"Eventhough I didn't remember you name, But don't think that I would forget what did you call me at the time when we met each other at the bookstore." said him cold. "You called me Rushman, right?" asked him. Then continued biting his apple. Noticed that the girl rolled her eyes when he bit his apple, the blonde guy wondered.

"What's wrong?" asked him. He might not be a mind-reader, but Gary knew if someone looked something strange from himself. "And what should I call you?" Liz? Lisa? El? Beth? Ellie, Or others?

Even though 'Liesel' was her nickname and what everyone called her she didn't like being called Liesel. She much preferred being called El, Ellie, Elise or Lees. And this girl had a problem. She couldn't stop shouting. She was extremely loud and needed to hear herself PROPERLY.

She smirked at the girl as she spoke. Her name was Sophie ok. "Can I call you Soph? Or Fee?" she asked the girl. It was just a substitute.


He remembered! Awesome! Now hopefully she could just call him Rushman it had a lot of life in to it and it was from the Natalie Rushman in a muggle movie. It was awesome and he should allow it as a nickname. "Yup! Thats me I called you Rushman and I personally think its an awesome nickname and it totally describes you. Your last name is Rush and your a man?" Boy? It worked out perfectly.

What was wrong? Why did he ask? Nothing was wrong. Did she have that face were you have no idea what someone was talking about? "Nothing is wrong." Simple.

"You can call me El, Ellie, Elise, Lees or Liesel."

Sophie was now standing closer to the girl, so there was no need to shout anymore. Although she could, if she wanted to! The grounds were sooo biiig!

Fee? That was a weird nickname. Sophei wouldn't get used to that one, probably. "Some people do call me Soph!" So yeah, that one should be better, hehe! "How are you, Liesel? And what year are you in?" Because she looked much older than Sophie!

It was.. awesome? The blonde guy slightly frowned. He thought that it was silly. How could she found that was awesome? Hffftt.. Girls! He never understood what's inside Girls' brain.

"That's silly." said him cool. But suddenly he chuckled if he remembered that name. He found so many girls were weird and liked to give silly nicknames. Zhenya sometimes called him giant while the little Head Girl called him.. Coconut? O________O He wondered if he met another girl so she would give him another silly nickname.

"I'm going to call you El." Okay? It was short and easy to remembered, right? "And I don't know if you are Hogwarts student too."

He didn't look like he liked the name Rushman. WHAT WAS WRONG WITH IT?! It was an awesome nickname! And awesome nicknames are for awesome-ish people. Angered by how he responded to the name. She just fake smirked.Hopefully he would have to chose an awesome nickname.

"It's that or Gary AppleMonster." yes it was. She liked Gary AppleMonster though it was coool. And he admitted that he ate 5 apples a day thanks to Herbology. She was somewhat interested in the topic as she did not care for rude expressionless boys.

"I'm going to call you Rushman or Gary AppleMonster. And duh! I'm here so of course I'm a Hogwarts student."

AppleMonster?

That was worse. Well, maybe entire Hogwarts knew him about the apples. He didn't feel embarassed about that. Apples are his favorite. So, Why he should be embarassed about that. But the nickname.. Sigh..

"Could you PLEASE don't call me by your silly nickname, huh?" asked him cold, gave an extra emphasis in Please word. So, it meaned that he didn't want to be called by Rushman, or AppleMonster either. He just wanted to be called Gary, or Gerald as his real first. But he was stick with Gary. That's why Gary always thought that Girls are weird, strange, and annoying. All girls! Except Zhenya, maybe.

WAAAAAIT! Why he should think about her too, now? What's wrong with him actually? He couldn't forget about her! He admitted that they were just friends, right?

Back to this girl. She was completely different with Zhenya. STOP!

"So, what year are you now?" asked him cool.

Jonathan grinned when Aurora began to play. The Violin was one of Jonathan's favorite instruments... Along with the Tsungi Horn and the Didgeridoo... But Jonathan played different forms of guitars and mandolins in addition to the Piano.

IRISH FOLK TUNE!!!!!

Jonathan leapt to his feet and began to dance wildly around Aurora... Yes.... He didn't exactly know how to Irish step dance Which, I really should learn... But this kind of music just got him going. Jonathan wanted to pull Aurora to her feet so she could start dancing too, but she was a little busy.

AH, well. In the mean time, Jonathan would put on the dancing show...

And it was... spectacular...

Aurora laughed as she played, tapping her foot to the beat. Jonathan really was magnificently funny a lot of the time. She really wanted to get up and join in but apparently you actually had to play these instruments to make music... and she hadn't quite mastered the charms to make it play by itself... Pfft. Stupid charms.

So instead, she stood up, still playing, and turned, watching Jonathan dance around her. Hmm... what if..? She took the tempo up a little, seeing if Jonathan could keep up as she played faster and faster. Hehehe.

She had missed this - being ever-so-seriously silly... she had thought that she had had to grow up for some reason. Pfft. This was FAR too much fun!

Without Jonathan realizing it the music was going faster and faster... So he just kept dancing...

Faster and faster....

This was so much fun. Jonathan tried to get a look at the whomping willow, to see if it enjoyed it... But it was then that Jonathan realized how fast he was going... And how dizzy he was... There came a moment where he took 3 steps. The first was with the wrong foot... The second tripped over the other foot... And the third went wildly into the air.

And then Jonathan was on his belly, face first into the dirt.

The boy sat up... "I'm okay..." And he just laughed.

Wait a second....

Jonathan pulled out his wand from his pocket. Pointing it at the Violin he said, "Oh yeah... MAGIC!" And in one wave the Violin was playing itself... Jonathan pocketed his wand while returning to his feet. Th boy waited for Aurora to join him.

Aurora stopped playing as Jonathan fell over and descended, yet again, into giggles. She nodded, of course he was. "I'm pretty sure you're invincible. Maybe it was a side effect of that potion..." she observed with a chuckle.

AND THEN HE WAS POINTING A WAND AT HER VIOLIN!!!! HER STRADIVARIUS VIOLIN!!!! "What are you-!" Oh... Aurora let the violin play and stood back. Okay... how did he do that. That charm was DIFFICULT!! Sigh. Okay.

Aurora raised an eyebrow. "Want me to teach you how to dance it properly?" Then again, she'd only learnt recently... so who knew how that would go. "On second thoughts... that's farrrrr too much effort." she added with a grin. Insane dancing? I think so.

Jonathan laughed at the thought of learning to dance properly. "Haha.... That's funny..." He shook his head, until... "Wait, you're serious?" Aurora knew how to dance properly??? Um.... YEAH, I'D LIKE TO LEARN!!!! Jonathan was about to perform his stretches when she continued.

"Oh..." He said quietly... Aurora didn't need to know he was disappointed. Because, Psh... HE WASN'T!!!

But Jonathan, didn't care... He just took Aurora's hand and danced wildly. This was the only thing he missed about Hogwarts. Aurora.

...And the gardens... But mostly Aurora....

Aurora giggled. He really didn't know she could dance? "Sure. I'll teach you some other time." Bur she was having far too much fun right now... She'd missed being able to be ridiculous. Kimalia was too busy with Quidditch, Mordred did NOT do stuff like this and Kennedy... Well.

She glanced at the sky. Pfft. Clouds. Well she wasn't about to let her violin get wet. She grabbed it, pointed her wand and said "Finite." See. THAT she could do. She put her violin away and closed the clasps. "Come on. Let's go back inside." They could dance there right? Or something else. Whatever. She grabbed Jonathan by the hand and dragged him towards the castle as the first drops of rain began to land.

Oh yay! That compliment made Taryn's smile even brighter. "Of course I want to walk with you." She had offered, had she not? Taryn noted the gesture and DID loop her arm around. NOW she would be walking like a proper lady.

A proper lady with her gentleman caller. LULZ. Yeah, right.

Ella was running after her yellow pygmy puff as fast as her legs could carry her, calling out to him. The puff had rolled off of her lap while she was resting and was currently rolling right towards the Whomping Willow. "Barnabus! Barnabus come back here! No-Not towards the willow!" She yelled, hoping the little puff would have the good sense to listen. "Someone stop that puff!" She said desperately, hoping someone would help.

Sophie was still standing at a certain distance from the Whomping Willow when she heard a familiar voice yelling. Ella! And she was yelling for help??

Turning around as quickly as she could, Sophie saw her friends running after some yellow furball. Wasn't that her Pygmy Puff?? And it was running towards the WHOMPING WILLOW?? Sophie did like the tree, but it didn't mean she wasn't aware of the damage it could do.

Before she knew what she was doing, she had pulled out her wand and pointed it at the little creature. "Immobulus!!"

O__O and just now she realized what she had done. Oohhh, boy, that spell didn't hurt, did it?? "Sorry, Ella!" She called out to her friend. "Is he alright??" She asked rushing towards them.

Ella was still a good distance from Barny when she heard someone yell the freezing charm and saw Baranbus suddenly stop all movement. O__O Woah. Seizing her chance, she caught up to where her yellow puff was now sitting in the grass, both surprised and a little shocked at how he had finally been stopped. She turned when she heard the same voice apologizing and smiled when she saw Sophie. "Sophie, that was-that was brilliant! Surprising, but brilliant!" If it hadn't been for Sophie, Barnabus might have been a pygmy puff pancake. As for how Barny was doing, Ella wasn't sure. "Let me check." She said, suddenly nervous about what the spell might have done to her puff. Pulling out her own wand, she pointed it at Barny. "Finite."

It took a second for Barnabus to move and that scared Ella. She was about to cry out but then she saw it, the little creature was blinking and yes, moving about. "Oh Barny, why did you do that? Do you have a death wish or something!" The second year said, upset. She picked the puff up and placed him on her shoulder, eyeing him. "Now you stay there and think about what you did...about what could have happened! And to think I was worried that Jasper would eat you...and here you are trying to hurt yourself!" Returning her attention to Sophie, she gave her friend a sheepish smile though there was still a hint of worry in her eyes. "Sophie he seems fine, thanks to you! You were really great thinking of that spell like that." Seriously, she was Barny's hero. "I don't know what has gotten into him lately!"

While she rushed towards Ella, Sophie had a scared expression on her face with a little shadow of surprise. She had never realized that she had such good aim! She was glad she did, though, otherwise, who knew what Barny was going to be like now... and Ella complimented her! She knew her friend wouldn't yell or get mad at her, but she wasn't expecting a compliment either! "T-thank you, Ella." She said looking at the Pygmy Puff, not sure if she had done the right thing.

A sigh of relief left her lips when Ella unfroze him and he started moving again. She watched as Ella sort of lectured her pet. Now more than ever she was glad she didn' have a pet to look after. It sounded like a lot of work! 24-7! Gah!

"I'm glad he's alright!" She said truthfully. She wouldn't know what to do if she had hurt Barny. "Has he been acting like that for a while?" Weird. It didn't even have other Pygmy Puffs around. Sophie glanced around to make sure of that. Yep, she couldn't see any other little creature around. Why was Barny going towards a tree?

And not just ANY tree, but a tree that could KILL it!

Look at that small. Dazzling, it was. Milton liked it on her a lot.

Oh, yes. Of course she wanted to walk with him. Who wouldn't, really? Someone out of their right mind, apparently. Luckily for them both, they were in their right minds. "A wonderful choice, love," Milton said, winking at her and beginning to walk away from the tree. And he was quite pleased to have a pretty girl on his arm. Pleased indeed.

"So..." girlheforgotthenameofwhatashame. "Tell me about yourself."

"What do you want me to call you that is NOT Gary." she preferred nicknames. Names were boring nicknames were cool. But she didn't go around giving people unrealistic names like 'Hot guy' which she would've given him but she didn't like him much. He was easy on the eyes though but he was NOT nice! He was cold and nasty.

"I'm in my fifth. Slytherin." she said with pride. Slytherin was the ultimate house ever! What was he? Ravenclaw know-it-a-all. Ravenlcaw's weren't know it all's though they were awesome. Well some were.

"You don't look exactly...normal." He didn't he looked like he was thinking way to much and thinking was hard.

"You're welcome, Soph." Ella said sincerely. She couldn't help but smile seeing that Sophie looked genuinely surprised about her own abilities. That was the Hufflepuff modesty coming through alright.

Ella felt a little silly scolding Barnabus in front of Sophie, after all he was a pygmy puff...maybe his brain hadn't registered danger the way humans' brains do around the Whomping Willow. The yellow puff had scared Ella to death though, so that warranted some kind of stern speech. She hoped her friend didn't think she was mean or anything because of it.

"I'm really glad he's alright, too." The second year didn't know what she would have done if he had gotten hurt, or worse, killed. As for her question, Ella nodded. "Yeah, he's been doing weird things like this a lot. Like rolling away from me or hiding in different places. I don't know what's up with him." She wasn't an expert or anything but she had gone as far as to purchase a few books on puffs during the break. "Maybe it's time to go to a professional...you think they have pygmy puff shrinks or something?" She asked her friend, a hopeful look on her face.

Vanilla was acting weird. She was so...active. She was always running around the Common Room and had just now prodded him for so long that he had finally given in and had taken her outside. It was like going for a walk with a crup. She didn't really leave his side but had been absolutely determined to go outside. Why, he had no idea.

So here he was. Vanilla, finally too exhausted to run anymore, had just dropped onto the grass close to the Whomping Willow and was now lying there completely motionless, trying to catch her breath. It was so unlike her to move unless she absolutely had to at all so Lewis was slowly starting to get a little worried about her. She'd been acting like that during the summer months too, only he hadn't been paying too much attention to it then, seeing as he'd had other things on his mind.

After a moment of just shuffling his feet absently he decided that he might as well sit down next to Vanilla too so that was what he did. By the looks of it they would be sitting here for a little while longer. Actually it looked liked the feline had fallen asleep there. Oh well. It wasn't like he had anything to better to do right now. So he just ended up sitting next to her, scratching her behind her ears once in a while.

With Paul the Purple Pygmy Puff on his shoulder, Darwin bounced his way down from the Castle to the grounds, trying to think of something to do. He was pretty bored because he couldn't find ANYONE that he knew and he didn't know what to on his OWN. It wasn't like he could read a book or something - no, that was NOT the kind of twelve year old that the boy who when by Damon was.

He dug his hand into his pocket, pulling out one of the many packs of Skittles he had brought to school with him and tore it open. Eating sweets should pass some time, he thought, and then maybe he could -

Wait, what was that running away from him? Why was there no longer pressure on his shoulder?

"Paul?!" he called, his head shooting up, the Skittles forgotten in his hand. "Paul, don't run away! Come back!" With that, he was sprinting after the Pgymy Puff, Skittles spilling from his hand as he ran right towards the tree that he so hated.

Stupid stupid creature.

"PAUUUUUUUUUUL."

His hair was too long and annoying!

Alec flipped his head to the side, trying to get the strands of brown hair away from his grey-blue eyes. If only he hadn't had a busy summer. Then he could have gotten a decent haircut and not have this constant worry about... hair. He could have been worrying about other things! Like tryouts for example. That was a scary thought.

Alec shook his head as his feet made its way towards the Whomping Willow. Why? Even he didn't know. For some reason, it seemed like being near the big tree was the place to be today. The swishing branches wouldn't put him at rest but... it was still an awesome tree. Very cool for a plant that doesn't wear sunglasses.

And what was cooler was the fact that there were tiny rainbow coloured sweets everywhere! How cool was this? If the sweets had fallen on plates, he would have picked them up and eaten them. But seeing as it had fallen on the ground... he could follow them? Oh! It could lead him to a new magical place! The thirteen year old bent down slightly as he looked around, trying to find more sweeties he could follow. But before he could go any further...

... there was a SHOUT! A really really big SHOUT! Alec's head snapped up as he saw a boy... running towards the tree? NOOOO! Alec will NOT let this happen! The thirteen year old ran after the boy as fast as he could, a million and one questions popping into his head. Why why WHY was the boy calling the tree 'Paul'?!

And... TACKLE! "AAARRGGHH!" he yelled, jumping on the boys back and tackling him down to the ground. They were closer to the tree... but at least the boy wasn't going to be hurt now. PHEW! Alec the Superman was back.

Evelyn needed a break. She'd started to visit the library pretty much everyday to study for NEWT's..although she felt like she hadn't made much progress AND she had to focus on classes as well..and she still had no idea what she wanted to do once she graduated. So much confusion. Anyway, she decided that wandering the grounds for the while would probably help her clear her head.

With her hands tucked in the pockets of her jeans, she wandered around the grounds for sometime before she decided to visit the Whomping Willow. She was just about to sit down a little away from the tree and relax for a little while when she noticed Lewis...and Vanilla. She might as well say hello. Hm. She strolled towards them, a smile on her face. "Hey, Lewis." The smile on her face widened a little when she saw that the cat had fallen asleep. Aw. That was just..adorable.

Pulling his legs up to his chest, he put his head on top of his knees and just watched Vanilla breathing for a moment. It was at times like these that he just wished to be a cat. Life had to be so easy when you were. You could just lie down and sleep whenever life didn't treat you well or you were just too exhausted to think anymore.

Would it be weird if he just lay down on the grass beside his cat?

Before he got the chance to figure out the answer to that question, his attention was caught by somebody saying his name. "O-oh. Hey. Evelyn." Lewis greeted the slightly older girl upon looking up and squinting against the slowly setting sun a little. Hey, maybe she would know the answer to his question. "C-can I ask you something?" He had learned that it was polite to ask that first. Even though he'd never heard anybody answer that with 'no'.