Who: Mandy & Padma When: Tuesday afternoon, 2 December Where: Ravenclaw dormitories Rating: G What: accidents and accidental musings
A star-chart seemed to hang in mid-air, supported by the tips of pointer fingers, and with a stream of light brown hair flowing from underneath. It was folded over, and half of the Milky Way galaxy faced up, the stars charmed by the chart's maker to sparkle as stars are wont to do. Mandy muttered under her breath, eyes tracing paths from star to star and mentally identifying the constellations and attempting to form her own. She laid across her bed, back bowed over the edge and her face turning red from the blood making its way there. Spotting a shape that could well resemble a rabbit or a kettle, depending on how one looked at it, she reached one hand out for a pencil flung onto the ground (she was sure she saw it earlier). The action, however, jarred her from her precarious position, and she slid headfirst towards the floor. An undignified squawk erupted. She abandoned the star-chart in favour of reaching out both hands to stay her movement. "Oh, bugger me."
Looking over the edge of her book, eyes brightening at Mandy's mishap, Padma laughed, lowering the tome completely. "I make no remark on your study habits, Mandy, though I must concede that I fear for your health." She stood, moving to steady the girl lest further injury be endured.
She shook her head, determined to make the best of the situation. "No, no, I'm fine. I'm sure that I read somewhere that hanging upside down for hours is good for the brain. Or maybe it was Quidditch skills." She grinned, looking up at Padma, her mouth stretching wide. "Or perhaps I'm talking out my arse? Help me up, yeah?" With a small groan and a sharp exhalation of air, she returned to a normal position on her bed, laying down until she no longer had a headache from the quick rush of blood back to her extremities. "What are you reading?"
Book clutched still in her opposite hand, Padma offered it for perusal, seating herself comfortably. "John Dunne." She relaxed against the bedpost, features wrinkled slightly in thought. " 'Ah, what trifle is a heart, if once into loves hands it come!' "
Mandy reached out for the book, making sure to keep her finger in the place Padma marked. She flipped through it for a moment, not really reading any of the words. "Interesting quote." She raised her eyebrows slightly, letting the vagueness of the words settle over them both.
Padma shrugged, making no move to retrieve her book, though her face betrayed a reeling within. "Donne was rather odd, though brilliant." She grinned. "Had he been a wizard, surely a Ravenclaw." A moment's consideration, her eyes moving over Mandy's work, smile broadening. "I find nothing surprising in your choice of study."
Mandy returned the book, wondering if she'd uncovered some hidden meaning behind the words -- perhaps that Padma hadn't even realised. She frowned slightly; Padma had been quiet about her relationship with Zabini. Had the surprise on her face been a betrayal of those feelings? But. The subject had been changed. For this time, Mandy would acquiesce. "There isnothing surprising in it, really. But did you know that if you link several solar systems, Cassiopeia and Andromeda amongst them, it looks like a rabbit? Or a kettle. I couldn't tell, exactly." She blinked, realising that she was allowing herself to talk too much, once again.
"Perhaps you need to look again? I must admit," she said, smiling, "I'm a bit curious myself."
The parchment upon which the star-chart was drawn was retrieved from the floor, Mandy spreading it out over her bed and using her wand to illuminate it even more. Using her pencil (found on her beside table), she drew the lines. "Hrm. No, I don't think it's anything. If you tilt your head like this, though, it looks a bit like Cornelius Fudge."
Padma pulled her own wand, tracing a line. "Hat and all. Remarkable. Though I fear the long suppressed divinatory inclinations compelling me to construct what, exactly, such a shape in the sky could mean."
"Bowler hats are to come back into style." Mandy nodded knowingly and quite seriously.
Laughing, Padma turned away from the star chart, eyes traveling to her book, the closed, heavy frame of the door, the window. "Professor Trelawney would be quite appreciative of such an insight." A hand reached and pulled the weather pages near again, resting delicate in her lap.
Snorting, she didn't bother to hide her disdain of the "art" of Divination. "No, I think she'd rather I say that bowlers are going to come back into style and kill us all." Gently, she set aside her chart and contemplated her friend for a moment. "Pardon me for being blunt, but are you ever going to talk about Zabini?"
The sudden shift unsettled Padma a moment, despite the fact that she had grown to expect such from Mandy. She smiled, after a tense moment. "Where should I begin?"
Mandy, well aware of the tension, simply waited. Padma would talk, or she wouldn't. It was a simple enough premise, really. "Wherever you like. I reckon you could say that I'm a bit frightened, as you've been walking around in a daze when not in classes... but you're not talking. And I don't like that, and... I don't know. I'm rubbish at this, as you can tell." She grinned then, mischievously. "Perhaps I just want to get my thrills in some way." She teased, not meaning it and truly not wanting to offend.
Padma shook her head, hair falling to obscure embarrassment. "I suppose it wouldn't do to insist the daze was unrelated?" She brushed a hand across her face, pulling her knees up and caging the tome between limbs and chest. "It is difficult to know what to say. He is very unlike I thought he would be. Infuriating. Gentle."
"A contradiction in terms," Mandy stated, reaching up to pull her pillow towards her. "I'm nearly envious, you know. It seems like romance has been an illness, one that all are keen to catch. But then, I'm not sure if I want all of the cutesy sweetness that permeates the thought, and I abandon it." She paused a moment. "Why is he infuriating?"
Face clearly reflecting her own disgust at the aptly described 'sweetness,' Padma was, for a moment, a bit sick with herself. Mandy's bold assertions sounded very much like those she had steadily compromised, which, though never openly pronounced, had served her well in her years at Hogwarts. "I suspect I am more ill tempered, really," she spoke, eyes cast away, "I do not like any loss of control."
Faced with the sinking feeling that she'd said something that was perhaps a bit upsetting or offensive, Mandy sighed. "I'm glad you don't really go around all moony-eyed though. You're sensible." Another sigh, thoughtful this time. "I'd rather lose control in a situation like that -- really live it -- than go about perpetually giddy and spouting rainbows and butterflies. I think that's why I'll be happily married to my career."
"My sister says that," Padma mused. "About living life, I mean. Of course, her ideas on the matter differ considerably from most sensible people, but I do like to think there's a vibrancy I've noticed of late, as though everything is interconnected." She turned to smile at Mandy. "I promise I shall not spout sentimental garbage at you, though I suspect you to fancy the shapes of the Greeks in their planet namesakes."
Mandy brought a finger to her mouth. "Shh. Don't tell anyone." She smiled in return. "There is a great deal of belief that the Greeks knew more than they let on about the cosmos... I intend to discover it. You shall see me once every ten years, and I shall take on the form of one of the muses, perhaps Urania herself, although I would disdain to foretell the future."
Bending near, Padma whispered, eyes bright, "And when you visit me, do introduce Melpomene, won't you? Fine conversation, stars and tragedy."
"But don't you see, my love, you shall take her form yourself, and we shall soar the heavens together."
"Now that," Padma spoke emphatically, "is a career I would readily wed."