Originally Posted by aussiegirl

"Well gee thanks Jake, for a moment there I thought I had made a good impression on you" Marcus replied wryly but he was grinning. He knew he had a lot to learn when it came to kids.

Females were weird even Marcus had to agree with that and they didn't necessarily get better with age either. Of course he had once been in a band and had been quite weird himself so he couldn't really talk. "Don't bother trying to work them out Jake, just go with the flow. That's my advice. Of course I have the worst track record when it comes to females so maybe my advice might not be the best." He looked at Jake and then burst out laughing, he was sitting here talking about girls with a soon to be thirteen year old. He really was weird.

Marcus looked at his dismal attempt at a braid and then threw it at Jake laughing. "Well I can't be good at everything now can I?" He snorted as he flopped back onto the grass and looked up at the sky. "Man I haven't been in camping in years. We should do that when we go to the beach."

Originally Posted by imaginarynumb3rs

Feeling slightly less worried as Jake disconfirmed her question, Wesley still was pretty unconvinced. Allergies could be life-endangering... For a minute she considered persisting, but then figured it wasn't going to do anything good. Just make Jake angry. And then where would they be? Back to square one with him hating her.

Taking his offer and joining him on the ground, knees held up close to her body with her chin resting on top of them, Wesley stared at the fire, thinking about nothing and everything in between.

So when he asked her how she was doing, the Hufflepuff was caught a bit off guard, "Ummm...I guess I’m feeling…okay?" It wasn't as though she was good, still a bit jittery after the incident, and she wasn't awful either. In the back of her head, something seemed off about his question, but she was too tired to analyze it any further.

And then the DADA professor appeared. Returning his smile with a shy, close lipped, one of her own, Wesley turned her eyes to the ground. She really liked Professor Lawson, he was very nice, but…he was also kind of scary. So tall and big and professional and intimidating. He was a giant compared to her, plus he sort-of had this rugged out-law look that set her on edge.

Obviously she hadn’t been looking at the grass as well as she thought she had, because when Jake pulled out his knife to cut an apple the small Hufflepuff went rigid. Knifes where very frightening; in fact, on a list of things that scared Wesley most, they where probably right around broomsticks, heights, snakes, and the letters D and Q. Shoulder’s clenched forward and resisting the urge to run, Wesley remained still, looking anywhere else but Jake. Anxiety shooting through the roof, her fear was now spreading beyond the idea of being cut herself by the thought of her accidentally bumping Jake and cutting him. Just. Stay. Still, she told herself carefully.

Too busy trying to stay safe, Wesley hardly heard much of the conversation until Jake mentioned getting slapped. Looking at him out of the corner of her eye, she couldn’t quite see the bruise because he was showing it to the teacher on his other side. Biting her lip, her stomach hurt with the worry she had been trying to ignore. She still thought he needed to see the nurse. Or something. Almost ready to continue her observation of the grass, which appeared to be slightly dull green and not too overgrown, Wesley still managed to somehow catch the professor’s look aimed right at her. Face beet red, she felt ashamed and awfully embarrassed. He assumed her to be the attacker. Not blaming him, after all she had almost thought it had been her fault before she learned it had been Jake’s girlfriend, Wesley could only blame herself. If she wasn’t always hurting her fellow Hufflepuff, people wouldn’t always be assuming the worst.

Shooting Jake a grateful look as he shook his head, misinterpreting it as: “No she didn’t hit me” instead of “No she’s not by girlfriend” (even if the two where one in the same- all this relationship business went straight over her head unless bluntly stated); Wesley was relieved to at least have him to back her up. Obviously since he denied the fact that she hit him that would be enough proof for the teacher.

Eager to move on to the next topic (and almost 100% positive the knife was out of the picture), Wesley listened as Jake and Professor Lawson talked about hair. She liked Jake’s pink hair. It was very…pretty. And it made it easy to tell him apart from all the other boys. She was still so overwhelmed by the vast student population, it was probably going to take a AT LEAST year or two to meet everyone. Switching her general visual intake to the professor’s head, Wesley tried to spot the gray hair he was so positive existed. She didn’t see any, but maybe it was just the smoke from the fire that clouded her vision.

That was a topic she could at least follow, but this next one, it was WAY out-in-orbit. Trying to follow these kinds of complex things was like trying to figure out why some people’s second toes where bigger than their big toe and why some people’s weren’t. Wesley didn’t get it. And more importantly, she had a strange feeling she didn’t want to (not that it wouldn’t be nice to understand the difference in second toe sizes). And this thing about girls being so important, she didn’t like that. She didn’t like the idea of being revolved around like the sun. It was creepy. But Professor Lawson was referring to boys, not girls. “Umm, sir? Is it the same way with ladies?” . Wesley hoped not. It was bad enough worrying about everyone. Worrying even more about males would make life so much more complicated. And it would give her a big headache. Wesley didn’t like headaches. They hurt.

Listening to Jake’s comment on the subject, Wesley didn’t mind in the slightest she wasn’t on the “list”. Just as long as he didn’t hate her she was good. But she did feel some conflicting emotions on the whole hair-pulling thing. Wesley really liked Reese. And she really liked Jake. She couldn’t figure out why he’d want to yank out all her hair. Unless she did something mean. But Reese wasn’t mean. She was nice. When Wesley grew up, she wanted to be just like her. And Mariel. And Sarah. And her Arithmancy professor. And Brenna at Gringotts. And that girl named Cela who shared her book. They where all so amazing. Maybe one day Wesley’d be amazing too.

And if that topic wasn’t slightly awkward, the next one was on a whole other level. Now they where talking about favorites. Wesley didn’t like this. It wasn’t because she wanted to be the DADA teacher’s favorite. That would be so uncomfortable. It was because she felt bad for all the others who wanted to be but weren’t. She was glad nobody else was listening to this conversation. The tiny girl was good at keeping secrets, but that didn’t mean other people weren’t. And what about that gossip thing, Asparagus was it? Boy, if they heard about this the whole school’d be in an uproar. People would probably be jealous of Jake. Which leads to hatred. Which leads to him getting hurt. The almost-13-year-old had enough on his plate. He didn’t need any extra drama. Or at least, Wesley thought so.