She was grateful that he didn't mention her blushing. She would have had to break his face for that. So yay. No face breaking. Yet.

"I am rather boring. You might have to carry the conversation," she lied with a smile. Hehe. Once she was comfortable and got to talking it was GAME OVER. But she wasn't sure if she was comfort... WHOA.

WHOOOOOOOOA.

He stopped them and then... and then... and then... he KISSED her. Like a REAL kiss. On the cheek. THAT made her blush PROFUSELY. Really. But it wasn't terrible. "What was that for?" she asked in a small voice.

She had to take a moment to prepare herself... before she leaned over and gave him a quick kiss on his cheek, too. He had a nice face. She might as well kiss it. Heh.

Oh right. AHEM. "Have you not noticed which house I am in? Of course I read. All the time. Everything. But I have a particular interest in reading about Psychology and the brain and stuff like that."

And she kissed him back.

See. She had a personality, Lawson could tell. He shrugged when she asked why he did that. "I just wanted to," he admitted.

He grinned - "Yes, I noticed. But I was wondering if you read anything beside you know," How could he explain? ".. psychology?"

"what else do you like?" he asked.

He just wanted to? Well. It was as good an answer as any she reckoned. Heh. And well... it felt nice that someone just WANTED to kiss her. Maybe she would get a right proper kiss out of him soon. That would be nice.

"I read Psychology books for pleasure... but I reckon I will read just about anything. I like useful books though. Hell, I just like to read. And play quidditch. Do you play?"

Was he going to kiss her again?

Dylan grinned back at Marigold when she told him she was awesome. And she was glad to talk to him again? D'awww shucks. The first year couldn't help but blush slightly at this. "Thanks! Same with you, Mari! I've missed ya." he told her. He then glanced at the kittens who were now snuggling together with of course, Ginger already dead asleep. Chuckling, he glanced at Marigold at the sound of a 'click'. He smiled at the sight of her camera. That was a brilliant idea! Too bad Dylan didn't have a camera on him at all times to capture cute moments like this. Ah well. Maybe he should start doing so?

Nibbles! Aww! That was an adorable name, and it seemed to fir the kitten quite well. He leaned over to scratch Nibbles behind the ear, raising his eyebrows over at Marigold in surprise. "She did?! Merlin! That's mad!" he said. Who knew a cat could break a wand by just sitting on it! He sure hoped Ginger would never do that. Speaking of which, Mari still didn't know her name. "Her name is Ginger." he said with a nod.

Winter meant cold. Anya didn't understand why the Professor assigned an outside assignment during such weather. Seriously. It was a good thing that she was good at astronomy. Otherwise, she'd be out here forever.

She walked out by the Willow to a nice clearing. She turned on the spot and looked up to orientate herself. There we go. She then set up her telescope and scanned the skies.

... until her eyes landed on Sirius. And then with a smirk Anya consulted her astronomy notes.

Alright. She was making excellent progress on her assignment. Maybe she'd shoot for finding something else tonight, but first she needed to get a view not blocked by a fighting tree.

Now, he knew more about her.

"Yes, I saw you practicing," he nodded, as they walked further. "Well, I have - but never in school. I have played with my friends and cousins," He smiled remembering the last time his rather large family got together for a game of quidditch.

He wondered if he would be a part of that again.

Sliding his hand down her arm and round her wrist, he interwined his fingers with hers. So now, he was holding her hand.

"I like to read too, I have a small collection of my own back home," he told her. "But it's all stories," He assumed that was not her type? But maybe he was wrong.

...Was he stalking her? That was kind of hot in a weird way. Heh. But she kept that question to herself. The reality was ANYONE could have seen her at practice. Mhm. NODNODNOD. He had played before. Clearly he wasn't that competitive. Which was probably a good thing. She was competitive enough for more than herself.

And this guy was going to cause her to have a meltdown.

He was holding her hand now. HEHEHE. Her cheeks flushed BRIGHT red and she idly wondered if he could tell her hand was a little sweaty and perhaps like... clammy. SHE WISHED SHE HAD SEEN THIS COMING SO SHE COULD HAVE WIPED IT ON HER PANT LEG. gaaaaah.

"We have a library at home. There is a little bit of everything in there really. I like to read interesting things. So it depends on my mood as to what I am interested in." Which was her round about way of saying she liked stories, too. MHM. "My crazy aunt used to read me and my sister Muggle fairy tales when we were little." She smiled ever so slightly as she mentioned that. Heh.

Lawson nodded, hearing her.

"Really?" he said, before continuing: "My dad used to bring me books from all over the place. He travels a lot, so when ever he came back - he had a book for me," he told her. It was rather weird telling someone about his family.

Especially when he didn't talk to them much anymore.

"So, have you decided? would you like to go out with me?" he asked, smiling.

Kalla smiled a little bit as she listened to Lawson talk about his dad bringing him books. "My family travels a lot, too. They bring stuff from all over the place, too." And that was really sweet that he talked about his father with such affection.

"I think I will, yeah." This was a good time to kiss her again? "You're okay with my being a little weird?"

When she asked him if he was okay with her being weird, Lawson chuckled - stopping and turning to look at her. Both his hands gripping both hers now, "You are not weird, Kalla," he told her - a grin still in place. "You are .. different, yes," he nodded - "but not weird,"

"So this Saturday, yeah?"

Oh. They were stopping? And he was now holding BOTH of her hands? Hyperventilation was imminent.

Blinking at him a few times she chuckled. "Oh that's nice. Different is just a nice way of saying weird," she said with another light laugh. But it was very kind of him to set her mind at ease as such. Or attempt to anyway. VERY nice. "Saturday sounds fine, yes." Since she wasn't playing in a match this weekend anyway. SIGHS.

Now what was happening?

Tora figured that this would be a good place to start her Charms homework. If she tried throwing things of hers within the range of the Whomping Willow's branches, then she would have to get the Carpe Retractum spell right if she wanted it back! So she stood out of range from the tree's branches and tossed her History of Magic textbook into the Danger Range. She didn't like History of Magic anyway, so if the book was "accidentally" torn up by the tree she had an excuse...right? Anyway, she still should get it back (if only because her fellow Ravenclaws would kill her for ruining a book). She focused and pointed her wand at the book, she was a tad surprised that the Willow hadn't done anything yet, and so shouted "CARPE RETRACTUM" at it (the book). A burst of golden orangey-yellow light twisted out of the tip of her wand and wound itself around the massive tree trunk. WAIT NO. That was most definitely NOT supposed to happen! Of course, the tree was far to heavy for her to pull up from the ground, so she started to get pulled towards the tree! No, no, no, no! She entered the Danger Range, dragging her feet and- THWACK- she dodged out of the way as a huge branch came crashing down. She didn't blame it. "FINITE!" she yelled, releasing herself from the spell and grabbing the book just in time to roll out of the way of another incoming branch. This piece of plant life was just as dangerous as anything in Greenhouse 4! She hightailed it out of there and RAN AS FAR AWAY AS POSSIBLE to finish the rest of her homework.

Geez. She really hated plants.

Adi was once again back at the Whomping Willow to complete some homework. He chose here because the Willow fascinated him even though it stood rather still right now. Maybe he could provoke it sometime? Heh. Gotta do that when when no one was around though.

Anyway, the little badger set down his basket of herbs on a rather grassy patch and plopped himself down, facing the Willow. He retrieved a container from his bag. He would use that to put the crushed herbs into that. Since he had completed drying them all in class, he would only have to crush them.

Adi got started with the Caraway. It was very dry and this was good because it was easy to crumble. He made sure it was crushed finely as the instructions had stated in the homework. Next, he did the same to the Chickweed. Then the Hawthorn and Borage and finally the passiflora and licorice.

Now for the written part of the homework! Adi placed the lid on his container, pulled some parchment and a quill towards him and began to write.

Blair made her way towards the whomping willow and took a seat, ensuring to keep a safe distance. She enjoyed finding new places to do her homework. She rummaged through her satchel, finally finding what she was looking for. The herbs were already dried out so now it was on to the next step.

They were required to crush the herbs down to fit within a tea strainer, that should be easy enough. Blair picked up the first few herbs : bay, borage and ginger. As the herbs were dried out they were quite easy to break and crumble.

Next she moved on to the sage, horsetail and hibiscus. She took her time grinding and crumbling the herbs. Once they were all done she sat back and enjoyed the view for a while.

Derry was fascinated by this tree. She really didn't understand what it had against the world, maybe it just needed a hug. But then again, if it needed a hug it would have to stop doing the whomping thing. And since that was it's name... sigh. Oh well. Typical really... the one thing it needed it could never allow itself to have. How very poetic.

Anyway, Derry had to do the whole... study thing. She probably wasn't going to get very far with it, let's be realistic, but at least she was planning to try. She sat on the grass (remembering to sit on her coat this time, she didn't plan on getting a soggy bum) and started the browse through her CoMC book, quill in hand. Might as well get this one done first... it was the one she'd need if she wanted to actually be a vet. It wasn't long before her mind drifted off though, to other things... better things... siiiiigh... She may even have been doodling a letter or two in the corner of her page... or maybe not... who knew...

Adelaide found herself wandering once again. It seemed to be a habit since she'd started studying so much. She was just starting to get massive headaches. Hence why she was starting to wear her glasses instead of her contacts. It was just easier.

She was wondering around the whomping willow when she spotted her ginger twin. She looked like she was studying...or at least trying to. There was definitely something else on the other redhead's mind. "Hey Derry." She followed suit and pulled of her jacket, setting it on the ground. Because wet ground equals wet bum eventually.

Derry's mind had drifted to the possibility of pizza shortbread and was trying to figure out if the cheese should go in or [/i]on[/i] the mix when she heard her name and looked up. Oh! It was Addi! Derry smiled widely and patted the ground next to her, but it seemed Addi had the same idea. Ginger twins you see.

"Hey." she said, grinning a bit. "You're wearing your glasses." She pointed out bluntly. It was unusual, that's all. But Derry was wearing her reading glasses too so she wasn't really one to talk. "You pretending to do something productive too?" Because OWLs were hard, okay?

Adelaide smiled, leaning back slightly on her hands. It was actually a fairly nice day outside. She was very glad the warmer weather was starting to come back.

Giggle. "Yeah. My contacts were bugging me too much." Truth. "And so are you." Because pointing out the obvious yes? Another laugh escaped Addi's mouth. "Taking a break from being productive. I've been studying so much these past few weeks." Her brain was really starting to hurt.

It was better now that Adelaide was here, she could stop pretending that she was doing work... and take a break from pretending. Or whatever.

Ooooooh, contacts. "I've never worn contacts, I couldn't touch my eye, creeps me out." Also she didn't need to wear them all the time. "They're just for reading..." Which she probably knew, since Derry wore them like half the time she was in the dorms and not sleeping. "You study a lot more than me..." she pointed out. "Aren't you just exhausted..?" Derry got tired quickly lately... especially when she had to do the whole studying thing... ehh. Sucks.

"It took a bit to get used to. But I was tired of wearing glasses all the time so I pushed through it." Because yeah. Not having to constantly rearrange something on her face a good thing. Putting something in her eye was much better surprisingly. "It was either that or walk around practically blind." Because her eyesight was truly horrible. Plus it was nice for quidditch now. Addi nodded. She knew that.

"Indeed I do. But I'm also a lot further behind in a lot of subjects than I realized." And OWLs were coming up and those were important. Mainly because she had no idea what she was going to be doing with her life. Addi was kinda hoping they'd shed some light on her options. "And yes. Very exhausted. And lots of headaches too."

Nope. Nope nope nope. "There's still no way I'd deliberately poke myself in the eye though." Derry said, closing her book and leaning back on her elbows. "The thought of it..." She shuddered a bit and blinked her eyes rapidly, trying to get the idea out of her head. "Least I can see normally though." Super helpful and all that.

"You're further behind?" Derry laughed a bit. "I missed like a whole month and I swear it feels like I've missed the entire year. It just goes straight through my brain... must've knocked the knowledge net out or something." That was totally a thing now. The knowledge net. .... Headaches? "You should be careful then... cause I get headaches if I'm stressed and stuff... maybe you should ask for a potion from the healer or something?" That could help, right? Make her feel better? Take away a bit of the stress so she could work more efficiently..? OH. That was a GREAT idea. Derry wanted something to help her work efficiently now that she'd thought of it. Hmmmmm. She wouldn't go using those cheats that people talked about though, specially not whatever it was people tried to pass off as felix felicis... dangerous. Ew.

Adelaide shrugged. "I'm glad I wear them though. Especially with quidditch now. Playing in glasses would be horrible." If not near impossible with some of the weather conditions they'd had to play in. She giggled lightly at Derry's reaction. "Be glad for that."

"Are you forgetting the four years I was homeschooled where I never really touched Runes, Care of Magical Creatures, Divination or Herbology?" Mainly spell work was the focus in her teaching. Which was good because she picked them up rather quickly but it didn't help with the rest. Blink. "Derry, I don't think that's possible." Or was it. She really didn't know.

"I know, I know." She'd already been thinking about getting something from the healer. At least it would keep the headaches away for a little while.

"I guess you're right there..." Derry was glad for her eyesight when it came to Quidditch. In fact, seekering was the reason she'd started wearing her reading glasses again - she didn't want to strain her eyes and then totally miss the snitch. Again. Like the first game. ...... Although there was no point blaming her eyes for that, she just wasn't fast enough.

"You can't play that card with me." Derry said with a slight chuckle. "I was homeschooled for three years too. It's difficult, I know... but they can't exactly penalise us for it, can they?" Like... shouldn't it be taken into consideration? "I guess we could always ask professors for extra help and stuff." Right..? Probably. "It's totally possible. Shhh." Cause if it wasn't then it simply meant that Derry was just a bit lazy at learning and that totally wasn't a thing nosiree.

"Mhmm... just don't get sick or anything, kay? Cause we're never going to win the next game without all of our gingers on the field, are we?" See? So long as Addi and Cle were playing then there was no way they could lose, okay? Okay. Please. Heh.

Adelaide nodded. Oh right. Derry had been homeschooled too. Well, there went that excuse. Right out the window. She shrugged. "I don't know. I don't really think they care much about where you went to school. They just want to know how well you do on their tests." Which really sucked because those tests were really important to your future. And just. Yeah. Addi giggled. "Of course it is Derry."

"I'll try my best not to. It killed me not to play the last match." If she had her way she would've been out there playing, flu and all. Another giggle escaped. "Yes. Definitely need all our gingers. Maybe the amount of red hair will confuse them." Because that was a thing now.

Yep yep, Derry knew AAALL the excuses. Because she had used most of them a million times herself. Either last year or whilst she was at muggle school and trying to get out of doing any actual work. "Well that's just stupid. You can be smart and not do well on tests. It just depends what way you're clever in." Yep. This was why Derry still thought she learned better from being taught at home - cause her dad knew how she learned. But there was no way on Earth she would be leaving Hogwarts. All her friends were here and she loved it. ...... Józsuawasheretoo...

"Yeah, but it's good you're better now and all." Cause if she'd played she might have gotten worse and Derry would rather have healthy friends than a Quidditch trophy..... probably. "And gingers are, on average, the best Quidditch players in the world." Obviously. And they had West and Theo and Kat and Ariana as well and they were all awesome. Goodness... they really couldn't lose. Hopefully... .... But Hufflepuff were really fast... eek.