His War Cry suggestion was thrown off when she mentioned the common room thing. He was fine with the whole idea, he never really spent much time in his own common room anyway, but suddenly the thought of spending all those hours at the end of the day before sleep in the common room with Cela...

It was going to be hell on earth with Cela and Will in the same room. He could just imagine it now. The Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs would end up shacking up in the Hospital Wing after a day!

"Yeaaaaaaaaaaah...." he managed, "Lucky you." It was clearly a half-hearted attempt at being agreeable, but it wasn't like she would pick up on it - caught as she was in the midst of her excitement, "You'd better get yer defensive spells ready, ya know wot I mean?" he grinned his brace-free new grin at her.

Blink. Blink.

"Defensive spells? Why for? I'm sure Dom-in-ick will protect me from any of the bad Hufflepuffs..." That made her think about it and Cela rested her chin in one hand, her elbow...

... in the gravy.

"Are there any bad Hufflepuffs?"

Garret shrugged his shoulders and pushed his plate away, his hands resting on the table top momentarily as he considered getting seconds. He finally decided against it and folded his arms across his chest instead, "Whadya fink?" he winked and leered his most piratey leer at her.

Celandine blinked rapidly and finally realised her bare forearm was covered in gravy. She lifted her arm up and licked it off thoughtfully, keeping her eyes on Garret and blinking slowly as she tried to figure out... OH!

"Oh! Yes... um... you are very bad, Metal-Mouth." Cela was NOT going to quit calling him Metal-Mouth just because he happened to be metal free now. She finished licking her arm and moved her hand into a little claw, "RAWR. Really bad. You." She pointed at him to make it clear that she was being a totally supportive friend here with his 'Imma scareh Hufflepuff' thing. "You're totally bad and I totally need to be protected from you." She paused and licked a stray drip of gravy.

"...Or something."

Garret picked up his napkin and took her hand in his as he wiped her forearm, "You're so nasty," he laughed though, happy that she saw him as the Big Bad Badger Boy, "But lucky fer you, I only prey on those I don't like."

He set the napkin aside and propped an elbow up on the table to lean against it as he spoke to his best friend, "Sucks that the kitchens are flooded though, I was going to try out this new recipe mum sent me."

"Nasty?!" Celandine looked at him in surprise, allowing him to take her hand and clean her off, "Nasty gross or nasty mean?" Heehee. She grinned at him though, his laughter always cheered her up. "HA! You totally pretty much just practically admitted that you liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiike me!" She poked her tongue out at him and pushed the plate out of the way so she wouldn't get herself covered in gravy again.

Cela echoed his position, leaning against her own (now clean) elbow. "It is. I wonder where the house elves will cook? Oooh. Oooh... do you suppose..." Celandine's epression turned thoughtful, "Do you suppose we'd be allowed a cook out? With like... an open fire or even better! An underground oven with hot coals and clay and stuff where you steam your food!"

She beamed at him. "What is the recipe for? Maybe... we could like, bribe the owner of the Three Broomsticks to let you use their oven!"

Garret rolled his eyes again at the like comment. He liked Cela enough, but what with her recent popularity with the boys, he would never be caught dead saying it out loud because people would most likely misinterpret it, so he let that one slide. Her cook out suggestion brought to mind an idea he had had a few nights ago when he'd been lying in bed hungry and with no options to him.

He leaned in close to her and his voice dropped to a whisper, "Secret Midnight Party."

Pulling back, he merely grinned at her with a raised eyebrow, waiting for her reaction.

Cela was never one to dwell... much... and she was easily distracted.

Secret.

Midnight.

Party.

She clapped her hands together in obvious enthusiasm. "Ohhh Garret you have the best ideas!" She was practically gushing and her mind already buzzing along and thinking about how fun it would be. "Pirates?" She inquired, tipping her head slightly, "More than just pirates?"

His voice was still kept low lest there be professors with their inquisitive, party-poopering ways about, "More than just pirates, of course." He grinned, "The whole school even, just we need to find a place on the grounds where the profs won't see us from the castle, and food and drinks."

He was so excited about this! His mum had told him about the times when they had secret midnight parties in school, the fun they had sneaking around the castle in the middle of the night, collecting the food they'd hidden around and meeting up at the venue all while trying not to get caught by patrolling prefects and professors, "We'll have to be extra careful though."

"Couldn't we.... get permission?" Celandine asked, realising that it wouldn't really be piratey to get permission. "What about like... my friends that are prefects?" She blinked at him not really trying to throw up roadblocks but the thing was, Garret wasn't a big planner, she was the navigator and she'd probably be the one stuck with all the behind the scenes organising stuff...

... at least until she coerced Daphne into doing it.

"Could we do it on the lake? Like... when it freezes? That would be super cool. Or... the shrieking shack! OR the bamboo forest and we can look for the red pandas!" Cela, really would be happy anywhere. "Room of Requirement... would be safest if we wanted to keep people from finding out what we are doing." Celandine twisted a strand of her hair around her finger and watched Metal-Mouth thoughtfully.

Garret shook his head, "No permission, and it had to be outside the castle." He grinned his devilish grin once more, "Half the fun of it is in sneaking out, sooo..." his eyes took on the dangerous glint that suggested he was up to something wicked, "The Shrieking Shack is a good spot."

He realised that yes, they did have prefect friends... but to invite them, they'd have to do it sneakily. It would probably be easier to sneak around with prefects knowing about the whole deal anyway, considering they could help out with keeping the professors distracted, "The prefects can come, but only if they promise to keep it quiet."

"You like making it hard for me don't you?" Celandine pouted at him and brought her other hand up to support her chin. "I like the idea of the Shrieking Shack too. I've never been there."

She chewed on her lip for a moment. "Well, I'm sure the Ravenclaw Prefects will be up for it. Rachel is totally cool and fun and JJ --thats Jack, I decided I like calling him JJ- he's really nice. Anna would be keen, sometimes I think she's scared about missing out on the fun, I don't really know Chris all that well, but he seems mostly nice, even though he uses too much hair product. He's our age though so surely he hasn't had all the fun sucked out of him yet?" Celandine wondered out loud.

"Dom-in-ick... hmm. I don't know about Dom-in-ick but I can work on him. Vannie... well if Anna goes and Lyra goes, pretty sure she'd go. I don't really know Evangeline and Clifford all that well, though my brother says they are ok. Clifford seems a little scared of things though, but he likes food right? So if we tell him there will be food..."

Celandine was clearly getting into the idea now, "When?"

Garret tuned out as she went into the details, just as he usually did and exactly as she expected him to do. When it seemed like she'd worked out the guest list in her head, he concentrated again and grinned, "The weekend before Christmas break."

It was the one thing he was sure about. Never had Garret Crocker ever sounded more determined or more certain about anything.

"We can do that! We can do that." Celandine turned a full beam smile on Garret and grabbed his hand with both of hers, giving it a shake as if laying herself on the line for it all. Oh Captain my Captain and all that.

"The weekend before Christmas break." Celandine repeated, "Who do you want to invite, Metal-Mouth?"

Garret shook on it, then took his hand back so that he could reach for a treacle tart that had just popped up on one of the plates, "I dunno, everyone I s'pose!" He chewed the little sweet pastry and swallowed before going on, "We'll 'ave to tell the ovver pirates, so they can invite people too."

He stroked his hairless chin for a moment and then threw in another quick decision, "We'll call it Operation Outside in code."

"Gee Garret, don't you like... have other friends? Pretty girls you want to invite? Apart from US of course." By us she was referring to herself, Daphne and Jillian. "I mean, I totally have enough friends for both of us and all, but there must be some people specifically that you like and would like to be there and think would make the party a party." Celandine watched him snarfle down a tart and nodded firmly in acceptance. "Operation Outside."

Pause.

"Doesn't the 'operation' part sort of give away the fact that there is something going on?"

Garret evaded the friends question, he really wasn't all that friendly with people apart from Cela and Daphne. They seemed to think he was being rude all the time or some other ridiculous notion like that. So he merely shrugged, hoping to pass it off as something mysterious.

"You're right... how 'bout Outside At Night?" he laughed in satisfaction. He had made up a rhyyyyme!

It didn't matter that she'd known him for AGES now, Garret Crocker was still sooooo mysterious and interesting. Not to mention super nice...

... most of the time.

"Outside at night." Celandine tried to see holes in it and maybe figure out what about that Garret found funny. Coming up without an answer for either, Cela nodded. "Okay so we like... use it in a sentence? Like... " She took a deep, theatrical breath, "You can see the staaaars outside at night!"

Swoon.

Garret laughed again, she was such a GIRL sometimes, "Or, you can fart out loud outside at night." If she was anybody other than herself, he would expect to be boxed in the ears for making such a comment in front of a girl, but nope, this was Cela. She was all soft and stuff.

"It really is too bad the kitchens are flooded, we'll have to hunt the elves down and find where they're cooking now." He paused to think about it, "Then everyone involved and all go and ask for one thing, so it doesn't look so obvious that we're doing this.... then we'll hide it around the castle, somewhere we'll pass when walking out."

Celandine wrinkled her nose but pretty much took his comment in stride, even going so far as to elaborate, "Yes but you can do that anywhere, except in polite company." She waggled her finger at him.

"Well, detention was moved to the owlery, did you know? Maybe the house elves will move to the hospital wing? Or the library or something." Cela suggested.

"And for the big things, we can transfigure them to be less obvious." Celandine suggested, "I'm getting better at transfiguring items of different sizes and shapes, I bet if I ask super nice, the older students can do that. Some of them. The Ravenclaws anyway."

"Yer righ', of course," Garret grinned and patted her on the top of her cute little head, she was so smart, "Transfiguring the food would make things easier, and we can charm a piece of parchment for the invitations so that people who aren't supposed to see 'em can't see 'em."

He nodded, making a mental note to bring lots of red meat. They could even set up a makeshift barbecue, so what if it was in the middle of winter? They were British, and the British loooove the red meat.

Natka made her way to the end of the Ravenclaw Table, where she saw there weren't too many people. She needed some peace of mind now, get her brain around the homework she still had to do, as well as the recent... social events in her life.

Boy, was her life spinnning crazily this year! She could still barely believe half the things that had happened. Natka sighed, wishing she could share her thoughts with someone... there was always Clark, of course, but being a guy, he didn't always understand everything, not like a girl would. The third-year thoughts wistfully about Lizzie, her Gryffindor friend - they hadn't spoken in ages, and she would dearly love the chance to share the recent developments in her life with her friend.

Lizzie entered the great hall carefully looking around. She couldn't help feeling extremely vounerable at the moment, and as down as she'd been feeling the past few days she had eaten later or earlier than most of the school. She was deathly afraid of meeting Chris and Paris together, afraid how she might react. Ashamed she even thought of it that way...

Automatically glancing at the Gryffindor table as she entered, Lizzie couldn't know for sure who she saw (it was very crowded) and instead her eyes tried to find a comforting spot to rest on. Her heart jumped a little as a familiar face caught her eyes. Natka! Lizzie sighed from relief and hurried over to the Ravenclaw table, walking up behind her friend. She almost managed to smile naturally as she said Hi Natka! I've missed you hun, how are you?

Natka turned around, hearing a familiar voice, and almost jumped up with excitement at seeing Lizzie. Just ther person she wanted to - no, needed to - talk to.

"Lizzie! Wow, I haven't seen you since the train journey, how are you?" she hugged her friend. "I'm fine, thank you, but there's been so much happening recently, I have so much to tell you!" she babbled excitedly.

Lizzie hugged Natka back, glad to see her friend was happier than usually and very excited too, it seemed. With the best smile she could manage right now, she glanced around the hall for a sec and then sat down beside Natka. I've missed you sweetie she said, watching her friend babbling. Looks just like me a year ago she thought to herself, then said So what's the big news girl? Apparently it's something big, because you seem to be exploding to tell me she said friendly.