Parke stared at her suspiciously for a moment. Maybe she was having him on. It didn't seem that way though. Was it really that enjoyable? "Alright", he said, making a decision. "The next time you...jump in leaves... I... well, I suppose I could join you." Oh yes. He was a rebel. Tyson would be proud. Probably. "But", he added quickly, "under no circumstances do I want to experience anguish of any sort." Oh Merlin. What was he getting himself into?

He was taken aback by both her question and her frown. "Well, you're a lady. Calling you Miss is simply a sign of respect." He said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "If you prefer, I'll call you Trina. Without the 'Miss'."

She already had practice teaching people? He'd stumbled upon, literally and figuratively, a genius. How exciting! "Are you now? Well, perhaps we can do an exchange of sorts. I'd be more than happy to assist you with potions. And perhaps you could save me from the woeful experience of receiving anything less than an "Acceptable" on my OWL."

"Oh, the house elves. They have those big eyes you know. A bit strange looking really. My mother would send them in to check on me at night. They'd poof in quietly and creep over my bed. They'd climb onto it and stand over me, staring at me. Sometimes I'd wake up and the first thing I'd see was a pair of large eyes looking down at me. It was awful really." And why in the world was he telling her this?! He had to remind himself that he'd only met this girl. He had no idea whether she could be trusted. But oh, how he wanted to trust her. He couldn't fathom why, he just knew that he wanted to.

He gazed at her intently for almost a full minute. "I can trust you, right?" He bit his lip, anxiously awaiting her reply.

Trina gazed back at Parke, unphased by his stare. After a moment, she even offered him a reassuring smile. However, that didn't mean she wasn't surprised when Parke agreed to trying out some of the things on her list. She blinked, and then blinked again. "Really?" she asked, somewhat disbelieving. She thought that, if she had even attempted to take him to a pile of leaves, there would have been a lot more of a fight. Trina grinned, and nodded as he continued. "Oh, don't worry- the only mental anguish you'll have is when we have to stop!" she told him with a smile.

"Oh... I've never been called 'Miss' before," she told him with a small crooked grin. "Nor have I been called a Lady." It was strange... in America you could barely get a guy to open a door for you, but here was Parke calling her miss and a lady in the same sentence. It was strange... but nice. "It doesn't matter. I'm just used to Trina... I just didn't want you to fee like you had to call me 'Miss'," she explained.

She raised her eyebrows as he mentioned an exchange. She cocked her head, curious, and then her eyes lit up. "That would be excellent!" she told him with a growing smile. "I could really stand to do better in that class..." she said with a wry smile. "Sure, I think we can work through that!" she said with a nod. At least, she hoped that she could.

Trina couldn't help but giggle as Parke told his story. As he continued, she lifted a hand to help smother them- but they just kept coming. "I'm sorry," she told him breathlessly. "It must have been horrible... but they're so innocent and small! I can't imagine being afraid of them," she said with a soft smile. It faded as Parke stared at her and she looked at him in confusion. At his question, she looked down at her freshly cleaned shoes.

"Rats," she told him. After a moment she looked up at him with a small smile. "I am petrified of rats," she continued with a shudder.

Why on earth he'd agreed to such a thing, he wasn't sure. Quite ridiculous really, now that he was thinking her. But, he'd already said he would do it, didn't he. Sigh. "Right", he eyed her skeptically. He would believe it when he experienced it. He just hoped she was right, at least about the mental anguish. Or the supposed lack of, as the case may be.

Parke raised his eyebrows briefly. Never been called 'Miss'? Not even called a lady?! Where on earth was everyone from. Didn't anyone have manners anymore? No. Apparently not. "I'm sorry to hear that, Miss Trina. A lady of your stature deserves respect", he said, rather quite demurely. "So long as you don't mind, I shall call you 'Miss' Trina. But not Katrina", he added with a small smile. See, he remembered.

Another study connection made. He'd convert them all yet. Not that she'd been a particularly hard sell. "Yes, well good. I always enjoy having multiple study partners", he said with an enthusiastic nod. New perspectives were always welcome.

There were those giggles again. Silly, girls were sometimes. "Eventually I learned not to be afraid of them so it wasn't too bad. Scared my mother something fierce with my shrieking at times though." He remembered her bursting into the room, looking like she was ready to lay down some kind of horrible curse on whoever had caused Parke so much terror and agony. He noted that she hadn't answered his question, and that unsettled him. He heard her mention something about rats, but he wasn't paying any attention, truth be told. Surely she wasn't a spy.

"I've got to study", he announced, standing suddenly. He'd need to do some research on this girl. He couldn't take any chances. "Owl me when you'd like to study", he said a bit more brusquely than he intended. He winced inwardly at his tone, but he couldn't help it. He was suspicious now. It was a yes or no question, after all.

Phyre<33
 

Whoop!Lili <333
 

Eirian turned the corner of the fifth floor and stopped short when she noticed the swamp. Urgh... She always found that the castle enjoyed being difficult. It was one of the traits she and Hogwarts apparently shared, but most traits were more becoming on her - or... any human... - than on semi-animate buildings. Then, as she noted the swamp, she also noted a lean, male figure up against one of the statues in this section of the fifth floor. Jayce? What was he doing here?

Giggling, Eirian snuck up behind him and settled herself on the other side of the statue, out of his eyesight. Then, in her best scary gargoyle impression, she boomed in a low voice, "Hey, Hair!Boy, get away from me."

Sitting there, he stared at the swamp growing more and more bored by the second. Gahh. Why wouldn't there be something interesting around here? He could always go swimming in the lake.. but he never liked swimming alone. So.. what options were left? There weren't really all that many.. Actually, the list was slim to none. He was most definitely not in the mood to go searching for people either. Siigh.

As he heard a voice behind him, the boy jumped at least five feet in the air, and yelled at the top of his lungs. STATUES WERE SCARY. He then proceeded to run 10 feet down the hall before finally looking over his shoulder to see Eirian there, sitting just a little ways from where he had been only moments ago.

MERLIN. He was going to kill her.

Eirian shrieked with maniacal laughter as Jayce screamed like a little girl and skittered away. She immediately imagined a big dog with his tail between his legs, whimpering irrationally. That was most-definitely Jay. Still laughing mirthfully, Eiri leaned against the statue and peered beyond it to watch her best friend realize that it was her and begin to glare or pout or whatever angry little boys did. Sticking her tongue out, she giggles before disappearing behind the statue again, sliding down it to sit against the cool stone. He'd join her soon enough... with whatever punishment he deemed fitting for her.

As he stopped and fully turned around, the Gryffindor stared at his best friend. He then narrowed his eyes to little tiny slits that he could barely see out of and fully glared at the Slytherin girl. He was NOT happy. The boy hated being scared. But on the brightside, they were the only ones around so he was saved from complete embarrassment.

Watching her move around the statue still absorbed in her fit of giggles, he shook his head and then proceeded to follow her. With a huff, he took a seat on the cold statue across from the one she herself was sitting on and continued to glare at her in silence.

Eirian giggled at Jay's face. "Meu filho and his pouty face," she murmured, pinching his cheeks. "Do not worry... You are adorable. Even if you are a scaredy-cat. How is it you got into Gryffindor again?" The taunting wouldn't help her case very much, but she couldn't help it. Eiri continued smirking as he stayed silent. This was only a temporary state for Jayce. He'd be talking again soon enough. Besides... he couldn't stay mad at her. He loved her. And even if it was terrible of Eirian... she'd exploit it just this once. In her mind. Yeah... That was it.

Jayce glared some more, lightening it a bit but not by much. "It's not a pouty face," he stated, swatting her hands away from his cheeks because he was not in the mood for her touchy feelyness. Jay scooted out of her reach, not wanting her to touch him again, seeing as it would kill him on the inside and probably make him stop glaring at her, which he was not going to do just yet. 'Scaredy-cat?' Was she TRYING to make him angrier, because it was working. "Just because i'm in Gryffindor, it doesn't mean i can't have at least ONE fear. Everyone has one," he replied, angrily and then proceeded to stare at her through the now narrow slits he called his eyes.

"Your deep, profound fear is angry talking statues?" Eirian giggled, rolling her eyes. "Whatever. You have your excuses for shrieking like a little girl and I have mine." Petting his hair, she hoped to calm him down... Like a doggie! "Calma, filho. Calma. What is it that you are doing here, meu filho?"

Still feeling the need to glare at her, he continued to do so and continued scooting away from her. "Shut up," he spoke though gritted teeth. "I'm aloud to be afraid of whatever i want and you shouldn't judge missy," he then crossed his arms in defiance. It had been.. something from his childhood that lead to him to be frightened of such a silly thing. But no, he never told anyone, and wouldn't ever share this information. With a deep sigh, he decided to give in. He shrugged before speaking, "Just wandering," Wishing that Opal would bound down the corridor toward him. "What are you doing here?" he added.

The harsh tone in Jayce's voice caught her off-guard, and Eirian winced. He wasn't joking... She had seriously offended him. With a sigh, she stood up and held her chin high. Tears had sprung into her eyes and her nose was beginning to run again... And she didn't want Jay to see that. It was embarrassing. "I was escaping from my cousin... But I think I ought to go now." If she were to stay, she'd probably offend her partner in crime more. She was already in such a high risk of losing him... She couldn't risk her stupidity making that risk any more of a reality.

"I have a lot of homework," Eiri muttered, peering around the statues before she walked out from behind them. Oh, damn... That was a bad excuse. Eirian didn't do homework.

Braeden just wanted to know one thing… Why a swamp?
Why had the school decided to honour Fred and George with a swamp and not something more normal like… a portrait, or a statue? How old was this swamp anyway? Older than Braeden, that much he did know. The twins themselves had been the ones to conjure it up, after all. Huh.

The cowardly lion approached the swamp warily, as if expecting something to just randomly jump out of it and attack him. As weirded out as he was by it, he couldn't help but being curious as well. Who knew what lived in those dark waters? So creepy… He shuddered, leaning over the rope sectioning off the swamp to take a closer look. Maybe the script for his next movie that will never be should take place in a swamp! Now, there was an idea. Grinning goofily to himself, the boy sat down by Gregory the Smarmy and pulled out parchment and a quill. Time to let his inner genius go wild.

Ava Jade stepped toward the huge swamp, dedicated to Fred and George Weasley. Pretty impressive two. She sometimes wished she'd gone to Hogwarts when they had been there... She wasn't one for pranks and rule-breaking, but didn't see anything wrong with a little fun now and then. As she wandered near the swamp, she noticed a lone Gryffindor, grinning over a sheet of parchment. "Hey there," she said, smiling brightly. "You look really focused on that parchment. What are you up to?" As soon as she said it, she felt a little bad for interrupting him when he seemed so intensely occupied...but it was too late now. Hopefully it wasn't something too important.

Quill and parchment went flying everywhere as Braeden nearly jumped a foot into the air.
He had not been expecting company. At all. And now he stood with his heart in his throat and his brown eyes wide as saucers - would he ever be a Gryffindor?! Honestly. The Sorting Hat must've been on something when it sorted him into 'the House of the brave'. Everything had him screaming and jumping and running!

The Gryffindor boy quickly regained his composure and picked up his things from the floor, flashing the girl that had approached him a goofy smile that was always so typical of him. "Sorry about that," he muttered sheepishly before he realized she had asked him a question. "Oh, it's-- it's nothing, just... some ideas," he explained. "Got some inspiration from the swamp there and had to write it down before it went away," he added, unaware of how strange that sounded.

His brown eyes flashed over to the swamp beside them for a moment before returning to the Hufflepuff girl that had accidentally given him a heart attack. "What about you?" he asked, raising one of his eyebrows slightly. "Come for a swim?" he asked with a chuckle. Ha ha... swim? Get it? In the swamp?
Eh, alright maybe it wasn't that funny. His smile faltered slightly.

Ava Jade jumped when he did, so startled that she almost dropped her bag and schoolbooks. When the boy recovered and gave her a smile, she burst out laughing and said, "Wow, I'm really sorry! I didn't mean to scare you like that." She almost offered to help him clean up his things, but he had them back in his hands before she could step over to help. "I'm just exploring the castle," she replied, answering his question. "I like to get away from the common room and library sometimes and check out the really weird places, like this." She looked over at the swamp, making a face at the oozy waters. "Looks disgusting, doesn't it? Pretty awesome though...but not NEARLY awesome enough for a swim!" She giggled at his joke, even though it wasn't really that funny. She loved to laugh anyway. "So what kind of 'inspiration' did you get from this weirdly-impressive gunk? Are you writing a poem or something?"

Mah EVA.
 

In all honestly, the redheaded sixteen year old had no idea what she doing by the statues. There was nothing on the fifth floor she was particularly interested in. With a sigh, she put her bag down on the ground and crouched down beside it, rummaging around for her latest piece of homework she needed to practice. She might as well do it here since it was a while before she had to be back at the dorm and her classes were done for the day.

A strange sight caught her eye and she straightened up, brows furrowed. Was that... a swamp? Blinking, she made a mental note to do the homework later before moving over to the interesting vision, peering curiously at the muddy ground. Why was there a swamp in the middle of the castle? Chyler couldn't help a small smile - it was certainly very Hogwarts and even she couldn't scoff at this extraordinary piece of magic. Sam in particular would find this entertaining.

Sophie’s birthday was coming up and she hadn’t had the gusto to tell either Sebastian or Evan about it. If she did they might challenge each other in finding the best gift. She didn’t want that. After the long conversation with Professor Hadley the brunette had changed patrol shifts with one of the other female prefects. Sophie needed a bit of a respite in her busy schedule. After leaving her backpack in the common room and cuddling a bit with her kneazle Oliver she decided to wander the castle aimlessly.

Coming to the fifth floor the almost 16 year old spotted a redheaded standing a bit too close to roped up swamp for her liking. There went her dream of an afternoon without having to prevent something bad from happening. Sophie had heard about how some kids had fallen in some years ago. Hopefully the redheaded girl was smart and just wanted to check it out.

Raising her voice she called out in her best prefect tone "Hey! Don’t get too close to the swamp. I don’t want to have to fish you out of the swamp water."

Chyler blinked and turned around at the sound of the voice that echoed down the hall with authority. Was that girl talking to HER? She straightened her back and folded her arms in the most imposing, scoffing manner she could compose and eyed the girl back, shaking her head a little. "That seems like a silly thing to do," she said, her eyes narrowed slightly before she spotted the prefect badge.

The fact that there were prefects at this school had been an exciting notion for her, simply because she thought that it was a clever idea but this was the first time she'd come across one and... well, the redhead wasn't really sure how to act. They weren't professors so they couldn't dock points or write them up or something but they WERE figures of authorities so she couldn't very well just ignore her or be rude to her.

Meh. But, WHY would she think she'd fall in? What kind of idiots did that? It was clearly a swamp AND it had a rope around it. Hogwarts was filled with many strange kids, but honestly? That was just really dumb. Probably hadn't been a Ravenclaw or a Slytherin.

It was hard not to take note of how the redheaded girl’s composure changed to one of imposing and scoffing and her eyes narrowed. Not letting that become her Sophie walked up to stand next to the redhead. "It was two first years that fell in years ago; a ravvie and a lion. They had from what I’ve heard been trying to discern the depth of the swamp. A silly mission that ended in them both falling into the swamp and a professor had to haul them out."

When the redhead noticed her prefect badge Sophie smiled inwardly. The badge had from the start of term added to her authority and enabled her rise to the responsibility. The red & golden engraved P for prefect had also which the 15 year old hoped helped prevent a lot of things from happening. The redhead’s composure changed to something unsure and nervous which made Sophie think that she had never met a prefect before. "Aren’t you in my year? You look familiar. I’m Sophie Connolly by the way."

The girl seemed reasonable enough so maybe just maybe the Gryffindor prefect wouldn’t need to fish her out of the swamp. Who knows what could be found in the swamp water anyway.

Chyler cocked her head to the side as the prefect walked closer and began to tell her the story of two quite stupid little kids, wondering to herself if she was bothered for polite chit chat or if she should just make up some excuse and walk away, preferably to the common room where she could get some peace and quiet. At this time of day, it was more than likely to be rather empty.

No, this was a prefect. Plus she didn't seem TOO bad. And in Sam's last letter, he had begged her to find some friends. At first she had scoffed at the idea but it had been four months since she's talked to anyone without a motive or a purpose behind every word. It was, even she admitted, rather bad. "I don't know, are you a fifth year? And I'm Chyler Canning," the redhead replied with a nod of her head, wondering if she should hold out her hand.

... No. It was fine like this. This Sophie Connolly seemed perfectly healthy therefore there was no reason Chyler should have to make contact. Instead, the sixteen year old cracked a small smile at her, the friendliest she could muster. HA, take THAT Sammy Boy. She was being sociable, and was feeling perfectly all right with it.

So far.

"Oh, no-- no, it's alright. I'm just… easily startled, I guess," said Braeden with a soft chuckle as the Hufflepuff girl apologized for scaring him. Oh yeah, some great first impression he'd made! Anyway…

The boy listened as the Hufflepuff girl explained to him she had only been exploring the castle, then going on to ask him if the swamp looked disgusting. He chuckled softly and nodded his head in agreement, his chuckles only growing as she added that the swamp wasn't awesome enough for a swim. "Yeah, I had a feeling you weren't the swamp-swimming type," he teased with an amused smile.

And then she was asking him if he was writing a poem or something, an idea to which Braeden couldn't help but laugh aloud with amusement. Braeden. Poems. Riiiiiight. Not in a million years. "I was actually just writing down some ideas for scripts," he said. "Movie scripts. I'm into that sort of… thing," he said with a shrug, not sure if the girl would understand; depended on how familiar she was with the Muggle world.

"By the way, I'm Braeden," he said with one of his lopsided grins, holding out a hand for the girl to shake.

sorry, Ava Jade's questions are kinda hidden in the middle of the huuuge paragraph XD
 

"Hi, Braeden," she replied, shaking his outstretched hand and returning his lopsided grin with a huge white smile. "I'm Ava Jade. So you're writing a movie script? Isn't that a Muggle thing, a movie?" She had a few half-and-half and Muggleborn friends who had told her some things about their world, and she was pretty sure they'd talked about movies before...but she didn't want to risk making a fool of herself by pretending to know more than she did. "They're like pictures with sound, right? I think I might have seen one once, at a friend's place." She smiled at him to make sure he knew she wasn't being critical of Muggle-related things. Coming from a long line of Hufflepuff purebloods, she was always eager to show people that, although she didn't know much about them, she had absolutely nothing against Muggles, and she was even a bit curious about their world. Sometimes she wished she was at least half-and-half, so she didn't feel so defensive about proving her neutrality. It was probably just because she knew enough pureblood families who were snobs about it, but she wanted it to be very clear that she was different.

xDDDD Don't worry about it!
 

Oooh, Ava Jade. Pretty name. But before Braeden could admire it too much, the girl was asking him if movies were a muggle thing. Smiling, the boy nodded his head. From the way she spoke, sounding a bit unsure, he could only assume she was either a pureblood or a half-blood who had been completely isolated from the muggle world. His vote was on the pureblood possibility, though.

"Exactly!" said the boy, rather excitedly, when Ava Jade asked if they were pictures with sound. "It's usually a story, just like reading a book, except that instead of reading, you're watching it come to life," he explained, almost sparkly-eyed as he talked about one of his favourite things in the world; ever the little muggleborn boy. "Unless you went really far back in time… movies didn't have sound back then, so you'd have to do a bit of reading…" he muttered, looking off into space thoughtfully for a moment before returning his brown eyes to the Hufflepuff girl. Enough about that! He didn't want to bore her to tears.

"What about you? What're some of your hobbies?" he asked curiously. "Besides, y'know, sneaking up on unsuspecting Gryffindors and making them jump like cats…" he added, obviously teasing as he flashed the girl one of his dorky smiles.