Still feeling a bit uncertain about how tryouts had gone, Eliza found herself in the need of some company, so she'd decided to take her vacuum from Astronomy around while she tried to find Minerva. Might as well get some work done while I search, right?

She climbed staircase after staircase until she came upon a room that seemed vaguely familiar. Oh, right, the spirit room, she thought as she gazed at the doorway. And boy, what a dirty doorway it was. There were cobwebs and dust everywhere. "Well, here we go I guess," she said and walked towards the entrance. However, to her surprise, she couldn't seem to get through the threshold. She tried again, but just kept being bounced backwards from it. Some sort of barrier? Why though? What's in there that we're not allowed to see? Now she was more curious than ever. Honestly, why don't they just put up a neon sign saying "Off Limits - Try Your Best to Get Inside Now"?

She took a step back, admitting...not defeat, but a pause in this game, for now. She had things to do and people to see. "This isn't over," she said to it playfully. And in case any ghosts were listening, she added, "I guess I'll just clean around the outside. But...I could clean in there, if anyone might like that..." She cast one more suspicious glance into the old room, then pointed her wand at the vacuum hose and activated it. "Vacavus." Cue the whirring sounds and she began to clean the frame of the door, the landing in front of it, and even the stairs she'd used to get there. She was a cleaning machine. Or well, she was using a cleaning machine. The loud suction sounds of the vacuum echoed loudly off the cold stone walls.

Minerva was just wondering around the castle. She had some free time and instead of heading to the library like originally planed, she decided to go on a walk of the castle instead. It was really sad the shape it was in. She missed the cleanliness of the school, she even missed the house elves. They use to make her so uncomfortable, but over the years she had grown use to them and even enjoyed their company.

Frowning a bit as she walked and feeling a bit depressed by the entire situation. Looking up she noticed someone near the spirit room, "I don't think you can go in there." Then she realized who it was and smiled, "Hey Eliza, what are you doing here?" Seeing the vacuum she realized without her saying, "Oh right.. I guess I should get started on mine soon. Well at least I will eventually." Astronomy wasn't the first thing on her mind, but no one had to worry about MIn she always came through when homework was involved.

Still using the vacuum, Eliza was bent over slightly, humming as she worked. Her back was turned to the landing as she focused on a particularly dusty crack in the wall. Suddenly she got a weird feeling. A feeling that someone was behind her, and she wondered if a ghost had come out to talk to her after all. Just turn around slowly and calmly, she coached herself. Still holding the hose to the vacuum, she twisted her head to the side to try and see what was there before she was fully turned. Whatthewha- She jumped and let out a small startled sound at the sight of a fully manifested form where she was expecting to be only a shade. Quickly realizing it was Minnie, she relaxed and slapped a hand over her heart.

"Gosh, Min, sorry! You scared me a little." She sat the hose down, the suction charm having worn off, and looked back up at her pink haired friend. "Yeah," she said nodding at the machine. "Just a little homework. What are you up to?" she asked as she leaned against the wall and brushed some hair out of her face. It'd been a while since she and Min had talked outside of class, so she hoped she had a little while to chat.

Minerva frowned when she realized that she had startled Eliza, that was not part of the plan. Looking concerned she walked a little closer. "Sorry, I didn't mean to spoke you." She looked around, well this place could use some cleaning even if no one ever really used it. Eyes back on Eliza she still looked a bit shaken, did she think Min was a ghost maybe, but she was a third year now, ghost shouldn't still make her jumpy.

Oh homework.. yeah.. Astronomy her wonderful not so favorite subject. "I need to do mine yet, I might get started later. Thinking about doing it at the library, the books probably need a good cleaning." She would hope they didn't have to much dust on them though, that would just be sad. Oh what was Minerva up to.. Hmmm.. Shrugging she really wasn't sure, "Well I was just restless so thought I'd take a walk and get my mind clear before doing any homework." She wasn't going to mention she was hoping to run into someone she always saw, but hey she just couldn't get enough of seeing him.

But.. Eliza was just as well to find. She enjoyed the third year claw. She even felt Ethan thought of her as a younger sibling or something. It was super cute to see him with her. " So how are tryouts going? From what I've seen your doing pretty well." She really hoped that Eliza would make the team, that would just be awesome. "Do you think Mariel's training this summer helped?"

Eliza laughed once she settled a bit. "No it's okay, I was actually sort of expecting it to be a ghost behind me, so when it was a living person I was startled." she said with a chuckle. "I guess that's a little backwards but it's true," she shrugged and scoffed at herself.

She noticed Min's mood seem to drop at the mentions of Astronomy. I wonder if she's okay...? Eliza didn't really see why Min wouldn't like Astronomy since the class was always so much fun, but she wasn't sure if she should ask. "Oh yeah, don't worry about it yunno? I think you still have plenty of time for that assignment," she said in her best you-can-do-it voice. Then she said with a laugh, "Yeah I'll bet the library could use the help! Dust tends to like books for some reason. Hopefully nothing's gone moldy in there over the summer either, yeck!" That would really be a shame if it had. Books were priceless and should be maintained and treasured always in her opinion.

And Min was restless? That worried Eliza a little bit too. Maybe she's not been sleeping well. I've got so much to do that I can hardly keep track! Again not wanting to dwell on Min's problems or anything, she asked a pretty lighthearted question that'd been going around this year. "Is your common room all right? And the dorms? I heard Slytherin's dorms were awfully smelly, but ours weren't too bad really." Sure someone had cleaned them up a little bit too, but they hadn't been nearly as bad as some other rooms in the castle she'd seen.

Eliza felt a little uneasy at the Quidditch topic. She wasn't so sure she'd done very well and she still had a few more tryouts to attend. "You saw? Thanks for watching," she said with a smile. "You've been great out there too! But...I'm not sure I'm going to make it. There are so many good players trying out for a spot and a lot of them are older than me." She was after all only a third year, but maybe she could do better at the next practice. "Oh yes, that practice helped immensely. I'd be dead in the water without it! I'm so glad I had a chance to have some broom time before tryouts. I still really hope I make the team though." Not to mention, she'd been really glad to see some friends from school over break as well.

Another thought crossed her mind when she remembered the vacuum near her feet. Gargoyle! She wondered if Min had hers with her or not. Probably not but it's worth asking, right? Eliza patted her bag and looked at Minerva, "Hey yunno what? I've got my gargoyle in my bag. If you've got yours, would you like to practice with them? They could play leap frog or something - that might be a good one for this circus Bellaire was talking about." Maybe if she could help Min with some of her homework, she wouldn't feel so overwhelmed. Life had been really busy this term, for herself anyway. She'd never balanced sports with homework, not to mention all of the time she'd been spending making her own meals (which almost always included a healthy dose of ice cream). She was plain worn out by night time, which maybe was a blessing since it had been helping her sleep all through the night.

Nerida needed somewhere where she could go and practice...Where to as she walked onto the fifth floor her eyes went to the Spirit Room, not the most practical but she could totally go and practice in their.

After setting the gargoyle down in the Spirit Room, she smiled perfect place to practice! She thought for a moment this time before casting the spell. Lets do a twirl. "Piertotum Locomotor." With a small jolt, the gargoyle sprang to life and flapped his wings twice. "Stand on your tip toes, run from left to right and then to a twirl three times."

Lets see if it could do that. She watched with a smile on her face as the gargoyle stood up on what she thought were his tip toes, ran from left to right and than twirled three times in a row.

Nerida shouted "Finite!" pleased with her gargoyle. Picking up the gargoyle, she placed him into his box.

Minerva laughed, how funny was it that they actually expected a ghost not a human to be coming around the corner. Her grandparent would put her in a mental home if she had said that she expected to see ghosts. “It would sound strange to some people, but yet it seems completely normal.”

Minerva gave her best smile, she knew she had time to get the homework done and it wasn’t the homework that bugged her it was the subject. “Yeah, I’ll get to it maybe tomorrow, but I’ll get it done. “ She had never not done her homework, well okay maybe last year she struggled more getting things done and turned in, but that was a bad year and she wasn’t speaking of it anymore. “I’m a bit afraid to go there, I haven’t been yet. I hope they didn’t have to sell any of the books with all the other cuts going on around here.” That worried her especially when she had just found out that new books had made their way there and she wanted to get her hands on them. Speaking of dust and the way Hogwarts was found this term, “Our common rooms were dirty, but not horrible. A few of us cleaned them up as well as the dorms the first day.” It was nice helping each other out and getting things cleaned.
“I’ve only missed a few of your tryouts. I love watching Ethan.” a smile crossed her face at these words. ”but I am there supporting you two of course and yes your doing great.” Oh she had seen Min play? Minerva did remember seeing her in the stands at a few tryouts. “Thanks, it felt great being out there again. I hope I make the team this year.” She hated not making it last year, but it was what it was and she had moved on. “Mariel is a great teacher, even if I frustrated her with my not hitting her nephew issue.” Minerva chuckled a bit at the thought. “But she fixed that problem so I could practice without needing to send a bludger at either of you two.” She did get some good practice in and didn’t even hurt anyone, well except herself at one point.
When Eliza brought up the gargoyle Min had to think, “Oh mine is sitting in my room. That would have been a great idea thought.” She always kept everything in her bag, why on earth did she take it out. Trying to think, oh that was right, she set it out to clean out her bag and then must have just left it on her bed. “Maybe we could set up a practice time and then we can have them play with each other.” She would love to work with Eliza and that sounded like a good way to hangout and get work done.