Selina nodded at the little girl firmly. That was exactly what she had said. Anya was going to be their Seeker, the most important position on the pitch. Intrusting a first year was risky to say the least, but she believed in Anya. That was something she could trust.

"Yeah... The person who chases the Snitch. I think you can handle it, but I wanted to talk to you about it first. If you don't want it, tell me."

Not that she'd listen to Anya. Her mind was made up.

Anya's expression changed from confused blinking to a giant smile. "Really?" she half squealed. Selina trusted her! And thought she could handle it!

She threw her arms around the older girl.

"I won't let you down. I'll try my very, very, very best." she said giving the captain a hug.

She enjoyed all of her classes? That was so good to know. "Scary? Hmmm.. who do you consider as scary?" She asked. As for her, she used to think that Lafay was the scariest but now, it seemed like someone had turned the tables around. Oh, and Charms! One of her favorite indeed. "I love Charms too especially because Professor Schirmer is teaching it," and the Professor was the next best thing to their Herbology and Astronomy Professor. "Really? Your grandmother was an inventor? Did she manage to invent some charms?" Because well..that was what they do right? Invent something.

O___O Beezus then just stared at the small box Tayla was holding out over her. "I..I..Errrr..I'm allergic to chocolate." she mumbled. Maybe she could have just taken the Antillergen Potion right? But then again..she sent the last vial to her Aunt so she doesn't have anymore with her. The eaglette then made a mental note to brew it on the Potions Laboratory one of these days.

"Professor Lafay...sometimes," Tayla replied, blushing a little. "But last lesson she was in a good mood." Tayla remembered a particular teacher they had when she was first year - or was it second year? "I'm not sure if you were already here but when I was first year or second year - I can't remember which - we had a Transfiguration teacher who spoke really loudly and in a broken way and...he was scary, too," Tayla laughed a little as she thought about it. "He made us dress up like vikings at one point."

Tayla felt a bit disappointed. "I'm sorry," she said. "Maybe you can ask for an Antillergen potion from Professor Lafay..." Thinking about what she had just suggested, Tayla said quickly, "Or you can brew your own." Professor Lafay would probably help, but Tayla wasn't sure if wanting to eat chocolate was a good enough reason for her - unless the professor loved chocolates maybe.

"Does even a little bit of chocolate affect you? Are you allergic to anything else?"

Seeing as the day were getting longer again which meant that the sun would go down later every day, Lewis had figured that he should probably get started on some stargazing for Professor Roslund's assignment. Fortunately, Kurumi had said she would join him tonight so maybe the whole looking-up-at-the-sky thing was going to be a lot more interesting.

With an extra blanket - it was still pretty cold outside - his bag and his telescope in hands Lewis made his way over to where they'd arranged to meet. Hopefully she would come too. Until then he decided to make good use of the time by setting up his telescope, and placing his notebook and pen on top of his bag on the floor. Okay. Now he was ready.

Spreading the blanket on the ground Lewis sat down on it and looked up at the sky. At least it was clear tonight so maybe they would actually get to see a few stars.

Tugging on her purple scarf as she walked, Kurumi squinted in the dimly lit corridor to try and see if Lewis was already there or not. It was hard to see now that the sun had set and the moon's light was blocked by one of the many towers that made up Hogwarts. Tugging on the strap of her bag, Kurumi walked forward, wondering if perhaps she should have actually brought her reading glasses with her...

"Oh, Lewis!" Kurumi called, hopefully spotting him. She had already mistaken him for a rather oddly shaped bush earlier on her way down. That had been awkward to say the least and the Gryffindor was forever thankful that no one else had been around to see it. She walked over to him and set her things down on the ground before kneeling down to unzip her bag and remove her telescope as well, setting it up beside his.

Looking up, Kurumi could already see Polaris shining brightly above them, but she didn't focus on looking at the stars too much just yet. Returning her attention to her bag, Kurumi removed a rather larger thermos and two mugs. "I probably should have asked...but do you like tea?" Kurumi usually drank green tea all the time in the evenings as a way to calm down, but recently she had taken up using her mother's cherry blossom tea...it made her feel more connected, which surprised her considering she had been trying to put such thoughts out of her mind for some time now.

Lewis was so busy squinting up at the night sky that he didn't even notice Kurumi's arrival. Not until she called out to him anyway, causing him to jump in his seat slightly. "Hey!" He called back, even waving at her quite frantically to make sure she was walking in the right direction. Which was towards him. Obviously. Oh, maybe he should get up from his blanket too so she could see him better.

But before he got around to doing that, she was already at his side. Good. She had found him. And most of all, she had come! "I'm glad you came." Because he just was, and he wasn't really thinking about what he was saying. He shifted a little in his seat to give her more room on the blanket while watching her set up her things for the stargazing. Not that he was completely sure what and how they were going to do that.

Tea? "I do." Lewis replied with a smile and a nod, letting his eyes drop to the two mugs. Oh, she'd brought tea then? And a second mug too? Was that one for him? Or was anybody else coming? Or would she be needing two mugs?

Oops. Had she started Lewis again? This seemed to be a habit of hers when it came to the Hufflepuff. Her other habit, concerning Hufflepuffs at least, was casting Silencing Spells on them. Hopefully nothing would happen over the course of their stargazing that would warrent that sort of thing with him. Kurumi didn't really want to silence him. She did giggle a bit when she saw how frantically he was waving at her.

"Of course I did," she smiled, adjusting the legs of her telescope a bit to get it into proper position. "You weren't worried that i wasn't going to show up, were you?" Because that would be silly of him to think that she would stand him up when she promised to be here. Although, didn't standing someone up imply that they were on a date? Which the two of them were not...but clearly she was over thinking things. She did that often, especially when she was stressed.

Her eyes lit up a bit when he said that he liked tea. Oh good, she wasn't sure if he was more of a hot chocolate sort of person or not...but Kurumi was certainly much more of a tea person. "Good," she nodded, pouring him a cup of the hot deep pink liquid and handing it to him. "It's an old family recipe made from cherry blossoms." She then poured herself a mug and blew on it to try and cool it down to a temperature where she too could sip on it.

Seeing that he had already had his telescope set up, Kurrumi assumed that he had probably already done a little bit of stargazing prior to her arriving. "Have you spotted anything interesting yet?" she asked as she took a seat on the blanket. "I think we should be able to see Neptune tonight."

Of course I did. Lewis just smiled at her for a moment when she said that. Well, for him it hadn't been so obvious that she would really come but apparently for her it had been. "I don't know...?" He replied with a small shrug, averting his gaze to his hands in his lap. "I mean, I thought...maybe you had something better to do." And who could blame her too. She was a PREFECT after all.

Oooooh, so the second mug was for him! "Thank you!" Lewis replied, maybe a little too enthusiastically as he took the offered mug of tea from her. Holding it up close to his nose he breathed in deeply to see if it actually SMELLED of cherry blossoms too. Not that he knew what cherry blossoms smelt like.

Had he spotted- "Huh?" Lewis looked back up at her with a slightly confused look on his face. Spotted anything interesting? Then he noticed how she was looking at his telescope and mentally facepalmed himself. Oh. Right. Of course. Stargazing. The actual reason they were here. "No, I, err, I only got here a couple of minutes before you." Lewis nodded slowly, hoping she wouldn't think he was stupid or something. He had just...momentarily forgotten what they were here for.

Tilting his head back a little to stare up at the night-sky again, he bit his lip a little trying to find Neptune. "That's the blue-ish one, isn't it?" He uttered under his breath, rather talking aloud to himself than asking Kurumi. Okay, maybe he should try looking through the telescope. That's what he had brought it along for after all.

The fifth year simply shook her head at Lewis. He really should show some more confidence and...not be so hard on himself? That, or perhaps he just had the wrong impression of her? She may be a prefect and have a schedule that with all the color coding looked like a child's artwork, but friends always came first - even when compared to baking. "And break my promise to come out here and do Astronomy homework with you? You're funny, Lewis," she laughed. Because, he was joking, right?

Making herself a little more comfortable and pulling out her star charts and Astronomy notes, Kurumi dusted off the lens of her telescope and shifted its position a bit more and looked back up at the sky, blowing on her hot beverage for a moment before finally testing it. A faint smile tugged at the edges of her lips and her eyes glimmered in the darkness as her thoughts wandered for a moment to her mother. She sipped on her tea and then cocked her head to the side when she heard him speak. The blue-ish one?

"Afraid you won't be able to see Neptune with the naked eye," she laughed. Unless he had super eyesight that is. "I think what you are seeing is Polaris, the North Star. It tends to look a little blueish." Kurumi tapped her telescope and cast the focusing spell before taking a peek through it. Hmmm...maybe it was still a little too early to be able to see the planet...or her calculations were way off. Most likely it was her calculations since she had hurried through them in the Gryffindor common room.

"If...we find Pollux we should be able to find Neptune just south of it."

Glancing up from his hands for a moment to see her reaction, Lewis furrowed his brow slightly at her shaking her head. Had he said the wrong thing? Again? And why did people always thinking he was trying to be funny when he really wasn't? "I wasn't-" But somehow he couldn't see anything good coming out of him pointing that out. "Well, I mean, I'm just glad you could make it." He ended up saying, giving her a warm smile.

He took a sip of his tea, unable to wait any longer. He just wanted to know what cherry blossom tea tasted like. And a special Kurumi-family-made cherry blossom tea too. ... Maybe he should have blown on it first a little. It was HOT! Smacking his lips together in an attempt to get them to stop hurting, he glanced at Kurumi for a moment. Hopefully she hadn't noticed that he was apparently too stupid to drink tea. What was wrong with his brain today?!

Lewis had even started to poke out his tongue to let it cool off in the cold winter air, because it was hurting like hell too. And he STILL didn't know how the tea tasted. "Huh?!" Too focussed on his own tongue, he had clearly missed why Kurumi was laughing. What was so funny? The stars? Oh, him trying to see the stars? Was that it? Yes, he must be looking like a genius today. NOT.

Quickly putting his tongue back into his mouth, Lewis tried to ignore the blush he felt forming on his cheeks and nodded vigurously. "Yes, I know but-" But he really didn't want to contradict anything Kurumi said so he just muttered, "Nevermind" and pulled his telescope towards him. Tilting it upwards he pointed his wand at it, muttering the focusing spell under his breath until he could see the North Star properly. Right.

Now where was this Pollux? After a couple of minutes of silence and swerving the telescope around, Lewis finally focused it on a specific star again. "Hey, that's it, isn't it?" He exclaimed quite happily, pointing at the night sky. It WAS Pollux, wasn't it?

Kurumi smiled and continued to sip on her tea. Should she respond to his comment? She would probably only say something along the lines of, I'm glad that you're glad...which really didn't make much sense and was a bunch of sillyness and would make her look even more naive than she already was. So, the fifth year settled for sipping on her cherry blossom tea, blowing gentle on it now and again to cool it.

Her thoughts wandered some more as she sat there sipping her tea. She thought about those cold winter days when it was just her mother and her in the house. On those cold nights, after another round of scolding her for something, the two would sit in the living room under the kotatsu eating mandarin oranges and sipping on cherry blossom tea. There weren't going to be very more of those days anymore...

Kurumi bit on her bottom lip and turned her face away from Lewis for a moment to compose herself. Nothing to see here...just looking at her telescope and checking the charts. Yep.

She turned her head around again when she heard Lewis say that he found the star in question and masked expression with a curious smile. "Oh?" she asked as she leaned over a bit to see what Lewis was looking at. Kurumi reached for her star charts and tried to match things up before speaking again. "Yep, that's it." Kurumi then turned her own telescope towards the same direction and attempted to find Neptune, but was finding it hard to find it. Maybe she needed to focus her telescope again? "Hmm...I can see Sirius...but I can't seem to find Neptune." Cue a slight frown.

Cece finally had some free time from the infirmary so she decided to head outside and get some fresh air. Maybe she would wander down to the creature sanctuary and see if William was there. They hadn't had any time to talk since their little outing in Hogsmeade. It was probably about time they did... They couldn't stay away from each other forever... could they?

With her hands in her pockets she walked through the corridor to the courtyard watching her feet as she went. Probably not the smartest thing to do but hey, she wanted to look at her new shoes, you know, make sure they were still clean and all.

Oliver was coming back from Waylon's hut. He had no idea where that man disappeared to but every time he tried to go and talk to his friend, he was never there. Oh well his friend was going to get quite the surprise when he held his next class and it wouldn't be Olly's fault that the Groundskeeper didn't get told. You can't tell someone something when they're never around. Of course he could have left a note. But where was the fun in that?

He was walking along the corridor, heading back towards the castle when he spotted a familiar looking blonde walking his way. His lips twitched into a smirk and his hand automatically dived into his pocket where he had tucked the piece of parchment, William had given him. Oliver had been carrying it around ever since for just such an occasion where he might run into Cece.

She wasn't even looking where she was going either. Even better. Oliver stopped right in front of her.

Cece had just about made it to the courtyard when she seen a pair of shoes stopped right in her pathway. Really, did whoever was wearing those shoes not see her walking here?

Looking up she was sure it was going to be one of those bratty students but it wasn't. No, it was... Oliver.

Of course. He's just as bad as some of these students around here. "Really Oliver, you have to stop right here... in my pathway?" Because obviously this corridor wasn't wide enough for the both of them to walk through at the same time. Well not with his big head anyway.

"Your pathway?" Oliver made a show of looking over the floor before returning his gaze to Cece and giving her another one of his smirks. "I don't see your name on it." In other words he could walk anywhere he liked. So there!

His fingers brushed over the parchment and he was just itching to shove it in her face but he would wait. "And where are you headed on this brisk February day?" He tilted his head to the side a little. She was a very attractive woman, he would give her that but Merlin, she was a cranky thing. "William's not in his hut. I just came from there."

William better thank him for that later.

"Yes, MY pathway. I'm walking here on this path and YOU"RE in MY way." You didn't have to be a rocket scientist to see that the obnoxious one was clearly trying to annoy her and stop her from going any further.

Stepping to the side, Cece started to walk past Oliver when he asked where she was going. "I don't believe that's any of you concern." She wasn't some student that had to answer to Oliver Jenkins and get his permission when she wanted to go for a walk. "And for your information, I wasn't headed to his hut." No, she was headed to the creature sanctuary instead. "Now if you'll excuse me I have a walk to get back to." Yep, she was just out on a leisurely walk... well as far as Oliver was concerned that's all she was out doing.

Lewis glanced down at his own star charts, trying to figure out if it was Pollux or not by himself. Before Kurumi got to correct him again. Everything seemed about right. Though, then again they weren't looking for Pollux. They were looking for Neptune. Which was supposed to beeeee...somewhere south of it. Only where.

He stopped his squinting through the telescope when Kurumi leaned over to see what he'd been pointing at. Looking at her face for just a second longer than would have been normal, Lewis quickly averted his gaze back to the Gryffindor's star charts once he'd caught himself doing it. They were here to look at STARS after all. Neptune to be exact.

Glancing at her when she said she also couldn't find Neptune, Lewis pulled back from his telescope and sat back down on the blanket. "Are you...are you sure we're supposed to be able to see it tonight?" He asked softly, not really looking at her but instead staring down into his mug of tea. "Maybe it's...tomorrow or something." Or there were just too many clouds tonight. Not that he minded being out here with Kurumi. They could still go on gazing up at the sky, looking for Neptune until midnight, for all that he cared.

SEE!

Cranky! Oliver couldn't understand what William saw in her. He and his friend pretty much had the same personalities. So why would William...ugh he didn't want to think about it anymore. His friend obviously had weird taste.

He didn't stop her when she stepped to the side. Instead he casually lent up against one of the stone pillars and watched as she went to walk away. "So how long have you had the hots for me Cece?"

Get ready for the explosion!

It was a good thing that Kurumi had herself completely occupied with academic thoughts regarding Astronomy and finding Neptune to notice Lewis looking at her longer than what may have been considered normal. Recently, when the Gryffindor wanted to put blinders up, she really put them up and blocked everything out entirely. It was her best defense at the moment. Made her feel like she had at least some control over things.

"Pretty...sure..." she nodded, running her fingers over the chart and checking things again. She traced along several constellations until her fingers found Pollux and then her left hand traced over the line that should be the path of Neptune during this time of year. "Yep...it SHOULD be there..." She glanced up again, noting the slight cloud coverage. "Maybe we need more powerful telescopes..." Which they didn't have with them at the moment.

With a small sigh, Kurumi set the charts down on their shared blanket. Well, there were other things to spot besides Neptune, but she really wanted to see it. Frown. Looking up again this time, Kurumi's eyes widened. No, it wasn't a comment this time. "Quick, Lewis, LOOK!" she chirped, pointing and tapping his shoulder to make sure she caught his attention. Shooting star!

Cece was expecting Oliver to trip her or something as she walked by him but he didn't. Hmm, maybe he wasn't as obnoxious as she thought. Maybe he was finally starting to act like an adult.

Or NOT!

Spinning around on her heal upon hearing his words she glared at him. "Me, have the hots for YOU? Have you gone mental or what?" Wait, this was Oliver she was talking to. Of course he was mental. "Don't flatter yourself Oliver, I wouldn't have the hots for you even if you were the last man alive."

Now it was his turn to lean over a little, watching her trace Neptune's path on her star chart with her finger. Everything seemed to be correct, yes. "Okay." If she was sure - and with good reason too - they were going to keep on looking for Neptune. It couldn't hide from them forever. "Let's just keep on looking then." Lewis said quietly with a smile into her direction, reaching for his telescope again. It didn't REALLY matter to him if they found it or not. Somehow it definitely wasn't where it should be. Weird. Maybe-

Lewis pulled back so forcefully that he almost took his telescope with him when he heard Kurumi's sudden exclamation. He was supposed to LOOK! Only where? "What am I- Ooooh." A shooting star. He'd looked up just in time to watch it finish its path across the sky and disappear again. That was nice. He hadn't seen a shooting star in a long time. Even if they wouldn't be able to see Neptune tonight, they'd at least be able to say they'd seen a shooting star. Which was way more awesome.

Sitting back down on the blanket next to Kurumi, he reached for his tea again and carefully took a sip. "Did you make a wish?" Lewis asked her softly, watching her over the rim of his mug while taking another sip. This tea was really good. And now he finally knew what Cherry Blossoms tasted like too.

Cardigan walked into the courtyard for no particular reason.None at all.Let`s say she was just,looking for something new.She kicked a stone,watching it skid across the ground.Meh meh.She was that bored.So she sat on a bench;kicked another rock which went even farther.Whoop dee doo.She was officially bored.Cardigan should`ve brought her Violin.Maybe she`ll go back to the Snake common room and get it.Just not yet...

Alec stuffed his hand in his pockets as he walked along the corridor to the courtyard. It was an odd sort of day. The weather seemed to be getting slightly warmer but there was still that chill in the air. Typical. But that wasn't going to stop him from walking out into the grounds.

And it was just as he was walking along this corridor that he saw... someone. He tilted his head to the side as he watched the young girl. Unless he was mistaken, the girl seemed to be alone. And she seemed to like kicking stones. Odd. Maybe she was bored. Or angry.

But that wasn't going to bother him. If she was bored, he could keep her company and if she was angry... he could calm her down? Yes, that was a good plan. Alec made his way towards the girl, trying his hardest to keep a charming natural smile on his face.

Reaching her, he looked down at the stones. "Erm, are you having a stone kicking competition with yourself?" he asked. Yes, that was his way of introducing himself.

"I guess you could say that!"Cardigan said with a laugh.She wasn't planning on having a contest,but now she was!And so far,she was winning.Maybe she would win the next one and the next one as well!She definately had the swaggè to do it.Who else was awesome enough to win in a contest against themselves?Let me think.......no one!"I'm Cardigan!"She said,extending her hand to shake the boy's.Had she seen him somewhere before?He seemed oddly familiar...