Suits of Armor
 

The castle houses several suits of armor but, this one seems to be a particularly popular place for meetings between friends.

Kel's fixing to walk into some fun...
 

Satine clicked (heels) up to one of her most fave places in the castle. This was a place where you could cause a little bit of trouble but no one seemed to truly care. She stopped at the edge of the hall and peaked around the corner. You never knew when Peeves would be in this part of the castle. He liked the loud noises he could make here.

After seeing that it was clear, she came around the corner and continued down the hall looking to see if the Suits of Armor had changed in the last year. Well that was crazy they hadn't changed in over seventy years yet alone a year, but she still wanted to check.

As she passed each one she could see a blurred reflection of her bright purple hair in the helmets of the Suits of Armor. Once she got the middle of the corridor of suits, she flicked her right wrist and her wand shot out.

She glanced right and left with a little mischievious grin checking to make sure no one was in the hall and then raised her wand like she was a conductor of a symphony.

Purple wasn't exactly a common colour for hair around Hogwarts, but Kellen hadn't seen it grace a head since... quite a while. More to satisfy his curiosity than anything else, and because he really needed to start going on random walks of the halls to make sure things weren't complete chaos, he trailed after the unusual hair colour and around the corner to see...

"Satine!" It was a greeting with a touch of reprimand, because she didn't look like she was about to conjure butterflies with that wand of hers. Kellen moved closer to her, eyebrow raised, "What's up?"

Just as she was fixing to flick her wand, she heard footsteps and turned at the same time as a voice said her name. Her hand dropped a little bit as she glanced down the hall towards the outline of a body coming towards her. She couldn't really tell if the Satine was a 'Hey Satine...nice to see you' or a 'Hey Satine what are you doing crazy'.

Satine squinted a little at the figure and then instantly recognized who it was...remember the shiny on his chest, she let her wand hand drop all the way down and she turned towards him with a completely innocent...kind of...look on her face.

"Kellen? ummmm...nothing..." she said with a guilty sound to her voice....It wouldn't have bothered her to play if it wasn't a Prefect walking towards her...but then again...she could still have fun as long as it didn't break rules...yes...yes...yes..., "Wow, I almost couldn't tell it was you with the light shining of your new shiny on your chest..." she said teasingly holding up her left hand as if to block the sun as she walked/clicked closer to the old acquaintance.

"Nothing?" The look on his face indicated that he didn't believe her in the slightest, but he didn't motion at the wand. The purple hair was a little distracting. Kellen glanced down briefly at the badge on his chest, before looking back at her and smiling at her reaction, "Thanks?"

Urgh, why did he get the feeling that when it came to those he knew, this job was going to be exceedingly more difficult?

He wondered if she was actually taller, or if it was just the heels. Either way, he pointed out, "Surely you've got stories since the last time we talked? Care to share?"

Satine smiled almost too big at his 'Nothing?' comment and especially at his look...wow she was bad at lying..."Yes, I'm a bad lier.. I was fixing to do one of my fave things in the whole world in the castle..." she said with a smiling puppy dog face...she wondered if she looked like a little kid like she felt, but this always made her kid come out which wasn't always a bad thing... "well, I guess it wasn't nothing...I was fixing to have the suits of armor dance..." she said with a mischievous grin.

"I think you'll make a great Prefect!" she said thinking about some of the other prefects she'd met over the years...yep he'd be a good one..."I mean you're normal unlike some of the ones we've had in the past...you are a down to earth person..." she said being encouraging with her genuine smile back on her face.

Stories stories stories..."Well, I might have a few stories to share..." she said teasing him a little bit..."But in order for you to hear them you have to help me make the Suits of Armor dance..." she said with a wink as she glanced over her shoulder and down the hall. With a little flick of her right hand, a nearby suit of armor starting moving it's right hand across its body form bottom to top like it was in a Muggle disco...

Oh, Kellen was very much familiar with the puppy dog look. Three younger sisters all knew how to give it, which made no sense because they'd never owned a dog. If his eyebrows were raised before... well, they weren't, because now they were raised, "Have the suits of armour dance. You're serious?"

The praise about being a Prefect kind of took a back seat to the whole dancing armour thing, though he did comment, "If I'm a down-to-earth one, what makes you think making these suits dance in front of me is a good thing? And don't offer to make them dance behind me instead, you know what I mean."

He... had no idea what kind of a dance that was, but as it didn't look absolutely harmful he spent more time thinking about if charming the armour was against school rules than trying to stop her. Eventually he had to conclude that he didn't know. Wrecking or denting them most definitely was. Moving them around a bit before putting them back? He wasn't so sure.

She raised her left eyebrow and looked at him, "Yes, of course I'm serious..." she said with a little smile smirk....she flicked her wand and the suit went back to standing at attention.

"Well," she paused as he finished his sentence for her...dancing behind him...it had been a awhile but he still remembered the way she thought..."okay I won't make them dance...." she looked down at the ground and finished quietly but teasingly, "in front or behind you but they could dance with you..." she said with a little giggle and a quick glance up.

Then she thought about it for a minute...it wouldn't really be fair to put Kellen in that position...o man...that was Satine always worried about others...with a little umph breath she looked back up at him, "Don't worry Kellen, I won't do it... I don't want to put you in that awkward situation..." she said patting him on the shoulder...."but you're still gonna have to do something to earn my stories..."

"I'm sure they could," Kellen couldn't quite get rid of the smile on his face, though a valiant effort was made, "but I'd rather they not. I'd most probably step on their toes and dent them."

Shoulder pat? Okay then. He tapped his fingers off his chin in a mockingly-introspective way, glancing at the old ceiling like it could offer some insight. Not surprisingly, it continued to be a ceiling and nothing more, so he looked back at her, "Oh so? I'm not sure if I want to put myself at your mercy, but do you have any suggestions?"

Satine brought up her right hand and teased him like she was going to flick the wand looking at him with the I dare you to stop me look. "Well, then that settles it you can't dance with them then..." she paused and with a giggle said, "and that you need dancing lessons if you think you'd step on their toes and dent them...we must remedy that dancing issue some day." she said with a little spin and curtsy towards him.

She thought for a second as she twirled a piece of purple hair around her right pointer finger...then a thought hit her and her whole face lite up and eyes got huge and with an evil laugh (Muhahaha) she said, "Have you ever played Jenga?"...Satine random? o never...lots of sarcasm there...

"Dancing with people is different," he informed her, performing a mock-bow to match her curtsy. "Especially girls. But I can't see a suit of armour wanting to follow someone's lead." There was only a short pause before he added, "And I don't want to see it."

That said, he cleared his throat and made an ushering motion down the hall, "I have not. Is it another one of those Twister games?" He'd been the one in charge of spinning the last time they'd played. You know, back when his dignity had been... more present.

She clapped as he bowed in front of her, "Wow nice form...but you know I think I'd say the same thing about girls versus suits of armor if I wasn't very good at dancing too..." she said raising both of her eyebrows up. "But I guess someday you'll just have to prove that you can dance and until that day I guess I just won't be 100 percent certain..." she said with a shrug of her shoulders.

Satine followed the gesture and started down the hall in the direction he motion towards..."It is a Muggle game...but no it's actually nothing like Twister..." she said thinking about the massive Twister game that lead to a Twister tournament the next term..."but it's lots of fun...you make a tower and then pull blocks out and then it falls and then..." she paused because she knew she was talking fast, "O, you'll just have to see...so where are we off to? We need a table and two chairs to play...and as we play, I will share stories from last term away."

"Well then, some day I will," he promised her. Too bad she hadn't been here for the costume ball, because that would have been a good opportunity right there. Hmm...

This game sounded... redundant. Kellen pointed out, "If you make a tower out of blocks, and then pull them out, of course the tower will fall." Muggles had really weird games. Honestly. Resting his hands in his pockets, he suggested, "We could just go to the Common Room, if you like. I doubt you have the game on you right now, so it'll be less distance to carry it."

Kellen Stern; bravely embarking on another run-in with Muggle entertainment.

She winked at Kellen, "Well I look forward to finding out then.." she said as she walked along.

"Well, yes it does sound rather...well boring when I put it that way, but it's kind of a fun suspenseful game..." she said trying to make it sound more fun and failing miserably, "well, it's just a Muggle game adventure I guess...you know just one of those games that you'll prolly play once and then never play again..." and then she quickly added, "but we'll make it fun."

She liked the idea of the CR...."Yes off to the old burnt couch smelling CR!" she said with a little giggle and a skip in her step towards that direction. As she walked down the hall, she flicked her wand behind her back one last time, and all the suits of armor wiggled their butts in rhythm...yes it was her pardon shot...she would be back...

As always, Braeden was finding himself, once again, with too much free time in his hands. Well, it wasn't all that free seeing as he had piles of homework to get done, buuut… that could wait until tomorrow. He didn't feel like chopping his brain into little pieces just yet. Instead, the boy wandered aimlessly around the halls of the school, and by the time he reached the second floor, his mind had gone in a different direction - food. Oh yes… a visit to the kitchens right about now would be nice.

However, something shiny and sparkly caught his eye and since this cowardly lion suffers from ADD (not yet clinically proven), he soon forgot all about food as he approached the suit of armor that stood tall and proud down the hall. Heh. Brae had always liked this suit, and as second year ages ago imagined himself wearing it. Yeah, that would've been impressive; even if back then he had only been big enough to fill up one of the armor's legs. He had grown since then, obviously, but his lanky physique probably wouldn't be able to handle the weight of such armor.

So he used it for the next best thing - a fun mirror.
The surface was perfectly smooth and shiny, and his reflection always looked completely twisted. And Braeden, being the child he was, found nothing to be more amusing than seeing his forehead looking like it was two feet tall and his eyes so wide that he looked like some type of creature from Mars.
Completely oblivious to the other students shooting him weird looks and snickering to himself like the big doof he was, Braeden posed before the shiny suit, admiring the reflection of a very, very tall boy with a head larger than the rest of his body and a torso and legs so thin they looked breakable. This was more fun than a funhouse!

Trina was skipping down the hall when she spotted a tall boy looking at... a suit of armor. Coming quietly up behind him to see what he was looking at, she couldn't help but giggle. His reflection was all disproportionate. And, being behind him, her own was strange looking as well.

"This is so silly!" she said, laughing as she moved to another suit of armor that had a wider torso so that the reflection of her own head was twisted in a strange way. "It's like one of the carnival things I used to go through!" she told the older boy with a grin as she moved to the next suit or armor.

Braeden... Poor, poor cowardly Braeden jumped up to the ceilings of the school like a cat (maybe not literally) and yelped as, out of nowhere, what seemed to be an alien from Jupiter creeped up behind him, its abnormally large eyes watching him and giggling.

Heart in his throat and with brown eyes wide as saucers, the cowardly lion turned around sharply and sighed in relief at the sight of... a completely normal human being. Who looked nothing like what he had just seen. He took a moment to recompose himself before giving the girl, who appeared to be a fellow Gryffindor, one of his lopsided smiles. "I'm okay! No need to panic!" he assured her (as if the girl even cared that he had almost had a heart attack over something as silly as someone else's reflection on the armor he was playing with). "I think I'll survive," he added, pressing a hand to his chest dramatically. His heartbeat was beginning to slow. "Yep, I think I still have another eighty years to go," he confirmed with a nod. Of course, no one had asked and no one cared, but leave it up to Braeden to turn into a chatterbox and talk about stuff no one asked him to know.

"It's like the castle's own little funhouse, isn't it?" he asked with a grin as the girl began to examine her reflection on the other suits of armor.
Okay good, so he wasn't the only one that was terribly amused by these reflections. Maybe it was a Gryffindork thing.

Trina jumped as the boy did, surprised at the height that he got. "Are... are you alright?" she asked, smothering her giggles at his expression and reaction. It seemed quite strange that someone like her could make anyone jump... and yet she seemed to have scared him well.

However, as he smiled, she couldn't help but smile in return. "I should hope you will survive!" she replied with soft laugh. "And more than 80, I'm sure!"

"It IS!" she exclaimed, moving to the next suit of armor. "Come on! Look at this one!" she exclaimed, running over and taking his hand before dragging him to the next suit of armor. "This one makes my legs look like sausage!" she told him with a giggle.

Braeden chuckled softly as the girl who had nearly killed him unintentionally earlier, hoped aloud that he would survive and live to be more than eighty. "Well, if I become a ghost, I could live up to… well, eternity!" he said with one of his goofy grins, brown eyes sparkling at the thought. He wanted to be a ghost. And scare all the little first years when they came to Hogwarts and walk through the walls of the school and catch couples hiding in closets and scare the caretaker. Mwahaha!

The boy was just beginning to lose himself in thoughts of all the mischief he'd get into as a ghost, when suddenly he found himself being dragged away and standing before a suit of armor he hadn't visited yet. The girl at his side was right, this armor made them look all… square and stubby. It scrunched up the boy's face so bad you could barely tell his eyes apart from his lips. At the sight, Braeden snorted. "Why couldn't they have one of these in the common room? Or better yet, in the library? Merlin knows some of us could use the entertainment during break," he said with a chuckle as he crouched and jumped and posed before the armor, each time his reflection looking even more twisted than before.

Then he realized he hadn't even introduced himself to this girl. "I'm Braeden, by the way," he shared with a smile. "Sixth year Gryffindor. You're in Gryffindor too, aren't you?" he asked, eyeing the red and gold pattern on her tie.

"A ghost?" she asked, laughing softly. "But then you would be all see through and... ghosty," she said, shaking her head. "I would miss food too much!" she added with a grin. For a moment she imagined being a ghost and just wandering the halls as such. There were other ghosts, and the students, so she wouldn't be lonely. But she would miss being able to do normal things- although the flying and passing through things could be interesting.

She returned to looking at herself in the various suits of armor. Taking the boy's hand she led him to her favorite so far. She grinned at his comment and looked up at him, her eyes dancing in mischief. "I don't know why we couldn't..." she said slowly. "What's to stop us from moving one of the suits of armor there?" she added, glancing at the armor before them.

Trina laughed as he continued to try different poses, even trying a few of her own and laughing at the result. She blinked at the introduction and scolded herself slightly. "I'm sorry, I'm Trina," she said with a smile to him. "Yes, 4th year," she told him with a confident nod. "Although I only just transferred here," she added with a small smile.

"Hmmm… Well, I'll have to agree with you on the food part, though I can't imagine it being too difficult to forget about food when you're never hungry," said a thoughtful Braeden as he furrowed his brows and looked off into space like he was some great theory thinker. Or something. However, before he could get too distracted with this, he found himself being dragged away again (there seemed to be a pattern forming here). He looked at his reflection on the new suit of armor they approached and laughed at the way his head seemed to be nearly as tall as him yet his body seemed so weighed down by the humongous head that it looked like an accordion. Braeden had to take a moment to laugh aloud at this sight before turning to the Gryffindor girl as she suggested they… take the armor up to the common room?

Braeden's dark eyebrows rose. He liked this girl already.
"I'm game if you are," he said, a childlike mischievous smile on his face though he was completely serious. Seriously. Sure, they risked getting detention and losing some House points, but… that was only if they were caught.

Before Braeden could plot this suit-of-armor-kidnapping fully in his head, the girl was introducing herself as Trina. He smiled politely now, his mischief becoming replaced by friendliness. "Oh, really?" he muttered with surprise as Trina shared she had just transferred to Hogwarts. "That explains why I'd never seen you before," he pointed out the obvious. "Where are you transferring from?" he asked, completely oblivious to the fact that they were just standing in the middle of the hall, beside ridiculous reflections, and holding hands while having a conversation. Yeah, that wasn't completely random at all.

"I don't know... it looked like some of the ghosts were quite saddened at the Feast," he pointed out. She didn't know any of their names, but the one floating around the Gryffindor table seemed particularly saddened. Drawn out of her reverie by the next suit of armor, she grinned. Making faces at the armor, she had to stop because she was laughing so hard. Wouldn't you if your tongue looked like it touched the floor?

Looking at his reaction, Trina shared the boy's grin. It seemed he was down for the plan. "Why not?" she asked him with a shrug. Although, her mom would probably think she was acting out if she were notified. Oh well... "I mean, it's not as if we are stealing it. We're just... relocating!" she said. "Or perhaps taking it to go for a fresh shine? Armor inspection?" she proposed, smiling up at Braeden.

She nodded in reply, giving a small shrug. "It would be strange if you had seen me before," she countered with a smile, meaning it only as a joke. "The U.S.," she replied. "East coast. My dad lives there, and my mom here." She glanced at a suit of armor that held their reflection and giggled. They looked quite ridiculous- two heads talking to each other with doll-sized bodies.

"Oh, you mean Nearly-Headless Nick?" asked Braeden with a bit of a grin as Trina mentioned the ghosts at the feast. He figured she must've been talking about him, since he was the Gryffindor ghost and therefore usually the only one that hung around their table. "I think he'll be fine without food; he'll survive," he said. And though he hadn't meant that as a joke, he realized a moment later that it was kinda funny… Ghost… survive… heh. Get it? Yeahhhh.

But enough about Nearly-Headless Nick. Trina was talking business now! And this was where most of Braeden's attention was focused. "Exactly!" he said as she explained this was only 're-location', not theft. "That works. And if not, we'll just say the armor got lonely down here," he said with a shrug. And he was serious about using that excuse. It made perfect sense to him; he'd get lonely if he was a suit of armor down here too. "How should we go about it? Levitate it up to the towers? Or do you know any Disillusionment Charms to hide it while we move it around?" asked Braeden, the excitement sparkling in his brown eyes. He reeeeaaally wanted a suit of armor in the common room. He'd get up in the middle of the night just to go there and laugh at his reflection. He really would.

Oooooooh. American, eh? He knew there was something funny about her accent. Well, go figure! This was the second American he found in Hogwarts. Now he couldn't help but ask - "East coast? Like where New York is? Does that mean you're a famous actress?!" he asked hopefully. Braeden, being the ignorant little peasant boy who had never been outside of the UK that he was, assumed that everyone who came from the States must've been a famous Hollywood actor/actress. Though this girl was from the east. So maybe she was a famous New York actress instead. Either way, that was pretty exciting! He'd never met anyone famous before!

A pale blue peice of parchment fluttered around and halted in front of Braeden's face. It smelled faintly of perfume. The note read: