Spills and Spells

[aimee]

"Ohmegoo!" Aimee hissed under her breath, half expecting the book she was hunched over to laugh at her. She wouldn't have blamed it if it did, Charms had always been her worse subject. But, when the book kept quiet, she scribbled something barley legible on her yellowing parchment and slammed the book shut. Aimee retreated to another book and rested her head in her right, quill free hand, letting the red curls that had escaped her hair band fall down. She didn't bother to tuck the pieces of hair behind her ear, knowing full well that they would fall again.

Aimee was a rare accessory to the library, as anyone could tell after watching her for a few seconds. She would have an outburst of frustration, scribble and then go back to reading. Aimee usually left it up to the Ravenclaws to fill the library up with eager students, wanting to fill their minds with information. However, Aimee wasn't able to escape a trip to the dreaded room this time, she was far behind in her studies. Thats a consequence to your father marrying the literal Wicked Witch of the West. She thought, twirling her quill in her left hand and scanned the page of the book in front of her.

...was the greatest in history. She read the last sentence and lifted her head to look at the book shelf in front of her with a blank stare, which was enough to let her mind wander off of her notes. A strand of hair fell over her eye and Aimee, out of boredom, blew at it. It flew toward the book case and then floated back down on her face. This continued for a couple of minutes until her thoughts finally came back to her school work. Since her arms and hands were cramping from doing one thing for such a period of time, Aimee stretched. Her hand came down toward the table, knocked over her ink bottle and spilled ink onto her notes and some of her book.

"No, no, no!" She jumped out of her chair. The chair fell over, unnoticed and Aimee pulled out her wand. She conjured a towel and tried to soak up the ink. Her brain spun as she tried to think of a spell to get rid of the ink. Since nothing came to her, she continued to mop up the ink with the towel, muttering a few choice phrases under her breath.

[Bryan Kelley]

Bryan had actually wandered into the library that day not to sketch, as was his usual want, but instead to look up a few things for an essay he was planning to write that night. The Gryffindor had wandered through the shelves until he had found the book he sought and had seated himself at a table to take the notes he needed. It did not take him long to scrawl some information onto a roll of parchment with his left hand and to extract the information needed from the text. He had maybe sat there a half hour before he blotted the ink and rolled up the scroll and stashed it in his bag before closing the book.

Gathering his belongings, Bryan stood up and slung his book bag over his shoulder. He picked up the heavy tomb and moved back to replace it back on the shelf. With a small grunt, he slid the volume back onto the shelf and turned away when he small frustrated sounds. Intrigued, the boy moved to the other side of the shelving to look at a red-head who sat at a table by the shelves. He arched a brow watching her before he grimace when she had knocked over her ink well.

However, rather than cast the spell to clean up the ink, the girl instead conjured a towel and began to try and soak up the mess. Bryan grimaced again. It couldn't be helping anything. With little thought, the Gryffindor pulled out his wand and approached her table. "Here, let me help before the ink destroys all your work," he offered before he murmured the spell that cleaned up the ink.

Only after he had done so did Bryan stop to think the girl might be embarrassed over his interference or even dislike Bryan for it. He glanced briefly at the girl to gage her reaction as he moved to return his wand.

[aimee]

Still muttering and wiping up her mess, Aimee heard a shuffling of feet behind her and looked around to see who or what it was. It was a guy, a Gryffindor by the look of his robes. He muttered a spell and the ink disappeared, "Oh my gosh, thank you so much." Aimee stepped back from the table, tripping over the neglected chair. She caught herself before she began to fall, but couldn't stop her face from turning a bright red. "For the life of me I couldn't think of that stupid spell to clean up that mess," she tried to cover up her moment of clumsiness with conversation, "I've been to worried about catching up in everything that simple spells have just abandoned me."

She didn't want to embarrass herself more by tripping, so as Aimee talked she picked up the chair and very quietly scooted it back under the table. Stupid chairs, always in the way. If we didn't need you I would burn all the chairs.She glared at the inanimate object for a millisecond before turning back to the guy that saved her notes. He had dark straight hair and was a little taller than Aimee. Then again, it seemed like all the guys lately were taller than her, Must be the growth spurts. Aimee had seen him around, in the common room, Great Hall, in class, but hadn't ever talked to him. Usually, he had a notebook in hand, but not today. "I'm Aimee," not wanting to seem rude, she introduced herself and asked, "You are?"

[Bryan Kelley]

Bryan felt a twinge of relief when the girl showed no embarrassment over his interference but rather gratitude. At least he would not have stutter through some sort of explanation of he was only trying to help and not out to make the person look stupid. He had those encounters before and they usually left Bryan feeling a bit emotionally drained.

When the girl seemed like she was going to trip, Bryan made a motion to try and help her. However before he could even take a step she had caught herself and was already righting herself. "Perhaps if you took a few moments to step back and relax," he suggested as he watched her pick up the chair and push it back against the table. "The stuff is still going to be there so a moment to relax won't hurt you."

As he looked more at the girl, Bryan vaguely recognized her. Her house robes told him she was in his own house, so that was how he accounted for it. He didn't think they were in the same year so he assumed she must be a year below him, or be a rather young looking seventh year. "I'm Bryan. Nice to meet you Aimee," he stated after she had introduced herself.

[aimee]

"A few moments to relax, that sounds appealing. But, since I just got back I have to catch up on everything, make time to practice Quidditch, unpack..." She ran her to do list over in her mind, it seemed longer than usual, meaning that Aimee couldn't really procrastinate like she wanted, "But you know, it seems like Quidditch isn't going to happen," she tried to talk herself out of a bit of practice. . . it didn't work, "but I want to be prepared if it does."

"But, your right it wouldn't hurt to take a few seconds." She closed her open book and slid it back into its place amongst the unstained books. The guy had introduced himself as Bryan. Bryan didn't seem old enough to be a seventh year, but she new he wasn't in her year, so she assumed he was a sixth year, "Nice to meet you too, Bryan. So are you a super ink removing hero," she flashed a smile "or just another student catching up on things?"

Aimee continued to listen to Bryan as she started to gather up her things, I've had enough of the library today., she tought. She picked up the brown messanger bag off the floor and started to shove the parchment in. Even though she had just put the book up, Aimee reached towards it and plucked it back out, "Gonna check it out," she explained, "Don't want to but, I really need to." Aimee wrinkled her nose as she thought of all the studying she was going to have to do later. However, she promised herself at least an hour to be on a broom, a very nice alternitive to slouching over parchment with quill in hand.

[Bryan Kelley]

Bryan smiled at her question. "I would hardly call myself a hero," he stated. "Just helping out ... Was getting ready to leave the library after finding some info for an essay when I noticed your accident," he continued with a small shrug of his shoulders. Bryan didn't place much stock into his coming to the rescue. He just happened to be in the right place at the right time and new the correct charm to help out.

He watched as she had put the book on the shelves, only to remove it once more with the excuse of deciding to check it out. Bryan made no comment on it. He had not really given her action much thought. However, he did incline his head slightly in response to be polite.

"How are you so far behind? If I may ask..." he then inquired as he watched her pack up her belongings. He adjusted the strap of his bag on his shoulder while he waited for her response. Bryan did not know many reasons why a person would become behind in the school. He was usually someone who made a point to go to all his classes and get his homework done that it seemed odd that someone would some how miss it. He knew people were not like himself, but one couldn't help be surprised or curious at times.

[aimee]

"Oh, come on!You could be Ink Removing Mon o' Steel. You you, like Superman, except you would have an 'I' instead of an 'S'." Aimee drew the letter 'I' on her shirt to illustrate her words. Hair hair that had fallen out of her bun and into her face had finally began to bother her as she tucked it behind her ear. As she was doing this, Bryan asked why she was so behind in her school work, "Well, my father decided that it would be a great time to marry the woman he's 'in love' with."

Her fingers made quotation marks as she said 'in love'. She really didn't think that her father was in love the Heidi Renee Greene. Every time he talked about her and mentioned love, he always tacked "besides you need a mother figure". Every time, Aimee came back with, "Aunt Wendy is my mother figure. She's lived with us since I was two!" And every time, Aimee was told to drop it. The smile that had been on her face was replaced with a scowl while she thought of everything. "I don't like her much," Aimee winked and the smile reappeared. She didn't want to make Bryan sit though a rant about her stepmother.

"But yeah, the Wicked Witch wanted a January wedding, not a December wedding. She completely forgot about the fact I had school when her two daughters said that they didn't go back until mid-January. So, I was at home the first couple weeks of term." She said again to clarify

[Bryan Kelley]

There was an amused smirk on Bryan's lips as the girl went on about how he could be an ink removing superman. It was not an image he was presented with often. Bryan entertained it for a few moments but then regarded it. It was rather silly. Anyone could have done what had done for her. It was hardly hero work. So instead of speaking anything on that subject he had asked his previous question and waited for her response on why she was so far behind.

He arched a brow at her term of Wicked Witch. He almost expected her to say West or East after it. However, he didn't say anything until she had finished speaking. He didn't know much on this, so that didn't give him much of a response except saying, "Oh." He thought she probably could have had her assignments sent home, that way she wouldn't be too behind, however he kept that thought to himself. Surely that would have been suggested if she was going to miss a bit of school?

Bryan didn't really know. He had never been kept home for any reason. His siblings and himself had always been sent to school promptly on the proper day. "Don't suggest spraying her with water or dropping a house on her," he stated quietly after a moment. He wasn't sure if she would get the reference or even why he had stated. Probably because she sounded like she didn't like her new step-mother.

[aimee]

"Don't suggest spraying her with water or dropping a house on her,"

"Been there, done that," Aimee said half serious. One night at dinner, Aimee had done just that. She and a friend, Roger, that was over had taken a spray bottle and aimed it at Heidi. The water hit her in the face and immediately, Heidi started to play victim to the childish prank. Aimee was sent to her room, leaving her food uneaten, and Roger was sent home for the evening. Laughing, Aimee told Bryan, "Unfortunately, Dorothy had a better result. Heidi didn't melt."

"Do you play quidditch?" the random thought of quidditch had just reentered her mind. The school year was half way over and not one game had been played. Aimee thought that most of the school had given up on it, but she was determined. In every conversation she had, she brought up the sport in hopes of recruiting someone. Alot of people had gotten tired of her constant ramblings, but she continued them nonetheless less. "We're needing players badly. Hardly anyone has singed up this year. I have no idea why, every other year quidditch has been a popular sport."

After saying that, another crazy thought came to Aimee. I wonder if he knows anything about the rumors? When he wasn't paying attention, Aimee eyed him suspiciously. The rumors of dark beings and wars had been circulating all year long. Aimee believed them, but then, she had a very active imagination. maybe she would be able to coax it out of him if he knew anything.

[Bryan Kelley]

Bryan laughed quietly as she stated that water did not have the desired affect. He was amused that she had caught onto the Wizard of Oz reference. Bryan was used to interacting with a lot of pure blood people who had no idea about the muggle world. His father half of the family were a large group of those people. It was interesting to see how ignorant each group were about the other. Muggles knew nothing about the wizards and wizards had only a limit knowledge about the muggles. What they did know they didn't really understand correctly.

He arched a brow when she changed the conversation towards Quidditch. Bryan shrugged his shoulders. "I play when asked but I don't have a large interest in it. I don't really have any interest in actually joining the team," he said in response to her. With her comment about how so few people had signed up for the team, Bryan could only assume that she was trying to recruit more Gryffindors to join. Bryan didn't mind playing an occasional impromptu game, to fill out the numbers, but he had no interest in committing himself to a team.

"Don't even try talking me into joining the house team," he then warned. "It's a futile effort."

As to inform regarding the rumors around the school, Bryan was not the best person to ask. The boy tended to live in his own little world of drawing and rarely paid attention to the rumor mill. His knowledge on what was going on was minimal at best. However, the girl would not know this, like Bryan would not know it had crossed her mind.

[aimee]

Aimee opened her mouth, but then closed it when she was warned not to ask Bryan to join the house team. She was disappointed, however she wasn't the type of person to pressure someone into doing something they didn't want to do, "It was worth a try right? Maybe we should try and get a game going one day though. You know, for fun." She took her bag off the table in front of her and adjusted it on her shoulder. The weight of the bag reminded Aimee of everything she had to do within the next couple of weeks. She absolutely dreaded having to stay locked in the common room for the rest of the night with her head in a book. Maybe someone will decide to be nice and help me...or give me answers, she thought and added to herself, probably not.

"So you don't go around being a super hero, you don't play quidditch...much. What do you do for fun?" Aimee wanted to keep the conversation going, but on the other hand she wanted an excuse to not head up and study right away. She would procrastinate as long as she could and then dive head first into everything. Quickly calculating up the time in her head, if she were to start her work at eleven and use her free periods tomorrow for study, she should be caught up within a couple of days. To any other student, two or three days worth of school work was nothing, but to Aimee it seemed like an eternity. She again shifted the bag on her shoulder and waited for Bryan to answer.

[Bryan Kelley]

Bryan chuckled but was relieved when she let the subject of Quidditch drop. He wasn't really that much into Quidditch and was glad he didn't have to listen to someone try to weasel him into joining the team. His cousin had tried that at one point but soon had given up. It seemed it was a matter of giving it a try and hoping for his cousin. Aimee it appeared had taken him at his word and dropped the matter. However, he didn't put it past her to try again at a later date. If one wanted something bad enough, they kept at it, right?

He smiled at her next question. "Oh, you know, boring stuff like reading and drawing," he stated. Bryan understated that. Drawing was his passion. "More of the latter than the former," he then added, deciding to be a little more forth coming on that information. He merely hoped she would not ask to see something he drew. Occasionally Bryan didn't mind showing his sketchbook but today wasn't really one of them. Bryan didn't think he was very good, even though in reality he was, and he didn't take people complimenting his work well. He was more of less to mumble a few thanks and try to avert them by saying he wasn't that good.

"What do you do besides Quidditch?" he then asked her, turning the conversation away from himself. He was wary to touch on the Quidditch topic again but figured if she let it drop she wouldn't push it back up.