Mina looked around and leaned over to talk in a whisper. "Carter. I might have had the tiniest crush on him last year." she said in a very low whisper. "He's one of my best friends and you know it's so strange for me to say I havehad a crush on him." She just needed to just say it out loud and maybe she would get over it.

Looking back at Dal, she frowned. "It's silly, isn't it? I'm making it more than it is, aren't I?" she asked.

"Yes, well - we're all BIG now. Being older sort of means you HAVE to be preoccupied. Ya know, 'cause otherwise the grown-up-ness doesn't count," Rachel giggled back at Adrienne, feeling very NOT grown up at the moment.

Which was a good thing since she had a WHOLE year to go before she had to worry about stuff like that.

GULP - smile.

o_O

Rachel's head whipped around to Allison so fast it almost spun right off. Had she said HIS name? In association to movies? EEEK. The seventh year had SEEN the hype around Reid - but she hadn't really ever discussed this sort of thing with others.

... Hmm. "You know Reid Hemingway went to Hogwarts last year?" she smiled at Allison, restraining the fit of giggles that was threatening to burst out of her any second. She LOVED the way his name just rolled off her tongue like that - almost like her name.

Rachel laughed at Cela's expression. It was so weird for her to think that people didn't know about that incident. She had been SO involved in it that at the time she was sure that EVERYONE had known - or rather, she had assumed. Since she hadn't actually given others a lot of thought back then.

Then it was Rachel's turn to blink. "Archeology... For wizards? I had no idea there was such a career - although now that you mention it, it really makes sense," the seventh year cocked her head to the side and stared up as she thought about this new revelation. It DID make sense - since how were people supposed to do what she wanted to do without anybody actually excavating something first?

Psht. She was dim.

"... Bott, you said?" Rachel commented, turning to observe the young bubbly girl was was giggling all over the place. It bought a smile to her face, really. She might not be a Prefect anymore, but she still LOVED it when new people joined Ravenclaw - they always bought such variety; it was amazing.

"Are you actually related to Bertie Bott?" the seventh year called out to her, really curious. And if she was, did she LIKE the candy? Because it would really be hilarious if she didn't.

Adrienne had glanced over at Allison again when the first year had broken out into almost uncontrollable giggles, partially happy she at least wasn't being quiet again and yet concerned that this was a different problem. But then, it apparently simply had to do with Neptune, so she internally shrugged it off and went back to paying attention to the whole group. Which was actually starting to be highly entertaining, actually.

But then it seemed Allison had picked up on her comment about her brothers, and had piped in with her own sibling, and Adrienne turned to send a smile over at the younger girl. "That's nice," she said. "My brothers aren't big on the correspondence either. My older brother's 20, and while he likes making sure I'm okay, he usually goes about it in other ways than asking me." Which actually kind of annoyed her some of the time, but then Christopher was also one of the people who liked spoiling her, so she usually let it slide. "And then I already talked about Riley, so that's pretty much it. And my mother's gotten to the point she really only writes when she has to tell me something, or has any questions." Being seen as responsible sometimes left her more alone than she thought. And, as Allison started scribbling away on a piece of paper, she turned back to the group again.

Only to find that it seemed she was now supposed to be witnessing some atrocious behavior, according to Neptune Bott. At least the gesturing seemed to be saying that. Back to testing my acting ability, I guess, she thought, as she nodded subtly with the slightest expression of feigned shock and disapproval in her blue eyes. It seemed not everyone was willing to pretend around Miss Bott, but she wasn't naive enough not to. She'd been around enough people who felt entitled to know it was easier to simply go with the flow, at least when they were around.

But then Rachel was talking again, and Adrienne thankfully turned to her fellow seventh year with a smile. "I think it's more that we're more grown-up so we have more things we have to worry about. Hence the preoccupation." Or, at least, they were supposed to be more grown-up. She certainly had the preoccupation part down, but the rest was still up in the air. She still wasn't entirely sure what she was going to do after graduation.

And then Rachel had gone off to talk to everyone else, and she half-tuned the conversations out as she settled into her head, thinking about what had been on her mind for a while now. It was interesting how all her training with Grandmother made her able to keep track of conversations without necessarily actually paying attention.

Satine came running into the Common Room with an extra excited face on and package tucked under her arm. She ran over to an open spot on the floor and plopped down instantly sitting the package down and opening it. It had arrived today by owl from her Aunt Iridesca. Her aunt always sent her the best gifts and they were usually Muggle stuff as well. She tore back the wrapping and glanced at the box inside. She flipped over the game box and quickly looked at the picture. She took the top off and found the instructions as she flipped through the instructions, she quickly announced.

"Does anyone wanner play...." she paused as she glanced at the top of the box...."Twister? It's a Muggle game but it sounds mega fun..."

Kellen looked up from tying his shoes. A game could be exactly what he needed to take his mind off the fact he'd just been mauled by Neptune and Emilia. He got up and wandered over to where the newest arrival was reading the instructions, curiosity all over his face. "How do you play?"

"He what? He whaat?" Allison stared in a dumbfounded fashion towards Rachel. "THE Reid Hemingway came to Hogwarts last year? Like...here in this school?" It was so cool! Allison was beyond amazement by this point. She hadn't yet experienced the art of stalking a movie star on the internet or in real life for that matter. What she had learned about the star was simply through family gossip and muggle television. Who of course, would never had mentioned he was a wizard. Giving Rachel a slightly dazed look Allison leaned forward, "Do you know him?!"

Allison was so involved in conversation involving the actor, she nearly missed Cela's talk about the archeology recommendation. Not wanting to but needing to she looked around and asked, "What archeology recommendation? Who?"

"Since it's just me and meh brother I sort of want him to write. But he studies muggles, and he says anything that isn't 'related', " Allison used her hands for quotations, "to muggles is taking away his time." She shrugged, "Even though I want him to, I dun mind. As long as meh mum mentions him alls good."

Allison didn't understand the whole preoccupation talk. Looking at Adrienne with interest Allison asked, "Do you really feel grown-up?" She didn't mean it as an insult, or she was insinuating they acted childish, but Allison wanted to know. When you reach 17, did you feel marginally older? All her life, her mother and brother had tended to Allison. The biggest chore she had ever received was passing items to people. Can I have the scarf? Can you turn on the television? Pass me my wand. So would she have more responsibilities, would she actually have to tend to the dishes and robes?!

"Oh." Celandine looked slightly puzzled. "I'm owling all my brothers back, maybe not straight away and I'll ask them nicely not to owl for a while."

Cela wasn't likely to get owls from her parents and aside from Copernicus, her brothers were the only ones not at Hogwarts who cared enough to owl in the first place.

"I haven't met Riley. Is he..." Cela lowered her voice to a whisper, "...antisocial?" That was sad.

And in Cela's eyes, very curable.

Cela caught Kellen's eye and smiled brightly in return. She wasn't compleeeeeetely unaware of the weird going on in his general vicinity, but she DID hear a mention of house unity so like, that was good... right?

"Sure." Celandine agreed. "Its too bad P... Truebridge isn't here anymore because I'm sure he'd tell you all about it if you asked. You know some wizards theorise that magic originated in Africa? In Egypt? There's evidence that the first weather and climate control charms were developed there, which is why I kind of supported Egypt for the Quidditch World Cup."

Celandine nodded again. "Yes, Bott."

Celandine perked up.

"I'll play! What is it? How do you play?" She stood up, using Phoebus as leverage to get off the couch and skip!bounced over to Satine.

. . . "Yeah... What you said," Rachel nodded, not really following what the Quidditch Captain had said. It SOUNDED right, and Adrienne was a Ravenclaw - so it couldn't have been completely stupid which means that it makes sense that Rachel agreed with it.

NO LAUGHING.

"Yeah, he went here for two terms," Rachel nodded nonchalantly, pretending as if this was no big deal. Allison was so CUTE though with the whole celebrity thing... It ALMOST made Rachel want to stop teasing. Almost.

And then Allison asked if Rachel knew him. Hmm... Biting her tongue, the seventh year absentmindedly fiddled with the promise ring Reid had given her last term before cooking up a reply. "I guess you could say that," she finally stated, nodding as she stared at the diamonds in the white gold band.

Eeep. Magic. COOL. Truebridge. Sad. "I know - I read about that last year I think; it's why I really want to go there," Rachel said enthusiastically, the second half of Cela's sentence only penetrating to her brain a few seconds later.

COUGH. SHE SUPPORTED EGYPT? Jake would SO forbid her from EVER talking to Cela again if he ever found out. He was really big on the whole "being faithful to your team" thing... Which, by the way, really wasn't all that fair considering the fact that he had supported BOTH teams at the World Cup even if he never admitted it.

Satine glanced up for just a second from the instructions as she saw two fellow crazy...no brave... gamers walking up to join her. She flicked the spinner as she read the instructions and nodded at each of them quickly. Finally, she placed the spinner down and reached inside the box and pulled out a big plastic tarp.

"Well, ummm...I've never played before but it looks kind of easy and my aunt said it would be a blast...." she said with a huge smile and lots of excitement...her aunt was amazing and knew just what Satine needed to make new friends...

"First, we lay down this big plastic tarp..." she said holding up the tarp and unfolding the edge just enough to peek at the painted side..."spots up..." she said glancing back at the instructions.

"And well, that's all of the set up needed which is nice..." she said as she moved the spinner out of the way and started making room for the tarp. She unfolded it a little bit more and then with a flick laid it out flat.

"And it says we can't wear shoes...I hope my feet don't stink...haha..." she said as she sat down to slip off her heels from under her pants....and then she realized that she hadn't introduced herself to the boy.

"O sorry, I'm Satine...third year..." she said with a smile towards the boy and then she turned to Celandine..." Hey Cela! I feel like I haven't seen you in a while." she continued as she placed her heels out of the way under a chair and then reached for the instructions again.

"You want to study at the Wizarding University of Cairo too? What field are you most interested in?" Celandine asked curiously. She was always interested in what people wanted to do after school. Mostly because she was still sure that she couldn't do what she wanted to do and it was nice to know that other people could.

Cela turned her attention to the game thing and slipped out of her shoes as Satine mentioned it, promptly losing a few inches in the process. She banished her shoes up to her dorm and her loooooong socks followed.

"I've been around!" She smiled at Satine and at the younger girls shoes with approval.

Tugging on the hem of her skirt and occassionally glancing over at the couch group, still clearly listening to conversations that way, Cela waited for Satine to explain what they were supposed to do.

Kellen kicked off his shoes, not caring that he hadn't untied the laces first. He smiled at her and held out a hand, "Kellen, fourth year."

And please just be a regular human being.

He looked down at the game, "I still don't understand. What do we do?"

Miles walked into the common room humming to himself. He did that a lot lately...hum.... Looking around he saw something weird that made his eyebrows go up. Walking over to the group that were taking off their shoes he scratched the back of his head. "Umm...what are you doing?"

Satine beamed as she noticed Cela glance at her shoes with approval. This was probably one of the greatest compliments to Satine...well okay next to Bunbury giving this kind of approval, but Cela was a very close second.

She smiled at the boy. "Well it's great to meet you Kellan...are you sure you can handle all this craziness..." she finished with a wink.

Satine instantly focused back on the instructions and continued explaining, "Well, it looks like we are supposed to spin the spinner and it will tell us what color to try to touch and with what part, like the right hand on red..." she said flipping the box over to make sure she was understanding it correctly.

"And then we keep spinning and moving each body part until we are all tangled up and can't move anymore....or something like that..." her face was definitely showing confusion...

She handed the directions our to the other two students, "Here, you read them and see if you can get something else from them...or could explain them better...I'm not good at that but I doubt you both want me to read them word by word outloud..." she said hoping that one of them could explain better.

Then she glanced down at her skirt and a thought hit her, "O wow, Cela, we better go change into some sweatpants or something, because, I know it's a crazy thought, but I doubt we can play this game in our cute skirts..." she said with a small giggle as she pictured the uproar that would cause in the Common Room....she glanced around at everyone sitting down and just visiting and for a split second thought that it might be kind of fun to cause an uproar, but she would never do it that way.

Her thought was interrupted as a new face joined their game, "Well, ummm...we're trying to play this muggle game called Twister...." she said as she handed him the box. "We haven't gotten too far, you should def help us figure it out."

Cela gave a tentative sniff in the direction of Kellen's feet.

Nope. All good.

Well it made sense to Cela.

"Oh fun!" Cela liked the sound of this game but Satine kind of had a point. Cela giggled and then looked up at Miles.

"Heyyyyy Miles? Do you have any of those comfy silky boxer shorts that boys wear? Can I borrow some? Pleeeeeease? So I can wear them under my skirt to play this twisty game? And set a good example? And stuff? Pleaaaase?"

Miles' eyes fell on Cela as she spoke to the other two and looked at the strange mat thing that was on the ground. His attention was caught when Cela asked him a question...and a strange one at that.

Frowning thoughtfully he scratched his head. Had he brought any? He didn't particularly like those boxer short things but...he was sure he had brought some. "Umm...Yeah...I think I do... Just...I'll be right back." Okay this was just weird. But oh well. He shrugged and headed up the stairs in search of the elusive boxers.

After awhile he came back down holding a pair of well really his favourite boxers if only because he loved The Beatles and really LOVED this song since it was just so weird. Tossing them to her he smiled, "There you go. Now...what are we playing."

Satine smiled at the Prefect as he came back form upstairs, "Howzit, I'm Satine!" she said with a smile as she handed the Twister box to him..."It's a muggle game that we're trying to figure out." She glanced at the back of the box. "It looks like a blast..." she paused looking at her skirt again....

"Ummm...I'll be right back..." she said as she ran up the stairs towards the dorms. She quickly returned with some cute blue plaid workout pajamaish pants.... perfect to show Ravvie pride.

"Okay did we figure it out?" she said with a little bounce as she stopped in front of the spread out spotted tarp.

Kellen glanced over at where Neptune Bott was, then back at Satine with an amused shake of the head, "I'll find out sooner rather than later, I think."

He leaned away from her as she sniffed him, but then smirked and leaned towards her instead, sniffing right back.


A boy prefect as well?

Kellen's whole perception of Ravenclaw changed. Looking at it now, of course they'd have a girl and a boy prefect, but his last school... oh well. He was just glad another boy was getting involved in this. And that the girls were putting pants on. This was about playing a game, not getting all flirty and stuff!

Satine smiled at Kellen as she smoothed out her pants..."Alright game on!" she said with a wink and as she put her hand up inviting a high five...."Now, we need someone who will run the spinner and then I guess we just try to balance as we move to each spot and get all tangled up..." yah...so it sounded pretty hard but fun...she glanced at the others for encouragement.

A high five instead of a handshake? Sure, why not? He returned the high five and nodded at the spinner, "I can do that if you'd like. Unless someone else...?" He looked at the rest of the people in the room. The more the merrier?

"Oh, don't get me wrong, I'd love it if Christopher wrote to me, or even my parents," Adrienne said in response to Allison's comment about wanting her own brother to write. Not that she'd hold her breath to hear from her father, unless she actually did owl him to ask if he could find anything out from the Ministry about Professor Truebridge. "I've just gotten to the point where I don't want to disappoint myself. I still write him occasionally, though." She couldn't say she understood a lot about anyone studying Muggles, but there had to be some people out there.

And then another question was posed to her by the first year, and it took her a second to come up with any sort of response. She really didn't know what it meant to feel grown up, but even so, with being sent to France very summer alone since she was eleven, she'd pretty much felt like responsibility was expected of her since then. Which basically was her problem. "Well, I guess so. I mean, I can't say seventeen feels much different thansixteen did for me, but that might just be something specific to me. You might feel differently when you get to be of age." She did really like being able to Apparate, though. Although that wasn't possible from school grounds.

And then Rachel responded to her earlier comment about preoccupation and everything, which, now that Adrienne thought about it, was probably the reason Allison had asked her question. But either way, the former prefect's response made her laugh. "Okay. I guess that's settled then," she said, still amused, before she lapsed into silence out of curiosity as to how Rachel was going to deal with the questions about Reid. She had to admit she was slightly curious what was going on there anyway, really.

Until Cela felt the need to comment about Riley, and as she heard what the blonde said, Adrienne broke into laughter again. "Riley? No, he's far from it, really. He's a Slytherin, not that that means anything. My theory is that he's just been . . . preoccupied lately, and that's why a lot of people here at Hogwarts haven't seen him." As she spoke, she glanced at Phoebus again, wondering if he'd feel the need to interject anything about his best friend and knowing he would understand exactly what she'd meant by her response to Cela. "Part of me's hoping Riley feels the need to make more of an appearance at school this term, though, since it's our last one and all." He probably wouldn't, though. It wasn't like it made much difference to her, since she'd see him at some point at home anyway. But the very fact that cela would ask that highly entertained her.

At the sound of running footsteps, Adrienne shifted her gaze over from the group she was with,partly just because after so many things happening over the last few terms, she was a bit worried that something else had occurred. But it was only Satine, and as the younger Ravenclaw asked if anyone wanted to play, she shook her head slightly. Although she couldn't say she was surprised Cela had jumped up, even though her choice of how to boost herself out of her seat on the couch made her have to hide another smile. That couldn't have been comfortable for Phoebus, but she wasn't about to look and see how he had reacted. Something told her she'd find out later, since they still had to talk. "I think I'll sit this game out right now, but I'll watch. Maybe another round or something," she said. She could figure out how it was played, and then maybe she'd feel like she could manage playing without falling flat on her face or something. Besides, she didn't really want to take her boots off in the crowded common room.

"Ooooh perfect!" Celandine slipped into the shorts right then and there, leaving her skirt on too of course.

"So like, we stick our hands or feet on the colours? Do we have to leave them there?" She smiled at Kellen.

Obviously, with the sniffing, they were all good now. Bonded.

Buddies.

Pals.

Cela bounced eagerly on the balls of her feet.

"Lets goooo!"

Mina turned her attention from Dal. She did feel a little better telling someone about it. Maybe that was all she really needed to do. It wasn't like she still had the same feelings she did last spring.

Looking around the common room, she noticed a few people gathering around. What ever they doing? She craned her head a little to get a better look.

Miles took the box that the girl...Satine...had given him with a curious look. "O...kay." He finished as she wandered off upstairs and he looked at the box. "Twister...hmm...sounds fun." Setting the box down he took off his shoes and waited for everyone to get set.

He laughed as Cela slipped his boxers on and at her excitement. "Sounds simple enough to me." His own excitement level was growing and he looked around as Shoe Girl spoke. "Oh come on Adrienne don't be scared," he teased with a smirk. He did like her...her and her shoes.

Bouncing slightly he stepped to the edge of the mat thing and looked at it. Coloured spots. Fantastic. "Well what are we waiting for?"

Allison needed a little more and she'd fall off the couch seat, she kept leaning forward at the information on Hemingway. Yet suddenly Allison was distracted by the stare Rachel was giving her ring. It was an astounding white gold with two hearts intertwined. About to comment on what a nice ring Rachel's mother had given her Allison turned at the sound of a game commencing.

To her surprise, it was non-other than twister. Muggle game she loved playing with her friend Brenda back home. What to do? Join Cela and play twister or sit and keep talking about her acting hero Hemingway? Torn between two large yearnings Allison turned red out of frustration. Her hero Cela was about to play twister! Twister, the game that it seemed none of the two witches knew how to play. Then there was Rachel who obviously could give Allison the latest scoop on Hemingway. The only difference between both was that Cela was about to play with Kellen as well. Didn't that mean she had to defend her? No, she was prefect and older...she'd be fine.

Keeping an eye out for Cela, Allison put her recently finished letter on her lap and her chin on both hands, ready to listen for anything Rachel had to share.

Bella glanced up as she heard Satine's voice. they were playing Twister.she got up from her place and grabbed Chelle along with her and stood aside to see how everybody was playing the game.the game seemed to have started and then she might play in the next round.