The thing about being surrounded by people all day was that it was utterly exhausting to Penny. Like, totally exhausting. Most of her school mates were unbearable on their best days, in her opinion... and the Gryffindors were typically all loud and obnoxious to the point of giving the Hufflepuff a headache. BLERGH!

But it was the price she had to pay to get the education she needed, right? GAH. But as luck would have it, she had a free period right now so she headed to one of her favorite places: The stone bridge! It was the perfect combination of outdoors and indoors, oddly enough. She got the fresh air and the view, but was close enough that she could run inside if it started to rain or anything. Which it usually did, because Scotland.

Heh.

Dropping her bag, she folded herself down on the ground and started rummaging for her book. The one for pleasure, not a textbook this time. What a treat it was to be able to read for pleasure, right?! She thought so. Settling down to get comfy, she had an errant thought about hoping no one ran her over while she was down there...

Abra had never before made much of an effort to wander meaninglessly around the castle. He'd done all the exploring he needed to do back in his first year, which was lucky, as given the events at the end of that year, he'd never been tempted to really do much more. Now, however, there was that whole prefect thing, which meant patrols.

Even now, Abra got twitchy when being around the castle and grounds on his own, even though experience told him that bad things could and did happen when he had company too. But the being alone thing, it made him anxious, which was extra frustrating as he also didn't like to be constantly surrounded by people, because that also made him anxious. There was no winning. But the patrols, yes, he was doing those all the same, and it basically equated to wandering around the castle and making sure students weren't up to no good. As nothing life-threatening had happened so far, it was almost peaceful, except when he really did happen across someone who was genuinely up to no good; then, it was pure stress.

As he crossed the stone bridge and looked out over the mountain scenery, Abra's thoughts were somewhere else entirely. This turned out to be incredibly ill-advised, as he was taken completely by surprise when his foot suddenly caught something and he went flying. Luckily, not very far, or he might have been in danger of going over the side of the bridge, but he did end up sprawled on the ground and feeling rather dazed. Looking back, he realised he'd either tripped on an actual person or maybe just her bag, and he was immediately horrified with himself because, knowing his luck, it was probably the former.

"Oh! I'm so sorry!" Guilt, guilt, guiiiiIIIILLLLLTTTTTTT. "I'm sorry!" He was a disgrace to his badge. A disgraaaaaaaaace.

It was like she just put that thought into the universe and the Universe said 'HAHAHAH Okay girl! Got it!' It was amazing how such things happened... and definitely just the kind of luck that one Penny Goodman had come to know. As this crap luck would have it, she had just settled back and really started digging into her book when someone, as expected, had come barreling through and tripped over her. It was like she was invisible. Again. This always happened to her!

What she had not been expecting was that the person's knee would connect with the side of her head before they went tumbling down. Um yeah... so that rattled her and sufficiently knocked her silly. SO much so that she not only dropped the book from her hands so that she could grab the side of her head dramatically, but she also just kind of slumped over sideways and whimpered. She was not good with pain, ya see. Her immediate reaction was to cry even if it TRULY didn't hurt that badly. It was more the shock of the situation paired with the overwhelming embarrassment that made the tears spring forward now. Oh man... and he was apologizing all over himself... OH MERLIN!

"No... I'm sorry... well sorry!" SNIFFLE, SNIFFLE! And her words that that high pitched shaking thing that happened when she cried, "It's me own fault! Are ye... hurt? WANT ME TO SEND FOR SOMEONE?" Not that she could produce a patronus or anything that could actually SEND for someone. And she wasn't even sure she had her wand nearby... She was literally the worst witch in the history of the UNIVERSE and was clearly invisible more often than not.

Could she please just sink into the ground now? And never come back.

Abra was alarmed. Mortified. Guilt-ridden. He had literally just tripped over a literal actual human being and, by the look of it, practically kicked her in the head in the process. He felt AWFUL, especially when he noticed the tears and the sniffling, and heard her apologising right back to him. He really WAS a disgrace, and couldn't quite believe what he'd done.

He couldn't help it; as he realised how upset the girl was, tears sprang to his own eyes and he had to fight to keep composed. In truth, he'd managed to knock his chin as he'd sprawled to the ground and it did smart a bit, but given the girl was also holding her head, he wasn't tempted to start complaining about that.

Getting into a kneeling position beside the girl, Abra shook his head hurriedly. "No, I'm fine. I really am sorry!" Apologising profusely was basically Abra's superpower, he would go on forever if someone allowed him to, especially when he felt particularly awful about something. "Did I hurt you? Merlin, I'm such an idiot, it's my fault, I'm sorry, I wasn't looking where I was going," he babbled, his words tumbling out of his mouth as he looked at the girl, his eyes full of concern, and that oh-so-familiar feeling of anxiety gripping his chest.

This was... not going well. She recognized the Prefect as the Gryffindor one, only not the loud type of Gryffindor. The quiet kind. Which was, in and of itself, quite the opposite of what she expected from anyone from that house. But this was not the time to reflect on things like that.

Although, it did kind of take her mind off of the pain in her head. "M'fine. Swear it... I just... uh... I cry when I'm embarrassed and even a lil hurt," she confessed with a wobbling chin. It was definitely the shocl and embarrassment of it all that had her crying as such. And then she noticed the place on his chin and scrunched her face up in AGONY! "Ye are hurt!" she cried out as she sat up slowly. Yes, slowly because she had taken a knee to the head after all. "Oh Merlin... I am such a barkin fool! M'sorry I was sittin here where ya couldn' see me," she said with a grimace as she reached for him.

This was turning out to be a worse school year than the previous... and a whole horde of dead magical beings had tried to kill them all. How was that even possible? That she could make a bigger idiot out of herself in such a short time when not in imminent danger?! Wiping at her face she tried to take some deep breaths and offer the Prefect a small smile. One that she hope conveyed that she was okay as well as the fact that she was very VERY sorry for the mess she had caused.

She'd lived nearly two months at Hogwarts and Vita was still finding it hard to call the place home. The rules didn't bother her so much, she didn't have any problems with the uniform and her less than quality flirting skills made avoiding PDA pretty easy for her. Still, it wasn't exactly a welcome environment for any kind of creative thinking recently and perhaps that's what she was missing.

Having walked by a rather bold group of younger years breaking more than one of the Headmaster's decrees, the fifth year ducked outside and onto the stone bridge, hoping to avoid the inevitable shutdown of their fun. She didn't need to see that.

Besides, the fresh air felt good and as she peered down below, she felt for maybe the first time that day, relaxed.

Zachary had hoped too for some fresh air - because he needed to get out of whatever this low funk he was in. The need to get out of Hogwarts was growing stronger day by day too and the fact that he simply couldn't was slowly but surely diminishing his soul. Maybe he was being dramatic, or maybe the air of Hogwarts had finally gotten to him.

Whatever it was - it needed to go away.

He knew being left alone with his thoughts over the break at Hogwarts had made everything worse as well - so when he spotted someone by the bridge, he didn't even hesitate and made his way over to her.

"Hi" He desperately needed to be social.