Helena laughed and looked back at him, smiling. 'One per night'? Does that mean you want to see me often, Mr. Mattews? She smiled and was about to sigh when she caught herself and grinned. We really didn't know each other that long, but he was my one and only true friend here last year, so I considered him my best friend. She smiled slightly, recalling their few short months together.

"Im sorry. Wait.. one friend?/ ALl last year?" he asked in disblief. He couldnt blieve it. That was awful. But then again he kept mostly to himself last year and didnt have many friends either. "Of course I have to see you if your goig to be one of my good friends." he said smirking.

Helena giggled, but nodded. It really wasn't that bad. I had a few people I chatted to once and awhile, but I have 'trust issues'. She smiled and tilted her head sideways, wondering why she was being so open with Chase and feeling completely cool about it.

Chase laughed. "Trust issues?" he asked questiongly. "Well if you have trust issues shouldnt you be freaking out that im here talking to you or something?" he had never met someone with trust issues. It was quite interesting.

Helena shook her head, not sad - but no longer laughing or even smiling anymore. I dunno. It's kind of.... she tried to think of a word to describe it.... weird, she said finally. My parents never paid much attention to me. and I was always home-schooled until they died. Socializing is all new for me. With some people, I choose right away not to mingle with too much, and others.... She trailed off, in thought. Like you, I.... But Helena didn't know how to finish.

Chase tried to make sese of what she as saying. what was home-schooling? He had never heard of such a thing. Probably being taught by her parents but o no!! her parents had died. Wow.. Chase put his arm around her. "Im sorry about your parents." he said and listened as she finsiehd talking. "Its cause Im so outgoing." he said jokingly. "Everyone sees im too funny for my own good and wants it to rub off on them." he said smirking.

Helena smiled when Chase put his arm around her; it felt nice - right. It's okay, really. Like I said I didn't see them much anyway. She laughed when he mentioned his personality traits. No, I'm sure that's it. I guess I trust people more if they talk to me before I talk to them - even if they think I'm upset, Helena grinned at him.

Chase smirked. "My winning personality. " he repeated and laughed. "Well I do have a tendency of talkig to people that look at me." he said smirking. He laughed. "Feel any bettter though? You did look upset about something."

Helena grinned, but refrained from laughing anymore; her sides were starting to ache. She nodded, I'm much better, thanks. Although I really have no idea exactly what I was upset about, I do feel tons better. She smiled and put her hand on his that was wrapped around her in gratitude.

Chase smiled. "WEll I glad and thats what your new best friend is for. Now how about we study agan?' he asked laughing and looked around noticing people were givin them looks for laughing while they were in the study area. He headed back to the table ad put the book right infront of his face. He smothered a laugh.

Helena tried to hold back a laugh - but failed miserably; it escaped partially through her nose. She walked over and sat across from, just refraining from sighing again. Man, that was something she was going to have to get used to.
She snuck a glance at his robes, noting his house for the first time, and nodded to herself. How do you feel about sitting at different house tables? Helena tried to speak this as nonchalantly as possible.

Chase pulled the book down a little revealing his eyes. What an odd question. "Um.. I could care less. why?" he asked cocking an eyebrow at ehr curiously.

Helena smiled. Because your a Ravenclaw, and I'm a Slytherin; trust me: it matters to some of the people I've known. She laughed slightly. I was just curious, don't have a cow. She grinned before standing up and plucking a random book off it's shelf and sitting back down with it. She cleared her throat loudly and opened it to a random page.

Chase laughed. "No worries there Lena. I have no problem wit however I sit with. I sat with.. well someon earlier. I dont even remember which house I was sitting at." he said trying to remember. Huh.. he never even paid attentnion. o well.

Helena chuckled. That's pretty funny. Sometimes I'd just eat at other tables last year for a change of scenery. She grinned and started playing with a piece of wood sticking up from the table.

Varius Tipps glided into the library with a quill behind his ear, and blank parchment in hand. He had the intention of starting his own alphabet and he was planning on starting now.

He sat at an empty table in the study area of the library. He removed a couple of books from his bag which he had bought in Diagon Alley during the summer (this had been an intention of his for a couple of months, but he was too lazy to carry it forward.). "Where. Should. I. Start?" he muttered to himself, looking over the pages in his books. The books didn't specifically explain how to create your own runic languages, but he could at least learn what the symbols had a tendency to look like - right?

ACHOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

"Oh wow," he sniffed, "That was loud."

Mariel's eyes scanned the endless rows of books before landing on the section marked with a 'T'. Sure that she would find the books on Transfiguration that she required in that particular section, the young Ravenclaw stopped in front of the shelves and looked directly in front of her. Still not locating Theories of Transubstantial Transfiguration, her eyes slowly traveled upwards until they found it - on the top shelf near the ceiling.

She wasn't a particular short girl - one of average height for her age - but as she fully extended her arm towards the desired book, it was only inches out of her reach. Sighing at her misfortune, Mariel grabbed the nearest chair from one of the study tables and placed it directly under her book. At the moment she stood on the chair and curled her fingers around the spine of the book to pull it off its shelf, a loud noise behind her startled her to the point of causing her to lose her balance.

She scrambled to regain her posture by grabbing for the now-loosened book which only fell from its shelf, and Mariel toppled off the chair in the process. "Ow," she groaned, rubbing her elbow, from her place on the floor. Straightening up and smoothing out her robes, she glanced around to make sure nobody was witness to her embarassing scene. Spotting a small Hufflepuff boy who she assumed was the source of the exceptionally loud sneeze, she said, "I believe the librarian has tissues on her desk." Then she retrieved the book from the floor and sat down at the table.

Jake almost jumped out of his skin at the loud sneeze coming from nearby. Looking up from his ink-smudged notes he spied another kid close by. At his next statement it was all Jake could do not to burst out laughing.

"That. Was. Epic," he giggled, looking over. "Do you always do that?"

Then, out of the corner of Jake's eye something moved, and he quickly swivelled his head around. Letting out a loud "HA!" that was covered up anyway by the resulting fall, Jake started coughing a little to disguise in. Though his smile remained.

So what, Arithmancy theory stuff was hard. At Hogwarts, everything bad shot up five points on the funniness scale.

Just before his sneeze, a bluebird girl had made her way to his section in the library and was conducting rather peculiar behaviours. She was removing chairs from their rightful places and then proceeding to stand on them (he was sure tree's hadn't thought this is what their wood would have been used for, that's for sure). It was when he was distracted by this girl that the undetected sneeze erupted with no chance of him stopping it.

He rubbed his nose, glad to get THAT out of his system. Better out than in as the old, common, muggle phrase went. However, his attention returned back to the girl when he noticed she was on the floor now. Such a strange, strange girl.

A strange girl who was making her way towards him. "Oh hi," he said in response to her tissue offer, "erm, the sneeze is gone now - no need for tissues. Hopefully others shan't follow." He noticed her with a book, which must have been her reason for being on the chair in the first place. That was far less exciting to what it could have potentially have been. Such as, reaching to see if she could stretch herself far enough in order to reach the stars - might have taken a few thousand years to get there, if at all, but at least she would be making an attempt. But nooooo, instead she was just trying to get a book on... he lifted his head slightly to see if he could see the title - no such luck.

"I apologise bluebird girl, if it was me who made you stumble off the chair. Not my intention, of course - it was funny all the same, but not my intention," he smiled in his usual, strange smirk.

Then an orangebadger made himself known, complimenting Varius' sneeze which he found strange but flattering all the same. "Well... thank you? I am so glad I managed to entertain you," he let out a laugh at the strange reaction from the boy. "Well, when I sneeze, I tend to sneeze like that... unless I can say peaches enough times to counter it. But that rarely works. I tend to find bubblebabble works much more efficiently," that was his good deed for the day - giving the boy such advice, despite it not being the most useful of things.

"Yes, hopefully not," she said slowly, her suspicious eyes eventually leaving her book to look at the boy's face. She certainly didn't need to situate herself near anyone contagious. Who knew what kind of strange sort of diseases ran rampant at a school like this packed full of germ-carrying children? Illnesses that caused wart-like tentacles to sprout over one's body or cause someone to speak only in rhyme. No, she certainly did not need a trip to St. Mungo's, thank you very much.

"Apology accepted..," she said, with eyebrows raised. Bluebird girl? Oh right, her color was blue and ravens were birds, got it. "..Uh, badger boy," she added. That was only fair, right? And it made sense, if only to her.

"Funny, was it?" She wrinkled her nose somewhat disdainfully as she thought a moment. "I suppose in a slightly morbid way..." And now he was smirking at her. At least he didn't right out laugh at her, she supposed.

Jake stared at the boy for at the moment, trying to listen but with his short attention span trying to eat him. Speaking of eat. "Peaches?" he asked. "You mean you have to say peaches over and over again and it stops you sneezing?" Heh, better than biting your tongue, the useful, yet painful method Jake used.

Funny, was it?

"Absolutely hilarious," Jake smiled, looking up towards the girl. He wasn't one for lying to people. "It was just so comical..." don't laugh... "but yeah..."

Okay... Jake was still unaware that his hair was inadvertently spiked up with purple ink and that said ink was on his neck and ear. He probably looked a right sight at the moment, but nothing was out of the ordinary to him, so he introduced himself. "I'm Jacob Upstead, or Jake. Call me whatever you want... well, not "whatever you want" because that would be ridiculous," he was beginning to grow tired of this introduction. Next up it would be King of the shiny cotton wool buds.

Mariel turned to stare incredulously at yet another small Hufflepuff who now felt the need to speak. But speak of what? Peaches? What on Earth was this child on about? Perhaps it was one of those diseases she was now growing paranoid about. One that made you utter complete nonsense.

Raising an annoyed eyebrow at his next words, she was sure that she hadn't been talking to him, but whatever. Not that she hadn't ever been guilty of butting in to a conversation. Well, normally not, but maybe on occasion. "So happy to have entertained you both today," she said sarcastically. Then chuckling, added, "At least you're honest.." The girl could definitely appreciate that. "Of course you're quite an entertaining sight yourself..." she told the newcomer with a grin.

Assuming that the boy was introducing himself to everyone present, including herself, she felt inclined to do the same. Nodding at his ramblings, she spoke up when he was finished. "Good to meet you. And I'll just call you Jake.."

"I'm Mariel... Morgan," she added as an afterthought. Both names were always so formal, she thought, but when someone else offered their last name she always felt obliged to respond in kind.

"Yes," he nodded, "Peaches. But, it isn't too reliable." He let the bluebird and orangebadger continue their banter with each other over the hilarity of the poor girl's unexpected fall, which Varius should have felt slightly guilty for starting in the first place.

"Well, Jake and Mariel, very pleased to meet you both," he walked over to each one of them and rubbed each of their heads, as was tradition with Varius when he greeted someone. "I am Varius Tipps, Hufflepuff first year... like you Jake, i'm sure I saw you at the sorting ceremony."

Now that the formalities were done and out the way they could begin some proper conversation. "So, what are you both doing in the library? Anything exciting? Please don't say homework! There is a whole magical world out there, waiting to be discovered and learned and investigated and you are in here doing homework? Or are you? I can't quite remember what you answered... or if you answered. Am I rambling? I tend to ramble. Sorry, i'll shut up... but not completely shut up. Nothing worse than unresponsive company now is there?"

Entertaining sight yourself.

Odd... "What do you mean?" Jake looked at the girl as if she'd escaped from a secure holding centre or something. He shrugged and moved on.

"Most people call me Jake," Jake nodded. "Except one girl I met, who calls me..." Jake sighed as he muttered the next words. "Jakey Wakey."

"Mariel, Mariel Morgan," he recited, comitting it to memory. "Got it."

"Right," Jake nodded. Sigh, it seemed it really was no pain, no gain.

Jake's brow furrowed as he thought back to the Sorting. It hadn't been too long ago, but Jake's mind had been frazzled recently. "Oh yeah," it suddenly came to him. "I remember. So it looks like we share a dorm..." With Crocker... run for ya lives! "Your name is cool, I won't be forgetting that one in a hurry."

"But yeah, I am finishing my Arithmancy homework," Jake sighed. Homework was already taking up too much of his day. "But then I plan to read about Magical Creatures and maybe Herbology, for my own benefit." Jake then smiled a little. "Yeah, you were rambling... but I ramble too sometimes... What brings you here?"

Oh. Apparently he didn't know. Mariel turned away from the two boys and reached into her school bag that was still laying on the floor. Pulling out a small mirror, she wordlessly handed it to the one called Jake. "Jakey Wakey?" she asked grimacing. "That's dreadful. I'd put an end to that immediately," she added with a nod.

And then she felt a hand on her head as the one called Varius walked towards her. Completely scandalized, she stared at him with disbelief. "I'm not your crup, silly boy." It was bad enough to have adults patronize one in that manner, but a little boy? She wasn't sure what to think of his behavior. The young Ravenclaw glanced over at Jake to see if he was finished with her mirror so she could check her own reflection, as she was sure her hair was now in a state of disarray.

She listened intently to Varius speak, trying to catch all of the words falling rapidly from his mouth. Yes, he was rambling, but at least she wasn't sitting through awkward silence. "Just reading ahead for Transfiguration. It's somewhat a difficult subject so a little extra reading wouldn't hurt. Of course when I'm done here, some friends and I are going ghost hunting... well, to track some down anyway. I haven't seen them since the Welcoming Feast."

Turning to Jake, she commented on the subject he was studying. "Arithmancy is a bit difficult as well, isn't it?" She vaguely recalled seeing him in class. "Although, I am glad Professor Shakleton decided to offer a basic class this year. I can at least understand that. Last term I was completely lost."