Examining the absolute abomination in front of him, Edmund stared in complete surprise and disbelief. How could a man want to train trolls for the ballet?

Arabella-Marie was walking back to the common room when she saw a Hufflepuff her age looking at the tapistry in front of her and said "Hi you look a bit surprised at what you see in front of your eyes"

Turning at a voice, Edmund nodded. "Yeah, a bit. I'm wondering how crazy the guy had to be." He gestured at the tapestry and squinted at some parts once more. "I mean trolls. Doing ballet."

Arabella-Marie laughed and said "Yeah i think he was pretty crazy to think that trolls could do ballet"

Raising his eyebrows with a sideways nod in agreement, Edmund turned back to the girl. She looked like she was a sixth or seventh year, and she was a Gryffindor. He could tell by her robes. See? He was learning! "I'm Edmund." Uh, did girls shake hands? He didn't know!

Arabella-Marie smiled at Edmund and said "Nice to meet you Edmund, I'm Arabella and what year are you in?" Arabella-Marie could guess that he was a seventh but she had to make sure

"Nice to meet you, Arabella." He offered a warm smile to her. "I'm a Seventh year, and you?" He was curious to see if his first impression had been right. "And you're a Gryffindor, right?"

Arabella-Marie smiled she had guessed right and said "I am a seventh year myself Edmund and yes I am in Gryffindor"

"Cool! You been here since first year?" He was curious to see how many other people were transfer students. His gaze turned back to the tapestry once more. Oh, he wanted to laugh so much.

Arabella-Marie nodded and said "Yeah Edmund i have been at Hogwarts since my first year"

"Oh, awesome! You enjoyed your time here?" She had one year left, but six years was a long time to enjoy being in a place.

Arabella-Marie nodded and said "Yeah i have had an awesome time here at Hogwarts going to be sad to leave at the end of term"

"I'm sure you will. I will too. I've been waiting to come here for a long time." Edmund looked around at the whole corridor. It was everything he'd hoped to find and a little more. His dad had never explained just how brilliant Hogwarts was.

Arabella-Marie smiled and said "So how are you finding hogwarts now that you are here Edmund and what are your plans for your future" Arabella-Marie knew that she had only just met Edmund but there was no harm in asking about the future

"You know, Hogwarts is amazing." He just couldn't find any other way to describe it. "Full of little surprises." Like the troll ballet fallers dancers. The future? "I hope to become an Auror. It's always been my dream to be fighting off the bad guys." Nell's little joke on the Golf course about fighting off a hundred dementors with a golf putter came back to him with a vengence and made him grin at the floor. "I like the danger." There. That was the basic of it.

Arabella-Marie smiled and said "Yeah Hogwarts is amazing and full of surprises and ohh that is good i hope you do get to become an Auror Edmund"

"I've recently discovered a couple of them. One was up close." Yup, very close. He'd ended up IN the hot spring. "I hope so too, thank you." he smiled warmly at Arabella.

Harlow had never been in this part of the castle before. She wasn't much of an explore as a author who wrote about explorer. She was slowly getting back into the swing of things though her quill was still missing, and that was like a knife in the heart every time she thought about it. Her heeled Mary Janes made a nice click, click, click across the floor. Harlow never understood the appeal of heels but today it made it easier for her heart to beat now that it had a rhythm to follow.

Everyone kept telling her to just buy another quill and start writing again, but what did they know. They didn't create entire worlds in their head and then pour them out onto parchment. They didn't crack open their hearts for the whole world to see. It wasn't that easy to just replace the instrument she used to welcome the world into her heart.

Harlow didn't know she had started crying till she felt the wetness spreading across her chest. "Oh no," she whispered. She had been doing so well lately. She didn't want to fall back into that deep pit of depression again. She wasn't sure she would have the strength to crawl back out again. She sat down in one of the window seats spaced along the long corridor. Better to cry up here alone and by herself than during a class.

Anya wasn't sure how long she'd been sitting in the hallway. She just knew she came in after she finally started feeling cold from sitting in the snow.

She was against the wall. She had her arms wrapped around her legs and her knees pulled up against her chest. She was leaned forward so that her head rested nicely between her knees.

And she just sat there, with a vague blank expression, while the trolls in front of her fail!danced on.

After leaving the pitch, Penelope hadn't bothered to change out of her Quidditch robes and into regular ones, but even then, somehow Anya got away from her, and the second year wasn't sure where to look. She'd quickly put the broom away - since it was a school broom and she didn't want to carry it around for however long it took her to find Anya. Only the snitch was still in her hand as she quickly wandered the grounds and eventually into the castle. It felt almost like she was trying to catch the snitch again, only this time the snitch was Anya.

And this time, simply catching or finding the "snitch" didn't guarantee victory or success. In fact, it probably only increased her chances of failure. But what choice did she have? It couldn't go on like this forever. She was tired of it.

And from the way Anya looked when she finally found her, she could almost guess that maybe she was tired of it too.

Penelope walked over to her and stopped when she was only a couple paces away. "Anya?"

Anya immediately wiped her eyes. She... hadn't been crying... it was just a force of habit, especially with how she'd been feeling lately.

And... the reason she wasn't crying might have been because she had no tears left. It was that kind of... month.

She looked over a little. "Hey." she said softly. "...did we win?"

First words in weeks. ...and they were about quidditch.

Penelope's frown deepened when Anya wiped her eyes. Had she been crying...? It didn't look like it, but...

...at least Anya didn't get up and walk away or anything. And she did speak. That at least made it easier for Penelope to tell her what she needed.

"Yeah," she answered as she sat down in front of Anya, crossing her legs Indian style. "We did...but that's not what I want to talk about." And surely Anya knew that. Otherwise they would all be celebrating and not sitting here like this.

"Look, I..." she trailed off a bit, glancing down at the ground for a moment, trying to figure out how to say all this. "I'm really sorry for what I did." She didn't specify because she knew Anya knew what she was talking about. And she just really didn't like saying it out loud. Saying it only made things feel even worse. "I really am. It wasn't supposed to happen...but that's no excuse, I know. And I don't blame you if you hate me. You have every right to. But I...I wanted you to know I'm not proud of what I did and I'm sorry..."

And...that was pretty much all she had to say right now, unless Anya replied...

Andddd now Penelope was sitting RIGHT in front of her. RIGHT. RIGHT in front of her.

... there was no way that Anya would be capable of... avoiding looking at her.

That... sucked.

And of course she didn't want tot talk about quidditch. Anya didn't even get the change to congratulate her on the victory. Since. It was probably her fault they won.

No wonder Selina replaced her.

She glanced down at the ground and shrugged in response. "He kissed you back Penelope." was all she managed to get out.

Well...at least Anya seemed to listen and didn't try to contradict her and claim she wasn't sorry? That was something Penelope had hoped wouldn't happen, so at least that was kinda good...

Nothing was completely fixed though either...not that she'd really expected it to but...well, it might've been nice if it was.

"Well, I can't apologize for him..." Not that she needed to. Penelope was pretty certain Jake had already apologized a ton to Anya after he told her. "He still likes you, anyway." And that was obvious too. And somehow...it didn't hurt to say that like she thought it would, like it had for the past few months. She wasn't sure why...but it was honestly kind of nice not to feel as awful over that fact now. She'd hated feeling like that.