Moving Staircase
 

For Erik
 

Nigel was just thinking about things. Important things, not important things, and things that made no sense what so ever. So by the time he was done daydreaming and not having to deal with younger students. Badge duties were not as fun the second time around. He was at the staircases again. He looked around and saw someone looking at what seemed to be a book on Arabic.

Talk about random

He did a double take and saw it was Cat with the book. So..she was moving on from one tough language to an even harder one. "So did you finally give up on Mermish?" Plus Nigel had to admire the skill of reading on a moving staircase. He could not even do that.

Oh, oh, oh! Cat finished the sentence she was on rather quickly before she looked up at Nigel. She knew it was him because she could obviously tell by his voice, but she still looked. "Finally?" She laughed, "Were you waiting for me to give up?" Cat marked her spot in the book and closed it. "It's way too tough on my voice and makes my throat all sore. I suppose it would be better if I was actually underwater, but I'm totally not."

Obviously.

"My aunt started to teach me Arabic when I was in Cairo with her, but it's not so easy to get the hang of, I think." So she was trying to continue.

Nigel had to laugh. His assumption has right. But he was not waiting. That required keeping it in his thoughts and that is to much working for something this trivial. But why not lie about it."Of Course. Me and Mo had a bet on whether you would give up or not." He should at least tell Mo about this once he was back in the common room. Though she would probably know it is a lie anyway. shrug. "But yeah Arabic sounds a little easier and better on your voice"

Wow Cairo, that sounded pretty fun. "So Cairo and any reason why you want to learn Arabic."

It did sound a little boring to Nigel.

Cat just rolled her eyes. "Right, like I believe that." She did suppose it was entirely possible that they might, but she also didn't think Mo would bet against her. He was totally supportive of her academic pursuits, totally. "Because I like Egypt and lots of things there are written in Arabic. It's my goal to be able to actually understand it all when I go back next summer. Plus, my Aunt Delilah has this assistant who likes to stare at me, it would be nice to know what he's actually saying so I can know if I need to hit him or not."

See? Legit reasons.

Alexa sat at the top of a set of stairs and just let it carry her wherever it was going. The Gryffindor was only half paying attention as it took another sweep across the area. Merlin knew where it was gonna stop this time but she had no where going and no plans for another couple hours so....nothing left to do but enjoy the ride.

Just above her there was another set swinging into another position. When hers finally came to a stop she took a look around. Oh! See? Still not lost, she knew exactly where she was......no, not really but it looked familiar so that was that.

Lex reached across from her and pulled a sugar quill from her candy bag. Next to chocolate frogs, these were the perfect candy to while away the time with.

LISA. Lisaaa.
 

Being a seventh year meant Alice had to try to do everything humanly possible in the school before she graduated, and attempting a feat like that meant risky Gryffindor things were about to happen. Who was ready to do stupid potentially dangerous things for the far off prospect of glory and ability to claim you'd done something daring?

This girl!

First on the list was sliding down the banister of a moving staircase. Not as if it mattered that she could fall off and essentially break all her bones. Too pumped to care and stuff, y'know?

One staircase cleared. The next was to be powered up before it moved again - or not. "Alexa Cambridge. Why are you...riding the stairs?" For one..she might get trampled if a class got out. For TWO, she would more than likely have dust prints on her robes right now from the floor. Shoes weren't clean. AND FOR THREE, why hadn't Elodie thought of it before?! She was totes joining.

She had plans with Coul in a little bit, but maybe a sit down would be cool too?

Sitting two steps below the Gryffindor, Els held a hand out. "Shares. I'll knit you a scarf." Bribery.

"Well Mo bet you would keep on studying Mermish". Like Mo would bet any differently. Those were very logical reasons. Curiosity killed the Cat. Though that would only work if Arabic is that difficult. Nigel had no idea and did not want to learn Arabic.

"So you plan on going back there, You ever get bored with all the sand and all?"

Nigel never been there.

The only sand Nigel liked was if it was at the beach. "That is a very good reason to see if you are insulted or not." Nigel said nodding in agreement.

Alexa's head spun when she suddenly heard her name. Blink. Blink.

Oh! Elodie!!

Why was she sitting on the stairs...? That was a very good question for which she had no particular answer for which led to shrugging. "Riding them's neat. Being carried all over, watching stairs pass above and below you. It's kinda like flying...only without getting on a broom and risking Alice show up on the pitch to give you a couple laps because she's so impressed with your dedication to bettering yourself for the team." Quite a mouthful but there you had it. Still, she missed flying and was itching for tryouts. The list of people signing up looked promising.

Lex watched her take a seat, company for the ride was much approved, and stretched her hand out. Yeah...after a day with Ickle Bellaire, Lex knew exactly what that meant, but this time it came with a promise! Good enough! Alexa plopped the bag down in her friend's lap. "Help yourself and make it a blue scarf...though it'd look so odd when with my uniform...." Perhaps she should have gotten a red one....? Decisions decisions.

Hiiiiii
 

Olly was wandering around the castle, without a fixed destination or reason. Though she WAS slowly making her way upstairs. All casual like. No hurry. She might pay the Gryffindors a visit or something. Maybe. If she had time.

Aaaaah, see, and there was already a Gryffindor! How convenient. Sort of. Well, the more she thought about it, the girl standing by one of the moving staircases really wasn't one of the people she WANTED to see.

But whatever. The Hufflepuff still stopped for a moment, simply watching Alice. After a few seconds she decided to speak up though. Else the other girl might accuse her of spying on her or something. "Soooo, what are you doing then?" Also hello she was there.

From her lower seat, Elodie rested an elbow on Alexa's leg and grinned. "You're just being lazy and not doing things you should, right? Good plan. Have you got lost yet?" Maybe not to the point where she couldn't locate the heck where she was, but more to the level of potential confusion. That'd be fun. Els didn't really care too much about where she ended up. Especially now she was with a PREFECT (zomg so proud of ittle wittle Alexa with dresses and broken wrists and bubbles jnhfrk
ferjknfgk). Lex knew her way. Duh.

"Let's not talk about brooms." Please and thank you. It set her stomach off a little and she always felt a little bit sick. Extremely sick, even. Was that...no..it was just a wiggle needed.

Rooting through the food, Els grinned and nodded. "I can do blue. I got new blue wool in the summer, actually." See, this was like a business. People just paid her in food. It was pretty darn awesome. Come graduation, it was totally over. She wasn't going to knit for a living. She wasn't an old person. LIFE WAS TO BE LIVED.

She heard Olly approaching, but chose to ignore her until words were actually voiced. "What does it look like I'm doing?"

By this time, Alice had decided which banister of the staircase she planned to slide down and was busying herself by counting the seconds it took for the structure to attach to another line of stairs. If she timed it exactly right, landing safe and sound and not breaking herself in the process would be simple, yeah? Yeah.

But since she was feeling oddly cheerful today, the seventh year offered her company an answer.

"I'm being a Gryffindor." Pause. "You can Gryffindor with me, if you want."

"Yup, that about sums it up right." Flying and doing laps weren't the same level of fun. She was just waiting for Alice to realize that. Lex took a look around, even as the stairs swung into action again giving that soaring feeling. "Not fully but I can't remember where I started from and haven't the foggiest where I'm going to next. Does that count?" Sure it did. There wasn't much she could do in the way of getting lost, not with this being her Fifth Year and all. Exploring the castle was basic Firstie stuff. Not knowing where anything was would only look bad on her...especially now being prefect and having Firsties asking her where everything is. With the exception of the library, she could point them in the direction blindfolded.

She looked curiously to Elodie. "You still don't like them? They aren't that bad you know." Not for her anyway. Why Elodie didn't like brooms, she didn't think she'd ever understand. "When's the last time you went up on one?" It wouldn't surprize her if the girl said something along the lines of 'First Year'.

Oh perfect! Ignoring the fact that people went out of their way to get yarn these days, Lex grinned because eeep new blue scarf for her! "Excellent. I didn't even know you knew how to knit. It looks hard." Hard, time consuming and excessively feminine. With the end of her sentence came the stopping of the staircase in their new position, not that far off from where they'd been minutes ago. She glanced down again, wondering where they were this time.

Olly regarded Alice for a moment longer, trying to figure it out herself. Without success however. She shrugged. "I honestly don't know." Hence why she'd ASKED. That was how this worked after all. Questions. Answers. That kind of thing.

So she simply waited in silence for an answer. At some point though Olly wasn't sure she would ever get one. Maybe she should just walk on and leave Alice alone. Why had she stopped in the first place again?

Ah. And there was an answer after all. A rather vague one but it definitely was one. Though it actually brought on more questions than it answered. What did Gryffindor mean? And since when was it a verb? "Again, what are you doing?" She took another step towards the other girl, her eyes darting back and forth between her and their surroundings.

Seriously, there wasn't much TO do here, was there?

He was headed down the stair case off to find some food. He hoped he knew where the great hall was. Bouncing down the stairs he started to skip a few at a time. There were so many steps around here how did people figure them all out. He was always down when all of the sudden he was on his behind falling.

Catching himself on a rail he looked in shock as the steps moved. The stairs move how cool was that. He watched as they moved into another position. This was so cool he had to do it again. Jumping to his feet he flew up the steps and hopped the banister to another group of steps. Did these ones move too?

Just as he wasn't sure they did and was going to start down it moved. "Woohoo" This was fun, did everyone know how fun this was. Which ones moved next maybe he could hang on the banister as it moved.

Did it count? Els shrugged her shoulders and looked around too. "I'd say it didn't, but...I'm in the same predicament right now." She had no idea really where they were relocating to, but she did have that unsettled feeling in her stomach knowing that they were moving, which counterly made her close her eyes and breathe weirdly a few times. Oh gosh oh gosh oh gosh MOVING. THEY WERE FREAKING MOVING RIGHT NOW. ...Okay, they'd stopped. She was kinda sure she knew roughly where was above them, but it didn't matter because she wasn't going to move for a while. Not whilst Alexa was feeding her stuff.

Still didn't LIKE THEM?!?! LIKE THEM?!? It was never a LIKE thing. She scowled a little and shook her head. "The thought of them makes me feel sick, makes me dizzy...." And when was the last time she'd been up on one? "Never. I got conveniently sick." It wasn't flying that made her feel that bad...it was brooms. Actual brooms and their wooden handles and...and everything... She couldn't explain it and she daren't try.

"I'm always knitting." Always...wasn't even really an overstatement. She'd knitted her way through her OWL study, and even camping over the summer. Whilst Coul sorted out the fire, she knitted. Proper old lady syndrome. If she had grandparents around, she was sure she'd get on dead well with them. Old soul, old soul. "I can show you at some point?" Along with giving her another bout of dresses.

"Maybe you've been subconsciously following me because you find me oh so intriguing." She grinned a cheeky grin and watched Olly for a few more seconds before turning away. The other girl had probably never seen her this perky, but then again, she and Alice hadn't ever had a conversation where the latter had been in a good mood.

Now they were.

What was she doing? Hadn't she already said? "I'm Gryffindoring," the seventh year answered again, bracing her arms against the banister as she pushed herself up and kicked one leg over it. "You joining me?" Her legs wiggled in anticipation. Hopefully Olly planned to answer her before the staircase began to move again, yeah?

...what? Where had that come from?

Olly blinked a couple of times in surprise but soon enough her lips curled into an amused smirk. "Intriguing, yeah." She shook her head slowly, still slightly taken aback by the good mood Alice seemed to be in. It was a welcome change in demeanor though so she didn't complain.

And again with the Gryffindoring. Before Olly got the chance to ask AGAIN what that meant, Alice's actions pretty much explained it all. Ah. Why the other girl was calling it Gryffindoring Olly wasn't entirely sure but okay, at least now she knew what it was Alice was doing.

Join her though? "Nooo." What Olly did do however was move onto the same staircase Alice was on. Right. Now Alice could do her thing and she was simply going to watch. She even sat down on one of the steps and gave the other girl an encouraging nod. Go on then.

That smirk wasn't as annoying when it wasn't implying things that bothered her, Alice decided. But the Hufflepuff sitting out on this crazy stunt was most definitely not allowed, so she hopped down and forcibly pulled Olly up.

"So what you do," she instructed, gesturing as she spoke, "is brace your hands against the banister and push yourself up, then kick one leg over it and sit. And then the staircase starts moving and we slide. Got it? Good. Your turn." Fixing her company with a patient look, Alice nudged her towards the banister.

C'mon, Olly, she didn't have all day.

Apparently she WASN'T going to sit this one out after all.

Olly allowed Alice to pull her to her feet and watched as she explained what she was doing. Or rather how to get on the banister. Well, she could have figured that out herself, thank you. "You're quite bossy you know." Actually, the Quidditch Captain probably knew that. Somehow it was a little amusing. And when prompted to do so, Olly did move towards the banister and pushed herself up on it.

She didn't, however, straddle it just yet but instead regarded Alice for a moment. "Why do I get to join you in your Gryffindoring?" Olly WAS just a little bit suspicious. Because honestly, if something went wrong she wasn't entirely sure she wanted ALICE to be there to help her.

Shrug. "It's better when things go my way instead of anyone else's. And if I gotta look bossy in the process of getting what I want, then so be it." But things were going how she wanted, see? Olly was going to get on the banister with her, and she had a stunt buddy just because she'd made someone do what she told them to. Case and point.

"Why not?" Alice grinned and, since the Hufflepuff was taking far too long getting on, pushed the girl's leg over it herself. "Want me in front or behind you?"

She was even letting Olly pick. So polite.

"I didn't say it was a bad thing..." Olly sent another smirk Alice's way. She did appreciate people who knew what they wanted so there. Even though it was still slightly odd to be having a 'normal' conversation with Alice the Hufflepuff wasn't going to mention it. To be honest, it definitely WAS a nice change. And Olly wasn't the type to be looking for a fight when there was no reason for it. So there. Playing along for now.

Well, she could think of about a million and one reasons why not but all she did was shrug nonchalantly. It had probably been a rhetorical question anyway.

Alice's next actions caught her by surprise which was why she was too slow to stop her. She did however narrow her eyes at the other girl. Olly did NOT like being pushed around. Literally. Even if it was 'just' her leg. No. Don't do that Alice. "In front." Pause. "I don't trust people behind me."

"That sounds more like Mo, but I still don't believe you, Nigel." Cat grinned and poked the boy with the book she'd closed. Poke for you. "Nope. The sand is bad sometimes, but there's so much history to look at, I could deal with sand." That was the best part, the history.

"I've gotten enough insults from boys this summer. American boys called me SHORT." That was just rude. Goodness. Boys should be nicer to Cats. Oh, speaking of, Cat tilted her head and smiled at Nigel. "Did you have a nice summer?"