"Well, what do you want to know?" Cass said with a smile as she twirled a strand of hair around her finger like how she saw in those muggle things that Nathan had shown her last year..Moovees? Oh well, whatever.

Then she felt that it really wasn't her style. so she untangled the stand and laughed at her silliness. "But seriously, well...I like playing the violin...and reading books. And flying, but I haven't been able to fly much since term started." She said with a smile "How about you?"

He chuckled, but not AT Ellie, alright? "You forgot a couple leaves," he said, as he took the liberty of removing those from her hair. And sort of kept on looking at it before realizing that he was actually staring. At least he was still smiling.

Treyen decided now was the perfect time to look away.

Muggles! Oh, Tiberius! Yeah, for some reason he was reminded of Tiberius, he'd discussed planes with the boy, who happened to be a Ravenclaw too. "Then you don't get on planes to do so," he sounded a bit disappointed, "That's great, actually, that they're close. I'd probably visit them more if they were close, but I do have to get on a plane to get there." He nodded, and then tilted his head to one side as he eyed the Willow, "It's either Apparition or via Floo when we visit the Magical ones." But he was much more fond of France than Romania. Really.

Oh boo. Ellie gladly let Treyen take the leaves from her hair. "Thank you." BEAM. Her hair didn't appreciate the leaves.

"Nope." Nor to visit the magical relatives, but that would be obvious. "How often do you get to visit them?" she asked, with a hint of concern. It would be silly if planes were the only thing keeping them apart. She nodded her head at the next comment. Visiting magical family was always easier.

Kita, who still had the cool sunglasses on, sighed again. Even the sound of the Whomping Willow swishing its branches was soothing. Yeah... she was weird.

And then she heard a familiar voice calling her. "What in the name of Merlin-" she started as she sat up, raised her sunglasses and saw who it was. "Caroline!" she said, giving her bestie a hug, "How are you?" Man, it's been ages!

"Any time." He eyed her from the corner of his eyes and sort of smiled back, though, to the unsuspecting eye it may look like he was smiling to himself. Which he kind of did on a regular basis. But still.

And he'd truly meant that. The 'Any time' part.

Oh, no? Okay, then. "I haven't seen them since...last year, I think, around the Holidays." The winter ones, of course, because he was in Italy last summer, and then at Hogwarts this winter, "I don't see them much, you know, they're my relatives on my mom's side," and, according to Kaika, they used to visit them a lot, he couldn't possibly remember that. But it had been one of his cousin back in France that taught him to skateboard, and then Arya with the skates.

"I visit the ones on my dad's side very often, though, well, they visit us much more," since it was rather difficult for uncle Lex to have some time of his own dedicated to traveling, and the grandparents wanted to see their grandchildren together. It was only logical that the kids were to be moved to wherever grandparents were, no? They were only three, the logical thing would be for grandma and grandpa to visit them in Romania. But, yeah, whatever. He was cool with that, it only meant he didn't have to go there.

Ellie frowned. "But you get along, yeah?" That was the important part. That at least they were all good when they did see each other.

Mhm. She nodded, curling one of her legs to rest her chin on her knee.

Ducking under a few swinging branches she sat with her back against the trunk of the tree. She knew not many would find her there, nor dare to come too close. She still was stumped as to why in Merlin's name she had gone and kissed Matt. Not to mention the look on his face when she did it. Sighing she fiddled with some hair that was near her ear.

Staring out over the grounds through the swinging branches of the tree, she got lost in thought.

Ivan walked toward the whomping willow remembering the last time he was there. It didn't bother him as much any more now actually. He sat on a rock at a distance from the tree when he saw what he thought was someone against the trunk of it. Squinting to see if he could see better he saw who it was and laughed, "You are either very brave or very stupid TJ."

Hearing a voice she nearly groaned when she recognized who the voice belonged to. Seriously? Does he follow me around? Peeking out from behind a branch, she spotted him not too far away. "Mmmm, nice place to hide, ever tried it?"

Hehe knowing the answer, she figured probably not after his comment.

Ivan smirked and shook his head, leaning back on the rock. "Nope and never will. I happen to not want to be injured thank you." He picked up a rock and tossed it in the air catching it easily. "Why are you in there anyway? Hiding?"

Was that a smirk? She couldn't quite be sure, so hah! Smirking back, she knew he wouldn't be able to see that either. "Maybe." From a certain boy, she knew would want to help her flirt. Well, she could do that just fine apparently.

Making a face she knew that wasn't quite true, but would she admit it? Nope.

"Just hiding from certain people." she replied the smirk coming back.

Ivan tossed the rock up in the air a few times only missing once and looked at TJ. Or tried to. Stupid branches. "Well if you're hiding from me you've failed so you might as well come out." Yup take that flawed logic.

Her eyebrow going up at his words, she shook her head a smirk appearing. Sliding herself out from under a branch that was beginning to inch towards her, she hopped over another. "Why? Did you miss..." she asked coyly.

Just when she thought she was far enough from it, she went to stand up fully, getting hit on her...well hit from behind by that same branch she tumbled forward landing right in front of Ivan. "Umphhh...me?"

Caroline put her chin on her knees and sigh. Ahhhh she loved Kita's sunglasses. She was still fluming from her mother's letter. "I'm okay, besides my lovely mother dearest." She crossed her arms. If her mother was getting remarried then she was having her friends stay over the summer with her. This was her last straw with her.

Ivan watched as TJ came out from her hiding spot and tried to yell at her to be careful when she got hit by a branch and landed on top of him. Raising an eyebrow at her he smirked, "Well if you wanted to sit in my lap all you had to do was ask."

He helped her up and gave her a wink, "And to answer your question I kind of did." Only because she was so much fun to pick on. Yup that was it.

Her eyebrow went straight up when he said all she had to do was ask if she wanted to sit in her lap. "Riiight." Shaking her head, she got up and sat down next to him on the rock.

Did he? She wanted to stick out her tongue at him at that moment, was he teasing again, or what? Merlin, he drove her nuts when he talked like that! "Really?" she asked coyly once again, scooting closer. If he was serious...maybe he'd erm, flirt back? If not, he'd probably say something to just irritate her again.

Wait, what?

Where had that question come from? Did she not get along with her cousins too? Well, all the Lockharts did, and so did the Castelles, he was one lucky child, apparently. Then again, he didn't get along too well with his own sister...

...anyway...

..."Yes, we all do...that I'm aware, of course." He shrugged, because if perhaps Kaika didn't get along with one of the French ones, then, he really didn't know. But he doubted it.

"Don't you?" get along with the cousins, that is.

He kind of remembered the day he'd seen her without her camera, and then, "Have you developed any of the pictures you've taken so far?" just out of curiosity, nothing much.

"Good." Mhm.

She took a moment, chewing on her lip, before answering. "I don't know," she shrugged. "I don't know my dad's side of the family." She knew they existed, that they were THERE, she just didn't know them personally. "I get along great with my mom's side, though." Yup yup.

Oh! Right.

Ellie quickly reached back into her bag and pulled out the only things left inside. She handed the fairly large stack of pictures to Treyen. "There's some of the museum in there, too...Well, most of them are from the museum." It was cool, okay? It deserved all the pictures she'd taken. Even the 8 identical-but-not-the-same pictures of the Blue Whale.

Ellie must have a large family, no? After all, the reason why Treyen knew them all was that there were only one uncle and one aunt on his father side, and one aunt on the mother's side. So, yeah, not to big, since each one of them didn't have more than three kids. Or, well, some of them were adults already, except for the littlest Lockharts.

"I see." And there was a nod, but he soon spoke again, "There's always one side you get along better." In his case, both, in odd ways, because Magic was the thing keeping one side together, whilst the other relied on personality traits. Gilderoy would've gotten along very well with the French people.

And then he eyed the redhead look for something in her bag. That must mean...she'd gotten something developed, no?

Oh! Pictures! And they were being handed to him, he smiled as he took them, and quickly said, "I assume the ones of me are for me, right?" they'd discussed that before, "Er, but feel free to take those of the whale away," and now he was frowning as he was eying those pictures. There was something about the whale that he didn't like. Or perhaps it reminded him of how he'd felt back in the Museum, with the enormous whale. Freaky.

Soon, his smile returned, "I like this one of Mr. Stryker, though." And he chuckled. The man and the dinosaur were meant to be together.

"Mmm..." Ellie shrugged again, "I'd at least like to know if I'd get along with them or not." Confession.

She nodded, "The whole stack's for you." Yup. There were plenty more that she was keeping.

The girl laughed, "Aw, you'll hurt its feeeeelings." The Whale's.

And she laughed more. Yeah, she knew the one he was talking about. "One of my favorites." SEE. Good thing she had her camera THEN, too.

Christopher wandered down to the Whomping Willow. He wasn't quite sure why, as it was quite a mean tree, always thrasing around at people and animals and such. Though it was quite isolated, and he wanted to catch up on a bit of reading. He pulled out a book, and began to skim through it, though not actually reading it. It was quite strange for Christopher to not read, as it was his favourite thing in the whole wide world! He was watching the clouds, lost in his thoughts. He'd been imagining the dreads of going home over the summer holiday. He didn't want to leave.... Hogwarts was his home, he couldn't go back to live in his Muggle town, he just couldn't.... especially with the circumstances back at his house. He shook his head, trying to shake off thought, and turned back to his book.

Ringo was in a particularly cat like mood that day, and Preston was finding himself running around the castle chasing after the pet raccoon, attempting to catch the animal and take it up to the Hufflepuff where Preston would lock him in the dorm room and feed him macaroni. But now, now Preston was running after the raccoon who was chasing a small mouse that in Preston's mind wasn't even worth the effort of chasing.

Not even noticing that once again, Ringo was heading directly towards the one tree on the entire grounds of Hogwarts you didn't want to be running into, the Whomping Willow. "R-R-Ring-Ringo!" Preston exclaimed, attempting to call the raccoon off from any more running, he was getting quite tired now.

The young boy had opened his mouth to call for the raccoon once more, but suddenly found himself in the midst of tripping onto the grassy grounds that surrounded the Hogwarts castle.



Finding himself face to face with patch of green grass now, Preston could tell he had tripped over someone, and momentarily Preston had completely forgotten that Ringo was headed towards a death trap that swung large branches around, he was concerned for the person's safety whom he had tripped over. Hopefully they didn't have any broken bones or anything because of the trip Preston had taken.

"Y-you okay?" Preston asked.

That...,"Why don't you?"...was odd.

"I mean, what has kept you from knowing?" because, since Ellie was...what? Thirteen? Fourteen? Then the blame was to her parents, no? Or, well, not everyone had the time to visit relatives. Not even his grandpa seemed to have spare time to visit Gilderoy at St. Mungo's, but then Treyen used to see him napping a lot. It just didn't make sense...until last summer.

But still, visitations are always welcome. Unless you're unwanted. Which was totally a different scenario.

Wait...where were they?

GRIN.

"Well, thank you...," the whole stack? Yes, we don't want the whale ones, "...but, I...seriously don't want these," he was gesturing to the four or seven pictures of the whale that were already neatly stacked between him and Ellie. And he didn't laugh. His expression turned...neutral. "Good, I think that's the only way of hurting that big...thing." Yes, he totally agreed with himself about it.

Really, Ellie, take those away.

Ha. Mr. Stryker was a funny man. He was so glad Mr. Masterson had left. But shhh, don't tell anyone, otherwise Mr. Masterson will return and turn him into a Niffler. A Niffler! "Ellie...," he started to say, "I need a favor from you." It was a rather easy favor. "Could you take a picture of Aslan for me?" did she know who Aslan was?

Christopher was reading once more, but all of the sudden, he felt someone kick him in the back. Hadn't people been bullying him enough at this school... and at home? He always ignored them, but at this point, he was starting to get fed up. He was only thirteen for gosh's sakes, people didn't have to be so rude to a child! Christopher was about to turn around and ask the person what their problem was, when they fell right over his shoulder. He realized that they hadn't actually tried to be mean, but had merely tripped! Relieved he scrambled to his feet, and reached out a hand to help up a boy around his age. "I'm fine, are you? That was quite a fall you just took!" He grinned at the boy and looked after a raccoon headed for the Whomping Willow.

"Is that your pet? Because he's about to get hit by the tree!" Christopher ran after the poor animal, hoping it wouldn't be smashed by the tree. He was all for animals and their safety; he made sure none were hurt on his watch! He scrambled over to get it, and as he picked up the squirming thing, he saw a branch headed right towards him! He dived out of the way, breathing hard. That was a close one! He sighed, still lying on his back. He hurried up again, avoiding the tree, and hoping to get the racoon back to its owner. "Here... you go...." He sat down, and randomly started laughing. Yeah, he was a bit of a freak, but he found this whole situation rather humourous. He was a bit of a weirdo... but that was him!

Another shrug and more lip chewing. "I've never met them." And you can't judge someone before you meet them. "I don't know why...my dad doesn't ever say anything bad about his brothers... Maybe they don't like him." For...whatever reason Ellie couldn't fathom. Her dad was like...THE mose AMAZING person ever to her. She didn't see how anyone could think differently.

"Of course." Hehe.

Aww. POUT. "Fine. I'll just keep them." And make wallpaper out of them or something. Treyen was WEIRD with whales, apparently. Whatever flew his broomstick.

"Treyen..." she answered before he continued.

GASP.

"Yes!" She might not have known what she could be getting herself into, but Treyen had WANTED her to take a picture of something. Progress.

BEAM.