"I'm in second year. How about you?"Isla asked when all of a sudden a girl that she had see a few times before came upto the take with her arms filled with party hats and other birthday stuff. Isla smiled at her.
"Happy Birthday."She said to the girl. "How old are you?"

FLAP FLAP. FLIPPITY FLAP FLAP FLAP FLAP.

Herjenmie's large eagle owl wings carried him around the castle in search of the person the letter was for. Silently, he made his way into the castle, flying over the heads of various little people as well as larger, much older looking ones.

He was growing awfully hungry. The owl dove down having spotted a nice looking rat before zooming back up. Lunch could wait. The little person needed her letter first.

Arriving in the great hall, the owl silently swooped over the girl but at the last secont, dove right down in front over her and onto the table. "Hoo." Chocolate frog please.

It was like a see-saw, when the owl landed on the table, Sarah's heart jumped. Upon her pulse resuming to normal rate, she opened the letter and gazed at the familiar hand-writing. Mother! She remembered! Sarah was overcome with joy. Sarah always wondered if people would forget her birthday if she were not there to remind them. Birthdays were of utmost importance to Sarah. She looked up into the amber eyes of the eagle owl before her, her own brown eyes filled with gratitude. Sarah then looked back at the letter, and for the first time in history felt a twinge homesick. This letter, each letter and dot penned with such love reminded her of home. Locket? What locket? Sarah looked up from what she had just read and remembered there were packages as well. She opened up the smaller package, and there lying in a state of royalty was a heart shaped locket. Sarah unclasped the chain and fastened it around her neck. She then examined the necklace closer, its unique design carved on the silver. She remembered it from somewhere... Yes she had seen it in a picture of her great-grandmother posing when she was a young lass. Sarah finished reading the letter, and looked at the other package; there were freshly baked homemade brownies in there - which she knew. As she tore off the wrapping a waft of aroma hit her. Mmmm… these were Brownies only her mother could make. Then she was brought back to reality by the bird looming in front of her – oh, she had to tip the owl. As she tipped the owl she whispered thank you. There was something in her throat. Oh how she missed home, the horses… Swallowing hard, she placed the tray of brownies next to the cake. Now, if only someone would come.

Louisa finished her lunch, which was half a doughnut and an extra big glass of pumpking juice, and turned on her bum on the bench to get her legs from under the table and head up to her dorm. She still had the divination homework to work on, stones telling her how the month was going to be like for her. Hmph, she knew already!

As soon as she walked a few steps, though, her feet automatically stopped and her eyes froze on the most dangerous and uncalled for scene in all history of uncalled scenes. Adam and PAULIE were sitting together. At the Gryffindor table. TOGETHER. And apparently they were talking, with Paulie looking slightly solemn or whatever. The wheels in Louisa's head went nuts and her feet followed suit. It was only a few more seconds later that the Ravenclaw found herself standing right where they were sitting... just standing there.

Were they arguing? Fighting? Coming up with a plan to simply shove her out of their small group? Which wouldn't be a "group" without her with all modesty. Neither one of them looked agitated enough to be sharing anything foul. Good thing? No. But she, Louisa Carter, was going to make a good thing out of this opportunity.

Trying to make up for the silent thoughtful skeptic moment she just had while standing in front of them, the girl attempted a small smile and waved nervously, meeting Paulie's eyes and trying to see if he was up to something, and then gingerly sat down on the seat... a bit away from both of the lions.

...subtle much?

"Oh cool!" Ronnie said. "I'm a fourth year." she replied, noticing Isla suddenly say happy to birthday to a girl. She cocked her head for a second, then shrugged and went to eating her food. She was STARVEDDDDDDDDDD.

"Thanks. I am twelve today!" Said Sarah eagerly. "Wanna come to my party?"Sarah said with puppy dog eyes. No one else had come yet., and sh e felt like crying. Oh, how she hated being the loner, she thought Hogwarts would give her new start, yet it didn't. It was past half way through the year and she still only had a handful of friends... no besties yet.

"I would love to come to your party." Isla told the girl. She was honored to have been invited as she didn;t have many friends at Hogwarts even though she was in her second year. "I'm Isla, Its nice to meet you!"

"Then come, pull up a chair." Said Sarah invitingly. "My name is Sarah" she added as an afterthought. "Do you want a brownie?" she offered. Yay, now at least her party had one guest... "Feel free to help yourself to what you want! No popping balloons please, it will give me a fright!" Said Sarah, though not in a bossy tone of voice.

"Thanks!" Isla said taking a brownie. "Don't worries i don't like baloons popping either." She told Sarah laughing.

"Great. I think popping of balloons is destructive behaviour. I really hate it. So tell me, am I the only one in hogarts that has such a big thing about birthdays?" Sarah asked nervously.

It's the birthday party time!


Tiffany made her way through the crowds at the Gryffindor table, holding a bag in her hand with the present that she was going to give to the little birthday girl. She could notice Sarah immediately just as she got in as people were gathering around, making the whole scene more noticeable.

She headed to the young lion with small hops and walks. She was really happy to get invited to someone's birthday party indeed. "Hey birthday girl,"she shouted loudly as she padded her head.

"I'm not sure." Isla said thoughtfully. She wasn't one to get involved in parties. Obviously today was an exception. "So." Isla said. "Did you get anything nice for your birthday?"

A cold? Pfffft. Paulie didn't GET colds! He had an immune system like steel. ..If that made sense? "'Course not," he scoffed. "Louisa's the one.." .... who gets colds. Blink. SWEET MERLIN, he got this darn death-warmed-up illness from LOUISA! He sorta made a face and turned to take a sip from his boring glass of water. Colds..

Poor Adam. It seemed like the fellow was always dealing with home stuff. The boy was going to have ANOTHER thing coming with friend stuff, too, now. Geez Louise, Paulie really was the king of idiots. When Adam returned the question, the Head Boy only glanced at him for a moment before looking back to his water. Anything interesting? "Uh.. yeah, actually. I kinda gotta tell ya somethin'. Somethin' that just.. happened, ya know?" NO. He probably didn't know because Paulie was being vague and out of character and CLEARLY he was on the verge of spilling something.

When he looked up to tell Adam, his eyes averted to Louisa herself, waving toward them and attempting a smile. Oh, lordy. Best to ignore her for the time being because he just wanted to get this out with no distractions.

"Okay, so ya know how there's a prefect's lounge for us, right..?"

Adam was in the process of chewing some of his roast beef when he became aware of a presence near by them. Looking up Adam spotted Louisa who had the most peculiar expression Adam had ever seen on her face before. It was like a wicked combination of nervousness and anger all at once trying to be disguised with nonchalance. Adam finished chewing as Louisa waved awkwardly at them before sitting down a couple of seat away from them. Why wouldn't she just sit with them??



However, before Adam had time to comment to Louisa about why she wasn't just sitting with them, Paulie had been commenting about he didn't have a cold, before starting something about Louisa before just stopping. Seriously between Paulie being all awkward and not himself and Louisa weirdly waving at them before sitting by herself far enough away to not be involved in their conversation, Adam was being to get the strange feeling that he was missing something here. Did Adam know about how their was a prefect's lounge? "Yeah I know about the Prefect's lounge," Adam said with a small nod of the head. "Seriously though Paulie is there something going on? I mean Louisa is just being awkward sitting over there and you are seeming a little off yourself. What's up?"

Looked like she was there in time because the next moment after gracing them with her presence, Paulie started talking. Or throwing a bomb.

"Paulie!" Louisa shrieked sliding on the bench and almost colliding with the nearest boy, Adam, as she peered around him to stare at the CRAZY Head Boy unbelievingly. "What the hell are you doing? Shut up, okay?!" She took her time glaring and scowling at his insanity. Did he know that once he tells Adam everything is going to change? Not for her, for all three of them! And it was definitely not worth "the truth". Their friendship was far more important to be protected.

But... her reaction emphasized that there was something wrong, she looked up at Adam as if suddenly realizing he was right there, almost squashed with her attempt of barging into the situation. And she moved slightly away from him, swallowing, "Don't listen to him. He's just about to... tell you about the awesome bath tub in there. The one I was about to get into when we argued and just stomped off away from each other." That wasn't a lie. Not completely. She was going to get into the bath tub, but the Gryffindor kind of distracted her.

Well, needless to say, Adam was catching on to BOTH of their weirdness (not their usual weirdness). Paulie looked at Adam with a guilty, apologetic look on his face, and just as he opened his mouth to spill, Miss Helen of Hogwarts barged in on their conversation in sheer panic. He met her glare with equal intensity as they had this sort of silent argument with their eyes. And Paulie had JUST mustered up the words to tell Adam - they were on the tip of his tongue - and LOUISA had to come in and try to ruin it all. The thing is, a part of him did want to just go along with Louisa, though. It'd save them all an awful lot of heartache, wouldn't it?

But there was no way in hell Paulie could keep something like this under wraps for long, and the longer they did wait to tell Adam, the more damage would be done. "Oh, you shut up, Louisa!" She was making things difficult.

And clearly she must have recognized how this all was looking to Adam, and so she tried to explain that she and Paulie had gotten into some huge argument in the Prefect's lounge. From Adam's eyes right now, that excuse might be plausible, considering the aggravated behavior coming from the two right this moment. "Why don't ya tell him the rest of the story, hmm?"

Adam was staring at Paulie, giving his best mate his full attention when all of the sudden the distance between the two was closed rather forcefully as Louisa collided into Adam. Adam turned to look at her, his eyebrows going up slightly as he noticed the rather hostile, but mostly panicked tone to Louisa's voice and face. And did Paulie just tell her to shut up? Woah. He kept his eyes on Louisa's though, which he really couldn't help but look at given the close proximity of their faces, his eyebrows furrowing with each word that came out of her mouth. They got into some kind of fight? Adam turned back to look at Paulie, who was returning the same hostile glare that Louisa had. Tell him the rest of the story?

"Listen, someone needs to just tell me what's going on right now. I mean if you guys had a fight about something it's all good. We can find some way to work it out, but please, don't treat me like an idiot," Adam said, shooting them both a stern look. "Clearly it was more than just a fight, or whatever the fight about was something big, because the last I checked you guys bicker all the time." Which was true. They did bicker all the time. Well...maybe not with this amount of hostility, but all the more reason for Adam to want to get some truth out of this whole thing. "Last I checked you don't usually make a point of crashing into me to stop Paulie from telling me things Louisa. So, Paulie, please continue with what you were going to tell me." Adam shot Louisa one last stern look to show that he was not joking around before turning to look back at Paulie. He wanted an answer and he was going to get it.

Louisa blinked at Paulie's quick comeback and she looked at Adam as he talked... and he was so dang good at rationalizing everything. She shut his reason out and hanged on to her own reasoning. Because it wasn't just a fight, it was actually opposite of a fight. Paulie didn't even blame her for being so stupidly impulsive and idiotic, so she couldn't even dislike the boy!

"We're not treating you like an idiot...idiot." What, she couldn't help it. "I'm trying to protect you. He's trying to... whatever!" She growled the last word and got her wand out, "The rest of the story doesn't mean anything. No need to relive it." Aaaaand her wand was doing the movement for the Tongue-tying spell...

This would have been maybe a little bit easier if Adam had some Brazil Nut characteristics in him or something. But, no. The guy was golden! And gosh, he deserved a best friend who was way better than Paulie here. The least they could do was tell the bloke the truth because he did deserve that. Louisa was doing what she thought was best, though, and he could at least see where she was coming from. Louisa was trying to protect Adam and spare his feelings because she didn't want him to be hurt, see? But Adam was capable of taking care of himself, and Merlin's beard, if Paulie were in Adam's shoes.. he'd want to know the darn truth.

Then.. within a split second, Paulie's wand was out. "Expelliarmus!" Yes, he THOUGHT Louisa might try to use magic to keep things going on HER track. But she must have underestimated Paulie Foster because, by this point in their friendship, he knew how her mind worked. After her wand had flung out of her hand, he eyed her for her attempt before finally looking again to his best mate. "She's right that it doesn't mean anything.. 'cause it didn't mean anything, okay?" Poor Adam was probably thoroughly confused, if he wasn't already, and so Paulie just needed to get it out already.

He took a breath. Here goes..

"Louisa and I kinda.." He waved his hand in the air and searched the table for the words. There were none there, and he returned to Adam's true blue eyes to confess. "We kissed."

Adam simply stared at Louisa as he called her idiot. She was trying to protect him? Protect him from what? Before Adam even had a chance to respond to her words Adam could see Louisa's wand starting to come up. Uh....what was she doing?

Adam made a move to grab the wand from her but the action was unnecessary because Paulie had obviously noticed the movement as well and was already casting expelliarmus. As Louisa's wand flew out of her hand, flying backwards before landing a little ways away from the table, Adam turned and looked at Paulie, snatching the wand out of the boy's hand. "Surely we can have this conversation without magic, huh?" Adam said, holding onto the wand and looking at Paulie just so he knew that Adam was trying to be the mediator here.

Adam stared at Paulie, waiting for him to struggle to get the words out. And then. They were out.



Adam froze as the words hit him like a brick to the gut. He was perfectly still and silent as he stared at Paulie, too shocked to turn around and see what Louisa's reaction or facial expression was. Did he just say that they kissed? As Adam thought the words to himself suddenly the impact of what they meant came crashing in, and the reaction was instantaneous. The look of shock was gone and was instead replaced with a look of complete and utter fury. Before either of them had time to react Adam's fist was colliding with Paulie's face with more force than one would assume possible considering how close they were sitting and the awkward sideways angle in which it was completed.


Adam didn't even bother to wait before he was off of the bench, swinging around to look at Louisa with Paulie's wand firmly in his grasp. Adam wanted to hurt her. Badly. Because out of all the things in the world that Louisa could have done to him, nothing could have hurt him like this. Nothing compared to this at all. Adam leaned forward so that his arms were on either side of Louisa, pinning her to her place so that she couldn't get up. "I never want to see your face again," Adam hissed out through his teeth. "Out of all of the things that you could have done to hurt me, this tops it, and I can't believe that you had the nerve to try and stop Paulie from telling me the truth." Adam was so angry that his body was shaking. He leaned back glaring at her as he did so before giving Paulie's wand a flick, silencing her with the silencio charm. "Just so you don't even bother trying to rationalize how this was nothing."

Adam turned back to look at Paulie, staring at him for a few moments longer before he headed towards the exit, throwing the wand into Paulie's lap as he did so.

Things happened faster than she thought they would. She winced as her wand got knocked out of her hand, sliding across the table to Merlin knows where... and Adam snatching Paulie's wand out of his hand and Paulie blurting out the words blatantly. Louisa's hands shot up to grab her head, clawing at the roots of her hair in anger. She was about to curse under her breath, too, if it wasn't for Adam's energy to suddenly burst out. A sickening sound echoed in her head -probably louder than it really was - when she saw the Gryffindor punch his best mate, the Prefect gasped and fumbled with her hands to grab Adam and pull him away from Paulie... but he was already turning around toward her, in a very, very scary way.

The Ravenclaw swallowed and leaned back so that the edge of the table jabbed her hard, but that wasn't what made her pale, it was the look on Adam's face, very new and yet familiar. She felt the urge to squirm under his piercing gaze and in the little space he gave her but something pinned her to her place, something internal. Louisa whimpered and blinked quickly getting rid of the aftereffect of the harshest words Adam had ever flung at her... but his brain seemed to work double as fast when he was angry because just like that, Louisa Carter was silenced.

She opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out. Her hand pressed against her throat trying to feel something but not even a whimper came out of her mouth. The seventeen years old watched him walk away and her tears started pouring down her cheeks not only because she was sad, that was something Louisa handled by other than just tears, but because she didn't get to talk, to defend herself or Paulie, she didn't even get to scream... or cry! Silenced. Poof, nothing! And for someone whose boggart was desert, empty space, and blankness... this was terrifying.

Maybe she wanted to look at Paulie and check his face, maybe she was supposed to be happy that finally someone punished her, maybe she was supposed to get up after her wand before it got lost, maybe she was supposed to just roll her eyes and follow Adam to try and reason with him. But the tears, which were at their peak as she tried to rationalize what to do now, kept her from moving or taking any productive moves.

The only thing she was good at, at this time of weakness, was to hide. So she slid under the table hugging her knees to her chest and crying.

Not that anyone would notice or hear her... because she was silenced/silent.

Okay.... okay. Adam was shocked; Paulie knew he would be. And then he'd be mad, no doubt. And sure enough, Adam got mad. What Paulie wasn't quite expecting was how mad Adam got. He'd never seen Adam's understanding, blue eyes turn as cold as ice in a matter of milliseconds. But, of course, Paulie didn't have much time to consider the way that Adam's face contorted in anger because the next second, Paulie's face might as well have been a bull's eye on a punching bag because Adam's fist was pounding against it so hard that it knocked Paulie back against the seat of the bench.

He groaned and his hand shot up to cover his eye, as if this would help it. Damnnnnn, Adam sure packed a PUNCH. His cheek/eye was throbbing and HURTING so badly that he didn't even try to look at Adam. Maybe he didn't want to, either. But when he heard the harsh tone and even harsher words that Adam was now speaking to Louisa, the Gryffindor had to uncover his eye and peer over, jaw slightly ajar. He had certainly expected the anger and the shock, but never had Paulie even imagined that Adam would react so harshly that he would tell Louisa that he never wanted to see her face again. Ever.. Paulie's heart sank and he felt goosebumps rise on his arms.

A moment later, his wand was tossed into his lap and Adam was storming out the Great Hall to leave them in the wake of his anger and hurt. Paulie swallowed and bowed his head in shame. He could see the shaking of Louisa's shoulders as she wept underneath the Gryffindor table, and he could feel the searing pain around his left eye, but he didn't move. All Paulie could do was lean his elbows on the table and cradle his head in his hands.

Because Paulie had just lost his best mate.

Ohh boy.

This would be THE best breakfast ever.

Ronnie just knew it.

*Heehehehehe*

After brushing out her long bright orange hair (which took a while since it was real tangly this morning ) , getting dressed, and stuffing her pockets with sweets, Ronnie quickly headed to the Great Hall, eager for her awesome breakfast she was about to have.

Today, was a special day. It was Candy Day, a holiday Ronnie made up on her own two years ago. And it was the 'tradition' to eat candy for breakfast. HEHEHEHE.

Ronnie sat down at the Gryffindor table, and grabbed a plate. She then took a bag of gummy bears out of her pocket, pouring all of them onto the plate. Next she took out her bag of jellybeans and dumped those along with the gummy bears. Mmm...she could almost taste it. Then, she grabbed a few chocolate frogs and broke the chocolate in little pieces, sprinkling it over the gummy bears and jelly beans. Now, she took out some gumdrops and dumped those on to of everything. Then she took the bottle of strawberry lemonade she had carried with her and poured it into her empty goblet.

IT ALL LOOKED SOOO DELICIOUS.

This was the best breakfast ever!!!!!!!!!!! She began eating, giggling with excitement. This was awesome!

'Thank You so much for coming' she said to Tiffany giving her a quick hug. Looking down at the present she added "No you should not have, I said your presence would be the ultimate present", then remembering her manners she added "that does not mean I will not take it!" she said with cheek and accepted the present. Turning to the other girl she said, "well, I just got this present from Tiffany, I got a locked and brownies from my parents and from all you guys' she said, indicating the party guests, "I got the ultimate present- you presence!". To Tiffany and the rest of the assembled guests she said - "Dig in! There is no time like the present and the food will not get any fresher".

A giant yawn escaped her lips as Penny shuffled into the Great Hall. She was definitely not a morning person and after staying up late last night studying she was even less excited to start the day. She tucked a strand of hair that had come loose from her bun behind her ear and looked around. For whatever reason her eyes came to rest on a Gryffindor girl with orange hair who looked to be giggle manically.

Something twinged her memory so the Ravenclaw walked over to the Gryffindor table and sat down across from her. Penny's curiosity grew when she spotted what the girl was having for breakfast. Candy?!

""scuse me. Didn't I sit next to you in our last History of Magic lesson? I'm Penny." She drawled. Without asking for permission she started loading up a plate. Scrambled eggs, pancakes, and a large helping of bacon were heaped on her plate quickly. The southern girl added a generous amount of syrup over the whole thing and tucked into her breakfast with her new companion.