A Late Night[open]

[skye]

All was quiet in the Gryffindor common room. Nearly everyone had gone up to bed. The only source of light in the room was two things: the glow of the dying embers and a lamp on one of the desks by the window. The table this lamp was on was covered with scrolls and books, only about half of them done. One lone second year sat with her head on her arms, sky blue hair all amess. Shoulders rose and fell softly like the sighing of the wind.

Skye had been working on that week's homework. Why it was called homework when it wasn't really home was a mystery. It should more accurately be called dormwork. What it was called was hardly the point, though. The point was that she'd fallen asleep, and the unfinished half was what was due in the morning.

[Shendeth Potter]

It was easy enough to sneak into the Gryffindor common room. All you had to do was hide behind the conveniently placed suit of armor at the end of the corridor outside, listen for someone saying the password, and come back later wearing normal clothes with no House identification. Without that and considering all the students that came through here, and especially in the dark and this late at night, the half-asleep ugly lady in the picture had no thought that he wasn't one of her regulars and paid him no mind.

Shendeth stopped when the door swung shut behind him, but everything was quiet. Silence was safe. He slipped quietly out into the dimly lit room. It wasn't the first time he'd seen it, but he still looked around with distaste. At an unsettling height in the tower and quite a walk from the more frequently used part of the school, the many red and gold armchairs and furnishings gave it a very old-fashioned and stuffy feel to him. At least it was empty.

Having been looking around instead of at the floor of the unfamiliar room, he didn't know a heavy book had been left on the floor until he tripped over it. Shendeth was able to reach out and grab hold of a table before falling onto the worn carpet, but in doing so shook the table, therefore waking the room's only other occupant. The fourth year hadn't noticed her at first. He drew back but upon a closer look at her didn't worry. She was a younger student, second year by her books, who he hadn't seen before. He didn't know many of the second years in the common room he should be in so nothing suspicious there, without uniform and being in here she couldn't know or say that he wasn't a Gryffindor.

"Sorry." It couldn't hurt to act it though.

[skye]

Usually, Skye was slept like the dead. Her roommates often had to literally push her out of bed to wake her up in the morning. But not this night. On this night in particularly, she was having one of those adrenaline-type dreams. It wasn't a nightmare persay. It was more of an adventure. She was running, not away from something, but towards something. She saw a glowing... thing in the distane. Unlike other dreams, the more she ran, the closer she got.

Green eyes squinted to see what it was. "A silver dagger?" she questioned, blinking as her voice echoed. She realized she was in a cave. A shiver ran down her back suddenly, and she instinctively grasped the glowing blade and twirled it in her hands, looking around for whatever she thought was watching.

The ground suddenly shook, and Skye jolted upwards with a paper stuck to her forehead. "Earthquake!" she squeaked, looking around wildly.

[Shendeth Potter]

Well, that did nothing to reduce his conviction that all Gryffindorks were idiots. Though Shendeth almost laughed at the sight of her. The second year's blue hair would be easy to spot in a crowd if he ever ran into her again. Or tried not to. Not that getting caught by her was anything to worry about. He didn't care and would just threaten her. Earthquake, pshht he wasn't that clumsy.

"No, it's not." he said. So shut it before somebody gets up. He looked down at her in a bored and disdainful way. Shendeth didn't want to rouse somebody who did know him and have to run when he had just got here. He waited for the girl to fully wake up and come to her senses, leaning against a chair to try to look at home.

[skye]

Skye stared blankly at the newcomer before her mind caught up with his words. She sighed in relief before looking around and furrowing her eyebrows. "Huh... Where did everyone go? I swear I was only out for a few minutes..." She looked at the clock and discovered she'd been asleep for quite a few hours. Instead of freaking out, she just sighed and shrugged. "Oh well. If I don't get this done before dawn, I'll just fake sickness and/or skip the class."

She leaned back on her chair, balancing on the back legs, before looking over the boy in front of her. She blinked and tilted her head, looking him over for a second. "I've seen you around, I think, but I can't place your name. Do we have any classes together?" Without waiting for him to answer, she shrugged. "It must not be an important class if I don't remember which one you're in. Maybe it's History of Magic? I sleep in that class all of the time."

[Shendeth Potter]

Heh, the girl seemed kinda weird with her talking to herself. But at least she didn't mind skipping class. It seemed like she was rememberable, only he didn't really remember her, so maybe she wasn't someone who needed to be picked on despite her age and House.

"Who doesn't sleep in that class? But no, I doubt it. I'm in fourth year." Classes were separated by year in addition to House so they wouldn't have any together. He would have noticed otherwise, though it would be difficult indeed to say who he had History of Magic with. The girl must have seen him in the Great Hall or the library or something instead.

"I'm Harry. Harry Potter. And you are?" he said the first name that came to mind, just in case. Yes, voice of reason, you were only supposed to be able to do that with your identical twin and not polar opposite. So what. She wasn't one of Harry's friends so it wouldn't make any difference.

[skye]

Skye didn't hear the name he gave. She didn't hear anything beyond the fact that he was a fourth year. She stared up at him with wide green eyes that sparkled with hope. Here was a student that already knew the answers, had already been through what she was going through! "Could you help me finish this? Please please please? You're older than me, so you must already know all of this! You said you're in fourth year, so you much already be smarter than me! I mean, psh, not like that's all that hard. Rowan still refuses to let me forget that I got into an argument and the broom won."

She huffed and glared at the scroll in front of her like it was the bane of her existence. Of course, at that moment, she probably thought it was. With a growl, she grumbled, "Stupid transfiguration... When the hell are we ever going to find the purpose of transfiguring a perfectly good pillow into a pain in the ass porcupine? Seriously, that's like the ultimate oxymoron right there, don't you think?"

[Shendeth Potter]

Shendeth stared at her. Yes he was a fourth year, and a smart one too. He wasn't so arrogant as to claim being the best in the year but he was still pretty good. Her homework was something he certainly should know how to do. But there was one small problem there. Helping little Gryffindorks wasn't something he did, give them hell was more like it. And in being here he had no intention of changing his ways. This was not part of the plan.

However he wasn't here to start a fight either and would only curse her if he really had to, not here in her own territory where it would be suspicious. And from her remarkably short attention span and the way she acted and looked at him he got the feeling that she wouldn't leave him alone until he agreed, no matter how forcefully he said no. So if she really insisted on being a pain he'd just give her the wrong answers and hope she made it quick. No big deal.

But he had to act like he'd give her the right ones, and if he would do so he'd need persuading. "Well, I could." Shendeth glared down at her with dark green eyes of his own, black in this light, giving her a look that clearly said, but why should I. "You're right, it'll be easy for me." he looked at the books around her. "How much do you have to do?" Haha.

[skye]

Skye looked down at her homework with narrowed eyes. She'd only gotten two things done before she'd fallen asleep. Now she had only had two more assignments to go. She finally sighed and just shook her head. "I have two more, but I only feel like doing the potions essay, so..." She took the transfiguration paper, walked over to the dimly glowing embers of the fire, and threw it in. She had to poke it a few times, but it finally caught fire and shriveled into a charred husk. "I can skip Transfiguration. It's almost as useless as History of Magic."

She walked back to her seat and plopped down with less grace than a drunk ogre and pulled out a half-finished potions essay. "We need the ingredients, side-effects, and main effect of a potion called... Aging Potion?" She sighed and shook her head. "Damn, this is one of those 'the name speaks for itself' things, isn't it?"

[Shendeth Potter]

Shendeth watched her without saying anything. He didn't like Transfiguration much either, but wasn't really interested enough to care. Until she finally got to asking about the Aging Potion. "Oh yeah, I know that one." That at least was true; Potions was his best subject of course. He nodded. "It makes you look older depending on how much you drink. Side effects would be.. back aches." Haha, well it didn't sound too impossible, though she looked like the type who would believe anything.

He paused then as if trying to remember. "Ingredients.. dandelion root, knotgrass, doxy eggs, crushed scarab beetles.. and eye of newt." he listed some ingredients convincingly. It wasn't supposed to be a complicated potion after all. A few things put together simply, not too hard for a student of his level to remember. At least one that paid attention. Which he actually did most of the time. "Is that it?" Shendeth asked with a slight yawn. No was not an option.

[skye]

Tiredness, exhaustion, and the late night was making Skye's temper shorter than usual. "If I knew off of the top of my head, I wouldn't be asking you what they were, would I?" she retorted, quickly jotting down the ingredients the boy in front of her used. "And I sure as hell ain't looking them up just to see if you're right. I don't particularly care if you're wrong or not. The only reason I even do homework at all is to make my bloody mother happy." She scowled at the thought of her frill-loving mother. "Do your parents ever push you to do something you don't want to do...?" She blinked, realizing she didn't catch his name. "I'm sorry, what's your name again?"

[Shendeth Potter]

Shendeth crossed his arms. "I know you don't. I meant to ask if that was all you had to do. But why bother to ask me at all if you don't care?" Just because he was pretending to help didn't mean he would let her snap at him like that. This was a complete waste of time; there was no way he was going to do any more of her homework for her. Really he just wished she would go away. He wasn't going to be stuck here because of some annoying second year.

However, unlike her he could control the appearance of impatience. "Of course they do, that's what parents are for." People with normal families complained about that all the time, didn't they? Parents making them do stuff. At least her parents probably cared about her. Due to the difference he didn't care what his own thought of him anymore. "My name's Harry Potter. What's yours?" He had already said this once and wasn't saying it again.