The Bronze Knocker
 

For Shan!
 

Okay. So. She had been super busy lately, but never too busy to go find the boyfriend. Well, actually she was sitting in the corridor outside of his common room waiting for him to come out. He had to at some point,right? To bide her time the girl was reading a history book while she waited. TWO BIRDS WITH ONE STONE AS IT WAS!

She was certain that there was some information that she could use to help herself better prepare for her upcoming challenges... but also she just kind of dug history, okay?! Being deep into a chapter she didn't bother looking up for a while. This was fascinating... there had been a Triwizard tounrament while her mother was at school... and the champions had to fight a cockatrice? Scary stuff. But this wasn't Triwizard, right? So maybe she wouldn't have to fight a giant chicken dragon bird thing. But if she did... she had a leg up now!

And then there had been that weird quiz bowl thing that happened. So that was more academic. Ugh. This was driving her CRAZY! In her frustration, the girl snapped her book closed and shoved it off into the floor. HORRIBLE BOOK WAS NO HELP! Cue a pouting Dora.

"I'll play Scrabble with you later, Ringo. I have to go return some books." Rooney laughed, leaving his common room and the Stemp boy behind for right now. He'd be back later for that board game that the two had taken up recently in all of Rooney's study breaks. You know...the ones that didn't match up with Olivia's breaks or him spending time with Katy or playing chess with Brinlee. For now, he needed a breather from the Ravenclaw tower and from the faces that looked to him for advice all day every day.

Greeted with the 'silence' of the busy castle reverberating up to the seventh floor, Roo breathed a sigh of relief as he made sure that the textbooks were in his satchel to take back to the library.

Speaking of books... one came skidding across the floor to his feet and he looked between it and the direction it came from, smile setting in one his face as he leaned down to pick it up. "Fed up of your own end of the seventh floor, Miss Dora?"

Dora heard the boy's voice as he exited the common room, but she didn't look up until she heard her name. And the MISS in front of it was tell tale Rooney Bronwyn. And that cute little first year called her Miss Dora also. It was endearing, really.

"I was waiting for Casper to come out. Did you see him in there?" The Greenwood boy, not the ghost. Har har. "Is it okay if I loiter here, Head Boy?" she asked with a grin up at him. She didn't mean it to be offensive. She was glad he and Rula were the head people, after all. Reaching for the book she sighed a bit. "I was trying to do some studying." Of sorts.

Patting the floor next to her she was clearly inviting him to sit with her if he wanted. Otherwise she was just going to... well stay right there doing the same thing she was before he came along.

Passing the book back, Rooney moved to sit beside Dora with a little groan. All these old bones of his were struggling with the getting up and down on the floor...or maybe that was just the level of how exhausted he was given all of the things he had going on right now. Not nearly as much as he could have had, but his negative feelings about everything competition related were...being ignored enough for them to not plague him during the day and only keep him awake at night. "Greenwood? Haven't seen him in about an hour. Heard him say something about checking his homework against something in the library." Or maybe that had been another student. Ravenclaws mentioning the library blurred together to him some days.

Today was one of those days, clearly.

He took a look at the book she had been looking through and raised an eyebrow. "Need help studying?"

The Head Boy got an amused look as he groaned before sitting down beside her. He was always ON wasn't he? She was certain that his joints didn't ache like an eighty year old man. But if they did, she could probably find him a potion to help that, yo.

"Sounds about right. I'll find him when he comes back round I guess, " she said as she drummed her nails on the book in her lap. You know, since Rooney had been awesome enough to get it for her. Her mind wandered to the lingering awkwardness that had plagued she and Casper after the boat incident in the Maldives. Ugh. She needed to stop Gryffindoring so hard.

Shaking herself from her thoughts she gave a one shouldered shrug thing. "I'm looking for any clues whatsoever that might help me during the challenge thing. And I have a essay due for History of Magic, so that's a thing, too. NEWT level classes are stupid hard and I have a lot on my plate. " Not as much as him, for sure, but for the girl who wasn't much of a joiner she definitely had more than usual going on.

Heh.

"But how about we do something fun instead? " Yeah. THAT sounded more interesting. And she needed a bit of a break also.

Did the BRONWYN boy want to go start a fire mayhaps?

Rooney laughed at the mention of NEWT level classes and nodded, patting the satchel full of textbooks that he had with him. "Tell me about it. I think I'm likely to have a break down before my exams happen." He paired the comment with a sad sort of smile, almost asking her not to repeat what he had said because it wasn't something that he voiced to many people...even those closest to him, blood-wise and love-wise.

Eyebrow raised, the boy looked up and down the corridor nearby and nodded. "Only if your idea of fun is actually fun, Miss Dora. I can't go getting myself into trouble. I'm already on thin ice." With the world.

Dora patted his hand as he spoke. Leaning in she gave him a conspiratorial glance and lowered her voice, "I have a full scale meltdown last term. Even went home for a few weeks before OWLs. I understand. " And it was true. She had come back in time to take the exams, but she had burnt herself out so hard... she didn't even want to think about NEWTs. Ugh.

"Now, Roo... when have I ever gotten in trouble? " Legit question was legit, tho. THE ANSWER WAS NEVER. Getting up quickly she held her hand out to the head boy. "It's time to teach you how to Gryffindor! "

Rooney gave Dora a quick look of confusion at the confession that she had gone home early before her exams before of the stress, and then he frowned. "Miss Dora... I'm sorry that things got like that for you.." In fact, it broke his heart that such a good person had got into such a mess. In that sense, he was reminded of the state that Olivia was no doubt going to get herself into when she carried on studying at a rate large enough to keep up with what she thought he needed. "Please come to me if it gets like that again..." Even when he wasn't at Hogwarts, he would only be one letter away.

Taking her hand, Rooney pulled himself up to stand and found a laugh deep in his throat. "No injuries, okay?"

A smile moved across her features as the boy spoke. "Thanks, Rooney. I just... things get real hard sometimes, but I always get through it, " she said softly. Very few people in her life knew she had some... issues from time to time.

Nothing major.

"I can't make that promise, but I can assure you there won't be any permanent damage, at least? " Hehe. Tugging the boy along with her she began to speed down the corridor gripping his hand tightly.

"Any fears, irrational or otherwise, that I need to be aware of? "