Conan had made his way, in his snowsuit, to the broomshed. Well if he was going to try out his year, then he would need to look at a broom. So here he was, looking at the brooms. He reached out, with a gloved hand, and stroked a broom handle. Oooooo woodeny.

Ellie might have overlooked one little, teeny, tiny detail when she got all her things ready for Hogwarts. The condition of her broom. How she did this? She had no idea. But along with overlooking her broom's condition, she overlooked the fact that she no longer had enough polish in her own servicing kit.

Good ol' Vindictus would surely have extra kits in here, though. And she could just swipe a bit of polish from one and finish. It would be such a shame to only have half a broom polished.

Rather than actually steal a canister and bring it to the Common Room, though, Ellie decided to bring her broom down here. And maybe she'd do a bit of flying when she was finished.

But...Conan was here? Yes. It wasn't like she could mistake that oddly-colored-blonde head for anyone else. Thing was...what in Merlin's name was Conan doing in the broomshed?

She wasn't going to ask, though...no. She'll just...be causal...

The Ravenclaw walked into the shed and placed her broom on a worksurface, then went to the shelves where the kits were kept. "How's it going, Conan?" she asked as she made her way back to her broom.

Totally casual.

Conan jumped at least a couple of feet in the air, as he heard someone behind him. Someone had caught stroking brooms. He turned around to see it was Ellie. "Going? I'm not going anywhere," he rushed, blushing. All he had heard was going. And he wasn't doing shifty things at all.

"Ellie."

She hadn't seen the jump, as her back was turned to the boy, but the rushed answer that made clear he hadn't understood her question made Ellie suspicious. She turned her head to Conan and raised an eyebrow. "I asked how you were..." Well, basically.

"You aren't messing with the brooms, are you?" While Ellie hardly cared, having her own broom, Vindictus certainly would mind. And maybe Conan would tell her what he was doing here, before she even had to ask.

Oh. He calmed down slightly. She hadn't seen him stroking the brooms. "I am fine. Ya know. Hanging out," he said, forcing a smile out. "How are you?"

He shook his head, "No not messing. I was thinking of sweeping though. This place is super dusty." Like it hadn't been cleaned in years.

Her raised eyebrow twitched. Suuuure he was just hanging out in the broomshed. 'Cause it was so obvious a place for the young 'Puff to be...

No, not at all, really.

But Ellie let it slide and turned her back to him once again as she opened the kit and unscrewed the canister of polish. She'd just dipped one of the cloths into the polish when he spoke again.

She didn't turn around, but she did groan. "Don't you know by now these brooms aren't for sweeping?" She'd explained the game of Quidditch to him. There was no way he could think that there was a shed in a remote area of the grounds with servicing kits and twenty-some odd broomsticks inside as a place to keep brooms for sweeping. That was what the broom closet inside the castle was for.

And please don't hurt a broomstick by attempting to sweep the floor with it.

Conan shrugged, stepping away from the brooms. "Don't matter really. I wasn't exactly going to sweep with them." Though he could totally do a Sorcerer's Apprentice. These brooms wouldn't know what had hit them. Maybe when she had left.

"What you doing in here?" he asked. She didn't really have any reason to be in here like him.

He wasn't? But did he not just say he was thinking about it?

Orrr was that a joke? A joke Ellie obviously didn't get. Apparently, she took broom-treatment seriously. "Well...good." He better not have any more ideas of using the brooms in a way other than flying or tending to them.

She was onto actually polishing the handle, now. "I ran out of polish." Mhm. Simple reasons. "What are you doing in here?" So, she finally asked. But hopefully it didn't sound like she was interrogating Conan or anything. She was just asking the question back at him. She really was curious, though. Unless he wanted to fly...which, still, he shouldn't do unsupervised. Ellie was pretty sure he hadn't flown before. He wouldn't be able to explain how it worked in Muggle terms.

What was he doing in here? Good question Eliana. What WAS he doing in here? "I came to look at the brooms. That a problem?" he asked. Why was she asking so many questions? Did she know his motives? Why oh why?

"I didn't have much else to do." Cept maybe study. But who really wanted to do that anyway. Not this early into the term anyway. "I am not allowed to be in the broomshed?" He had been kicked out of the kitchens and now out of the broomshed. Where could he go?

"Of course not." Just odd.

Okay... Ellie nodded. But didn't Conan like the library? It was just very strange for him to spend his extra time in here. "Of course you're allowed in here." Everyone was.

"You just wanted to look at the brooms?" She rolled her broom to polish the other side of the handle.

...

This was odd. Kita wasn't usually the type to drag someone off to somewhere else just to have a talk. Especially when that somewhere just so happened to be the broomshed. No! She would have much rather dragged the girl to the Great Hall but... that was too far away. Meh!

Reaching the broomshed, she took a quick peek around before opening the door and walking in. Inside, she let go on Caroline hand and crossed her arms, looking at her best friend.

The girl HAD been acting odd, there was no doubt about that. She wasn't... exactly... the happy, bubbly type... but she wasn't the depressed type either!

"So Caroline..." she started, "Is there anything you need to tell me?"

Caroline had just about done anything that she could to get away from Kita. But NOTHING Worked. Where exactly was Kita taking her? They stopped at the broomshed. NO, no they were not going flying. She wasn't even in the mood for that.

When Kita let go of her she was tempted to run out the door. But Kita asked her if there was anything that she needed to tell her. Caroline looked hard at her best friend. "No, there's nothing." She lied.

Hmph.

So that was it was it? Just... nothing? So the girl refuses chocolate, talks about not being able to handle things and just says that it's nothing? If this wasn't odd, she didn't know what was.

"Caroline..." Now how do you put this? "Are you sure? You know you can tell me anything." That's why they were FRIENDS after all! Heck, if something happened with her, Caroline would be the first to know!

Caroline sighed. "No I'm not sure." She looked down at the floor of the broomshed."I went to Gryffindors try outs. I thought that I could handle going to it. But I couldn't." She shook her head and fought back her tears. Well at least she had made it a whole month without crying since they got back to school. "I seen him up there and I just lost it. It was where I met him." She hadn't been anywhere near the pitch since the last match that Carter had.

"And you know how I feel about him. Am I that terrible of a person to pull Jai around like this When I just like him as a friend?" She sighed, and for some reason she felt like a cold heartless snake for treating him like that. It was true, she was just dating him to try to get over Carter, and she was pulling him around, she was tired of making him think that she care about him like that. "Argh, I can't keep this up."

Conan smiled, "Good. Cos I don't have many other places to go. And I got this suit special for going outside." He tugged on the bottom of the jacket to prove the point.

He nodded, "Ya know. Look at them." And he had looked at them. Now he could leave, and sit in the kitchen corridor. He would hope that the elves would take kindly to him, and let him make a sandwich.

Ellie turned around to see the suit he mentioned. The snowsuit. "Aren't you hot?" She wasn't one to get cold easily, but even for the average person, it wasn't cold enough outside to wear that.

Look at them. Right. "And how do they look?" They could probably use some maintenance, too.

She exchanged cloths to take the polish off the broomstick now.

Conan shook his head, "Am I meant to be? It ain't exactly warm out." That was why he was wearing the snow suit DUH!!! Plus he was susceptible to the cold. He was like a camel thrust in the Arctic. He would freeze to death if he wasn't wearing this suit. Well sort of. That might've been a slight exaggeration.

How did they look? "Umm broomy?" How was he meant to know? He didn't like brooms.

Hah. Oh, Conan. "It's not exactly cold, either." Like it's really not cold at all. At all.

Broomy. No, Ellie didn't find any humor in that at all, actually. It kind of hurt to see someone soooo clueless about Broomsticks. "Is that not what you expected?" If all he had to say about a Broom was that it looked 'Broomy', he needn't have come all the way out to the Broomshed, yeah?

After Quidditch tryouts, Tori was dreading heading back to the castle to do her homework. There WAS one subject she was looking forward to, however: Transfiguration. She'd had so much fun, and success, changing her hair color in the greenhouses that she decided to try it out here. There was nothing quite like natural sunlight!

Stepping into the broomshed, Tori made sure the place was clear before she dug her mirror out of her purse. She settled onto the top of an overturned bucket and elongated and curled her hair first. "Felintas," she whispered, tapping her head. Now for the color... hmm... maybe purple this time? "Ristaris!" Tori tapped her head again and then glanced down at her pretty reflection. Eh. Not bad.

How about... blue? "Ristaris!" she repeated the spell and motion. Also not bad.

Green? "RISTARIS!" Tori was getting progressively louder and more giddy with each casting. Ooh she liked that one. She'd have to wear that to the first Quidditch match!

One more left to try now.... they always did say blondes had all the fun...

"Ristaris!" Tori cast, tapping her head a final time. Oooh YAY! Helllllllllo bombshell. She looked like a cooler Marilyn Monroe. Maybe Tori would just keep her red hair this way, eh? It was a good look for her.

Minerva went to the broom shed to retrieve a broom. "Guess I need as much practice as possible" she said out loud.

The practice pitch os OPEN!

Raven walked to the broomshed to get a broomstick. Most of them seemed old.

"Sigh, How poor this school was! Are there any nice and eligible brooms? At least Cleansweep." She grumbled to herself. Then, she find a better one. She took it and reached the practice pitch.

It was pretty crap outside, but that didn't stop Hateya from making the slog down to the broom shed to look after the school broom she used. One of these days, she was going to convince her brother that a broomstick would be a great Christmas present, and that he didn't have to get her other sisters a present as equally expensive.

As she got out the clippers and polish, Hateya started humming to herself. And yes, she was sort-of lost in a fantasy of epic beater-ness.

Was it creepy? Probably. Would it be fun? Yes. And that was the most important part.

Maturity, Zachariah Thorne had it in spades, yes sir. He did actually. He worked his pretty little buttocks off the previous year. Kept his nose clean, stayed away from mischief (that hurt); got a few OWLs (that hurt more) and spent a good six months basically asleep trying to recuperate from the effort of all that good behaviour.

Zack stepped out of the dark corner of the shed where his favoured old Comet rested. "Good thing you fly better than you carry a tune, Goldilocks," he declared, by way of greeting.

After the scare she got from that other Gryffindor boy in her first year, and her time as a beater, Hateya was a little more immune to people sneaking up on her. At least, she didn't scream. Much. She sure jumped, though.

And swung her broom at his head.

"Creeper!" She attempted a fierce glare, but seeing as she was still startled it didn't work all that well, "Taking lessons from creepy alleys?"