Duuuuuuude.

The seventh floor took FOREVER to get to. See if Brent ever tried this again. Hmm. Who was he kidding? He had Astronomy class up here and would be here all the time. Also, had he made it into Gryffindor like he thought he would, he would LIVE up here, so he guessed a random stroll up here wouldn't kill him.

Too soon anyway.

He tried to mask his huffing and puffing as he casually leaned against the wall. Good thing nobody seemed to be around. He would look SO uncool out of breath like this. He blamed Quodpot. And Quidditch. Had he been doing those regularly, he'd be in shape for this kind of thing!

On his way back to the Ravenclaw common room, Jacob rounded the corner and found... a boy? Breathing heavily? And leaning against the wall?

... Was he okay? Was that impolite to ask? Probably less impolite than just leaving him alone to die, Jacob figured. He looked like he was about to keel over at a moment's notice.

"Um... Are you alright?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

Brent took in a deep breath and released it out slowly. He was no longer huffing and puffing, but it was too late. Somebody had already seen him and probably thought he was some out of shape loser. "Yeah, man. I'm alright," he answered with a nod. "I'm just so not used to climbing this many flights of stairs at once." This boy was a Ravenclaw, wasn't he? "I don't see how you guys do it all the time."

Still, it had been pretty cool of the guy to stop and check on Brent. "Thanks, though," he said. "I'm Brent Westwood. New Slytherin." Speaking of which, maybe it was better if he stuck to his home in the dungeons rather than trying to explore the castle. He'd have to come up here for classes, but there'd be no more casual explorations up here. Brent laughed at his own weak moment and said, "I'm usually pretty athletic. I played a lot of Quodpot in America. I'm kind of bummed at the lack of sports here," he admitted.

"You get used to it," Jacob answered with a shrug. It had sucked at first, especially since he wasn't very athletic overall, but he did have a pacing-while-thinking habit. Maybe that helped keep him in shape. He did eat a lot of chocolate frogs, and he did sit around and read a lot... By all accounts, he should probably be much larger than he was. Yeah, must be the pacing.

WAIT. Quodpot? That was American. He said he played it in America! And his name was... Brent? HEY. This must be the person Olivia had been talking about meeting in Diagon Alley. Someone else from Ilvermorny! Jacob's eyes lit up at this realization. But he should probably play it cool and not be weird. Just ease into the conversation and bring it up organically...

"Wait, did you transfer here from Ilvermorny? Because I did at the very end of last term and it's been so weird and everything is so different and how the heck are we supposed to get used to all this weird terminology like 'corridor' instead of 'hallway' and 'Muggle' instead of 'No-Maj' and why do they need to put a random 'u' in words like 'color' or 'favorite' that don't really need one?!" he exclaimed, almost in a single breath.

Okay, so much for playing it cool and not being weird. Usually he was on the quiet end of the weird spectrum, but he couldn't help his excitement and meeting someone who might actually get it (and he'd been dying to air those complaints to someone who would understand). He cleared his throat, and a blush began to creep up his cheeks as he tried to recover, realizing that he had probably just sounded completely crazy. "What I mean to say is, I'm Jacob, and it's good to meet you, Brent." He smiled a bit sheepishly.

Brent just nodded in reply. He still couldn't imagine coming up those stairs all the time. Then the athlete in him came out, and his face suddenly shone with excitement. "You know what they should do? They should allow us to ride our brooms up here!" he said. "We could start on the ground and ride up through one of the open areas. That'd be awesome! Then I'd be really be jealous of you Ravenclaws and the Gryffindors." Then if for some reason there were people that didn't want to ride up here, they could always take the slow route.

The topic changed, and now he was being asked about Ilvermorny, a fact about Brent that apparently really interested people. "Yeah, man. We moved this summer," he answered. "I spent my first three years there." Whooooooa. "Dude! Really?" he asked. "That's awesome! What house were you in?" Because if he said Wampus, Brent would find it really strange that they were just now meeting one another. he nodded. "I know, man! It's taking some getting used to. So what'd you move for?"

Brent laughed. "Nice to meet you, Jacob," he said. "What year are you in?" He was kind of stoked about meeting somebody about his age that had also transferred from Ilvermorny.

"I didn't expect to meet anyone else who was a transfer, especially not from Ilvermorny. I thought I was totally alone!" Jacob grinned, relieved that Brent didn't seem to think he was insane after that outburst. "I was in Thunderbird. How about you? Wait," he said, looking at the other boy intently, almost as if inspecting him, "let me guess. You said you're an athlete, and now you're in Slytherin... Wampus, maybe?" It seemed logical, anyway. "Although maybe not, actually. It really doesn't seem like there's much of a correlation between the schools' houses, at least from what I can tell. If there were, I'd probably be in Gryffindor, I guess."

He shrugged. The Sorting Hat really did seem to have a mind of its own (never mind that that was sort of the point of it). Who knew what it was thinking with any given student -- besides that student, of course? "Things are really different, yeah. I miss ranch dressing..." Jacob said wistfully. It didn't seem like the UK knew how delicious ranch was, otherwise they would, you know, have it readily available.

"We moved because my dad got a job at the Ministry. He'd been trying to get a foot in the door over here for forever, so when they offered him a position, we packed up and left pretty much immediately," he answered. "How about you? What brought your family to this side of the pond?"

This was exciting. He was surprised at how naturally the conversation seemed to be flowing. Mark this as the least awkward social interaction he'd had so far this year, even counting the weird word vomit thing he'd done a few minutes ago. That might not be a good thing, actually. He should probably figure out how to not do anything weird at all... Anyway. Someone who understood the struggle! Yessss. "I'm a fifth year. You too?" he guessed. They looked about the same age.

Some might say that reading and walking was dangerous, but to be honest, Dora didn't live by the rules. Rules were meant to be broken. Was it even a rule, though?

She doubted it. But whatever.


Her nose was buried deep in the letter in front of her face. It was intense. She felt intense even reading it. Her friend was amazing. She felt giddy with GLEE. Seriously, Dora Umbridge was not angsty today. Instead, she was smiling brightly and giggling as she went.

The library was full of people, the Common Room was full of people, the grounds were littered with them and even the Great Hall was getting ready for the lunch crowd. Kinda made it hard to find anywhere quiet enough and isolated enough for him to feel comfortable practising his spell work. He didn't need an audience, in fact he did far better without one.

Currently, the Fifth Year's attention was locked on the page containing the summoning charm as he laid sprawled right across the corridor.

Were he a little less into his reading and muttered recitation, the boy might have heard the sound of the approaching footsteps and gotten out of the way but as it stood, he was fully concentrating on the spell at hand. It wasn't one he'd yet gotten the hang off but he was almost sure it'd be coming on the OWL exam and didn't wanna end up falling flat.

Accio....A..cceee....o....

How hard could it be?

Speaking of falling flat...

Dora didn't see Blaise, didn't look around, never thought to look DOWN anyway. So it wasn't long before the blonde went tumbling. The pages of her letter flew out of her hands scattering everywhere as she made her descent toward the stone floor.

Her knees hit in the back of the person causing her to fall, and then her forehead bounced off the stone. With a groan she lay face first on the floor.

Was she dead?

Sam, being Sam, was practicing new spells.

Now, today he was practicing a spell that would turn his ink into unspillable, unstaining ink. And who did he have to keep him company but his usual, trusty reptilian sidekick, Taco. Such a good lizard, he was.

Mind you, the corridor outside the common room was much better for practicing than the actual common room. More room and less people to mess him up. Yes, much better. As Taco roamed around on the floor near the ink bottle, Sam drew his wand and rolled up his sleeves before practicing the wand motion a few times. Yeah, he had this. No problem.

But it would seem that he spoke - or thought, rather - too soon, because within the next moment, the little green anole's exploring turned into tipping over the bottle of ink. TOO SOON!

Fencing reflexes did come in handy, though, because Sam promptly flicked his wand at the bottle mid-spill. Aaaaaaaannd......

BOING.

BOING.

BOING.

Well.... he'd gotten it right in one sense: that ink wasn't splattering onto the corridor floor. Nope. No, instead all that ink had basically taken on the form of little black bouncy balls suddenly bouncing their way down the hallway.

But hey - they weren't staining, you know.

Everything happened so quickly. One minute he was reaching into his holster for his wand to give the spell a go and the next he had someone's leg collide with his side forcing him into something of a coiled position. It was from there that he watched in horror as that someone--no, not someone, holy kneazle that was Dora--went tumbling to the floor.

O__O

Oh Merlin, oh Merlin, oh Merlin.

Why wasn't she moving? Was he meant to move her? Was this one of those times where you left the injured alone incase they broke something?????? The Gryffindor scrambled over to her, coming to a kneeling halt just before her. He was careful not to touch her, in case he made it worse but at the same time he was looking for any signs of life. He was too young for Azkaban and had his entire life ahead of him.

"Dora? Dora speak to me. If you're still alive tilt your head this way and tell me how many fingers I'm holding up!" DON'T BE DEAD!

Dora could feel the blood pooling at her forehead, which probably meant she wasn't dead. But, she was VERY aware of the pain that was radiating there. She was unwilling to move just yet, though. Hearing Blaise's voice was nice. He was trying to help while she was currently trying to fall through the floor and die. How lovely.

All he got in response, though, was another groan. A very low and pained groan for the moment.

Was he asking her to move? Hmm. Could she? Using her arms to lift herself up the tiniest bit, she turned her head toward the sound of his voice, blood dripping down her face. "Couldyoupickupmyletterplease" she said in a decidedly slurred voice before laying her cheek back to the cold floor.

Definitely not dead, but not exactly well.

Yup. Dead. She was definitely dead and his quill was witness to the fact of it all. The Fifth Year was pretty sure you didn't get detentions for this kind of thing and could only barely begin to imagine just how much trouble he really was in when he heard the faint mumbling.

Blaise eased away a bit, being sure to give her plenty of room when she began stirring, but the easing soon turn to a full on stagger backward and a fall onto his bum when he caught sight of the bleeding.

Holy Kneazle. She was probably still dead afterall.

The boy barely had time to process what she'd said before her face was once again on the cold, concrete floor . The letter? There was a letter...? "Uh...sure." He began looking about, finding that the parchment hadn't gotten all that far. Blaise hopped off the floor to grab it before coming to a crouch next to her. "I....think we might need to get you to the Healer. I'm the last person you want attempting healing charms on you."

Just wasn't a good idea, ever.

Dora brought her shaky arm up and wiped some of the blood from her eyes. UGH. That was gross! ACK! But she wasn't feeling so light headed anymore. Probably she had just rattled her cage a bit. No big deal.

"No. I don't want to go to the Healer. No reason to," she said in a strong voice as she sowly began to shift and sit up.

SEE. SHe was totally fine!

"Can you do the siphoning spell? Like siphon the blood off my face? Or else do you have a hanky or something I can use?" First things first she needed to clean her face off! THEN they could see if she needed to heal herself. If she could. She knew a couple... but she wasn't exactly PERFECT at them.

Okay, so no Healer then.

Fine, she probably had a concussion anyway and you weren't meant to go moving that sort all willy nilly. The fact her voice had gotten stronger was all the confirmation he needed that maybe she wouldn't be needing as much medical attention as he originally thought. "Alright..." Forgive the skepticism, he just didn't want her...oh...you know...dropping dead suddenly on his account.

"I could probably do the siphoning charm but it's not such a good idea to take that chance." The boy reached into his pocket, fishing around for the hanky. "Here, you can keep it. Return it whenever you feel like it."

"What was in that letter anyway?" Must have been hella interesting to have her crashing right into him the way she did.

Noelle had heard that a someone was back. Someone she had been waiting for weeks to come back. She had told the portraits to keep an eye out for when they saw Noah come back. She'd given the portraits a good look. They were good at helping a sister out.

Noelle was currently pacing in the seventh floor corridor though. She knew one of the first stops that Noah would be making was to his dorm. She had every intention of intercepting him. Besides, she had surprises for him.

And most importantly, Noelle had missed her boyfriend terribly and wanted to make sure he really was okay.

Brent nodded. "Yeah, no kidding, man. I've got a brother here, too. He was a first year at Ilvermorny last year," he said. Plus, Brent couldn't believe their old Defense Against the Dark Arts professor was now the Headmistress at Hogwarts. "We're going to take over this place!" Brent opened his mouth to answer the whole 'what house were you in' question, when it appeared the other boy wanted to make a guess. Brent paused, eyebrows arched as he awaited the reply. "Wampus all the way!" he said with pride.

He nodded again. "I know what you mean. I thought I'd be a Thunderbird at Ilvermorny and a Gryffindor here," he continued. He just followed along with what the other guy was saying until he brought up another similarity they ended up having. "No way, man! We moved, because my dad got on at the Ministry, too!" That Ministry must be a really awesome place to be bringing over all the Americans. "Nope. I'm a fourth year," he answered, feeling kind of less macho since he seemed to be the younger one.

He started to say something else, but then he heard a weird sound and turned to see... "Whooooooa! What the--...?!" he exclaimed. He had literally turned just in time to see a ton of bouncing black balls going pretty much everywhere. In a certain sense, this might have seemed like a pretty good opportunity to have some fun. As it was, though, Brent was literally about to fall victim and unceremoniously slip and meet the floor. He made a good attempt at a getaway, but one of the balls got him good. He fumbled a bit, reaching aimlessly at the wall, but in the end, he was sitting on the floor. His wand was even out of its holster and tossed to the side.

Wonderful.

"That's crazy!" Jacob said. Lots of coincidences here. Kinda cool! He almost wanted to ask Brent what he'd thought of Aunt Regina -- Headmistress Hawthorne, that is -- when he'd taken her DADA classes... But he thought better of it in the end. If Brent hated her, it would be really awkward for Jacob since the truth of the matter would come out eventually, even if he didn't mention it at first. And if he liked her, then it would seem like Jacob was sucking up to be his friend. So... The outcome would be weird either way. Still, he was curious. Maybe he'd just let it come up organically... And he meant that this time, not like the weird Ilvermorny outburst.

"Ah, fourth year... I remember it like it was yesterday," he said, grinning to let the other boy know he was just teasing. A year's difference really wasn't that big of a deal. Strange, it wasn't his intention to try and make friends when he started the conversation. Brent had just looked like he was dying... But Jacob was glad he wasn't because he seemed pretty cool so far.

And then suddenly... What the heck?! "Prote--!" Jacob began to cast a spell reflexively, raising his wand as something... black?... began bouncing at full speed toward the two of them. But wait, was that... Ink? He lowered his wand without even thinking about it to get a closer look, and a black ball of ink smacked him right in the knee before bouncing off and hurtling in the opposite direction. More of the balls kept appearing, almost like they were multiplying.

"Ouch! What in the world?" he said, rubbing his knee and looking incredulously at the bouncing black things -- and then at the boy who stood at the end of the hallway that the balls had appeared from, his wand arm outstretched. The balls seemed harmless enough, apart from stinging a bit if they hit you, but what was going on? And was it really ink? That didn't make any sense. Ink would just splatter. But it sure looked like ink...

He pondered this for a moment before he noticed Brent sitting on the ground (how had he gotten down there? Jacob hadn't seen it happen). "You alright?" he asked, reaching a hand down to help the boy up.

He looked at the end of the hallway toward the culprit other boy, almost as if demanding an explanation, but without saying anything to him.

SHe was PRETTY sure that she was not going to fall down dead today. Pretty. Here was hoping, anyway. So as she pulled herself up into a sitting position she hugged her knees and took a few deep breaths before taking the hanky.

Okay. Wand. Aguamenti.

That was done and Dora took the piece of cloth and blotted at her face to remove the blood. She would definitely return it... when she cleaned all of her blood off of it. HEHE. Why was that funny? As the giggle escaped her mouth she found that she was frowning slightly. How odd.

The letter?

OH!

"It was from my... friend. He was just telling me about some things that happened before he came back to school." She wasn't blushing. BLAISE was blushing. She was sure of it so she kept blotting at her face and averted her eyes. "Why were you laying in the floor?"

Brent frowned. He knew it was a bad idea to trek all the way up to the seventh floor. Not only did he make himself get completely out of breath hurrying all the way up here, but now he'd tripped on...whatever that was...and ended up flat on his bottom. Great. He accepted Jacob's help and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet. "Thanks, man," he said. The slightly older boy had said several things to him just before all the chaos started, but it felt out of place to reply to them now. That would just have to be another day and another time.

So instead, he turned toward the other kid, the one who'd caused all the bouncing black balls to appear. "Dude," he began. "What's going on?" Because had Brent not ended up flat on his bottom, he'd have thought whatever happened seemed like a whole lot of fun. And as he spoke, he retrieved his wand and pointed them toward the bouncing balls, intent on stopping them before all the fun got away from them.

Girls were very strange. For all the time Blaise ended up spending with the ones that could actually tolerate him, the boy was an even firmer believer in the fact that sometimes girls--all girls, every last one of them--weren't very alright in the head. By now, though, he'd learned that that was the exact type of thing they most certainly did not wanna hear so even though Dora was doing that sad kind of giggling, Blaise chose to overlook it with the smallest, awkward chuckle he could find.

Just gonna pretend everything was alright? Fine with him. In any case, she was looking less like death by the second so how badly could the fall have messed her up? Really.

"Friend huh?" Blaise noted the way the colour spread across her face at the mention of this 'friend', all the more intrigued because of it. "Must be some friend to make you give up on personal safety." And he miiiight have been browing as if insinuating more. "What sort of things did he get up to before coming back?" The polite thing to do would have been to take one look at the blush and realize this conversation was over buuuuuut...he wasn't polite? Or rather, he was until it came to finding out information.

Dora's question had him twisting just a little to reach for the book he'd discarded. [b]"Just studying. Figured I might as well take this OWL thing seriously. Kinda have to if I wanna have any sort of life when summer rolls around.

Well.

This would be entertaining.

Sam watched the scene unfold before him: Brent falling victim to a rather ungraceful wipe-out, and the other boy getting all Ravenclaw about figuring out what it was instead of stopping what had just pelted him in the face. The Gryffindor couldn't help but chuckle to himself.

But now he was getting some accusatory looks, so he scooped Taco up and slipped him into his pocket before approaching his schoolmates.

"Spell practice gone awry," Sam explained with economy. He smiled. "I'd hate to see what might happen to you lot when something more dangerous than charmed ink comes your way." What, with their reactions.

After the past three years at Hogwarts, Rula was mostly used to the amount of stairs she had to climb up to get to each floor. Mostly. Sometimes, like today, it seemed like there were more than usual, and it was TIRING. Especially when she was carrying a lot of books in her bag. She'd almost considered turning around, but she really wanted to spend some time in the tower patch in the Astronomy tower, so she was determined to push through.

By the time she'd reached the seventh floor though, she needed a break. So she stepped to the side to make sure she wasn't in anyone's way, then slipped her bag off her shoulder.

Ahhh...much better.

Phew. Etta gave a loud sound of relief as she finally reached the seventh floor corridor. She never came up here that often unless it was for class or for the bakery room with the delicious cupcakes. But this time, it was just for the exercise. Seemed like a bad idea though because she was already starting to feel hungry. Meh.

She leaned back against the wall, suddenly noticing that there was someone else close-by. Etta looked over at the other girl curiously, wondering if they had ever met before? Not really. She didn't think so, anyway. Hm.

"Hi."