He had LOST it. No, not his marbles--not yet, though Paul heard he was on his way--he had lost...................

Milton's lucky pin. HIS LUCKY PIN HE HAD BORROWED IT FOR GOOD LUCK AND NOW COULD NOT FIND ANYWHERE. And really, he didn't know where in the world it could be BECAUSE he had gone down to the Hufflepuff Common Room earlier and STROLLED around the castle and ERIFHREUIGHGOIUHG.

HIS PARTNER WAS GOING TO MURDER HIM IN COLD BLOOD. It was the end. He might not even TELL Milton he had lost it. Maybe he could...hold off and find a new one--

OH SNAPPP!

It was specially MADE and in such a distinct shape that Paul just...the thought of reproducing such a thing was entirely not possible. He scurried around the corridor, wand in hand, the tip of it lit up as he searched corners and behind pillars. His heart was beating SO quickly because he just knew death was, indeed, near.

Olly had been walking along on his way back from class when he saw a peculiar sight. It was Professor Myers in the armor gallery? What was he doing there? He taught and resided in the greenhouses out on the grounds. Of course that didn't mean he couldn't be in the castle. It was just odd that was all, and unexpected. So unexpected that it made Olly stop and forget all about his previous destination. Not that returning to his common room was terribly important, nor was it very hard to distract the boy.

He entered the armor gallery without saying anything for a minute. He was still adjusting. "Hello professor," he said eventually, peering at the man curiously. "Whatcha doing?"

The voice SCARED him.

"AAAAAAHHHH!"

As much as Oliver's voice had echoed, Paul's did even MORE. And so, he jumped a bit at ALL of that noise, hand on his chest in FEAR. PANIC. HIS BLUE EYES WIDENED. DEER IN HEADLIGHTS.

"...It's just YOU. Merlin's socks!" he chuckled nervously and sighed. "I lost my husband's pin--" forgot formalities right now, he might as well just CALL Milton his husband, for Merlin's sake. "A very special GOOD LUCK pin and he's going to murder me if I don't find it." Or divorce him.

Both sounded EQUALLY terrible, you know?

Oliver thought something horrible was happening. Why else would Professor Myers have screamed? His eyes widened and he whirled around, searching for the source of the terror. But he found nothing. It wasn't until Professor Myers spoke again that he realized Olly had been the one to startle him. Oops?

He turned back, sheepish and apologetic now. But he quickly forgot about it as he suddenly got a lot of new information at once that all needed to be processed carefully. First of all, he had a husband? Olly did not think he had known that before because he didn't think he would have forgot but he might have because that did seem to happen. And then, more importantly, Professor Myers might be murdered soon. By his very own husband. How dramatic.

"It can't be that lucky if you manage to lose it," he pointed out. But maybe now was not the best time to be pointing out something like that. "Maybe I can help," he offered instead. "I wouldn't want you to die. What does the pin look like?"

Paul WIDENED HIS EYES AT THE BOY. "IT IS VERY LUCKY, OLIVER!" Extremely lucky! DON'T QUESTION THE LUCK. "However I LOST IT, yes, and I need to FIND it ASAP!" He flailed a little, knocking over MORE armor.....

GAH!

Paul quickly tried to gather up the suit of armor once more, failed miserably, and ended up with lots of clang clang CLANGING. SO NOISY.

"A grapevine! Have you seen it?!"

Okay sure it was lucky. Even though it was lost. Lucky would be if it somehow found its way back. Olly had to step out of the way of some falling armor. He didn't think any of them were concealing a pin. Could they do that? A grapevine? That was a weird design for a pin. Though it did seem a little bit familiar...

Olly's mouth opened just a bit, as if he was about to gasp except no sound came out. His eyes brightened and he reached into the pocket of his robes. He pulled out a chocolate frog, a knut, and a pin that he had found just a day or so earlier. When was that? Wait, no that was not the important part. He held it in his open palm and held it out toward Professor Myers.

"Is this it?"

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Paul couldn't help it. He did his best not to hug his students unless it was ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY, and here, he deemed it ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY. He hugged Oliver quickly and yelped in delight, taking the pin in his hands in a dainty fashion.

"THIS IS IT! THIS IS IT, OLIVER!" he cried. "OH MY OH MY!" he could have CRIED. "TEN POINTS TO YOU!" he had put in his flyer that he'd give whoever found the pin ten whole points! And so he kept his word. "WHERE did you find it at, m'boy?"

There had been a lot of things that had happened to Olly when he had not expected it. Like yesterday at breakfast when he had taken a drink of his pumpkin juice and gotten coffee. Or last week when he was going out only to find it was raining, which messed with his plans a bit. The point was that sometimes things don't happen when you don't expect them to and you just have to go with the flow. Olly certainly had not expected Professor Myers to hug him. Not then and not ever. But it was happening and Olly was hugging him back - because it would be rude not to - until everything was going back to normal.

Points?! He got points for finding that thing? All he had done was pick up a strange object and stuff it in his pocket. It had been a much more valuable find than he had thought. "Wow. I'm glad I came in here. It's good you got it back." You know, because of the whole murdering situation he could have found himself in. "It was...um..." Where had he found it again? Or right. "It was by the mirror. Almost stuck under it. Good thing I was late for class."

Maybe that part wasn't necessary.

What a lucky coincidence it all was! That Oliver had found the pin and THEN had found Paul! Positively GOOD LUCK it was! The mirror? On the...what floor was the mirror on? Above this one, yes? Paul clicked his tongue. "My, I don't even remember going up there. How ODD it all is, you know. Well...I'm just glad I found it!" he said with a huuuuuuge sigh of relief.

Oh no! The boy was late? Paul thought for a moment..."Er....I can uh...write you a note, m'boy. So you won't get into any trouble. I have parchment--somewhere--" he felt all his pockets and he had a SMALLLLL amount of parchment, thank Merlin. Now did he have a quill? He peered around quickly..."Do you have a pen? Quill? Anything, Oliver?"

Oh no Professor Myers had misunderstood him. Olly began shaking his head. "No, sorry sir. I'm not late now. I meant I was the other day. When I stopped at the mirror and found your pin." He hoped the logic would follow for Professor Myers. Typically stopping was not something one did when they were late but he'd had to, to make sure he looked presentable after rushing to get ready so quickly. "But, uh, thanks for offering."

Ooooooh he had not found it TODAY but ANOTHER day. Right. That made sense, and it seemed much less a coincidence now, BUT STILL PRETTY LUCKY!

"Oh. Well. I am thankful regardless, yes. And I would have done it for you if you had needed a note," he winked. "But thank you so much, Oliver! Really THANK YOU!" he pinned the pin to his collar. "I will not lose it again! I can't! Milton would just...be so irritated with me."

And murder would ensue.

One more place.

That's all she really had on her mind as she walked through the corridors after her final lesson the day. The last blindingly bright master piece she had left on the wall outside of the girls bathroom had taken her a tad longer then expected. Who knew that making shapes and animating them would take so darn long?!

Ending up in the armour Gallery Hady paused to look at each of the suits of armor. "How about some color around here? Not to much just a little something hmm?" So what if she was talking to suits of armour it wasn't a big deal. Normally she wasn't one to care to much for stripes but right now she thought it would be fitting.

Removing her wand from the pocket of her robes she aimed it at the wall behind the suits or armour. "colorvaria livorem!" Perfectly lined herizontial stripes flowed the entire length of the wall. She then took a few minutes casting "Colorvaria" on every other stripe making sure each one was emerald green. Then doubling back she cast "Colorvaria" on all the other stripes effectively picturing them in her mind as a shiny silver to which each one changed.

She wasn't finished yet. Oh no, not yet.

Using her wand she formed what was the outline of a rather large snake in the center of the wall. Not just any snake. A cobra. Why, because those were cool. "Figura snake!" She then used 'colovaria' once again to make it a nice shade of green. Once she had the very large green snake finished she cast one more charm while tracing the outline of it. "Animatae!" Slowly it was as if the snake was waking up as it shifted about before slithering back and forth the striped wall.

Now she was done. Time to head back to the Charms room.

BANG

CLATTER

All that noise was coming from inside the Armour Gallery. The clashing of metal on metal could probably be heard from anywhere in the corridor, and maybe even from the stairs.

The nifflers were having a ball with all that SHIIIIIINY.

Merlin's beard! What was all that banging?! It sounded like it was coming from the armour gallery. Fiyero followed the direction if the sound to investigate.

At first, he thought it might be Peeves making the noise to annoy the teachers, but as he looked around, there was no sign of the school's resident poltergeist. Weird... Fiyero started to turn away, but then he saw that one of the suits or armour appeared to be jiggling. Something dark and hairy caught his eye. He drew closer to the creature; it looked like a fuzzy black anteater. He knew what that thing was; it was a niffler!

"Hey, little fella," he said, giving the animal a little pat on the head. He hoped it wouldn't attack him for touching it. He suddenly remembered that nifflers like shiny things and reached into his pocket. "Here, I've got something for you." He placed a shiny new silver sickle on the floor in front of the niffler.

More loud banging grabbed Fiyero's attention, and he glanced up to see more nifflers. He laughed. "You guys are funny!" He wished he could take them back with him, but somehow he didn't think people would take too kindly to nifflers invading Gryffindor tower. He turned back to the niffler he'd just offered a sickle to. "I'm going to call you Magneto," he said with a smile, "Mags for short." He couldn't think of a more fitting name for a creature who loved all things shiny and metallic. "What do you think about that?"

The incessant banging didn't bother the nifflers one bit. Not a single bit.

A HUMAN

WITH A SHINY

The smallest niffler lunged at the coin, trapping it under his paws and making a noise of triumph. Another niffler began to nuzzle the human boy's pockets, sticking its wet nose all the way in one to sniffffffffffffff out the SHINIES.

Daxton had made sure to don his earmuffs today, given the intended location. Not that it had not been a habit of his for the last three years now, to wear the earmuffs whenever he ventured into any of the more crowded areas of Hogwarts (read: anywhere that he was not completely alone or with just one other person).

The meteorite was being dragged along the floor behind him, fitted with a length of string around its middle in order to emulate the lead that Airey Flamsteed often fit the original Pebbles with. Even with the earmuffs on, Daxton knew that his own rock was likely making that same infuriating 'clunk... clunk... clunk...' noise that always preceded the other rock, the noise that bothered him so very much. He tiptoed his way through the corridors, barefoot as usual, until finally, he came to the Armour Gallery.

For a moment, Daxton cast his eyes about the place. There seemed to be no-one else here, not that it mattered either way.

Without so much as looking at the meteorite tied onto the other end of the string, Daxton lifted his hand slightly so that 'Pebbles' dangled a few inches off of the ground, before... he began swinging the rock around, and around, and around. Faster and faster, back and forth, around and around the rock went, and which point Daxton made his way quickly forward and through the armour gallery.

As he went, 'Pebbles' began hitting various suits of armour with resounding crashes that even Daxton could make out through his earmuffs. From time to time it would hit the floor or ricochet off course after pelting a suit of armour and Daxton himself would catch a rock to the arm or leg at high speed, but still he forged onwards.

In almost no time at all, he was through, and without slowing his pace or even glancing back to see if he had scuffed or dented any suits of armour, Daxton let the rock drop heavily to the floor once more, and dragged it roughly along behind him as he vacated the area.

There. He had shared part of the Hogwarts experience with the rock, having taken it on a tour around the castle, and introduced it to some suits of armour.