You and you! *points* :)
 

There was a awkward silence for a minute.

A long minute.

Finally, Lannes responded.
"I'm fixing these Vandals grammar, what does it look like?"

Lannes looked over and saw Nancy as well. He looked at both of them with his dark blue eyes, completely bewildered why his behavior struck them as odd.

A few years ago, Kiri's parents had taken her along to an art gallery. Lots of strangely-dressed people had stood in little groups and stared at even stranger paintings, installations and sculptures. The art had made no sense at all to her - most of it had appeared to be random dashes of paint on white canvas. Or bent bits of metal.
It seemed to her, however, that one of the picture in that art gallery could have depicted the scene in front of her eyes. A young boy calmly correcting spelling mistakes another person had etched into a blackened stone wall? That sounded about right.

"Lannes," she said to Nancy (how glad Kiri was she was there now) with forced calm, "is, as you can see, correcting spelling mistakes on the wall. I'm, er, not sure why he's doing that, though." She turned and glared at the boy. It didn't help that they were practically the same height - her glare was rather ineffective. "Why are you doing that, Lannes?"

The two stared at one another for some time again. Lannes was bewildered why she would be shocked by his actions. He then responded
"Because it is misspelled."

He knew there that his answer wouldn't suffice.

"You see, if we just walk idly by as someone makes a mistake, then they view it as an act of affirmation. Instead, I am merely showing these wretched barbarians that if they wish to be vandals, at least they should honor their pen and spell correctly. Now you understand."

He doubted if they did, or if they understood any of his actions. He thought to himself, wondering, they probably think it's weird that I can't catch a football ball, wait...that's a muggle sport...

"Oh, okay," she started to say, and Shana walked away. "Bye," she said with a little wave, to her back. Well, that was rude. With a shake of her head Bianca stood up, and strolled out of the corridor. If the rest of Hogwarts was this rude, she was not going to have a good time.

Iris jumped the last couple of steps into the dungeon, toast still in her hand. She hummed an old muggle song to herself as she walked to the secret door. Muttering a password, she opened the door and walked into the common room.

Replying again to keep this moving. Sorry for my absence.
 

The surreal scene would not, apparently, end just yet. Kiri glared at the dark wall as if it was at fault for allowing students to scribble all over it. "Yes, yes," she said testily, "we know it's misspelled. I may not be in Ravenclaw, but even I can tell you it's not 'poofessor', Lannes. The point was... the point is..." She stopped herself, with difficulty, from pinching her arm to make certain she was not dreaming. Why was she discussing misspelled graffiti with this boy? She glanced at Nancy. The girl seemed to be as... confused as Kiri was. Not much help, basically.

"The point is..." A whiff of sulphur reached Kiri's nostrils. Ah, yes. That was what she'd wanted to say. "Look," she said urgently, "you know where we are, right?" Answering her own question, Kiri continued, "We're in the Dungeons. Know what else is here besides Slytherin? The Potions classroom. Professor," her hiss of the S was worthy of a serpent, "Kazimeriz's classroom. If he finds you, you're done for. Nancy and I too, by the way," she added as an unwelcome afterthought.

Staring at both of them, Lannes then said the following two words in a perfect and slow pronunciation,.
"Pish-Tosh."
"This is simply correcting vandalism, not adding to it, the professor should be fine. I mean, really, look at this, so many contributors. Why, I've read anthologies with less contributors."
Then he resumed his usual speaking manner as he continued, pacing around the corridor.
"Why, I'd wager that this professor of yours is a rather understanding sort, and actually..." he then drew closer to both of them. "I wouldn't e surprised if you see the Slytherin points go up a little higher if he comes upon this scene."

At the end of her outburst and her sarcastic remarks, Lannes stood there, with a mildly confused gaze on her.

"Were those dyslexia comments sarcastic?"

A pause lulled for a moment and he sensed the answer was yes.

"Regardless, I honestly don't know why either of you have any reason to act so maliciously, most the time I hardly make note of your existence."

Lannes was confused by Kiri and Nancy, why they blow up just for someone correcting spelling mistakes. Despite this being such a trivial matter, it was troubling to Lannes, who was muggle born.

Pish-Tosh?! Nancy didn't even bother asking the boy what exactly it was he was talking about. It didn't matter after all. Because something told her that he was crazy. Completely, utterly crazy. And he so didn't get the whole situation. How dangerous this whole thing could be or probably already was. For all three of them. "I...uhm...you...Kiri?!" The 15 year old half-shrieked her friend's name in the end, looking at her, the panic obvious in her eyes, for help with this boy. Because, seriously, right now, she was at a lack of what to say. This was just too ridiculous.

...and he really had the nerves to actually ask her if there might have been a hint of sarcasm in her voice there. Still panting rather heavily after her little outburst Nancy simply stared at the boy for a few moments in disbelief. Turning on the spot once she really had no idea how to proceed or how to reply to his questions so the only thing she ended up saying, no, more like shrieking, was "Jeez!" Then after a few more deep breaths she added gulping once or twice, "You have no idea...you really don't. If Kazi finds you here. If he finds us here, we're...we're..." Dead? "You have no idea what he will do. Can you imagine how this must look to him?! This whole writing on the wall and You. Holding. A. Pen!" She emphasized each of her last words so maybe now he would get what he had gotten himself into.

Maybe. Okay, probably not.

Whiiiiit.
 

Reese walked out of the Slytherin common and began to stroll down the creepy corridors. Spotting Nancy and Kiri, she gave them both a little smile and a wave before she disappeared around the corner to part of the corridor that was empty and this part of the corridor was near the classrooms.She sighed deeply as she stopped walking and leaned against the wall.

It's been 2 weeks and 3 days (not that she was counting) since she talked to Torin in the student garden. The place where she said she 'it was nice knowing it'. The place that she officially labeled their friendship over. Truthfully, that was probably one of the stupidest things she has EVER done. Living without Torin was...awful. She didn't like not seeing him everyday. She didn't like trying to ignore the boy. She didn't like it one bit.

Yet, there was nothing she can do. Even though he was the one that caused her to get mad, SHE was the one that claimed they weren't friend anymore. It was her fault that she wasn't in Hogsmeade right now goofing off with Torin. It was her fault she wasn't nagging Torin about his crush on Bunbury. It was her fault that she wasn't going to get another Torin Kane hug. It was all her fault. Why couldn't she just let the whole love potion thing in the past and move on? Then, she wouldn't feel this lonely.

Okay, so why was he down here? He had no idea. Other than he needed a lot of help with Potions if he was going to ace that OWL. And he really needed to ace it if he wanted to live to see his next Term. Lousy parents with their high standards.

He needed the potions lab. And maybe Kazi? Even though he was totally scared of the Potions Master. Sigh.

Yeah. He was heading to the lab. Passing Reese on the way and not even paying attention. Why should he?

Now, instead of Reese leaning against the wall like she originally had been, she was sitting on the ground with her knees up to her chest and her arms wrapped around her legs. She kept wishing she could just talk to Torin and put all this behind them, but she didn't know where he was right now and she didn't feel like - at this moment - to sit by the Hufflepuff common room entrance and wait for the fifth year boy to walk about.

Hearing footsteps walking in front of her, she lifted her head up to the person that hadn't been in the corridor a few seconds ago. And, when she noticed it was Torin, she quickly stood up from the ground and ran after the boy that looked like he was heading to one of the classrooms. "Torin! Wait," she called out.

He was just about to enter the Potions lab when he heard his name being called. Turning, he saw that it was Reese. Reese Upstead, ex-best friend.

"Yes?" he asked her crossing his arms over his chest and leaning on the door frame. He didn't want her keeping him up with... whatever nonsense she wanted to tell him now.

Reese straightened herself up back to her normail height, 5'7, and looked up at Torin. This was off topic, but did Torin GROW over the summer? She just not noticed that he seemed taller than last year, but maybe she was just shrinking. But, hold it, SHE BETTER NOT BE SHRINKING! Being 5'7 was short enough for her.

"Listen," she began. "Can we talk about what happened at the garden?" She was actually going to let him talk before she went off and started explaining stuff to the Hufflepuff. And, if he didn't want to talk, then all she could say was that she tried and she was going to have to try her best to go on in life without her friend.

Talk? She wanted to talk to him about that? Why?

Not really knowing why he was doing this when he didn't want to, he shrugged at her. "What do you want to talk about as far as that's concerned?"

If she thought that he was going to forgive her just like that, she was WRONG.

Reese wasn't sure if she wanted to do this now since Torin looked like he didn't care one bit that she wanted to talk to him. He also didn't look like he even missed her not even one bit. Maybe deep down he did miss her not being there nagging him and goofing off with him.

"Torin, what I said at the garden about 'it was nice knowing you' and all that, I was just mad," she explained. " I just...I just don't want to continue my life without one of my friends. Even though you gave me love potion," and ruined my first part of the school term, "I don't want this to get between us," she continued. She stopped talking and waited to see what Torin would say.

He listened to her speak, his expression serious.

And part of him wanted to forgive her for what she said. But he was still too hurt. She had broken off their friendship before he could explain to her.

"Why did you say all that if you didn't mean it? Say you weren't my friend anymore." He glared at her before moving on. "And I had been trying to tell you that I had talked to Jack and he agreed with me to wait it all out."

He was getting tired of this conversation already and wanted to move on with things.

Why did there have to be so many questions?

"I was furious," Reese answered. "I was mad that my birthday was ruined. But, I don't care much about that anymore. I'd rather have my birthday ruined than go on without my best friend and I wish I thought about that before I talked to you." She looked down at Torin's shoe when he mentioned Jack. "Yes, I SHOULD have listened to you explain that you had talked to Jack, but I didn't and I'm sorry about that," she apologized. She finally looked back up at him and locked her eyes with his.

"Torin, I'm going to give you a choice since you look like you really don't care at the moment. Do you want to go on with your life story without me or do you want to put everything in the past?"

It was all on him now.

He was quiet for a minute after she spoke. He needed to think for a moment before he gave her an answer.

"You mean all that?" He couldn't give her an answer until he was sure that she wasn't just saying all this.

Reese nodded her head in reply to Torin's question. "I mean every word of it," she told him. "Torin, you are really one of my good friends and - I don't know if you know - but you are one of the few people that know so much about me and my past and..." She paused as she thought about what she was going to say. "Okay, I'm going to get to the point. You are my best friend and I don't want a stupid little act of what you did get between us."

When she was done answering his question, she asked again, "What do you want to do? Put it all in the past or go on without me?" Her facial expression stayed serious as she waited for his answer.

He listened to her as she confirmed everything that she had said to him. And the went on to tell him things that he had never known. He didn't know that she had shared things with him that she hadn't with most people. And she missed him.

After a minute he held out his arms to her for a hug. "I missed you so much."

Reese's face brightened up when Torin held out his arms. They were actually going to put this all in the past! Honestly, for a moment there, she thought that they were going to go on without being friends. Why would she think that? Like stated before, it looked liked Torin didn't care a little bit ago.

She slowly walked towards Torin's opened arms and then she wrapped her arms around him when she got close enough. "I've missed you too," she told him. "I've had a horrible week and it feels good to finally have a hug from someone." Finally releasing him from her hug, she stepped back and looked up at the Hufflepuff.

Katlyn walked into the Dungeon with Lucy trying not to look suspicious. "Good thing we no how to not look suspicious."Katlyn said to Lucy. As they kept walking down the hall more and more heads turned and stared. "What are you staring at! You're acting like you never seen two Gryffindors walking down a hall Jeez!" Katlyn was a really you could say mean person when she was annoyed. "Sorry i have a temper and i hate when people stare at me."She said to Lucy. "Well hey if anyone says something we could mark them as our first victim." Katlyn said with a grin.

Okay, why did he feel like they had just gotten back together after a break up or something? But then again, it sorta had been a break up in a sense. A pretty bad one.

He stood hugging her for a minute. "I've had a lonely while without you. I wanted to talk to you, but I was too hurt." He remembered how he had been with her in Madame Puddifoots just before and felt terrible about it.

Finally letting go of her, he had to ask, "so how are things with you and Jack now?"