Okay..so he finally made it back here after much deliberating. He was going to attempt to clear the tunnel. It was such a shame that they left it closed off in the first place.

Bentley sat in front of the statue with the map in front of him. The sixth year really appreciated the fact that this area of the castle wasn't frequented as much as the other places, which meant that he had a lot of time to work in peace.

Chloe, frankly, was bored. Without the direction, the end date of a goal like OWLs looming, the sixth year didn't know what to do with her time. Most days she habitually headed to the library only to remember that the term had just started and lessons were not in deep enough for her to study for anything. Now it was introductory lessons and syllabuses. Chloe Newman was nothing without a schedule.

And so, she was descending into Ravenclaw madness.

She spent most of her days aimlessly picking up books to give herself some kind of agency. Today, she was wandering.

The castle was a huge place that she had spent the last five years ignoring in light of the crinkled, comforting pages of a good book. This year was going to be different. In part because she dangerously bored. Maybe there was something to living life with no schedule, living by the eleventh hour.

Or not. DEFINITELY NOT.

That was dumb.

The sixth year wandered until she happened upon her ex. Chloe walked like a zombie, purposeless before coming to a stop, "What're you doing here?" Translation: is there anything interesting going on to break up to monotony?

Bentley gathered up his map and hastily pocketed it when he was joined by someone else.

A Chloe. Well, he wasn't going to be talked out of his plan. He got to his feet smoothy and brushed his bottom off. Dusty, the ground was dusty. He leaned against the statue and flashed her a dimpled grin.

"Hi Chloe. Fancy seeing you outside of the library." He wasn't going to entertain the conversation of what he was up to right now.

"I mean I think th question should be, directed at you."

The blonde cocked an eyebrow at Bentley's shifty behaviour. What was with lions and thinking they were the master's of subtlety. It was a wonder to her, truly, that the Battle of Hogwarts was won at all under the leadership of blundering lions. They couldn't be keep their emotions, thoughts or feelings to themselves if they wore an invisibility cloak.

But she wasn't in the mood to press him about whatever nonsense he was up to today. Sometimes the best way to avoid a headache was to pretend that lion tomfoolery didn't exist.

She rolled her eyes at his jab about the library before responding, "Wandering around the castle. I never really look at it."

There was a moment. And then, "Whatever you're doing you should try and look less shifty. You're not exactly lowkey."

It was Bentley's turn to raise an eyebrow at her. Chloe Newman was wandering the castle, not hunched over a book in a corner of the library? Shocking. He wasn't even behind dragging her away from her books.

"Hmmm, no OWLS to study for huh?....And no boyfriend to waste some time with.." Because you know, she had gotten rid of her boyfriend...not that they were going to talk about that right now.

"I mean...it's nice..that you're finally exploring the castle."

The sixth year did a guilty sort of chuckle.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

....

Chloe could have murdered him.

What kind of...UGH. Why would he even say that? Even after they had spent so much time, like soooo much time, talking about their break-up he was still being passive aggressive about it. When he said stuff like that it made Chloe's blood boil and her mind race with rage.

But she swallowed it and shot him a hard, mean look.

"Anyway", she said, short, "I think so, too. The part about exploring the castle. Not that petty comment I'm choosing to ignore." Did he hear that? She was ignoring that. Ignoring it pointedly.

Chloe shook her head, "You're gonna get in trouble." Was it unhelpful to point that out? She didn't care.

"It was a joke....kinda of."

Except it wasn't remotely funny but making light of it helped..sorta. He knew that he probably upset her but he was an expert at that by now. Sometimes he couldn't help it and sometimes he chose not to.

"But you know..if you address it, technically you're not ignoring the comment really." FYI Ravenclaw.

"Get in trouble? But I'm not doing anything wrong." Did she see the dimples? Those didn't lie...except when they did.

"Well," she grumbled, "It wasn't funny." It hadn't been funny the first time he'd started to use it as a punishing joke and it wasn't funny now: the five hundredth time he had thrown out that benign comment.

AND THEN, merlin help this poor Gryffindor, he kept going. Further and further poking the bear. Ahem. The bear was Chloe. She was a not-very-strong, slip-of-a-thing bear but she was still a bear. And she would bite his head off if he kept going down this path.

She didn't address his FYI. The bear heard it loud and clear.

Chloe wasn't stupid. She didn't trust the dimples. Hadn't trusted the dimples since they first set their eyes on her when she was twelve. Chloe Newman was above the treachery of the dimples.

And she knew that he only really dolled out that trick when he was up to no good. Her features fixed into something unimpressed, "Don't use those dimples on me, Moore. They don't work." Nuh uh. Not even a little.

Bentley almost retorted with 'maybe you should lighten up' but he knew for a fact that would send them both down a road, they'd traveled too many times and it was best avoided. He instead stayed quiet, fixing her with a little frown.

"Well it was worth a try." She was wrong they, they did work. Just recently, he'd taken them out for a spin and they could still do the trick. Or maybe...just maybe he was too far away.

So he fixed that...closing the distance between them. He smiled down at her again. "How about now?"

Chloe tried not to notice the frown. That always got to her way more than any kind of flirting did.

She was immune to flirting.

Even when Bentley was very close. He had closed the gap between them and was leering down at her with those dumb, stupid, every-word-that-meant-dumb-dimples in his attempt to, she guessed, make her weak in the knees.

The Ravenclaw leaned up and kissed Bentley on the cheek, "Nice try, Moore. But I know all your tricks." In fact, she had been on the receiving end of every trick he had ever tried out, she thought offhandedly.

His dimples were fine but...that wasn't his best smile. She liked another one he kept in his back pocket that had always felt just for her a lot better. The dimples were a calling card, same as his eyes.

Not the special parts of her ex. Those he kept locked somewhere deep down underneath all of the hurt she'd served him.

And there was a lot of hurt to shuffle through between the pair of them.

Even if his ex thought his tactics didn't work on her, he knew otherwise. Did he not just get a kiss on the cheek just from smiling at her? It was a victory on his part..no matter how small it was.

He thought about pointing that out to her but....she'd probably try arguing against it.

RavenClaws were never good at accepting defeat.

"I have no tricks. Why would a sweet innocent guy like myself rely on tricks, hmm?" He was sure that he could find someone willing to vouch for his integrity. In the mean time, he dropped his hands to her waist. "Are you sure you don't want to go for a walk..or something?"

The cheek kiss was not a victory. It was impulse. Those were two completely different things. The second of which did not equate to winnings, thanks.

She actually laughed when he said sweet and innocent. There wasn't one sixteen year old boy she knew that embodied those words. The only guy she could think of that even came close was Bentley's little brother but he was also two years younger than them, which only proved her case further.

"Please, innocent?" Chloe good naturedly rolled her eyes. "That's not-"

She stopped.

Or something. Those words were begging for trouble. She supposed that was to be expected when it came to lions. They were always nose deep in trouble in her experience. "I thought you were doing something?" she answered cooly.

Bentley grinned. Victory number two came in short order. A kiss and a laugh. He was definitely on a roll today.Chloe Newman was probably known for a lot of things..laughing was not one of them, so of course the Gryffindor was super pleased with himself for making her laugh.

Hmmmm

"No I said I wasn't doing anything, but now that you're here...we can find something to do...away from here." Because he did not need her discouraging him from from his goal of reopening the tunnel.

He was trying desperately hard to get her away from whatever it was he was doing over here. Again, Gryffindors were not the masters of subtlety they thought they were. Bentley least of all.

She unwound herself from his grasp, her curiosity too overwhelming to be ignored. Chloe looked around this seemingly innocuous corridor and asked again, "What're you up to, Bentley?" The statue didn't look particularly special. So what was the appeal?

Makes a show of looking around after she moves away from him. Seriously woman?

He let out an exaggerated sigh.

"Does it look like I'm up to anything, in this empty corridor? There's nothing here except...a stupid statue.....stupid dust...handsome Bentley..suspicious Chloe..but beside's that..nothing."

He moved back to the statue and resumed his position (leaning casually) against the statue.

"Feel free to look around."

Handsome Bentley? Chloe could have kicked him for a comment like that. Gryffindors were so infuriatingly vain. At least Slytherin's had the good grace be quiet about their vanity, but lions wore it like they wore everything: loudly and with stupid, misplaced confidence.

She also didn't appreciate being labeled as suspicious because that was frankly quoting the obvious. Of course she was suspicious. He was being dodgy. That wasn't her fishing, that was fact.

His casual lean did nothing to dissuade her mistrust of the situation. She moved to look behind him and only saw a sealed up entrance. The castle had multiple closed off entrances, though, that was not something that peaked her interest. After the Battle of Hogwarts the school looked different. All battle raged structures did.

She crossed her arms impetuously and huffed, "You're up to something, Bentley Moore. And this," she gestured wildly at his casual stance, "Doesn't fool me one bit, okay?"

Aurora was so boreeeed. She always hated winter, preferring the sunny weather of LA over the cold northeast winter any day, but it seemed...extra dreary here in England. Perhaps it was this old castle, or maybe she was still a little bitter that she didn't score as high as Valerie in the first challenge. Either way, she was wandering the halls aimlessly today, bored out of her mind.

She'd even completely redone her nails, taking off her purple nail polish and inside going for a fire engine red. THAT was how bored she was.

She stopped by a particularly ugly statue, eyebrows wrinkling as she looked up at it. Ew. Why did they insist on all these horrid pieces of "art" as decoration? And the suits of armor?

Dora had been debating going up to her dorm for a nap, but she instead found herself wandering aimlessly through the corridors. She knew she could go see Casper, but she didn't want to drag him away every time she got bored. They would have plenty of time to be bored together once they moved in together.

Now THAT brought a smile to her face. A big one.

The thought had made her so happy that she didn't even frown when she saw one of the Ilvermorny girls frowning at Gregory the Smarmy. "That's Gregory the Smarmy," she explained as she made her way up beside the girl and nodded her head toward the ART. "He created the Unctuous Unction potion and basically swindled people to make millions." Maybe not millions, but a fortune nonetheless.

"Nice nails, by the way," she said with a nod as she held up her hand. Her own coffin shaped nails were a deep rose gold glitter color. Lovely, really. "So... how do you feel about Hogwarts and the IMPS thing so far?"

Aurora raised an eyebrow as one of the Hogwarts kids - one of her fellow COMPETITORS, no less - came up to her and started to give her a history lesson. She was already IN History of Magic, thanks. But it was obvious she was trying to be nice. She further sealed the deal when she commented on her nails. Aurora grinned and admired them herself before glancing at the other girl's hands - OOOH, so she knew a thing or two about nails as well. Good. She liked this girl. Dora, she believed her name was? If she remembered correctly?

"Thank you," she told her with a smile, choosing not to comment on the boring history stuff because ew, history. "Yours are gorgeous too. I LOVE rose gold," she added. It was true. Such a pretty tone that could go with just about ANYTHING.

"It's...cozy here. I like it. You guys are so welcoming too, and I appreciate it. I know my PEERS can be hard to deal with," she grumbled, rolling her eyes. She could rattle off a whole list of people who had been just plain RUDE ever since they got here. Dora probably could too - wasn't she the one who got in to a weird duel or something with Valerie? Aurora generally blocked out anything having to do with that girl, and she HAD been distracted by Lachlan's elimination when that all went down. Still, she was...pretty sure that was what happened.

"As far as the competition...so far, so good. I mean, as much as can be expected. The first challenge was...not as challenging as I thought it would be. My dummy and I bonded. She thought I was a princess," she chuckled at the memory. It was kind of sad that Kate ended up not being REAL, to be quite honest. She was a nice little girl. She'd known the whole time that Kate wasn't real, but it was still...disappointing when she turned back in to a dummy. "How about you?" she asked. She knew some of her competitors had gotten all...weird about it. She hadn't been bothered to really learn why though.

Dora ASSUMED that the American wizarding school taught... well about AMERICAN wizards, not British Wizards, so it was an honest mistake that she had given the other girl a History lesson she had already received before. Or maybe they didn't have that many great American wizards?

"Rose gold is my current favorite. Next week it might change, but you know how that goes, I'm sure." Dora gave her a big smile as she spoke... until she referred to Hogwarts as cozy. That gained a small frown really. That wasn't a very flattering way to describe the place, but she would let that slide. "SOme of your schoolmates are horrible," she said quickly with no regrets. "And for the record... I was only going to set that girls pom poms on fire. I wasn't going to actually hurt her. And how everyone got to me so quickly... when I had clearly left the area with the other competitors... I will never know. It was all blown well out of proportion though. That much I can tell you."

So far so good?

Dora gave the girl an incredulous look, but quickly pushed it away. "Interesting. It wasn't challenging as far as the magic it required me to cast, but I think the fact that they presented themselves as Muggles was atrocious. Did you not think so? It is exploitation really. Although... I think that if they had wanted to make it more challenging they could have transfigured those dummies into people we love. Or something." Anything other than Muggles really would have done. "[b] And contrary to popular belief... if the girl didn't feel the same way she had about it, it wasn't going to make Dora attack her. People didn't always see eye to eye, did they?