It seemed Nerida was not going to learn her lesson about tossing things in the corridors though instead of a book it was the ball that she used with Laura when they were doing their Charms homework. Tossing it up she caught it. The fifth time she threw it up into the air it hit the ceiling and then hit the floor and back and forth.

She tried catching it but realized it wasn't going to happen. Taking out her wand she did the wand movement and said "Arresto Momentum!" slowing the ball down she ran after it and caught it. Thank goodness for this spell!

Tora walked along, a tad bored, and trying to open doors along the corridor at random. She needed something to do since she had finished all her homework and didn't have a class at the moment so... she went exploring the sixth floor. So far, she hadn't gotten very far, as most of the doors were locked (even to her handy dandy Alohomora spell), and she was now only trying them half heartedly. Sigh. She really needed something to do...

Kace was looking around for something to do. He wanted to take a break from homework and go exploring. He was wandering down the sixth floor corridor since he never explored here before. He was walking around till he noticed a young girl around his age he guessed. He smiled and went over to her.

"Hey you having trouble there?" he asked when she was trying the Alohomora spell.

Tora had been so focused in her attempts at getting open the doors that she didn't notice the boy who walked up behind her. [b]"Oh!" she started, popping up from where she had now been trying to pick the lock with a paperclip after the spell didn't work. Of course she had no clue how to pick a lock, but that didn't matter, she felt cool trying to do it. Devilish. Exciting. Not at all boring or bored like she was before.

She turned to face the newcomer and smiled right back. "Well, I can't seem to get this door, or all the others, open on this corridor, no matter what I try!" she said gesturing with the paperclip in one hand and her wand in the other.

Wait, this boy looked familiar, and about her age... "Are you in my year?" she asked suddenly, trying to place where she had seen him before. Oh and while you're at it answer these other questions for me. "You're Hufflepuff, right? Do you have any ideas about the doors?" she asked figuring that since the boy had asked, she might as well stay on the topic of the doors before deviating too far from the subject. She turned back to the door, kicked the bottom of it lightly then started off down the corridor towards the next one, gesturing as she went for him to follow. "I'm Tora Gallaway, by the way. Nice to meet ya," she gave another smile over her shoulder and stopped infront of the next door. "Alohomora!" she said again.

Kace looked at the paperclip and her tries to pick the locks. He grinned at her and liked her attempts. "Hmmm lemme give it a shot. May i?" he asked motioning her to give the paperclip. He used it and then tried to pick the lock. It seemed impossible. "This-is-really-hard.."he said through gritted teeth. "I think the headmistress bewitched them all or something." he said finally giving up.

He even tried to use his wand to make sure, "Alohomora!" he said and then nothing happened. "Huh...well i guess we can probably try another corridor." he said with a shrug. Then he saw the girl looking at her strangely. He stood back a little bit and she asked if he was in her year. He gave her a quizzical look and said, "If you mean second year then yes i am." he gave her a grin. Then she asked if he was a hufflepuff and he chuckled and joked with her. "Why yes i am. Is it that easy to tell?"

She asked if he had any ideas about doors. "Umm not really, i am not the door master. I wish i was then i would have been able to break into my cousins room and steal stuff." he said honestly. Then the girl said her name. He gave her a cheery smile and replied, "I am Kace. Kace Lecium. Nice to meet ya too." he nodded towards her. Man this girl was really determined to get these doors open. Then he had a few questions for her.

"Which house are you in?" he asked her curiously. He might have thought gryffindor but he could be wrong. "Are you trying to be the door master?" he asked jokingly.

Tora looked on as the boy fiddled with the doors too. "Told you, they wont budge!" she said giving the next door a kick too. If there was one thing she couldn't stand, it was when her curiosity was stopped by some barrier she could not (at the moment) get through. When the boy mentioned that he was in second year, Tora gave another smile. "Me too! I thought you looked my age." she had also finally remembered where she had seen him before. It was last Divination class she was positive this boy had been sitting near her. Now they had been properly introduced! As for his Puffer question, honestly, he could be a tad more observant. "I just noticed what you were wearing," she said simply, gesturing to his robes. Besides, he had been sitting with a Badger when she had first met him in class.

Kace... Kace... She had heard that name before. "You're one of Forrest's friends," she vaguely remembered a conversation with Forrest where his name came up, and now she got to meet the real guy! Another grin when he asked her some questions. "I'm Ravenclaw, curious to the end!" she laughed lightly at his joke. "I wish. If I was the Door Master, I could go anywhere in the school and it would be awesome," she sighed and bent down to try to see what was under the door she was currently examining. She had thought she had heard some bumps and creaks behind it and was (surprise) curious as to what was making the noise.

"Yeah they won't budge it is really annoying!" he said trying to make the door open but it was NO use. These babies were like anti lock proof or something. "I feel like they are student proofed or something." he said looking at the door and he was out of breath.

"Oh yeah we do look kind of similar in age." he said agreeing with her. "We are still like the babies of the school." he shrugged. "But wait till our third year and then we can finally be somewhat adults." he smiled. "Oh right.." he said looking down at his robes. "Well kudos to you for being observant. Obviously today i am oblivious." he joked with her with a chuckle. Then when she mentioned Forrest, Kace smiled and said, "Yeah i know Forrest! He is a pretty cool dude!" He meant it. He remembered hanging out with him one time and they ran into centaurs. But that story was for another day. Then he wondered when he met her and she did look familiar. "Hey Tora didn't we meet in a divination lesson one time?" he asked her making sure he wasn't crazy.

Now things made sense. "Ah your a ravenclaw. Now the curiosity is making sense." he grinned at her. Even when she mentioned it he saw her robes now. But ah well, it was nice to ask right? He laughed at her door master remark. "I wish i could be the door master too. You know what that can be our goal this term. To try unlock every door, what you say?" he asked her. It was more like a challenge but he felt like they could handle it.

"Did you hear creaking...?" he asked pointing to the door she was near.

Olly was sitting on the floor of an empty corridor with her back against the wall and her wand in her hands. She twirled it around, her eyes following the movement absently. What with everything that was going on, she hadn't really had a lot of time to focus on studying. At least not the practical parts. She'd spent waaay too much time with her textbooks, thank you, Els.

Only because she could absently stare at them and pretend to be studying, though.

While she wasn't all too ambitious about her OWLs, Olly had to realize that she did in fact need to pass her Charms OWL. She didn't need the NEWT necessarily but she should at least pass her OWL. Which required her to actually perform spells though. And the exam wasn't that far away either. That was why she was now sitting here staring down at her wand.

Mo didn't have much reason to hang out on the sixth floor, since he was officially in Transfiguration avoidance mode, but that didn't mean he didn't pass by it on a daily basis. Pass by it and occasionally pass through it, especially since there was an underutilized boys' bathroom on the sixth floor that never had first years mucking around in the toilets like idiots.

There was almost never anyone sitting in the middle of a corridor staring at her wand like it held the secrets of the universe, though, and so Mo approached with some caution. It was that girl, the one who had commentated his last game with Odessa, and she... was she quite well?

"Hullo? Are you... hmm. Are you injured, or just looking for a quiet spot? 'Cause if it's the first, then do you want help? But if it's the second, then I'll just... go... that way." He pointed down the corridor helpfully.

Olly had heard the approaching footsteps but didn't really care enough to look up to see who it was. They'd just walk past her, yeah? And if not she'd just ignore them long enough until they went away. Sounded like the perfect plan. So instead of checking who was coming down the corridor she simply continued to stare at her wand. Which she'd now given a spin on the floor. Why was she so stressed out about this whole OWLs business anyway? Though maybe it wasn't just th-

.........sigh.

OF COURSE the person stopped to talk to her. Of course. Why did nobody mind their own business anymore? At first she was tempted to simply going with the ignoring-option but since he'd actually suggested going the other way himself... "I'm not injured so you can just-" She'd finally looked up and stopped talking mid-sentence. Mo. Interesting. "Huh. It's you." That was probably a very strange thing to say but Olly didn't care.

She straightened up slightly, her eyes still lingering on him, a rather unreadable smirk playing around her lips. "I'm not injured but you can still stay." For now anyway.

Had they ever been properly introduced? Mo knew that the girl was called Olivia, and sometimes Olly, and she was a Hufflepuff, and she was a pro at that smirking face she was making right now. And that... was all he knew. He hadn't really had a proper conversation with her, and surely she didn't even know who he was amongst all the many many students at Hogwarts she needed to meet.

So what did 'it's you' mean, anyway?

Mo crouched until he was at her level, carefully avoiding the wand on the floor, and he offered her a hand. "Marcus Branxton. They call me Mo, but I don't care if you do or not. We have some classes together. And..." She was willing to let him stay, but he didn't want to intrude. Plus the sixth floor gave him bad feels. Super bad feels. Animals were tortured on this floor. "I don't want to bother. You're obviously... doing something here."

Whatever it was. He didn't leave, though. Not just yet.

....hi. Now she didn't have to look UP at him anymore.

Olly quickly placed her hand on top of her wand to make it stop spinning. "I know." She knew what his name was. And his hand was extended towards her? That seemed way too formal seeing as they'd been going to the same school for a few months now. After a moment of not moving at all, she decided to just go with it though and shake his hand briefly. Weird.

Her eyes remained on his face as she regarded him quite curiously for another moment. "You should sit down." She wasn't doing anything really, no. So he might as well stay. To be honest, she'd been wanting to talk to him for quite some time now. She was curious about him. Mainly because of West. He...had a pretty face too, but Cat. Yes. Also something told her that he could be quite irritating to be around. So probably not worth the effort.

So for now her interest in Mo only extended to his relationship with West.

Mo really had every intention of leaving, but he also had a Ravenclaw brain that was trying to figure out The Mystery Of the Hufflepuff in the Hallway. So he sat down right where he crouched, in the middle of the hallway with his legs stretched out toward her. Olly, right? Or no, because she hadn't invited him to call her that.

She hadn't invited him to call her ANYthing, actually.

So why had she invited him to sit? "So." He was normally really excellent at conversation with strangers, but this stranger was unnerving. "What are you doing up here? Not hiding, I don't think, because you strike me as the sort who doesn't get seen unless she wants to be seen. This is a rubbish place to hide." He regarded her with open interest.

Oh good. He'd sat down. She smirked at him approvingly. Good boy. Though her expression turned slightly irritated when he started talking. And asking a question. And partly answering said question himself. "I'm not hiding, no." Because, as he'd just so helpfully pointed out, HERE would be a really bad place to hide. In plain sight. Also why would she be hiding? From whom?

No, she had her hiding spots when needed and this was definitely not one of them.

Though he HAD asked her a question and she'd decided that conversation was the best way to go about this. So she answered the first thing that came to her mind. Which turned out to be a truthful answer to his question even. "I was just thinking about how I'm going to pass my Charms OWL." She picked up her wand at this and placed it on the floor next to her so it wouldn't get broken.

"What are you doing here?" Returning the question seemed appropriate. She continued to regard him curiously.

"Just walking," Mo shrugged and leaned back on his hands, taking up way more space across the corridor than was strictly necessary. Maybe it was a male thing, wanting to take up as much space as possible, but he liked to do it on the sofa in the common room too. Especially if it meant shoving over Dora or Vesper and annoying them.

"I was getting a snack, thought I'd cut across the sixth floor to the other staircase, and this is about the most boring story ever so..." He shrugged again. Story over. She should ask for a more interesting one next time and give him a chance to prove he wasn't a complete bore.

"Charms shouldn't be too bad. I'm more concerned about Transfiguration and History of Magic, since we've seen so many professors and teaching styles over the past few terms. It's hard to get a sense for the subject when you keep having to relearn how to function by someone else's rules." It sounded awfully complainy, so Mo flashed a brief smile to soften his words. "I could help. With Charms, I mean."

Getting a snack...taking a shortcut...Olly really wasn't that interested in the reason why he was here. Especially not if it wasn't even an interesting one. Boooring. Though at least Mo had seemed to realize exactly that a second later. Huh. That earned him another smirk. As well as a curious look. Though she hadn't stopped watching him since the moment he'd arrived so the change was probably unnoticable.

He liked to talk, didn't he? Olly just continued to watch him, a little absently now. She'd stopped paying attention somewhere around him telling her about the different professors they'd had. However, her eyes properly focused on his face again when he said something about following someone else's rules. "I just have my own rules." That was probably so not the point Mo was trying to make but whatever.

It was clear she wasn't talking about classroom rules, yeah? Probably not, though.

And then he offered to help with Charms. "Yeah...I don't think so." What was he going to do? Tutor her in how to properly hold her wand? Also she wasn't quite sure what to make of him just randomly offering to help her either. They weren't friends, they hardly even knew each other. Ravenclaws...

Y'know what was interesting? Olly-Olivia gave off the appearance of being a deeply interesting and complicated person. It was the smirk that did it, provoking a response in the other person of wanting to fill in all the blanks. She could be totally silent and the other person felt the burden of conversation all on their own.

It was pretty clever, actually. But the interesting thing was that Olly-Olivia was actually kind of boring. The truth was that she had nothing to say. Mo kinda felt sorry for her, which was why he didn't up and leave when she shut conversational door after conversational door.

Also he didn't leave 'cause it was rude. "Just having your own rules is harder sometimes. You end up punishing yourself for no reason." He leaned back on his hands and regarded Olivia openly. Nothing sly at all in his gaze. "Why did you tell me to sit?"

.....wait, what? What had he...hang on.

.......

"....what?" His words completely threw her for a moment. Olly even leaned back slightly, looking at him through narrowed eyes. What was he talking about? Why had he said that? What...this sounded so much like...but...WHAT? She glared at him just because while trying to make sense of the sudden influx of thoughts and theories that threatened to overwhelm her.

Usually she would have had a witty reply to this. Something like how living according to someone else's rules also led to somebody else deciding the punishment. But right now, she just sat there glaring at Mo. She'd get back to him about that. Maybe send him a howler or something. Or sneak into his dorm at night and right her reply on his face with permanent marker.

"I actually wish I hadn't." Told him to sit, that is.

Her reaction was totally unexpected, and Mo sat back with wide eyes as Olly-Olivia fish-faced at him. What exactly was so surprising to her about his response? Wasn't it sort of a given? The point of any rule was to create boundaries. If you created your own boundaries, then you were likely doing it knowing full well the reason. And breaking your own rule, knowing full well the reason, led to guilt and self recrimination.

Mo knew, 'cause he made his own rules all the time. And because his best friend was West, and no one could beat himself up like a West.

Wait, though... she wished she hadn't asked him to sit? What had he done? Mo blinked at Olly before shrugging. "Okay, then." He rolled back to his feet and shoved his hands into his pockets. "Good luck with your Charms work. Sorry about... whatever." Since he wasn't sure why he'd offended... but he was still sorry he'd done so.

Breaaathe, Olly, breeeathe

She even closed her eyes for a moment. No, it was fine. Everything was fine. Letting her guard down like that in front of...well, basically a stranger was NOT good. She really needed to calm down and put her walls back up so things like that did NOT get to her. Stupid school. Stupid people who went to this school. What Mo had said had just surprised her. It was too close to what she was in fact worried about. Breaking her own rules.....was it really that bad that she HAD broken them?

Only hearing someone else say it wasn't really something she appreciated.

And then Mo was back on his feet again. Olly looked up at him, her face back to being almost passive again. "Yeah..." He apologized without saying what for so that didn't really count as an apology. Just saying. "You still want to know why I asked you to sit down?" She didn't wait for an answer but instead smirked slightly. "I wanted to know why you called West a git at the match." Curious, that was what she was. Merely curious.

She leaned her back against the wall again, still watching him. Just to answer his question. If he wanted to he could still leave. She wasn't about to cling to his legs, begging him to stay.

Some girls in particular were built to confuse. Alice was included in this category, although Mo was getting to be pretty good at understanding her by now, and it appeared Olly was the queen of all confusing women. Which was upsetting, because that meant she was ousting Dora from being queen, and he wanted Dora to win.

Mo struggled for a moment, waffling on the whole issue of whether or not he should stay or go. She didn't invite him to stay or sit back down, but she restarted the conversation, which was essentially the same thing. He did not sit, although Mo crouched again and gave Olly solemn faces.

"I thought everyone knew about that. We used to be best friends, but now he hates me and won't talk to me at all. I shouldn't have called him anything, not in public like that. I know what it's like to have someone call you a name you don't deserve and can't defend yourself from." Another generous lesson from West.

Oh hello again. Olly smirked slightly when Mo crouched down in front of her again. And then she waited. And listened. Though, it wasn't exactly anything she hadn't heard before. Really, she had expected him to give her a proper reason and not just that they'd had a fall-out and bla bla bla, this was really not worth a conversation.

And really, she wasn't here to fight West's wars for him or defend his honor or anything noble like that. He could do that himself. If he felt like it. No, honestly, Olly was just curious. Though, it seemed that Mo here wasn't the one to answer her questions. Not how she wanted him to answer them, anyway. She sighed and just nodded. "Yeah, I know that." Just making that clear.

Though, there WAS something about his last sentence that made her tilt her head to the side and regard him curiously for a second. "So you DON'T think that he deserved it then?" Interesting. Impulsive had not been on the list of adjectives she would have used to describe Mo here. Not that she knew him, like, at all but still. Huh. So did he regret saying what he'd said?

She knew that. The question was how she knew it. Was it just information that was being freely passed from person to person around the school, or did West tell her? And if West told her, was West telling loads of people? Mo hadn't even realized that Olly and West were friends.

Which might mean that everyone there only knew West's side of the story. Should Mo try to explain it to Olly? She would probably just smirk at him, like she was doing now, and that was unhelpful.

"He didn't deserve to have our issues aired in public, or to have his name dragged through the mud. That was rude of me. It doesn't mean I... don't think he's acting like a git," Mo smiled, fleetingly. Understatement, really. "But whatever else you might have heard, I'm not trying to steal his girlfriend, I didn't lie to him, and I'm not a hypocrite. Let's just say his opinions are an exaggerated form of the truth."

Olly rolled her eyes when Mo pretty much talked about how he regretted saying what he'd said. That was boring. "Aw, come on. Regrets are lame. You shouldn't want to take it back." Silly boy. She was sure he'd had his reasons to say it. Though she doubted she'd agree with them but you know. This wasn't about her thoughts on West right now after all.

And his next words brought an amused smirk to her lips for no apparent reason. It was somewhat entertaining to see him be...well, not as NICE as he usually seemed to be. The brief hint of a smile gave away way too much about what he really thought of West. Interesting. Mo seemed to be a bit more complex than Olly had thought him to be.

Ooooh, there you go.

There was a somewhat triumphant look on her face as she just smirked up at him for a second of silence. Which reminded her of the fact that he was still simply crouching in front of her. Which was weird. Olly didn't like to look UP at people. Not when she was sitting anyway. So she reached out with both hands and pulled on Mo's knees softly. Only hard enough for him to (hopefully) get what she wanted him to do, though. She didn't want him to fall over after all. "So it's about Alice then?" Interesting.