Feeling a bit claustrophobic about the packed main hallways after classes got out for the day, Tora had decided to take the less used Armory corridor instead. She didn't normally admit her fears, even to herself, but she had had a bad day. Having no strength left to remain in denial, she now enjoyed the empty gallery.

Spreading out her arms wide to take up as much space as possible in the wide wide hall, she closed her eyes and breathed out a frustrated sigh. Plop. Her arms dropped to her sides and she looked down at the ground to trudge forward.

This was how her bad day went spiraling into worse. She wasn't looking where she was going, so when one of the suits of armor that lined the corridor moved into her path, she didn't see it until the last moment. At which time she barely had enough time to dodge the sword coming down on her head be dropping to the floor. So the suit of armor had thought she was attacking it. Wonderful. "Arresto Momentum!" she said the charm without thinking as the sword came in for another strike. Luckily all that charms practice she had to do for homework paid off as the entire suit stopped mid swing.

She heaved a half hearted sigh of relief. This day really wasn't going well at all. Why should she even bother moving? She was already sitting on the floor anyway. So she stayed where she was, not bothering to move. Gram would have scolded her for moping a bit, but hey- that was allowed every now and them... right?

She wasn't the only one who was having a terrible day.

After that humiliating conversation with Captawesome Ella, Forrest couldn't hang out in the common room. He sneaked out as soon as he had the chance, and found himself wandering aimlessly in the corridors, replaying the conversation and wondering whether he really could play Quidditch.

That is, until he realised where he was headed to. How Tora was standing there. And how the armour tried to kill her.

He gasped and before he had time to think, his legs were running as fast as they could. She couldn't die! He was going to save her! The distance was short, but it was also long enough to let her cast the spell and sit down. At that precise moment, he jumped and tried to knock her out of the range like they did in movies when a train/car/truck was speeding towards the girl and the boy jumped, grabbed her around the waist and brought her out of the way to win her heart. Only, it didn't happen like that this time. He idiotically landed next to her, because she wasn't where she was supposed to be. He landed hard. His knees scraped the ground, and his wrists had to take all the weight.

"Argh!"

He rolled over, and just lay there whimpering.

He couldn't decide which event was more humiliating, but he knew that only the ground's swallowing him could save him now. Could she at least not... laugh?

She had just started moping when a large object flew by her and crash landed nearby. What was this- another thing to add to the reasons why this was a bad day? Billywig rot...

She tried to dodge what she believed what was, once again, an oncoming attack but her heart not quite in it and she moved too slow. Which was probably why when she looked at what was really "attacking" her she saw a groaning Forrest on the ground. Oh, maybe he had tripped and she was supposed to be there to stop his fall? Considering how far he apparently flew, she seriously doubted that it was just a trip. So tackle then. She wondered vaguely what she had done to deserve being tacked at random.

A groan came from the spread out, exhausted- looking heap that was the Hufflepuff. "Forrest?" she asked tentatively, crawling over to where he was still laying (completely oblivious to the fact that Forrest was trying his best to disappear into the ground). "Are you ok?" was of course the first thing she asked, but soon other questions popped into her mind. Important questions like "Why were you trying to tackle me?" and "What are you doing here anyway?". There were more questions, but Tora thought it would be better if she let him recover a bit first. It was too bad she hadn't learned any healing spells, otherwise she would try to heal his skinned knees.

Forrest daren't open his eyes in case he met an angry/a mocking set of Tora's. After the conversation with Ella, he couldn't handle another reprimand. In fact, he would feel better if Tora didn't even try to help him. He had heard about memory charms. Could he use one on her right now?

He ignored her first question, but he stopped groaning too, if she took that as a sign of his listening. Then there were more - and humiliating - questiong, and he figured he should answer those.

"Yes." She was a Ravenclaw, and it was obvious anyway. He wasn't going to lie to her. "I was wandering around, then saw that sword coming for you. I wanted to," he tried to get up to stare into her eyes, "save you but you're cleverer than me." He'd managed to sit, and grinned at her weakly. Of course she was cleverer.

"These armours though... they're evil things. They tried to attack me last year too." He had run away then. He hadn't know cool spells--and he still didn't.

"I don't need the Healer, though." He needed the ground to swallow him, thank you.

Well, he must not be in too much pain considering he had stopped moaning and was now sitting facing her. Looking into her eyes. Again. He did that a lot, didn't he?

"Thanks, though, for trying to help me out anyway," she said smiling a bit for what was probably the first time that day. She wasn't nearly as upset as she probably would have been if she didn't think Forrest had gotten hurt in the process. Still, "Just don't do it again. I can take care of myself." she said sternly. Although she had never gotten mad at Forrest, it was a good reminder to him of her temper. And what she could do. Better keep up her reputation otherwise people would think they could tackle her whenever they wanted.

She rolled her eyes at "cleverer". Honestly! She had explained this to Forrest already; maybe he just forgot the reason why she was placed in Ravenclaw."Good reaction time," she said simply, debunking his compliment. "And a lot of Charms practice."

"I don't normally come this way though, so I guess I wasn't expecting the Armor to just pop out like that." She sighed. When she looked back up at her friend and saw his embarrassed face she felt bad. It was probably her fault that he had tripped up anyway. "Hey, you know I only stopped the suit of armor to keep you from tearing it to pieces. You might not need a healer but I'm sure the armor would by the time you're through with it." It was kind of a lame cheer-up, but as Tora wasn't overly cheery herself it was the best she could do. Please stop looking like you want to die Forrest, it's not making me feel any happier.

Forrest shrugged. "You're welcome." He didn't mind it that much if he got hurt while helping people, as long as the people appreciated it. His mother had taught him well about that. Helping was great in his opinion.

...Tora wasn't quite appreciating his effort right now.

He looked at her in shock when she talked so sternly. His face had fallen significantly. "Yeah, alright." He looked away. She didn't have to reprimand so harshly, y'know? Then he was almost reluctant to talk to her. First Ella, now Tora. And what was worse: their names rhymed. He should have seen this coming. Rhymes never lied.

He shrugged again. Whatever her reasons were, she still hadn't jumped so she had been cleverer. He wasn't going to comment any further, though, in case he was reprimanded again.

Weeeeell, it really was lame, but at least she realised her fault maybe and tried to make up for it. He wasn't going to grin actually, but he couldn't help it. He was touched by the effort. See? It was easy to please him!

"Of course. It didn't stand a chance!" He felt much better now. Hehe. "Wanna go somewhere else? We're still among them, y'know."

Good, he smiled! It was a small smile, but it was still a smile nonetheless! She stood up, careful to avoid the suit of armor, and went to go grab her bad from where she had dropped it. Funny that the armor hadn't moved yet... Her stopping spell should have just stopped the suit from moving in that moment, but here it was still immobile after several minutes. Hmmm.

She reached down a hand to help Forrest up. She had felt a little bit guilty about being mean when he really didn't deserve it so she was trying to do everything that she could now to make up for it.

He had the good idea this time: get out of this hallway! "Yes, let's go. I don't like the-" she was cut off by a flicker of movement in the corner of her eye. It was the suit of armor she had charmed, apparently it had decided to unfreeze itself and was now turning toward where Forrest and Tora stood. "You know what? Let's just run." she grabbed Forrest's hand and started running down the corridor as the clanging of metal footsteps followed behind.

Ella wandered over to the Armor Gallery with her wand in hand and a notebook tucked securely under her arm. She also had a bounce in her step cause ARMOR. She just really liked it, okay? Even more now after she'd seen the suits in action. They had skills, the suits of armor did. Ella was impressed.

Ahem.

"Hi. Erm...hello. I'm just here to clean, y'see. Not here to battle or anything. No worries." We come in peace, yo.

Heading over to what she hoped was the Hufflepuff suit of armor, the blonde placed her notebook down and crouched so that she could flip to the page where she'd written down some cleaning spells. It didn't hurt to be prepared, right?



When she found the page, she let her finger scan the different spells, trying to decide what to do first. Maybe it was best to start out simple.

Tobias knew cleaning spells. Sure he did. It was really useful to learn them, especially last year. But he was also really big on doing things manually. It just felt like... there was more effort put into it, more care. Which felt right for this task.

So, when Tobias arrived at the Armour Gallery he was armed with not just his wand, but also a bunch of rags and soft cloths and a bottle of Mrs Skower's All-Purpose Magical Mess Remover (though he still wasn't sure if that was the best thing to use and would probably ask someone else if they were here). Oh, he'd use magic TOO, but elbow grease sounded like a good idea first.

The Hufflepuff had just hauled his bucket of rages and cleaning solution into the gallery and was about to start looking for the right suit, but he immediately saw Ella.

Grinning to himself, he headed straight over, set down the bucket with a muffled CLANK and retrieved a clean rag. Then he smiled at HER. "Hi Ella!" Tobias greeted her chirpily. "Fancy seeing you here!" That was what people usually said when they bumped into each other, right?

Ella paused in her search when she realized something. It'd probably be useful to repair any dents, scratches, or general damage before she made the armor look shiny and new, right? RIGHT! So before anthing else, the mending charm was going to be used. Awesome plan.



And then there was a smiley Tobias, the best kind of Tobias there could be. "Hey, little badger. You following me?" GRIN. She was kidding, obviously. "Here to do the Ancient Runes assignment?" Probably. Unless he'd decided to reenact the tale of Cinderella or something on his own. Who knew, really. Tobias was a creative kid.

While waiting for the second year to answer, the blonde approached the statue nearest her and ran her hand gently along the armor. There were definite dents and she felt sort of bad because she was among the students who had caused them. Poor thing. "Sorry about this." She whispered, furrowing her brow. Could armor get mad? Anway...

"Reparo!"

She was relieved to see the improvement in the condition of the armor after the spell but there were still a few spots that could use mending. Perhaps she needed to concentrate more.

"Reparo!"

Ella had the Hufflepuff suit of armour covered, it seemed, and Toby thought it would be way better if he worked on fixing up and cleaning another suit while she did that one. Y'know... spread the love and all. He looked to the suit next to the Hufflepuff, the one he recognised as 'belonging' to Gryffindor, and decided he could help that one out.

At the captain's words, Tobias nodded his head, face deadpan and serious. "Both." Following AND homework. Then he cracked a grin started examining the suit of armour he was working on. "Nah, I'm not following you. We just seem to have some sort of tendency to study and do work at the same time." First the common room and now here. And Charms but that had been planned, y'know.

Circling round the back of the armour he was working on, Tobias eyed the crack on the back of it. He gave a wince of empathy and chucked the rag he held back to its bucket and flicking his right hand so his wand shot out of its holster and into his grip.

"Reparo!" Tobias chanted, aiming his wand at the suit of armour and trying to focus on fixing it. It seemed like it was almost TRYING to repair, but not quite managing it. "Hey Ella, d'you reckon there's a spell that works specifically for things like suits of armour?" Just out of curiosity. Reparo just always sounded like more of a household spell, or a spell for small things.

"Reparo!"

Despite that belief, when Tobias cast the spell next, he noticed the crack in the steel close up slightly. He bounced excitedly on his toes and cast again. "Reparo!"

With his enthusiasm the crack in the armour did, indeed, start closing up.

So next up would be these scorch marks.

Both, eh? Ella grinned at Tobias and raised her eyebrows slightly, eyeing him all suspicious-like. "Stalking your captain is frowned upon, y'know. I'm sure that's in some rule book or something." Kidding again, clearly. This was quite fun. She moved her attention over to the arm that had been damaged in battle and frowned slightly, feeling along where it had come loose. "Reparo!" Just in case. "I think we're brain twins, Toby." GRIN. Hopefully he didn't think that was a bad thing.

Now that she'd taken care of what she saw as the most serious 'injuries' the armor had received during battle, the blonde decided it was time to clean it up some. A basic cleaning charm would work well enough for that, right? Right.

Hm, that was a good question. "I'm not sure, really. I mean I know that there are spells to polish particular materials and clean certain substances but none I can think of having to do with these guys." She was curious now, though. "What do you think?"

Attention back on the suit of armor, the blonde pointed her wand and said clearly, "Scourgify!"

"Yeeeeeeaaaaaahhhhh but there's a sub-clause that says if you're cute enough to get away with it then you're totally not breaking any rules." TOBY!GRIN.

'Cause he was TOTALLY cute. YEP. Most of the time anyway, ehehe.

With one last wave of his wand with that final casting of reparo, the crack was soon completely gone. So now to kind of dust it or whatever, beFORE using the cleaning solution or magic.

Wait a second... "BRAIN twins? That sounds pretty neat!" Made sense too. Yeah, he could roll with that for SURE.

Now armed with the rag again, Tobias started wiping and dust or dirt or anything else from the back of the suit of armour. He'd decided to focus on the back, because if he cleaned the whole thing that would take away opportunities for other people to clean and they'd have to do the essay even if they didn't want to. SO. Just the back.

As he gently but firmly wiped off any loose dirt, Tobias thought on the return question. After a while, he spoke. "Maybe. Sometimes you get spells that are different because they're for specific things. Reparo just sounds like a little spell for books and glasses and shoes. If one of the towers in this castle collapsed, would reparo work?" He mused, working at the suit's back. "Or Reparo Maxima?"

Adding 'Maxima' to the end of any spell instantly made it awesome, obviously.

"I was just wondering, 'cause suits of armour used to be really really valuable even then, didja know that? Full suits weren't often worn into battle... too valuable... and probably too restrictive. Sooooooo because they're so valuable... maybe they had their own special set of spells?" Tobias finished wiping away the grime with that, and leaned around the suit of armour and picked up the cleaning solution. "I was just doing some reading and it made me wonder."

Sometimes his brain did the thing with the clever.

Adelaide made her way to the suits of armor. She couldn't believe their homework for Runes was this simple. Well, it was better than writing the paper at least. Even if the paper might have been more helpful in the future. She was definitely taking the easy route on this one.

She entered the room and looked at all of the suits, especially the ones all dented from class. Poor things. Yes. Inanimate objects had feelings too. Plus these had been animated during class so that couldn't in her book.

Addi stepped in front of one, covered in Runes and pulled out her wand and her trusty little list of spells for cleaning. Wanted to make sure they were nice and shiny right? But first to do something about those scratches. "Reparo." She smiled as a few of the little scratches started to fill in.

Adelaide. Hey she'd gone to the party.

.... and snogged his best mate. Heh. He did feel kind of bad for not stopping that from happening since West totally knewwwww a Theo reaction to such things could never be positive. He decided it would be a good idea not to mention it and stuff. But hey there WAS something he could mention. Quidditch things. Eventually.

"Hey. Adelaide right?" She knew his name, right?

What was she doing.... oh homework thing? Right. Yeah. Grin. "You fixing armour then? I could help maybe? You could fix and I'll polish?"

Adelaide was drawn from her thoughts by a somewhat familiar voice talking to her. She turned around to see West. At least she was getting some of her housemates names down. Well, she hoped she was getting his name right.

"Yep. And West?" He'd asked so she would ask instead of avoiding saying his name altogether.

She nodded and looked back at the suit. "Yep. Figured after everything it's been through it could use some fixing up. And that would be great. I was going to polish it next, but we can get it done faster if we split it up."

"That's me." His naaaame. West Odessa. They were teammates now mhmm. And he was in a pretty good mood at that moment, he'd had a decent day so far.

"Sounds good to me." He'd wait a bit for her to repair a few more before he started polishing and all that.

"So do you like Runes then?" The class, the subject, Runes in general.... West did, obviously. It was his favourite for a bunch of reasons.

West got his wand out all ready for polishing and all.

Good. She had gotten his name right. Because if Addi had gotten it wrong that would have been embarrassing. Especially since she would have to see him all the time because of being housemates...and quidditch.

She gave him a quick smile and turned back to the armor. "Reparo." She moved her wand, slowly filling in some more of the scratches.

She shrugged "It's definitely interesting. But it's my first time touching the subject so I feel like I'm behind. You seem to know quite a bit though." Yep. She'd noticed all of his answers in the lesson.

"Is that so?" Tobias was totally cute though so the little badger got a wink and a smile from the Captain who was quite amused by his antics.

Running her finger along the suit of armor gently, the blonde was relieved to see that there was no trace of dirt left behind. It probably would have been an even better test if she'd brought along like...white gloves or something but her finger would have to do. Besides, anyone who decided to do this homework would be by to clean even more so she'd done a really good job so far. Mhm. Was the suit of armor happy to be clean? Ella glanced up curiously and smiled a little.

"Yup." Brain twins. It was totally legit. "I'm glad you think so." BEAM.

And Ella peeked down at her notebook again, deciding it was time for a polish. Point and trace. That was the correct movement, right? Hm.

"It actually wouldn't be surprising. There are often variations of simple spells to make them stronger so you could be on to something, Toby." And the younger boy seemed to think about stuff just as much as Ella only she did most of hers in her head.

"I knew they could be restricting but not about the value." Ella just liked to admire them, y'know? She hadn't yet done research on the subject. "Did the class get you curious? About the armor, I mean." Or maybe he'd always thought they were interesting like Ella had.

Deciding she was right about the movement of the wand, Ella focused on the arm nearest her and said clearly, "Excolo!" She then traced the area she wanted polished.

Tobias nodded enthusiastically as Ella agreed with him. There was just something about spells that he was really interested in. Probably growing up muggle gave him a his appreciation for magic, and wanting to know loads about it. Ella probably felt the same way... wasn't she muggleborn?

Pouring a teeny tiny bit of the cleaning solution onto the rag he still held, Tobias went on about the suits of armour. "Oh yeah, apparently it was only really kings and really high up people who had them. They'd only really be worn for things like parades or to impress important visitors from other places," he nodded again. As he spoke, Toby carefully wiped the solution onto the back of the suit of armour, paying particular attention to the scorched areas with the burn marks. He wasn't sure that this would work, but the cleaning stuff WAS magic and it DID say All-Purpose, right?

Once he'd applied a thin coat, Tobias decided to then wait a minute or two, as one usually did with cleaning solutions, and focused entirely on Ella again, and the conversation.

"Uh-huh. Before the class they were just something that was kind of there,"Toby explained, watching the Hufflepuff captain use the magic spell to polish the Hufflepuff suit of armour. "I just thought it made sense in an old castle. But then with certain classes I do a bunch of extra reading, and I did it with Ancient Runes and just ended up getting distracted and reading about suits of armour back then and medieval wars and all that stuff."

He gave a little shrug and a wide smile and bounced slightly on his toes, before looking back to the armour he was working on and using a little corner of a clean rag to see if the solution was doing its job.

Nerida made her way to the suits of armour. Happy that the Runes homework was simple for now... She would rather do this then write that paper. Even if she could have easily written it. She wanted to take of the armour that battled for them in the class.

She entered the room and looked at all of the suits.. Four suits were dented from being in their class.. Poor suits! They had to be fixed and taken care of pronto!! Hey look wasn't that the Ravenclaw one? Who knew? So she would fix her Ravenclaw one.

She placed her purse in front of the suit and pulled out her wand and flipped the notebook open to her handy dandy list of spells for cleaning. Just in case she needed to look at those. Now what to do first? Lets repair those dents and scratches first. "You poor thing, you'll be fixed up and as good as new soon."

"Reparo." She smiled as a few of the little scratches started to fill in and the dents started to mend.

"Its my favourite class." West supplied. And then maybe some elaboration? "My dad was a Curse-Breaker, used to be Head Curse-Breaker at Gringotts, like when I was little and stuff. He taught me a whole lot about Rune stuff and I really like it... I mean its pretty cool. You can blow things up and everything." And class with Algiz had given a good example of how you could harness the power of just one rune and all.

He started polishing. "Excolo!" He pointed his wand at the arm and traced the surface where it had already been repaired. The tall Slytherin had his attention on the armour but he still kept talking since it was good to get to know people and... well it was West. He was friendly. Usually. Kind of a thing.

"Looking forward to Quidditch?"

Grin. The Hufflepuff armor was looking better already. Ella tilted her head and eyed it thoughtfully as she listened to Tobias talk. "That makes sense. It was probably impractical to wear such restricting stuff during a battle, yeah?" And she moved to the other side of the armor, eyeing a particularly tarnished spot on the armor's other arm. "Imagine trying to run at or away from something in this thing?" Merlin, Ella wouldn't even be able to lift a leg. And being stealth was out of the question, of course. Especially if your suit was particularly squeaky.

"Excolo!" Ella carefully traced the arm while concentrating on polishing it.

"It's nice, you doing extra reading for classes." And Ells shot Tobias a smile before bending down to check out the legs of the suit of armor she was working on. "When I was a first year, I came here and tried to get the armor to react to me." It seemed like just yesterday, actually. "I even made faces at them." They never moved, though. Probably why seeing them in action had made her so giddy.

Yup. As Tobias used the rag to wipe off the solution, he saw that it took off a lot of the marks from beneath the solution as well, leaving the suit of armour all shiny and clean underneath. He grinned widely at the realisation that it had worked and that he'd done good, before using the rest of the rag to slowly wipe the rest of the solution away with small circular motions.

SO SHINY.

Now he could focus on making sure the runes around here were clean, and then he'd be all done, and leave the rest of the armour to whoever else wanted to help clean it. The Gryffindors, probably, since this was the one they'd been working with.

Which made it the one that had knocked his stuff off his desk.

Hm.

"I wonder how fun it would be to walk around in one of these suits of armour," Tobias said, with a hint of wistfulness as he spoke. "Not that I could," he added worriedly. "I'm too small."

That was literally the only thing stopping him from trying one on.

He gave a little giggle at the idea of first year Ella trying to provoke the suits into reacting to her, and vaguely wondering how different she'd looked when she'd been a first year. Toby glanced up at her now, only really looking for a second before focusing back on the armour and grabbing yet another clean cloth. Sometimes it just astonished him that people got older and grew up, because he still felt 12, and as though he'd never feel 13, and so would never grow up. But he probably WOULD grow up. Feh.

"Only in your first year?" he asked curiously, still on that train of thought. "Why not after then?"

But anyway, yeah, Tobias smiled again as he positioned the cloth so one layer covered his index finger, and then used that finger to kind of firmly trace the runes carved onto the suit of armour, so as to make sure he would shift any dirt or dust or debris that might be trapped inside the rune. That would make it all bleh and not effective, after all. "I really like doing extra studying and reading ahead. It's way more awesome to sort of know kind of what's going on in lessons instead of being completely lost all the time, and to kind of have a head start. Though it's difficult to concentrate like....... all the time."

Okay, time to use the cleaning spell on top of his manual work, and that should make it a job more or less well done. Tobias chucked the last cloth back into the bucket of them and picked up his wand again.