charlee-gonecrazy:

Charlee laughed loudly at the comment. “I used to be addicted to that bloody show,” she admitted, shaking her head. “Can’t stand it anymore though.” With that, she pulled out her cigarette case and a fag and held it out to Ben. “You smoke?” She could never get the hang of lighting her cigarettes with her wand. So she dug back in her robes pocket and fished out a bright yellow lighter, which she flicked aflame and used to light her fag. 

Continuing their walk, occasional puffs of smoke blowing from her mouth, she looked up at him. He seemed to be absolutely exhausted, and as though even the bitter cold wasn’t doing much to wake him up. “Did you sleep last night?” she asked bluntly, taking another drag of smoke with her left hand, right hand in her pocket. She turned a corner suddenly and continued the pace of the walk, changing her glance from up at the trees to down at the ground and back again.

Ben laughed, shaking his head. “I never liked that show.” When he offered the fag, he raised an eyebrow. “Not really, Charlee. I’ve only smoked like, twice in my life, it doesn’t work well with the nerd facade.” He joked. He had smoked before, but he’d hated it. His lungs weren’t built for that. He had bad lungs as it was because he never really worked his lungs, or any other part of his body for that matter, so he couldn’t really breathe while running, let alone smoke.

He ran a hand through the puff at the front of his head and tried to keep his eyes open, even though it was exhausting. He crossed his arms over his chest and tried to huddle up against the cold. He felt way too tall. He turned to her. “Nah, who needs sleep really? Especially when there’s so many books to read.” He was only half joking. He would rather read than sleep of course, but sleep was important. He liked sleep. Everyone liked sleep. As Charlee sharply took a corner, he was immersed in an unfamiliar area. “Uhm, where are we going?” He asked. 

charlee-gonecrazy:

Charlee yawned and walked out into the day, squinting at the brightness of the sun bouncing off the snow. She hated snow for the most part, she really did, but she was pretty decently bundled up and she needed some fresh air. After a few minutes of strolling, she noticed a Ravenclaw boy a year above her. She’d spoken to him a few times, but had completely forgotten his name.

Walking up to him, she voiced her curiosity. “What’s your name again? Bill or Ben or something, right? Or maybe I’m thinking far too much about the Flowerpot Men..” she added, making a reference to a muggle kids’ show that this bloke may or may not have heard of. 

Ben was exhausted, he’d been up to like four in the morning finishing off a captivating fiction story about Muggle love. He’d never read something more interesting. But despite the fact that he was tired he couldn’t sleep. He was walking around like a bloody zombie this morning but it didn’t really matter. The cold snow was hitting his face and evaporating and it was like being splashed in the face with water. He was still tired, but he could focus a bit better now. He spotted the girl with the long brown hair that he had spoken to once or twice, Charlee Varlow. She was a Slytherin and she was in her sixth year. 

When he heard her voice however, he was surprised. It was bit random. Why bother talking to him? He mentally shook himself and decided to respond, “Yeah, I’m Ben… And the Flowerpot Men? Honestly?” He shook his head at her and as she was still walking he matched her stride and walked with her, jamming his hands deep in the pockets of his robes. “I appreciate the reference, but that show is terribly cheesy.” He laughed. He’d seen the show once or twice at home since his mother had insisted on bringing her television with her when she moved in with his father. “A television show about talking plants?” He shook his head. “Anything is better than that.” 

Alright. There is one chance for you to go out there and be one of them Ben. One chance. Step outside that common room door and you can be a normal seventh year. No more isolation, no more just one mate and Quidditch and books. No more of that. This is your chance. He shook himself out like he was about to go for a run and checked himself over in the mirror. His mother hadn’t wanted to waste time and go shopping at Madame Malkin’s for “dress robes” when he had something called a suit that her father used to wear. This was all he had and he thought it made him look sharp. He sorted out the puff at the front of his head and checked to make sure his Converse—yet another Muggle bit of clothing that his mother had bought him—were tied nicely and were glad to see that they were. He shook his head to himself and stepped down the stairs at a rapid pace, trying to get out the door before he convinced himself not to. He glanced over to his right and left and saw that most everyone was gone. Well, that’s good. He thought. That meant he hadn’t got the date wrong.

People were looking at him weird because he was wearing about a suit. Something they had most likely never seen before. But the weird looks were nothing new to Ben. He got it all the time; every time he was studying and refused to respond when they spoke to him. It occurred to him then, that he would know no one a the ball personally. He would know some of the Quidditch teams members, but they would most likely ignore him and his only mate was Ruby and he had no idea if she was going to be there. Oh gosh, Ruby… He mentally shook himself. No thoughts about Ruby like that. She’s your mate. Your only mate.

He stepped out the door of the common room and snuck out to the room where it was supposed to be. He walked into the room and it was noisy, everyone was talking at once and the music was playing loud. People were dancing, dressed in their fanciest clothes. All the girls looked amazing. And all the boys looked polished. He bit his lip, wondering if he was more out of place than he had originally thought.

Where’s Ruby?

ravenclaw-ruby:

As Ruby read through the potion about a thousand more times she got to the point of wanting to throw it across the room with the hope that it would accidentally land on a flame and catch on fire. She closed her eyes for a second and almost jumped five feet off her chair when she heard Ben’s voice.

She quickly opened her eyes and gave him a smile, “Hello, Ben.” Ruby decided not to mention how he startled her, it was a different experience having someone talk to her in the common room. Different in a good way though, she felt a feeling of happiness at the thought that she had a mate talking to her. This new feeling was great and yet a bit scary at the same time. Ruby couldn’t be more excited to get to know her new friend. 

“How are you doing today?” She asked him. She wasn’t one to know how to start a descent conversation with someone, all of this was new to her. She hoped though that he wouldn’t find her boring and decided that this friendship was a bad idea. 

Ben had a basic idea of how a friendly conversation should go—casual joking, light voices and a supportive way of acting. You should always be interested in your mate is interested in and what they are doing. But it was easier to imagine having a conversation with someone then to actually have it. He had had practice talking to guys, after all he spent a bit of time with them at Quidditch, but aside from that he barely interacted with them. So as you can imagine, he rarely interacted with girls. He and his sister, Selena had conversations, but often they were very short and contained very little subject matter aside from school work an discussion of their parents. He occasionally spoke to the girls of his Quidditch team, but none of them seemed too interested in him. Which was a bit sad to him. He had never had a proper girlfriend. When he was younger he was okay at talking to girls, he was okay with talking to girls because back then he could talk about things other than books. But now, he couldn’t. Now it was studying all the time. Wizard school was hard.

Granted, some non-Quidditch girls like guys who played Quidditch and attempted to flirt with him and he head told them that the way they were talking was a bit strange and they seemed to get completely turned off to him. He looked down at the Potion’s book in front of Ruby, and he smiled, remembering that they both were anti-social. This was a bit comforting, and he was a bit more at ease then. He smiled. “I’m good, exhausted and bored, but good. Content really is the word I’m going for. And you?” He said, smiling at her. She really was cute. Okay, don’t think like that, Ben. She’s your mate. Your only mate. Nope. Nope. Nope.

ravenclaw-ruby:

Ruby just finish with Potions class down in the dungeon, the class period was spent trying to see who could make a replica of the Felix Felicis. It was no surprise that no one in the class actually succeed in this assignment. Ruby thought back to what she could have done to have changed the out come of her potion. It ended up changing to an odd purple color.

As she got closer to the common room her brain seemed as though it was going to to explode. Ruby couldn’t figure out what could have possibly went wrong, she knew once she got to the common room she would open her book to the page where the potion was on to figure this out. She was sure that it must have been a simple mistake in the measurements. Once she reached the common room she awaited the question to be asked so she could enter. What comes first, the phoenix or the flame? Ruby thought for a moment before answering, “A circle has no beginning.” 

She entered the common room and took a seat in her favorite chair before opening up her potions book. It was almost right way she saw a few things she did wrong. Some of her mistakes were stupid and others were ones she couldn’t have avoided. She continued to look it over still not satisfied by what she has seem. 

Ben cracked his neck, it let out only the slightest noise before setting his head down on one of the desks in the common room, getting a few fleeting moments of rest. He had only two classes today because of his sporadic free periods and he had already attended them both. He couldn’t sleep however. His mind was bouncing around one subject to the next. He had his mind mostly on Quidditch. The most recent practice he had been hit hard with a Quaffle and he had received a minor head injury. He was beginning to wonder how well his brain was actually functioning. Could he remember the things he’d just read from his History of Magic text book? Nope. Not a single word. He sat up and put his glasses back on, flipping the textbook back open and rereading all of the text he had just read. Alright, alright so the Second Wizarding War split everyone in half. That’s good. He got it now. He reached up and flipped his hand through his hair before sitting it back down.

He slid the textbook back across the table and then grabbed a fiction novel about Muggles and started to read from the point where he had left off. He lifted his head, crossing his arms and leaning back in his chair. He looked to his left and sitting there was a girl with flamboyantly ginger hair. He recognized her. Ruby Ulyssi. He had spoken with her once and they had agreed that they had quite a bit in common and should be mates. Well, now certainly seemed the time to get better acquainted with his new “mate”.

He walked over to the table where she was sitting, carrying the book with him and then sitting down across from her. “Hello then, Ruby.”

ravenclaw-ruby:

this-year-i-plan-to-study-a-lot:

Oh Merlin yes! I would love to be mates with you, Ruby.

Fantastic, this is great! 

It is great!