Philip looked up at Presley quizzically, directing his attention towards her rather than his book when she spoke. The moment he heard her speak of a surprise party, he tried to dismiss the thought of showing up. He was much too shy to simply show up at someone's surprise party. Besides, with the way his mind wandered all the time, he'd no doubt forget and end up being late.

Melina took the chair next to Luna, pushing it over so the arms of both were touching. She put a comforting arm around her dear friend and pulled out a tissue. Handing it to Luna, she waited until the girl had come up with a place to go.

"Sure, we can go to the treehouse. Anywhere you want, luv. Do you need to get anything before we go? I'll probably want to take a snack with me, and more tissues," she smiled kindly.

Really? Only one person had even paid her any mind. Philip? That was his name, right? And he was like, a sixth year. She was standing on a chair for Godric's sake! And practically shouting! Nevertheless. he had listened to her, so she hopped down and sat near him. "You will come, won't you?" She asked in such a way that it seemed she was expecting him to say yes, and there was no other option. She hid her fingers on the side of her leg, and crossed her index finger and middle finger together in a wishing motion. She had no hope however. He wouldn't come.

Philip slowly closed the book and put it down beside him. He thought about it for a moment, not having wanted to go seeing as he was uncomfortable in crowds, but this girl was practically begging him to show up. How could he say no? ''A- Alright then.'' He told her.

Presley grinned. He'd said he would go! "Wonderful!" she said, as if she hadn't expected anything else. Even though she was surprised by his answer. He was so much older than her little first-year self. "I'm Presley by the way," she introduced herself. "You're Philip, right?" She was pretty sure she'd heard his name in class at least once....

Philip's insecure expression slowly grew into a friendly smile. ''Yes, that would be me, Philip Victor LaCroix!'' He introduced himself with his full name, extending a hand out to the First-year.

Victor? What an unfortunate middle name. Presley wisely kept that thought to herself. "It's nice to meet you, Philip," she said instead. "How are you exams going?" A random shiver worked through Presley and she folded her arms to keep warmer. Why was she cold? It was almost June for Merlin's sake! But Presley was Presley, which meant she'd probably always be cold. She was however, amazed to find herself in a pleasant encounter with an older student. All of her other experiences with people older than fourth year seemed to be arguments. Finlay, Treyen, Eino, she'd infuriated pretty much every older student she'd ever spoken to. Except for the one time she'd almost been sick and Fallon had offered her help...but that had been about three seconds long. Presley pulled two soda's out of her bag, and offered one to Philip. "You want some soda?" She held the cold can toward him. It was a muggle drink, but that was no reason he shouldn't know what it was and love it, or want to try and like it.

Philip shrugged. ''So far, I think I'm doing alright. I'm looking to improve since last year. I didn't get a perfect grade in Mr. Truebridge's Defence Against the Dark Arts Class, and I always thought that was my favourite subject, and that I was so good at it.'' He sighed, his eyes opening wide when he saw the soda in Presley's hand. ''Oh, Wow! May I?'' He asked, slowly accepting the can. ''I never get to have these!'' He exclaimed.

Presley nodded as Philip talked about his exams. She would want improvement too if she'd ever taken exams before now. "I'm hoping for straight O's," she confided. "I've been studying like crazy, and if I get anything less than an E, I'm dead meat." Acceptable was a misplaced word, becuase A's were simply unacceptable. She furrowed her eyebrows in confusion, why would he never get to have soda? That seemed strange. She popped open her own can and asked. "Why?" Pres had soda all the time. This last batch had just been sent by her older brother included in all of her favorite treats from home. At home, their whole outside magi-fridge was filled with delicious variations. Presley's favorite being mountain dew voltage. The blue stuff.

''Well, my father lives out there much like the Muggles do, he buys the produce, he eats the food, he drinks the drinks, he drives the cars, but my mother's always been a more.. Conservative person, if you know what I mean..'' Philip explained, opening the can and taking a quick drink. ''She never has any of that muggle stuff, even the good things they make - Like soda! When I stay with her, all there is to drink is water, tea and the occasional bottle of cherry juice.'' He continued, looking at Presley.

Presley did know what he meant. Like her aunt and uncle. They were so appalled when her father married a muggle, and every time Presley saw them, they had something to say about her clothes or hairstyle, or manner of walking that indicated she was of muggle stock. Her aunt had even offered to help Presley train herself away from it, and Pres had of course, refused. She nodded again. "I get that," she smiled. She really did understand and get what he was saying. "So is your dad muggle? Or just likes driving and stuff?" She didn't want to seem rude. It wasn't that she cared about blood or anything, she was genuinley curious. As much as her dad used to immerse himself in muggle society, he'd always gotten produce and stuff at wizarding places so he wouldn't have to exchange money, and to her kowlege, he'd never once driven a car. Her mum, yes. She'd taken Pres and Leo to places like McDonalds, and driven everywhere, but Presley's mum was a muggle, so it made sense. It seemed, based on Philips description of his mum, that his dad couldn't be a muggle, but anything was possible.

Philip shook his head softly. ''No, my dad's a Wizard. I was staying with him when I got the letter.'' He smiled, assuming Presley knew exactly which letter he spoke of. ''He told me he was going to call mom. Just shows how much he gets into the muggle realm. Mum doesn't have a phone, she doesn't even know how to use one. Dad gave her a Cell phone once and she hated it. She said it was always making noises and you always had to press way too many buttons to get anything to work.. And, well.. When she got chocolate on it, she put it in Dad's dishwasher because he had told her it was a device that cleaned things.'' He continued, smirking at his own story about his mother.

Luna smiled ''G-great'' said Luna and she took the tissue off Melina ''Thanks''

Presley laughed aloud at the comical story. "So, why does your dad live so much in the muggle world then?" She asked. There had to be a reason for it. What could the muggle world supply for a person that the wizarding world could not? Besides fast-food and soda. And awesome-sauce clothing....

Dallin came down to the Common Room from his dormitory wearing his pajamas. If it hadn't been so late, he would have completely bypassed the common room and gone outside. But as the sun had already set and dinner was no longer being served he figured that there was nothing to do outside of the common room and he should just hang out here. Beside, he wasn't tired so staying in his dorm would be just the same as the Common Room.

At least at this time the room wasn't as crowded as it sometimes was. Dal got the couch to himself - which was nice because it wasn't as close to the fireplace as the armchairs. He settled himself against one of the couch's arms and leaned his head back, staring at the ceiling with a contented look on his face.

Louisa got through the portrait hole, her Hippogriffs book tucked under her armpit, happy that she had the time off tonight and tomorrow morning. She wasn't even wearing her uniform! She decided to go up there and glare at Ryden's stolen trophy for a minute celebrating the victory over the vicious girl..

..until she saw the VERY familiar head staring at the ceiling. With a snicker, she tiptoed, putting the book on a random stand in the room, and made a "VOILA!" energetic burst over Dal's staring face, blocking his ceiling view with her too close face.. transformed to a silly grinning face. "What are you thinking of?"

Just mere seconds ago Dal had been staring peacefully at the ceiling. But then Louisa appeared. Very close to his face. He jumped in surprise, back and up, and succeeded in smacking his face against the girl. Embarrassed, he squirmed away from her so that he was sitting cross-legged, facing the back of the couch and Louisa.

"I wasn't," he answered her truthfully. His mind had been wonderfully blank... but of course now it wasn't. Now he was thinking about how Louisa always seemed to find him in places. Not that he minded or anything - Louisa was his friend. A really good friend at that, too. He just thought it was sort of funny.

"Oh, and um, hey." Right. Greeting.

Philip shrugged. ''I'm not sure, if I'm honest. I guess he just likes it!'' He guessed, running his finger up and down the side of his neck. ''Mum doesn't like it very much, she thinks it isn't a good influence on me.'' He admitted, not seeming proud of it. He looked at his feet as he spoke. A moment of silence, then he continued, lifting his head so as to look at Presley.

''- But she has admitted that there do exist good sides to the fact that my dad lives much like the muggles. Ya'see, mum was always worried about me failing muggle studies. She had no idea how she was going to give me a head start on the subject, as she herself didn't know a thing about them.'' He explained. ''Dad's lifestyle helped a lot there, I suppose.. And good grades are always good.'' He ended his explanation quite cryptically with what was probably the most redundant phrase anyone had ever uttered aloud inside the Ravenclaw Common Room, 'Good grades are always good'.

Presley struggled to keep from laughing at Philip's words. "good grades are always good." Well at least he didn't think good meant bad in a code language or something. She thought for a moment. She supposed it would make sense for him just to be one of those people that really loved the muggle way of life. She'd met a couple. The way he talked about them though...Presley didn't want to pry into matters that weren't her bussiness, but she was morbidly curious. "Are your parents divorced then?" The words slipped out before she could stop them, and instantly she regretted them. "I'm so sorry. You don't have to answer that. It was incredibly rude of me."

Philip sighed and nodded. ''No, no, It's alright. Yes, they're divorced.'' He told Presley. ''It's not as if I'm in denial or something.'' He sighed, shaking his head. He didn't think it was rude at all for Presley to ask about his parents. ''Mum and Dad were just not getting along very well and..'' He paused. ''Well, they realized that they stopped loving each other a long time ago..'' He explained slowly.

It became apparent in his voice that it hurt him to talk about it, but he didn't want to show it. Every time someone asked him about his parents, he said it was alright and allowed the conversation to be about them. Each time, he truly did believe that he was going to be fine this time and it wouldn't hurt as much as it did the last time, but each time he found out just how wrong he was to assume he could talk about them just like that.

Pres could tell that this was a sensitive subject so she quit it. "Hey, sorry. We don't need to talk about it. I shouldn't have asked." She for once didn't bitterly think "Yeah, you've got it so rough, at least you have both parents." She just felt bad that she'd caused this pain to resurface in someone. She could fully understand how that felt. She searched around i her head for a new subject to direct the conversation away from his family life, but came up with nothing good. She just sat there stupidly, saying nothing, and hoping he would change the subject.

SMACK!

..Louisa felt a mild pain going from her nose toward her forehead as she stood there deep pink faced and stared at the boy who had just 'smacked' her. She didn’t feel it was a smack though, it was something else- That feeling in her stomach from before came back again, stronger and was forbidding her from talking or acting like herself!

She swallowed, rubbed her nose to make the pain, which was so sweet strangely, go away and moved to sit at the faaaaaar end of the couch. She didn't want to get in touch with him any time sooner, literally, and her heart would turn into a hammer against her chest!

Sitting her back to the couch's other arm, brought her knees to her chest and rested her chin on them, she smiled, the blush fading away, "Hey. Sorry I startled you. You looked just so tempting to be mobbed surprisingly." A grin spread over her face.

Without waiting for an answer, she spoke again, "Did you hear what happened at the Flying Finals? You were in your OWLs probably but I was there." She said in a low voice, unnecessarily, and her face was so innocent and cautious at this point. He needed to know what was going on around the school during his finals which.. supposed to be the center of his life. And speaking of which, why wasn't he studying?

Internal froooown.

Philip bit his lip. ''You said something about a party?'' He managed to redirect the subject to her previous 'announcement'. He let his hands rest on his stomach, running his fingers in circles slowly, trying to get used to the new subject.

"Are you ready to go now?" she asked Luna, looking up to the girls' dorms and thinking if she'd need to bring anything along.

Dallin frowned as Louisa started rubbing her nose. "Sorry-" Wait. Why was he apologizing? She was the one that had been so close to him. She should be the one apologizing, not him.

...And she did. Dal smiled, satisfied, when she same to sit down on the other side of the couch. He turned to face her and stretched out his legs a bit, his feet hanging off the cushions. "It's okay, I just-" Once again, he stopped halfway through what he was going to say. It was partly because Louisa had started talking again, and partly because what she had said surprised him. So tempting to be mobbed surprisingly. Blinkblink. Apparently he needed to lower his tempting level... whatever that was.

When she finally stopped for long enough to let him answer, Dal chuckled. It was sort of crazy how she seemed to know more about his exams then he did. "I haven't," he answered, shaking his head. She was surely going to tell him, though.