IN THEORY Olly was quite good with directions. She hardly ever got lost. Only this castle was so big and everything just pretty much looked the same. And they had moving staircases too. Staircases that all looked the same. And they MOVED. Like, why? Also somebody should give every new student a map to this place. How was she supposed to find all the classrooms, huh? Exactly. She wasn't. So she had decided to at least try and locate most of the places where the lessons would take place.

That was how she had ended up here. And the smell was terrible. Did something die here or-

Oh.

What the hell?

There was a...they did know there was a swamp INSIDE the castle, right? Olly stepped a little closer with her head cocked to the side with interest. Huh. Were they allowed to...examine the swamp too? Was it always there? Was this something left over from last term when the school was broke? Maybe it had rained in through the roof. Which was why Olly tilted her head back to look at the ceiling. Eh. Okay, that was NOT it.

Ascanius hated heights. Anyone who knew him properly was pretty aware of his anxiety when it came to things that were up high, so that was why he always avoided the moving staircases. It was a bridge that let him LOOK straight down at the ground. Those stairs gave him serious panic attacks. Ahem, not that he ever had them, yeah?

But 'cause of that he avoided them at all costs. The Slytherin took the regular stairs and paths that he knew would get him where he needed to be without thinking twice. S'just on his way to the library, he got a bit sidetracked by a moving staircase he didn't expect to move.

One panic attack later and several near throw up episodes, he found himself at the Weasley Swamp. Every part of him decided it would be best to find his way back until he saw......smiiiiiiirk.

Walking up beside her and throwing on a smirk that never would have shown his previous anxiety, he cooed, "Sup, beautiful?" Olly, right? That was her name. And she was a spit fire, yeah? Amusing.

Very amusing.

Olly had by now diverted her gaze back to the swamp in front of her. What exactly it was doing here, she wasn't sure but something told her it wasn't here by accident. The groundskeeper or a professor or SOMEBODY must have noticed it was there, right? So why was it still here? It wasn't just the fact that it was well, weird to have a swamp inside a castle. The smell was just AWFUL. Okay, why was she still here anyway?

Of course she had heard the approaching footsteps but she'd hoped that whoever it was would have just walked past her. No such luck though it seemed. Ugh. Just as she was about to leave, Olly sensed (and heard) somebody walking up next to her. Great. And he was addressing her too. She waited a few seconds in hopes that the guy would just go away if she ignored him long enough. Again, no such luck, though.

Today was just NOT her day, was it?

With an irritated sigh, Olly finally tilted her head to the side to look at the boy standing next to her. Right. He looked somewhat familiar. Regarding him for a moment, she briefly considered just telling him to get lost but eventually thought better of it. "Do you know what the swamp is doing here?" And no, she wasn't going to answer his question. 'Sup?' wasn't even technically a question, was it? So she had chosen to simply ignore it.

The Hogwarts female was a never ending fascination to Ascanius, yeah? They all liked to play pretend that they were so vastly different and unique, but all of them had underlying qualities that amused him and made his little game of gorgeous interesting. What he had found was that all girls here liked to be strong and independent in some manner, which was not common. He was all for a strong woman, smirk, but after being at two schools prior to this one...he knew that trait wasn't normal.

So when Olly ignored his question for the sake of asking her own to show some sense of bravado or whatever she was doing, he just shifted his weight and smirked broader, "I do, beautiful." In fact, he had learned all about it last year in one of his classes. 'Sides, the swamp was somewhat of a homage to the ultimate set of Gryffindor trouble makers...'cause you know, Slytherin's never got caught.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of her and casually watched her face awaiting some reaction. See, technically she had asked if he knew, which he did, she had not asked for him to expand. That was going to be a whole other question on its own.

Heh. Look at him being all knowledgable and attractive. This light did wonders for his face. As did every light.

The fact that he kept on calling her 'beautiful' as if it was some kind of nickname didn't earn him any plus points. Just to clear that up. However, his smirk was a little unnerving. And of course he didn't answer her. "Oh, aren't you clever..." Olly muttered under her breath with a roll of her eyes, bringing her gaze back to the swamp in front of them. So all she knew now was that HE knew. No, that was just great. Very helpful.

Really, she shouldn't have expected a normal answer from him.

After a moment of silence in which she tried her best NOT to ask him to clarify, Olly glanced back at him out of the corner of her eyes. Only to find him looking at her too. She held his gaze for a while, before she sighed slightly in frustration. "You're quite irritating, you know?" But there might have been a hint of an amused smirk playing around her lips. Maybe. Possibly. Okay, yes, there was.

This time turning her whole body towards him Olly waited another few seconds in case he decided to properly answer her question after all. And save her the effort of having to ask again. But no, of course not. "Okay, why is there a swamp inside the castle?" She finally asked again with yet another overly exasperated sigh. And he better answer this time. Or else she might try to dump him face first in the swamp. His choice.

Contrary to popular belief, Ascanius was NOT an idiot. Just 'cause he was generally quiet and kept his true feelings to himself did not mean he was obtuse. It also didn't mean that he was slight of hearing, so when Olly whispered to herself about him being clever he just smirked at her in a truly frustrating fashion. Yeah, he had heard her and yeah, he was awful clever. That was what the smirk was for, couldn't she tell? 'Sides, he didn't need to merit every quip that every person threw at him with a response. Otherwise he'd be talking all day long and he found those type of people taxing.

While he was watching her though, he did note that he got a playful or amused or something smirk. And that was a victory to him. Yeah, he knew he was, but he also knew he was somewhat charming and endearing. That must have annoyed a lot of people. Smirk. Just the way he wanted it to.

So he just shrugged at her and shoved his hands in his pockets and shrugged, "If you say so, gorgeous." And she was.

Keeping his eyes ahead of himself, he did see her turn to face his straight on out of the corner of his eyes. THAT was another victory. He enjoyed this new girl quite a lot. Taking a moment to let her sweat, he finally turned to face her back and said, "Weasley twins, a pair of Gryffindors, almost a hundred years ago pulled a prank on a Professor. This was their prank. And they could never figure how to scrap it." So it stayed. Right there.

Kind of inspiring, if you were into that kind of thing.

Forrest had been silent for the short way from stairs to here. He was trying to understand why Bristol still thought he was cool, and why his previous muggle friends had abandoned him in similar situations. One of them was obviously wrong. For all these years, brave and rule-breaking children had been the cool ones. He couldn't understand what changed it now, and he doubted it had changed much. It was probably just Bristol. He just wished everyone was like her. He didn't care about 'cool' part that much, though. What moved him was how she was still his best friend.

He had to show her his gratitude and love. But how?

He didn't let go of her hand until they were by the infamous swamp (unless she wanted to free her hand though) and stopped when they were one metre away from it. He wished he could bring her to somewhere which smelt like flowers, but she had to now about this swamp too.

"So this is the Weasley Swamp," he said, pointing at it with both hands. "Like the founder of the prank shop on DA? This was their prank too, and it is left here as a reminiscence." He knew cool words too, hehe.

It was also where he and Sonea history started last year. He stared at it thoughtfully with a small frown. He looked like he was far away. She had drenched him in mud right here... he didn't blame the swamp, though. It was innocent. It was all Sonea's malice.

Still watching him, Olly crossed her arms across her chest, more out of habit than because of Ascanius. The fact that he kept on calling her 'beautiful' or 'gorgeous' hadn't gone by unnoticed of course. She assumed it was just his way of talking, however, and didn't exactly mean anything. Which was he could totally stop doing it. "You don't have to keep calling me that, you know." She said her eyes still on his face with her eyebrows slightly raised. Her smirk was gone for the time being and she was giving him a serious look. Not mean, per se, but just to make sure that he understood that she was serious about this. It was unnerving.

Not because it made her uncomfortable or self-conscious or anything but she simply didn't understand why he kept on adding it to his sentences.

Okay, but back to the swamp.

For a moment Olly was sure he wouldn't answer her question, which earned him a half-hearted glare. She might not have been able to actually throw him into the swamp but that didn't mean she couldn't throw mud at him or something. So he better answer if he didn't want his pretty face covered in mud. Which he did a moment later. Good for him. "I know who the Weasley twins are..." Olly interrupted him quietly, her eyes flicking back to the swamp. EVERYONE knew who they were. What she hadn't known was that this was their doing. She should have probably guessed though.

After a few seconds of silence after he had finished, Olly said with her eyes still on the swamp. "Imagine being remembered forever like this." At this she glanced back at Ascanius with a small amused smirk. Seriously. Some part of her assumed that the swamp hadn't just remained here because nobody knew how to get rid of it. It had probably been kept as a reminder of what the twins had accomplished in their lives.

During the short part of the tour between the stairs and this place, they'd been pretty quiet, but Bristol didn't mind. Partly because he was still there, so she didn't neeeed to talk and then partly because she admiring all the pretty. Hogwarts was really, really nice. Her daddy hadn't exaggerated AT ALL.

It was all so pretty, in fact, that she didn't notice that Forrest was still holding her hand. OH. Ermmm. She couldn't quite tell if she minded or not, but then she decided that it was alright because he was her best friend. She'd allowed it, because it obviously didn't mean anything 'silly' or 'ew' and he seemed to want to. Whatever made him happy and her. Thinking about it, Dee would run screaming if she saw them, yelling cooties, even though she'd been told a hundred times that they don't exist. Oh wellllllll.

She'd learn, in time.

Finally, they did let go and at that point she also spotted a HUGE GREAT SWAMP. "Wow," was all she said. "This is the coolest, just like those people that left it here. I wonder what they were like when they came here. I wish I could have met them," she gushed, grinning. Pranks were cool, but adventures were better and these jokers sounded like PERFECT company for for. Though she was already in perfect company, but you know.

Forrest nodded silently. He wished he'd met them too. They must have been awesome wizards with an amazing sense of humour. If only he could have half of that wit, all his problems would be solved.

"They are quite popular in history books." Maybe she could learn more about them from books? That was how he'd learnt.

"DADA--Defense Against the Dark Arts--classroom is there, and that's History of Magic classroom. I believe that door's Muggle Studies and our head of house teaches it." But he only 'guessed'. Because he was still too young to take the class, plus he was a muggleborn. He wasn't going to take it anyway.

A grin slowly appeared on his face. "If you haven't noticed yet, the portraits talk here." He paused for the dramatic effect. He tended to forget he was the muggleborn here, and treated people as if they knew zero about magic too. But anyways, he didn't even notice Bristol knew more about magic than he did. "These ones are the funniest. Shall we take a look?" Or, more correctly, take a conversation?

Oh. In books. "They are?" She asked, trying to feign interest, but really she couldn't care less about books (sorry). Maybe it showed. Just in case that was true, she just tried to explain to him. "I don't like books much." Pause. "I prefer living in the 'here and now' and having real life adventures." She thought that that was a much better place to live than in a fantasy world. "Does that make sense?" Hopefully he'd understand and not shun her for not liking books, assuming he was a book person. She knew how book people could be.

SO MANY CLASSROOMS.

That's where the magic happens, haha.

Bristol looked at each other as Forrest pointed them out and nodded. "Cool!" Soon enough she'd be off and learning in all of them. Soon enough. "What's your favourite subject?" She asked and grinned, it was always good to know extra little pieces of information about your best friend. "Yeah, my daddy told me that they did. It's so cool! Don't you think it would be cool to be a painting?" You know, when you died. Right she liked her body and Forrest should like his, too. Neither of them were ready to be pictures and voices on a wall just yet.

"Yes! Let's take a look," she agreed and headed towards the paintings.

And there it was. Yeah, Ascanius knew and understood girls habits better then they did because he had been flirting with them for as long as he could remember. So, in his professional opinion, there were two types of girls: the ones who blushed and were flushy over the nicknames and the ones who grew irritated and wanted to figure out WHY he said them like a puzzle. He was genuinely surprised no one had figured out why he did it though. Simple, truly.

However, it seemed that Olly was the latter of those two options. She was going to be the type of skirt who wanted questioned him and, truly, he enjoyed those types. Smirk. It was always a pleasure seeing their reactions.

Keeping up his smirk, Ascanius merely shrugged and did not answer her question. The shrug would be enough for her and if not, well, that was just too bad. Hmm. He really did enjoy this Olly girl. She was intriguing.

Turning his head away from her, he went back to inspecting the swamp and his smirk went with him. It seemed that they were very rarely separate- Ascanius and his smirk. He stayed silent when she admitted she knew who the Weasley twins were. The fifth year hadn't told her that part to inconvenience her, so she needed to relax. Very on edge, he noted.

His eyes sparked a little when she talked about being remembered like this. No, see, he wouldn't want to be remembered by this per say. To accomplish something like this would be wicked, but he wouldn't want to sign his work like the Weasley twins did. Keep them guessing. That was his motive. If he pulled something like this off, he wouldn't want to have his name attached to it; no, he would want it to be the cause for speculation forever. More epic that way.

But he supposed that was the difference between a Slytherin and a Gryffindor.

"It's incredible," he tacked on.

A shrug?

A SHRUG?

A SHRUG?

THAT's what she got in reply? Really? Was he not taking her seriously? Or was that just him agreeing with her without actually using any sort of verbal affirmation? For now she decided that getting into that would probably only evolve into a fight or at least a disagreement and surprisingly she wasn't really up for either. Not over something like this. There was always time to get into that in case he did it again. Because no, she wasn't just going to let it go. But he also hadn't explicitly said that he wouldn't stop so, for now she was going to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Nonetheless, Olly's slightly narrowed eyes continued to rest on him for a second longer, even after he'd turned his head back to the swamp. It wasn't like he had ignored her as such or anything, since she hadn't exactly asked him a question that required an answer. Even though the way he was still smirking WAS starting to get close to the verge of being obnoxious. For now, however, she would let it go. He was probably doing it on purpose anyway to get to her. And that was not happening. Nope. Nu-huh.

So instead Olly just averted her gaze back to the swamp. The Weasleys' swamp. At his assessment of it, she just nodded and shrugged vaguely in agreement before glancing back at Ascanius. Incredible. Well, she wouldn't call the swamp as such incredible. Merely the fact that it was STILL here, that was what was quite incredible, yes. However, unless they were about to get down on their knees and investigate the swamp closer, the subject had slowly been exhausted. No need to dwell on it any longer. She'd already shared enough of her thoughts on it (not really) for one day.

"So, what are you doing here anyway?" Olly asked, turning her back on the swamp and putting her head back to look up at the ceiling for a moment absently. There wasn't exactly anything around here. Apart from the swamp that is. And well, her. "Unless you were looking for me." She added with a small smirk, her eyes briefly resting on his again. Of course she wasn't serious but hey, he had started the whole thing.

He could feel Olly's eyes still on him as he turned his attention back to the swamp, which made him count another internal victory. Smiiiirk. There were so many things about Olly that amused him and her constant of what seemed like frustration was one of those things. He also liked her hair. It seemed really soft and whatnot, which brought him back to his theory. The fifth year was convinced that to be admitted to Hogwarts as a female there was a good looking test.

No, seriously. Every girl in this school was a dame. Jeez. It had to be some kind of conspiracy for the poor saps at this school who had no social skills. Aka, any bloke who wasn't in Slytherin. S'not his fault that his house mates had game. Him most of all, of course. Not ego, just honesty.

After a few seconds of feeling her watching him, Ascanius started to count internally. He wanted to see how long it would be before she couldn't resist talking to him. Which, to be honest, was going to eventually happen. His charm was not easily matched. Ahem.

One...two...three...four...

The swamp was a feat if he was being honest with himself, but only in a truly Gryffindor fashion. He had earlier thought about how it would be more epic to keep the public guessing and go down in infamy, but the Weasley's were cool, he supposed. Not epic, but cool, yeah? Although he did find it sort of strange that the world's most powerful witches and wizards were employed at this school and not one of them could figure out how to disable this charm, which, at the time, had been performed by teenagers.

sixteen...seventeen....eighteen....nineteen...twe-

Bingo. When he heard her voice a large smirk crept up on his face, but he did not look at her. Instead, his greyish green eyes were fixated on the thing in front of him, the swamp. He did not, however, ignore her question. Ascanius just shoved his hands in his pockets and replied with a certain level of ease, "Naturally, gorgeous." Ascanius hadn't been looking for her, but he'd let her think that if she wanted. Giving the ladies what they wanted. He was good at that.

"...of course you were." Olly muttered in reply, rolling her eyes at the boy's answer. Of course, she should have expected him to say that. HAD expected him to say that too. That didn't make it any better. Her eyes rested on the back of his head for a moment, her smirk having gone a little lopsided as she considered Ascanius. To be honest, she didn't quite get him. And that was bugging her. Yes, at first it seemed like he was quite...well, it seemed like his motives were quite clear. The way he behaved did fit a certain type and all. But then again...

Well, to be honest, Olly just didn't quite know what to do with that.

And he'd called her 'gorgeous' again. And no, not in the 'you're gorgeous' sort of way but rather as a nickname again. Like, seriously, why? Olly briefly considered telling Ascanius that the way he said was not really a compliment - and it was supposed to be yeah? - but in the end decided against it. Why should she bother? It wasn't any of her concern if other girls or whoever he was trying to impress thought it was a compliment or not. Maybe he was successful with that. He had a girlfriend right? So there, someone must have thought he was charming and boyfriend-material.

Whatever that entailed.

Because yes, he was quite good-looking so she'd totally get why somebody would want to snog him or something. However, the whole boyfriend thing? Eh, yeah, no, Olly didn't quite get that. Though she guessed that didn't really apply to Ascanius only of course. So why her mind had gone there in the first place, she didn't know. Maybe she'd got a bit distracted staring at the Slytherin's hair. Err, yeah, nevermind. He really was quite attractive, she had to give him that.

"It's boring here." Olly announced after a moment of silence before taking a step away from the swamp, followed by another set. Right. Hmm. There really wasn't much to do around here, was there? She turned on the spot with her eyes on her surroundings for a second until she was back to facing Ascanius at the swamp again. "Seriously, what were you doing around here?" Maybe there was something really cool nearby and she just hadn't seen it or something. ANYTHING, please. This was boring. This whole castle was starting to bore her to be honest. There wasn't a whole lot to do.

And there were people everywhere.

Like before, she didn't get a response, just a smirk and a nod. That was good enough to translate what she needed to know, yeah? Besides, he and she both knew that he was joking 'cause he hadn't been stalking her. No the reality was a lot less exciting and he didn't really care and such. Whatever. She was getting a lot of smirks though.

Anyway, he found his eyes go back to the swamp. It was boring and just sat there and sort of impressive. Eh, he didn't really know how he felt about it. S'not that he really cared that much.

Oh look, she was talking again. Good. Something for him to do.

Um, that was a kind of personal question. Well, not on the surface, but that question explained why he had gotten lost, which was uncomfortable. S'not like he wanted to sit around and talk about his anxiety with heights. It wasn't cool or anything and he was the EPITOME of cool. And attractive, but more on that later.

The fifth year just didn't wanna talk about how he had to avoid the moving staircases or how he was terrified to turn the wrong corner because of the chance he might run into a steep drop. None of that was appealing to divulge, especially 'cause of the fact that he already showed it enough when he was on the Pitch. Ugh, he hated flying.

So with a shrug, he opted for, "Just wandering is all." Not strictly true. But he would go with that.

Jezz walked along the first corridor holding tightly to the high hopes that she had concerning the return of her beloved book. She had constantly sent him owl after owl requesting the return of her book and finally they had agreed to meet up here...at a partially swamp covered corridor. She scowled at the offending piece of history as if it were going to come to life and eat the book that she was getting back.

Cutty could have also been a little more considerate and chosen a better halfway mark to meet up at. Honestly, she had to climb all the way back up those stairs. Not only that, but if he had gotten so much as a mark on that book that wasn't there when she gave it to him, she was going to show him what a real lioness was like. Her manners would pounce out the window the second she pounced on him.

She hovered against the wall tugging at her weekend clothes. She preferred her Hogwarts uniform but wearing it on a weekend was silly. She went to twirling her hair and staring down the other end of the corridor. Where is he?

When Cutty appeared on the first floor he appeared to be glistening. What had he been doing? And what had he been doing DESCENDING when his common room was located at the bottom of the castle. He was out of breath and carrying a wrapped package, which he clung to protectively.

"Antoinette!" He said, spotting the older girl and picking up the pace a little as he drew closer to her as if impatient to see her. Soon he was standing right in front of her. Cutty wiped his forehead with his sleeve and extended the package out towards Jezzabelle. "I kept it wrapped when I go past the moving staircase." Most of the time. Some of the time. Not at all?

Jezz was just about to have a nervous breakdown when Cutty appeared... coming down the stairs? Odd, very odd. But that didn't matter because in his arms was the most glorious, wrapped?, thing on the planet. He extended it to her and she couldn't take it fast enough. The second she had it back in her possession she clung to it for dear life being near the swamp. "Jezz," she muttered. She really wished he wouldn't call her by her last name.

"Did you really," she said, shock coloring every inch of her. She hadn't realized exactly how much he had listened to her. She gave him a small smile. "Thank you." She clung tighter to the book. "Did you find it useful?"

He nodded his head. "Yes. It was really useful. I learned a lot from it." And that part was definitely true. "Thanks you. For lending it to me." Maybe it was the fact that he was somewhat worn out from ...whatever he had been doing on the upper levels.
He looked away from her momentarily to view the swamp as he was drawn to it and had been since his arrival at the castle.

"I'm glad," Jezz said noting how distracted Cutty seemed to be. She looked back up at the stairs where he had come from and clutched her book even tighter. Looking back at him she cocked her head to the side. He was staring at the swamp. Thinking maybe? About his....deeds upstairs... "Cutty what were you doing upstairs?"

She wasn't going to ask but her curiosity went and killed the cat. Why was he so worn and coming down the stairs. If that had been the case they could have met up on one of the upper levels. Plus, she wanted to keep him out of trouble.

"Oh," she removed a ingle hand from the book and pulled something out of her bag. "This is from Heather." She had held the package close for the past few days having promised to deliver it in person. She extended it to Cutty hoping he wouldn't faint.

Huh? Oh, she was talking to him. "Nothing." He looked up at Jezzabelle, with a sort of faked secrecy about him. Maybe she would press the issue.

From Heather?! Cutty tore himself away from the swamp and took the package. His hand began to untie the ribbon, he paused considering it might be something embarrassing, but then dismissed such thoughts being that it was Malfoy. He sat and tore open the package. Inside was a shining little case the side of which was engraved. He opened up the case with all speed and found a wonderful assortment of Quidditch related items, including a certificate confirming a subscription to a Quidditch magazine and a rather nice set of omnioculars for games. Nearly as quickly as he had opened it, Cutty shut it away and stuffed it into his bag.
"Tell her I said, 'Thanks', won't yer?" He said sounding genuinely grateful.

Jezz just stared at him. Fine. Another time she will press the issue even further. He couldn't hide it forever. She watched as with eager eyes the young boy tore into the package. All she caught was a flash of something shiny and it was gone as fast as it was opened.

She gave a small smile, "I'll let her know." She chewed on her lip. "Or you could let her know. I'll let you use my owl to send her a letter if you want. She knows exactly where to go. That way Heather knows I'm not lying." Not that she would but, eh, adults were silly.

"You don't have any questions do you?" She was referring to the book.

"Really?" He said sounding like he'd enjoy the opportunity to use someone's private owl that wasn't Majnun. "Thanks."

The book was an overall generally good read, but Cutty had a tendency to become more curious the more information he was fed. An insatiability that he would carry through to his adult years. Probably. The truth was he had many questions, but he had thought that they weren't ones that, save the fly on the wall, someone at the school would know the answers to. "No. Well, yes, but it may not be something even professors know."

Why was he being so honest all of a sudden??!