! Iris glared at Evan, as he too clicked the button on his own camera. Did he honestly think that it would work? Grrr. "CARTWRIGHT! WHAT ON EARTH WAS THAT FOR! YOU DID NOT NEED TO DO THAT TO MY WOR-" Iris looked at the picture and stopped talking. So, Cartwright thought he'd ruin her photo of the hag and the pretty witch next to her by jumping in the way of the photo, blocking the hag.

She smirked evilly. "-you know what? Never mind. I've been giving my photo's titles and I've got the perfect title for this one." She said, grinning as she waved the camera slightly. She looked back to the camera and frowned. The pretty witch in the portrait that Cartwright didn't manage to block kinda looked like Fallon. Weird... She looked up at the actual portrait, who was smiling amusedly at them both. Wow... the portrait even smirks like Fallon! I wonder if Cartwright noticed that? ... Iris glared at Evan once more before storming off.

Well... thats the last one. All I have to do now is give them to Dumont.

Evan's cocksure, arrogant and nonchalant grin was already on his face when they both lowered their cameras. And from the look on Beaumont's face, he could tell that he had achieved his goal: to annoy her and ruin her picture. Bahaha. He. Was. Awesome.

He just kept grinning cocksure when she abruptly stopped yelling. What? Couldn't he make it to the picture? No wai! He made a face, and following her puzzled stare, he saw the pretty witch who just looked like his pretty girlfriend Fallon. He stood watching the witch stupefied, now making sense of Beaumont's words. Weird... and good. When he turned back to ask a copy of the picture, he saw that she was already gone. Bleh. She was still silly to him, although she had caught a good picture.

Reese made her way down the corridor with an Astronomy book in her arms. She didn't like Torin thinking she needed to go back to Astronomy for First Years just to know how fast/slow the Earth rotates, so she was going to look over this book, because she needed some knowledge in Astronomy IF she was going to take her NEWTs for them next year and also she didn't want Torin to make fun of her. So, with agreeing that she was going to look over this book sometime, she smiled to herself. She was going to learn Astronomy and all was going to be good.

After noticing potrait after potrait pass by her, she stopped to take a look around. She wasn't rather fond of these talking portraits, but this place was a nice place to relax before she went back to the loud common room. Placing her textbook on the floor, she sat down on top of it, so it was unnoticable that she even had an Astronomy book until she stood up.

What? She said she was going to study 'somtime', which doesn't mean right now.

Where was Miss Upstead?

Torin had something to share with a best friend and Tammy didn't really fit the bill seeing as she thought that guys were gross. And he would tell Sylvia, but he was sorta confused about how things were between them. They weren't dating, but he had a feeling that they might be soon enough.

Anf there she was sitting on a book. "Why are you sitting on a book?" he asked as he approached her.

'Well, aren't you just a cute little Slytherin.' After hearing that coming from nearby, Reese turned her attention to one of the potraits that was hanging up on the wall that was across from where she was sitting. It was just a picture of a boy. She rolled her eyes and just looked away. No, she wasn't going to reply back to him. As she was looking at a picture of a little child, she heard footsteps approach her. Then, she heard Torin's voice.

O_O That was Reese's reaction when she noticed Torin shirtless. Not that she minded. Wait, WHAT WAS SHE SAYING? She did mind that he was shirtless. You weren't suppose to be shirtless at school. "Uh..." Speechless? Yes. "You were being serious when you said you needed to ask Jack for shirts," she said.

"Why am I sitting on a book? Hm. That's a good question. I just don't feel like reading the book, so I thought I would put it to good use by sitting on it," she answered. "This floor seems dirtier than usual, so I wouldn't want to get my skirt dirty." Not wanting to look up at him the whole time, she decided it was best to stand up. "Here, help me up," she said, and then raised her arms up, so that Torin could help her off the ground. You see, it was easy to sit down in these shoes, but getting up was another story.

"I had to offer all my shirts to Lucille so that seh wouldn't involve Brody in some drama," he explained at the look on her face. Yes, it was rather awkward right now, but he wasn't wearing the parka so whatever.

He reached out a hand to her and helped her up, noticing that she was sitting on.. an Astronomy book? HAHA! This was only too amusing. He knew exactly why she had an Astronomy book too.

"I had actually been looking for you."

Reese raised an eyebrow. "What kind of 'some drama' are you talking about? And, why would Lucille want to get Brody involved in this 'some drama'?" She questioned. Right now, she wasn't sure if she can stand around here with Torin shirtless. It was just...awkward. Really really REALLY awkward. "Is there anything you can put on, though? Anything at all?" She asked him with pleading eyes. For merlin's sake, Torin can put on a pink bath robe right now and that would make this less awkward than it was. A PINK BATH ROBE! That's gotta be sayin' something.

She took his hand and pulled herself off the ground. Ah, much better! True, she was still shorter than Torin, so she still had to look up at him, but at least it wasn't as bad as looking up at him from the ground. Literally, she felt like an ant compared to him when she was sitting on the book. Her eyes glanced down at the book, and then back to Torin. "Don't you dare say anything," she muttered. He had to be thinking about it!

"Looking for me?" The girl repeated. "How come?"

He shrugged at her, not too sure what to say. "I dunno. She's crazy. She has it in for me after I didn't give Warren mouth to mouth. And she's wanted my shirts. She was going to bring Brody into the whole mess and I couldn't let her." He already had his nose broken recently, he didn't want to have to deal with her again; the memories of their last meeting were still too vivid in his mind. "And if I had anything other than a parka I'd be wearing it, Reese."

He smirked at her as she told him not to say anything. "I won't. Though I did tell your boyfriend that he needs to tutor you in Astronomy." BWAHAHA.

"And I was looking for you because.. I want to talk to you?" What else could he tell her?