Beautiful day out wasn't it? If Aubrey had a choice she would definitely be outside at all times especially in the warmer months. Ever since the school had started she hadn't had much time to go exploring, and she has been itching to do so. AJ had somehow managed to shake Angel, and that was a good thing because she tended to spoil her fun sometimes.

She had no idea where she wanted to go, only that she wanted to see all that she could possibly manage. A thought popped into her head. Maybe there were things that she wasn't suppose to get into, like how it was at Diagon Alley. Did the head lady person say something about that? She really couldn't remember because there was food and well not much else really mattered at that moment in time for her.

AJ continued to walk on and noticed a huge tree that she was coming up on pretty quickly. Man would she like to climb that.

Poor chap. Javy knew that Piers was still fuming over the letter, even if he won't admit it. "It's as good as nothing without an actual sender's name on it." See, they were even. "Starting to wonder if it was a joke." Cue the wandering, hopeless look in eyes.

That was no fun thinking about it though, so instead he impatiently watched the plate in Piers' gruff hands before he revealed.. Oh. "You devil.." Considering the amount of time in the kitchens Piers' spent, Javy wasn't going to be surprised if he hadn't made it.. or did he? Either way, it was the thought that count, and made Javy wrap his arm around Piers to pull him closer.. for a mini-noogie before releasing him. "You're in the lead for best mate anyone could ever have." Grinning. "You want to split it?"

Aw, man, he hadn't meant to turn this conversation into a depressing one. He couldn't help but feel a bit bad now, especially seeing that lost and hopeless look Javy was putting off right then. Even if it kind of was adorable. In a manly adorable way. What? "Oh, knock it off," Piers said, swatting Javy's leg again. "You have great hair, you've got a pet duck, and you're sensitive, what's to joke about?" He was hoping his remarks would lighten the mood. But if it wouldn't... "In all seriousness, mate, I'm positive it wasn't a joke. She bought you duck food." If that wasn't intrigue, he didn't know what was.

Piers grinned widely when he saw Javy's face, clearly pleased at the dessert he had brought. He didn't even think about why Javy was pulling him in until he felt his precious head getting noogied. "Ooooii!" he laughed out, shoving Javy off and ruffling his hair back into place. "I know, I know," he said, practically beaming at the compliment as he reached over to mess up Javy's hair. "You don't have to noogie it into me."

As for splitting the dessert. "Hell yeah." The only other option was to not share, but Piers was feeling generous. He cut the cake in half and tossed Javy a fork. "Dig in.

Javy could just sit there gazing at Piers with a lost look in his eyes still and be pitiful looking, but you know.. that was his bestie's job. Smiling a little at how funny Piers looked when he got to looking sad, it was adorable...ish. Yeah, that's the word. He was too distracted to even hear what Piers was going on about, "Yeah... I suppose." His attention fully back on Piers again. "It's frankly stupid that you haven't gotten one, they're really missing out on getting to know what a fine man you are." Come on, it was the truth.

Laughing a little at his reaction, sometimes Piersie was like a doggy or goose. Just giving you the urge to at least pet them. "Of course I had to." Patting his head a little, it was either give him a noogie or... or...a.. Hm. Javy's face turned into concentration for a moment as his hand slipped away. He was suddenly hungry again. "Thanks." Catching the fork, before taking some to eat. "This is delicious.. Maybe you should take care of dessert from now on." Yeah, it was that good.

With Javy looking at him like that (like how? what was he thinking about?), Piers kind of realized often he complained mentioned the fact that Javy got a response and he didn't. And then he felt embarrassed because he thought he was trying to keep it cool, but he totally wasn't. Urgh. "Oh, whatever," Piers said, shrugging Javy's comment off with a laugh. "Knock it off, you'll make me blush." And he didn't want to do that. He just wanted to eat cake.

And... get his head patted? Piers laughed again but didn't make a move to knock his hand off. He just stuffed a forkful of cake into his mouth. Then his eyes met Javy's and Piers noticed his face change just slightly, for a very brief moment. Then his hand dropped and Piers was a little... perplexed. What was that about? He swallowed his bite and looked back down at the plate. "You alright, mate? he asked without looking at him again.

He seemed fine now, talking about dessert and such. "Yeah," Piers laughed in response. "If I'm in charge of dessert, we're going to the kitchens to eat whatever the elves made."

Javy couldn't help one of his eyebrows quirking up again. Piers... blushing? Now there's a sight that he wanted to see. Though why he wanted to see that kind of sight, well, it doesn't matter now he had a little objective now. Even if Piersie didn't want to blush, he was going to do so sooner or later. "Eh, don't worry about it.." So for now he'll just let Piers be all moody with attempting to hide his emotions again. He was use to it.

Trying to stuff his face with cake was useless. Because for one well, he was sharing with Piers so he didn't have much to cram in his mouth. Second was that his change of attention was more noticeable. You alright, mate? "Er.." Looking up at Piersie.. Piers. He looked so concerned, that was new. It was quite a.. different.. feeling for Javy to see that, enabling his brows to furrow more. "Yeah.. just wanted more of this cake." Putting on a grin to hide the feeling of embarrassment. Weird. He never got embarrassed around his friends.

The prospect on making another cake was enough to redirect his thoughts. Thankfully for him. "Heh, if we're going to kitchens it's going to be with me telling you how it's done." That's right Piersie, you would be making it.

Well, now he felt silly and embarrassed for bringing the subject up again. It was his own fault. Pff, why was he even embarrassed about this? This was Javy he was talking to. He didn't need to get embarrassed. Regardless, Piers cleared his throat and shrugged. Moving on...

Piers looked up to analyze Javy's expression one more time, but he couldn't quite figure out what he was thinking. He chewed his cake slowly as some thoughts buzzed through his brain. "Okay," he responded a bit quietly, even though he didn't believe him. Something else was up, but he didn't press it. He didn't think about it anymore because then even more questions would rise. Piers cleared his throat to cut the silence.

He was going to make him make food? Piers groaned and swallowed another piece of cake. "You know how much I don't like to cook." He wasn't that bad, but... He'd much rather just eat already prepared food.

Awkward..gross. Javy looked at Piers, suddenly he felt self-conscious on what to say and act making his eyes wander back to the cake. He didn't want to look like a stupid.. wait, what? This was Piersie, his best friend for Merlin's sake. If anything there shouldn't be anything left to be embarrassed about after everything they been through...right?

Chancing another look, he could see the worried lines in Piers' face. What is he thinking? Shifting a little so he could be more comfortable, Javy went to grab Piers' hand that was about to shovel another piece of cake in, "Hey.. are you okay?" Ignoring the warm feeling he was getting for a moment, before releasing his hand. Since he was going to eat that, after all.

Yeah, Javy knew about his cooking abilities. He couldn't help the little pang of unfairness. Why did he have to cook everything? Right, because he actually liked it and they would starve or get sick from take out all the time. "It's not like I'm going to leave to cook alone, I'll help you." Because, you know it wasn't smart to just waste all the ingredients if they didn't know how to prepare it. "So what do you say?"

Piers was just about to go insane. He didn't know what was going on. There were very few times that Piers didn't know what was going on with Javy, and he just didn't like it. And for once, he didn't know what to do or say. Last time Javy was quiet like this was when Piers had unknowingly upset him, but he could tell that this was different. It felt different. And it certainly felt different when Javy grabbed his hand. Piers lifted his eyes to his and was temporarily frozen, just for a few seconds, until Javy pulled his hand away.

"Yeah," he croaked and then quickly cleared his throat. "I'm fine." What the hell was that? He was most certainly going insane.

Back to cooking, yeah. Piers was just going to agree with everything now. "Okay. Fine, I'll do it. Be my guide, and I will cook." But he made no promises that he wouldn't use magic or occasionally make a house elf do it for him. No promises. Piers looked at the plate and realized that his half of the cake was gone. Whoops.

"Thanks for lunch," he said, looking down as he brushed some crumbs off his pants. "I should probably get back up to the castle. I've got some, uh, lessons to finish. Books to unpack." Piers pursed his lips for a moment before starting to clean up and put the extra food back in the basket. He didn't know, what else to do, though, so.

Javy continued looking at Piers. Really because it was the only way he could tell if he was telling the truth or not. Looking into his eyes.. those brown eyes.. I'm fine. So he said, but for whatever reason he couldn't come up with a witty backhand comment. Why could he not come up with one? "Alright then.." This was much different than that loyalty charm he was hit with that turned him into a major Hufflepuff. He was thankful on the subject change to distract his thoughts from going further into this.

"..Cool." Smiling a little, maybe he could pick the flavour and topping so it'll be more fun. Eyeing his cake, he saw how much he was left with. Inwardly sighing, some things will never change.

Looking back at Piers, Javy was only left to blink. He was leaving already? "Oh.." He felt a little pang inside at that, even though it seemed to be a somewhat legit reason. Couldn't it wait? He wanted to say, instead saying "No problem.. thanks for the dessert." Waving his wand at the foil to wrap itself back around the cake. "..Do you want any help?" It was the natural thing to do for your best mate to stick with them... right?

Piers ran a hand through his unkempt curls. Now that things were awkward for no reason at all, Piers was gonna go and keep himself busy in his office until it was time to do something else important and time-sucking. Once all the food was packed back into the basket and Javy had the cake wrapped back up, Piers stood up and brushed off his trousers one more time. Did he want help? He would have, if he actually had a lot to do. There was one box left that needed to be unpacked, so it wasn't really work that couldn't be left for later. It would take all of ten minutes to put away and organize.

"Well, nah, you don't have to. I mean, it'll be dull. Don't want to bore you." He shrugged and stuffed his hands into his pockets because he didn't know what else to do with them. "I'll see you around though, yeah?" Yeah, obviously. Dinner and all that good stuff.

Well, gee. Javy stared at Piers at his rapid exit. He might as well had just said to go away, but you know.. he didn't. Things were not making much sense anyway, as he grudgingly got up to roll up the quilt and clean himself.

Don't want to bore you. Seriously, Piersie? Was he even aware on what he was saying.. maybe it was something in the cake that was messing with their brains today. If so, well.. "Nah, you could never bore me." About to pat his shoulder he saw a few crumbs and stuff on his back area, making Javy wipe them off. "You missed a spot, mate." Because randomly patting that area with no reason at all wasn't something Javy would do. "Lead the way, Piers. Maybe you can finally show me that collection of yours." You know, that one that Airey distracted them from. Anything to prevent him from thinking much will do.

Apparently Javy didn't care. Part of him wondered if that was good or bad. Merlin, what was he thinking? Javy was his best mate, why was was Piers acting that way? When had Piers not wanted to hang out with Javy? Piers didn't realize it would happen this way, but he was pleased that Javy insisted on coming with him.

Piers nearly panicked for a moment with where Javy's hand was going, but -- Oh. He was just brushing something off his back. Heh. That was okay. "Thanks, mate." No panic here. Just thanks.

He finally laughed a little bit when Javy mentioned his collection. "Alright, sure. Let's go." Now that much of the wierd tension was gone, he felt a lot better. He and Javy would find something to do in the office so Javy wouldn't realize he had been lying about the books to put away. Piers grabbed the basket up for Javy and then started to make his way up the hill, looking back just to make sure Javy was following him.

Benny
 

Angel was walking around, when she suddenly saw a massive tree that was just in the middle of no where, she had no idea what it was doing there but well she thought it looked like a fun tree to climb and maybe one day she would be able to climb it as well.

Angel just looked around and watched as she saw a branch move, was she seeing things or was this tree looking a bit different now, she wasn't sure but then she thought maybe it just swayed in the wind.

A nice autumn day was not something to be missed or wasted so Ben had headed out of doors to enjoy the still warm weather of early fall. It seemed like he wasn't he only one and he easily passed quite a few classmates and house mates as he meandered along both paths and open grass to find the perfect place to perch for a rest.

Nearing the Whomping Willow, a favorite of his and Adi's it had become, the Gryffindor paused just to take in the scene from the hill the large tree resided on. Closing his gaze under the soon for a moment. It was there after a few minutes after reopening his eyes that he noticed a small presence closer to the willow.

"Be careful.." he warned, the branches started to move like it was swaying.

Angel suddenly heard Benny's voice. "Be careful of what?" Angel liked trees and no tree were harmful. "I love tree's and normally I would give them a hug but well this tree is too big for that but I might just sit here and draw it." Angel had no idea what to say or do but she wasn't going to let Benny have all the fun, she stayed out of the tree ways just but she had no idea what the big fuss was. "What you doing Benny?" Angel decided to ask her friend.

The tree had whacked a few birds? "Animal cruelty, man," he tutted, shaking his head at the tree. Poor birds. Humans were a much better target, didn't the tree know that? Jeez. But the boy looked over at the Hufflepuff when he talked about being unique and snorted. "You're right about that. And not to worry, unique is a GOOD thing." See/ He was being NICE.

Cute girls?????? "Er, NO," he stated, looking at the boy curiously, "I haven't met many girls that I'd consider cute." Jeez, he hadn't even been looking. "Why'd you ask?" Was he meant to have a girlfriend by now? He had no time to dwell on that since the talk turned to Beauxbatons. "It's alright," he said, shrugging and looking back at the tree, "There are some down right weird people there. And you had to talk French and wear a hat whenever someone important came by." Jeez, no wonder he didn't like it there. There were other reasons too, of course.

ANYWHO.

Grayson did think that Kace would show him the drawing he was doing of the tree which was what made him look over at the fellow fourth year eagerly. He was being shown something else so he wouldn't be too disappoint--

HOLY FREAKING MERLIN!

"You DID this?!" His eyes were wide as he STARED at the piece of art. "Merlin, your talents are wasted here." Proper graffiti, like the ones you'd find in the ghetto areas of town. "Brilliant!"

Kace was chuckling when he said Animal Cruelty. "Yeah it is man...yeah it is. Or either the animals are not the smart.." he suggested with a smirk. Woww.. he even got a compliment from Grayson. That was nice. He was liking this side now. Maybe his hufflepuff kindness was rubbing off.

When he mentioned about girls, he shrugged and smirked. "Well i just asked because i was curious. I mean I have a girlfriend in Gryffindor so i just figured I ask. No mean to offend you dude." he said to Grayson still smirking. He seemed defensive but he probably like someone. But then he heard him talk about Beauxbatons and he nodded. Hmm...Kace wondered this. "I wonder what it would be like to learn French.." he thought out loud to Grayson. "Was it a hard language to learn?"


He smiled when he commented on his art. "Yeah I did! I mean I just do it as a hobby.." he shrugged while shading in some of his sketches. "Yeah i could do it downtown but I would get in trouble.." he winked. "If i don't get caught but my mom wanted me to get a Magical Education though. She said it would help me in the future." To be honest he had no idea what he wants to do yet. But he had a while to go.

Benny hadn't even registered that the figure could have been Angel, it wasn't like he could tell her from the back. But it appeared she reconized him. "The tree..." he answered as he moved a little closer, stopping again as he remained cautious of the movement. She wanted to sit and draw it? "Well just stay a nice distance away. It can be pretty tempermental." It wasn't like it was exactly a normal tree. At least not something that one would find in the muggle world that she seemed more familiar with.

"Nothing really," he said with a shrug, putting his hands casually in his pocket. "Just enjoying the nice weather."

*evil*
 

Angel had just decided to get a bit closer to the tree when it suddenly moved, the tree moved.

"EEK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Angel didn't think twice but she jumped back, right into the person that was behind her, she didn't like this tree one bit, what did it have against her, she loved all tree's by principle but this tree she didn't and it was it's own fault.

Ben hadn't even fully registered the Whomping Willow's movements had gotten more violent or at least energetic until just before Angel's yell. That had been what he had been afraid of and why he and Adi usually just kept a certain distance away to enjoy the tree but not the danger. The girl jumped back in reaction and no doubt surprise and towards him and the third instinctively reaching out to grab her arms to pull her back and catch her from falling.

"Are you okay?" he asked, a touch of concern in his voice.

Angel was still getting over the shock. "That tree moved!!" Angel had never seen a tree do that before. "I'm explored plants and tree's and never have I seen one move like that."

Angel was still in load of shock, so the next move even caught her by surprise. "You saved my life Benny." Angel quickly gave him a kiss on the cheek. "I hope we can be great friends." Angel really did want to be good friends with him, expecially now he saved her life.

Hop! Hop! Hop!

Adi was hopping towards the Whomping Willow. Well, he was only hopping in that direction because that's where his toad Gus was heading. Hop! Hop! "Don't get too close to that tree, Guster,'' he called to his beloved toady friend. "Don't want it to take a wallop at you.'' If anything ever happened to his toad...

Adi could see students lurking somewhat close to the tree, though. He shook his head. They were crazy. He followed Gus with some more hops. It was then he recognised the students. Benny and Angel. And WHAT in tarnation was Angel doing? Kissing Benny on the cheek? O_o

Snatching Gus up from the ground, the Puffer snuck up on his bestie and new friend. "Having fun, guys?'' he asked, looking from one to the other.

The animals weren't that smart? Grayson snorted. "Guess you're right," he said, almost as if he expected another bird to be whacked by the tree, "Maybe they'll learn not to sit on a tree that hits back." And jeez, he really was being nice, wasn't he? That was new. And unexpected. And he didn't like it one bit.

Woah woah woah. Let's just clarify a few things, mkay? "Not offended, man," he said, smirking, "Just haven't been looking around for these cute girls." Adjusting to a new school and all of that nonsense. But why was he talking about himself when Kace had just given him a juicy piece of news? "Whooooooo is this girlfriend of yours?" And more importantly, did Grayson know her? "French isn't hard to learn when you're made to learn it from a young age," Shrug. "Hard to keep track of all the masculine and feminine terms." And translating. MAN, that was difficult sometimes.

A hobby. Uh huh. Grayson nodded along, his blue eyes still on the piece of artwork. "No mother would agree to something like that," Plus there were THUGS and whatever there. And as cool as it would be to hang out there, he knew that his brother would follow along and he didn't want the kid to be dragged along to something like that. "Guess she's right. But you know, you don't have to do magical education all your life." Wink.