"It's my fault, really. I let it get this bad. I should've known you wouldn't have been able to tap into other sources with this being your fifth year 'n all." Came his sighed reply when he'd noticed her eyebrow raise as he opened up his bag. "As for Somerlad, not a word. In fact, I haven't seen her much at all this year. O.W.L's must be occupying her well and good." He said, answering the Lioness Prefect as he drew the candy cases out of his bag. They were, it seemed, in an emergency situation and doing this business out in the openess of the Gryffindor house table. And if someone had spotted them and runtelldat to Cassia, he'd forgotten the limitations of the spoken agreement himself. They probably should've gotten that in writing. And who, honestly, who would cross the very brute and brawn that Hogwarts knew these days (or so he thought)?

Like a professional Casino card game dealer Cutty began laying out the chocolate frogs in piles of five and two. He lifted an empty, unused pumpkin juice cup and began counting and loading the sugarquills into it so that they resembled some manner of feathered rainbow by the time he was done. "You know, thanks to a strong economy, I haven't had to adjust my prices from last year. Just help yourself, Cambridge. I'll keep count." He said going back to the bag to pull out some Droobles. He found it to be useful just after a binge. Occupied the mouth.

Hmmmm.
Lou listened attentively as Bay shared some date ideas with him. Something outdoorsy sounded nice, the weather was definitely a lot more inviting now than it had been just a month or so ago. Hmm yes yes, keep handing all your brilliant ideas over, Bay! Mwaha.

"Those are really good ideas mate, thanks," said Lou with a grin as he found himself with a new dilemma. First he didn't know what to do, now he didn't know which plan to choose. Better to have too many ideas than no ideas, though.

At Bay's following encouraging words, Lou grinned. "What would I do without you?" And though his tones were playful, he really meant it. Going from an all-boys' school to co-ed was a little overwhelming (especially since Hogwarts seemed to have more girls than boys), so it was nice to have another guy to kind of keep him grounded, keep him sane.

Alexa waved off his concern, her eyes locked on the pieces of candy he shuffled about on the table before them. "Don't be ridiculous. I'd have been fine if I didn't lose my candy bag. An unforseen hindrance at most." It wasn't to say she wouldn't have been his loyal customer if her bag was still present, far from it as he'd known by the fact she still showed her patronage to him and his business when Hogsmeade wasn't happening.

Some good news came next. No Cassia to come busting her plans before she could make herself happy again. She shook her head slowly at his assumption even as she began pulling chocolate frogs toward her, one then the another and another. "She's a Sixth Year, took her OWLs last year, maybe it's you lot down in your Common Room that've got her all kinds of busy." She could remember them having their little picnic and Cassia saying she didn't have any complaints but wasn't that mostly because no one was punching anyone? That wasn't the only way to keep a Prefect busy.

Lex glanced up from the candy to shoot him a look. "Money's not an issue Cutty especially not in the time of a crisis such as this one." So telling her the prices hadn't changed, it meant very little to her, in fact, she was almost insulted but there was sugar laid out on the table before her so it was easily over-looked. Alexa reached for the sugar quills and grabbed 6 to start. How many more would she need? "You wouldn't happen to have seen my candy bag lying around, would you?" Her expression softened to one of curiosity. It must have been lying around somewhere.

"no problem thats what I'm here for right" he said punching him on the shoulder.. he was so glad that he had someone to talk to about this kind of stuff.. he could talk to Tessa about it but it was best for him to talk to a guy and around his age….sooo ta-da!!! Louis!! laughing to himself he shrugged his shoulders.. "I donno mate.. go crazy?" he suggested..

"did you give her a date.. you know when this "date" is going to happen.." he needed to know a time frame, so he could figure out how long they had to plan.. thats right he was going to help his best mate out planning this date and it was going to be awesome! Bay Date Planner by night and Quidditch player by day.

Louis laughed at Bay’s kind silliness, nodding in agreement at the young man’s last words. Oh, yeah. He’d DEFINITELY be going crazy. Especially with Lux sending him on nutty tasks like mermaid-kidnapping in the lake. He might have to ask his best mate for help on that too. BUT. One thing at a time, Lou.

As for the date…
“Not really,” he replied. “I was planning to just send her a note a couple days before.” He furrowed his brows. “Why? Do dates take days worth of planning?” Now he was beginning to worry. He’d figured he could just send the girl a note like ’meet me at the tower patch tomorrow at noon’ or something like that, once he’d figured out where to go and what to do. Was he being too casual about this? Oh Merlin, he was totally going to fail at this date, wasn’t he?

Overwhelmed, Louis dropped his head on the tabletop. Ow.

"what… now i know your crazy" girls just didn't expect easy going dates.. they wanted to be swept off their feet's "dude… you need to plan.. and when everything is set in motion then you give her the place and time.. gives her enough time to doll herself up" he winked at Louis…

Seeing him slam his head against the table.. patting him now on the head. "here i'll help you with everything.." picking up his bag from the floor he grabbed some parchment and a quill to make notes.. "number one… place" he wrote down… trying to throw some ideas out.. "do you want to be inside or outside.." he hasn't met this girl yet but he wants to… so Louis could get Bay's seal of approval. yup.. Bay needs to approve.

Louis groaned into the wooden table as Bay explained just how far off he’d been on his assumptions of dates. He had to PLAN and SET things?! Not that he minded, of course not, he’d do anything for Delilah. But he’d totally been caught off-guard there. Dates seemed so much simpler in his mom’s old muggle films.

ALRIGHT. Enough moping, Bolton. You, young man, have a date to prepare for.
Filled with a renewed sense of purpose, Louis lifted his head from the table and turned to his friend. Thank MERLIN for Bay, or he’d be royally doomed. He eyed the other boy’s parchment as he began to take notes. Number one… place.

Inside or outside? HMM.
“... Outside,” the boy decided with a nod. The weather was beautiful again, and Delilah looked quite lovely in natural light. Well, she looked lovely always, but he kind of liked the idea of seeing her outside of the drab castle walls for a change.

He caught her waving off his comment and remembered who he was dealing with. Was there even a need to say one word to Alexa Cambridge during even a normal candy transaction (which this was NOT)? He saw her on the stands last year when Professor Bellaire had thrown her candy. She. Was. An. Animal. An absolute beast.

Merlin, but he loved her.

That was a strange feeling that her next words stirred in him, though. That not being able to place information that should've been there. It was as if he'd possessed something he could not retrieve. Cassia was a sixth year. She was. Of course, she was. Last year she'd done so much studying for her O.W.L's and said as much. How could he have forgotten that? She'd been scarce and studying a lot this year as well. Maybe that was it. He drew in a deep breaht as if he'd just been on a run. "I know money is no object, Lex. I just like hearing you say those words." Money is no object.

Moving on, though, he shook his head and answered her question. "I haven't seen it, no. Not on it's own or with anyone else. Have you tried going about the castle and accio'ing it?" This thought would've crossed her mind normally, but had she been so remorse that she may not have thought to do this, he thought he'd mention it. It had been a very unusual year, indeed if Lex had even allowed her bag to escape her sights for long enough to use it. They had to find a cure for their aging.

"okay now we have something to work with" he said while he scribbled down on his parchment that said… "PLACE..OUTSIDE" now to figure out where outside.. "okay so now that you want to go outside.. maybe the lake?? that would be nice…" but hey this was Lou's date and he only wanted to support him and help him out.. "what about having a picnic at the lake?? that date is pretty easy.. just grab a blanket and grab some food from the kitchens and just tell her to be there at a certain time.. and you go a bit early to put everything out?" that seemed the easiest stress free thing for his best mate to do.

Sipping more pumpkin juice he waited to see what Louis thought.

As Louis watched The Date Mastermind take notes, he couldn’t help but smile to himself with amusement. Lux was going to be one very happy girl when Bay took her out on their first date, whenever that may be. The boy was simply brilliant at thinking up plans, and Lou’s smile widened as his friend basically laid out an entire date plan for him.

Hmmmmm, a picnic by the lake…
“That’s…” Lou furrowed his brows and looked off into space with a face of playful thoughtfulness, before looking down at Bay again, grinning. “That’s a great idea, mate. I've gotten friendly with the elves, so I think they'd let me use the kitchen to make something special.” Picnics were easy and simple enough, but they also left plenty of room for doing other things if the kids decided to try something halfway through.

“Maybe we could go for a swim afterward, too,” he said thoughtfully, looking down at his plate as he thought it all over. “Do you think I should bring flowers?” he asked, looking up at his friend again. “I know she loves pink roses… or would that be too much?” He didn’t want to come off as OVER romantic and suffocate the girl either.

scribbling more on paper Bay thought he was amazing.. wow i never thought that i could have so many ideas… he looked up at Louis.. "dude I should totally become a party planner/date planner.. how funny would that be?" he was joking but in his mind that was actually a good idea to him.. now back to planning Lou's date.. he will think about this at another time..

"awesome so thats what you should do" patting him on his back.. okay now they were getting somewhere.. "ohh a swim sounds like a good idea too" sounded like Louis was good on his own now.. carrying Bay's idea to create his own… Bay felt like a proud mama bear…"Nothing wrong with go big or go home right?" he said.. no girl would object to getting flowers.. at least none of the girls around here..

Louis’s blue eyes widened slightly at Bay’s idea of becoming a date planner. “Mate, you should!” he exclaimed excitedly, slapping his friend on the arm as if to open his eyes to the genius of the idea. “You’d be amazing at it! Just charge a few sickles per idea and you’ll have almost every lad in the school lining up at your door.” Because Lou was certain he wasn’t the only boy in the school who was completely clueless when it came to planning dates. “I’ll help you advertise, as payment for helping me out,” he added with a grin.

Oh right, okay, they still needed to finalize his date. He almost got distracted for a second there.
When Bay approved of the boy’s suggestions of swimming and bringing flowers, Louis smiled, a wave of relief washing over him. Alright… alright, he had this. He totally had this. “I think I can go ahead and send her that note now, yeah?” he asked, blue eyes sparkling with excitement. What had once terrified him had now become something he could hardly wait for. Thanks to his best mate, the date would actually be pretty amazing. The official outcome was now entirely up to Louis’s and Delilah’s chemistry.

"Thanks, mate... I really appreciate it," Lou added, wrapping an arm around Bay's shoulders and pulling him into a hug before playfully ruffling his hair. MWAHAHA gratitude noogie!

Laughing so hard he knew Lou would love the idea.. but wait did Louis just say he should start it like here at hogwarts.. "ahahah.. I can just imagine it.. I'd be swimming in Galleons.." not a bad idea until he got caught.. and what if girls found out he would get into so much trouble.. "errrr.. just thinking about that.. maybe i shouldn't do that.. to many things could go wrong" he still gave his best mate a smile.. "thanks though.." Bay would only be helping Lou with his dates and maybe Sander.. and Bart if he ever decided that he wanted to go on a date and that was about it.

"yeah.. for sure.. did you want to borrow my parchment and quill?" pushing them towards Lou… meaning.. okay you do this now, so I can read what it says. Getting a hug around his shoulders was funny and then it turned into an actual hug.. well at least its better..

"No problem…….AHHHHHHHHHHHH" he said loudly. "NOOOOO MY HAIR" he said…. pulling his head out of Louis's grip between his arms his hands went to his hair to smooth it out.. Bay looked over at him and gave him a playful stare.

How many chocolate frogs had she acquired since sitting here? A quick glance at her pile told her there was room for much more, having only 8 would not do, not at all and she would have gotten through all these by the next day with this new thing her stomach was doing where it didn't crave sweets as much. Her fingers drummed against the table as she looked over everything else.

Slowly she shifted another 5 chocolate frogs to her pile.

Her eyes shot to him as she gave him a curious look. He liked hearing her say money was no object? For the life of her she couldn't think why this would matter, except that it meant he would get good business from her which was all that mattered in the end, yes? "I like saying it too. It tells me I don't have to limit myself which works fine for me because I don't want to in the first place." limits were for people whose Daddy's had limited pockets. Seeing as she didn't fit into that category..."I don't think I've ever asked, do you supply muggle candy too?"

The Prefect's face fell. He hadn't seen her baby either. She had tried checking the castle for it, her only problem being that she couldn't remember where she'd previously checked and always got the feeling she was going around in circles. Not the best when desperately trying to find something. "Haven't tried accio-ing and I think there's a reasoning behind that but I can't remember it at the moment. I'll try after I've left here I guess." Or had she already? Eh, her memory was doing that thing again.

So that's what they were doing here. Replenishing Lex's lost stores.

Cutty continued dealing the chocolate frogs in their gemlike packaging into piles, but seeing that Lex was taking them on rather quickly, he decided that doubling it up and making those piles twice as many would be prudent in the interest of time. Piles of five were now being sorted as piles of ten as he drew out the boxes two by two. There had to be a spell for this. Some kind of arithmagic spell for sorting and counting. Before he knew it, he had taken out and sorted some 30 chocolate frogs. "Erm,...". 32, 34, 36. "I do have some Cadbury filled bars in my bag and Malteasers." Anyone else he might have thought partially muggle, but it made perfect sense to Cutty Mordaunt that if Lex knew any cross-cultural factoid about any community, it was the quality and variety of the sweets.


He nodded and continued to sort. "If it doesn't come to you when you accio it, it might be in a common room." Or so he figured. At least behind some locked doors. "But, I'll keep my eyes peeled for it. What colour was it?" He imagined something luxuriant. Maybe re'em suede, but perhaps not moke.

Lex was giving the cauldron cakes a once over while Cutty went on with whatever it was he was doing. At first she wasn't paying attention, dragging first two then a third cauldron cake to her pile before becoming thoroughly distracted by the fizzing whizbees. How many of these would she allow herself to be bothered with? They might not have been safe with this aging.

The moment she DID realize though, her eyes widened. SO many chocolate frogs. Was she allowed to have them all? Would it have been terribly bad?

Tentatively, Alexa reached across the table and fished another 10 over to her making her new chocolate frog total 23. In all honesty, 23 wasn't that bad. It could have been worse, and if he kept fishing more out then she'd have no choice but to keep buying. So many chocolate frogs in need of a new home. Lex dropped the 24th chocolate frog she was adding to her pile, eyes stuck on him. "You do??" Cutty Mordaunt! It was official. She was in love. In love with this candy dispenser sitting across from her. "I'll be having some of those of course." Her first love would always be chocolate frog but that didn't mean she was rather fond of the others mentioned. Chocolate was chocolate.

OH! That reminded her. "Jawbreakers, you got any of those? Preferably in blueberry flavour? Or Raspberry?" If he had both she could get a couple for Lottie and Cassia too. They liked Raspberries.

In a Common Room?..."Maybe....I'll ask my friends to search their dorms in case I left it in one of them...." It seemed possible. "It's a silvery grey, with an adjustable strap, a buckle to the front and an undetectable extension charm."

Really hungry, Lux made her way over to the Gryffindor table and plopped herself down on the bench. She had lost track of time, and had been worried that she would miss dinner, but it seemed that there was still lots of food for her to eat.

Eagerly, she helped herself to a little bit of everything that was in front of her. Yummy food.

Christmas slowly made her way into the great hall and over to her house table and took a seat beside Lux who she hadn't seen in ages and sighed term was nearly over and her future with the reserves of the arrows was going to start a week after the train arrived in london

Hearing someone sigh, Lux turned her head to look and was surprised to see that it was Christmas. She looked a little down, and it was natural to assume that it was because the term was almost over and she would be graduating. Aww, it was so sad. "Hey there, Christmas." She gave the older girl a small smile. "What you thinking about?"

Christmas half smiled at Lux and said "Well just about the future how much i am going to miss this place and all of my friends that i have made over the years that i have been at Hogwarts"

As Lux listened to Christmas speak, she started eating some of the mashed potato that was on her plate. "Well, you can still see people over the summer, right? And there is Hogsmeade." So even though it was sad, Christmas would still be able to see everyone. Lux could remember when she had talked to Lily about this same thing a while ago, and how much better she felt when she realized it was true that it wouldn't be the last time she saw her friends just because they had Graduated. "Have you made it onto a Quidditch team yet?" There was something else she wanted to ask Christmas, but she wasn't sure if she should, so she kept her mouth shut about it.

Christmas smiled and said "Yeah i suppose that is true and i actually took a position with the reserve team of the Appleby Arrows and i start a week after the train gets back from school so a week after i graduate i begin with the Arrows, so i don't know how much time i will have to spend in diagon alley during the summer"

Oh, so she was a reserve. "That's awesome. Congratulations." It was a real shame that she herself might never get to play because of the whole severe phobia of heights, but it was good that Christmas at least had got onto a team. Soon enough, Tessa would be as well. She could not wait to see Tessa play Quidditch.

"Oh, so you have a lot of training to do when summer starts. I didn't think of that." Silly her.

Christmas smiled and said "Thanks Lux and yeah course i do i need to train hard if i want to make the first team for the arrows but i don't mind being a reserve for a while"

Nodding, Lux understood what Christmas was telling her. Reserve was not a bad place to start off. "Well, do you have any plans for the summer besides Quidditch?" Because as amazing as the sport was, it was not all there was to life, and Christmas surely had other things to look forward to.