Who: Mandy and Parvati Where: Entrance Hall When: Tuesday, before dinner What: Parvati returns Mandy's Astronomy notes Rating: G
Arms full of books and parchment, Parvati scuttled along the hallway towards the Great Hall. She looked around at the amassing students, the smells of warm shepard's pie called out to her empty stomach.
Mandy's nose was pushed firmly into the book she'd bought on Saturday, rereading bits over more carefully to fully appreciating the prose. Within her schoolbag, her own tattered and well-loved and read copy of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland waited for it's re-emergence into the world, to be lovingly opened and devoured. Sensing that the Entrance Hall was filling as students waited for dinner to begin, she leaned against a stone pillar, unaware of those who stood around her.
Parvati bounded through the entrance into the Great Hall and something caught her eye. Standing solitary, eyes firmly planted in a book, the Gryffindor felt the girl before her seemed either dreadfully lost within it's pages, or escaping into them. She walked over towards the Ravenclaw and cleared her throat audibly.
The voice was similar enough to give Mandy cause to smile, thinking that Padma had found her, but discovered the lie her ears had told her as she glanced up. The body language between Parvati and Padma was different enough that by the time Mandy's eyes found Parvati's face, her smile had changed slightly from one of open, familiar friendliness to that of expectant friendliness. "Hello, Parvati."
Sadly, used to receiving similar greetings in the past in deference to Padma's housemates, Parvati was no stranger to the icy disappointment most seemed to show her. Her arms aching under the weight of the books, the Gryffindor shifted her weight slightly and smiled in appropriate response. "Hi Mandy...are you doing alright?"
She closed the book, marking her place with a quick bending of the page. "I'm fine, thanks. Just find myself a bit engrossed with my book. I found it on Saturday and really haven't been able to stop reading it since. How are you?"
"Smashing." she responded as she attempted to free her one hand to rifle through the jumbled papers in her arms. "I wanted to return your notes from Astronomy. Thank you for letting me borrow them.'
"Brilliant!" Eagerly she stretched out her hand and took her notes. "You're welcome. I hope they helped." She straightened them, placing them within her bag along with the book. "How was your Hogsmeade trip? Do anything exciting?"
"You're a right whiz with the mathematical theories...even I could follow them. Ever ponder becoming a Professor?"
Mandy blushed a bit. "Thanks. They weren't hard, really. I'm glad you weren't confused by them." She shook her head, though. "No, I have no wish to teach."
"Heh, it's a shame...you'd be right good at it." Parvati again shifted the books in her arms and looked back at the gathering crowd of hungry pupils in the Great Hall, as her gaze returned slowly to Mandy, she eyed the girl curiously. "You going to eat, Brocklehurst?"
Only briefly wondering why Parvati blatantly didn't answer her question about Hogsmeade, Mandy nodded. "Yeah, I'm just letting the scrum die down a bit. It's not like the Elves haven't made a ton, is it?" She shrugged, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning heavily against the stone once again. "I've no desire to be run over by ickle firsties today."
Parvati chuckled despite herself, relieved that the subject of Hogsmeade had successfully been dodged. "Yeah...those lot seem to think that we'll run out or something." she paused looking over to the Ravenclaw table, wondering where her sister might be.
"Hoi, Brocklehurst, have you seen Padma?"
She cocked an eyebrow. "Not since.... lunch. Yeah, I saw her at lunch." She grinned. Seeing was a relative term, as at the time she'd been feverishly going over her notes for Astronomy and so she'd seen a lot of people, but not talked to many.
Parvati nodded and shrugged off more questions concerning her sister. "So..." she enacted the famous Parvati Patil non-sequitor subject change. "How have you been dealing...with NEWTS, that is?"
Mandy's mouth twisted into a wry grin. "As well as anyone else, I reckon. It helped going to Hogsmeade this weekend. Oliver was in, were you able to see him?" Face alight only with curiosity, she waited the answer.
Mandy's curiosity was answered with the faintest sag in Parvati's exuberant exterior. "He was? Well, bugger...I must have missed him."
"Oh. I'm sorry you didn't get to see him." She paused, at a slight loss for words. "Are you all right?"
Parvati threw a not-so-casual glance over to the Gryffindor table, as to avoid looking Mandy in the eyes. Oliver had become a source of strength Parvati hadn't expected, and knowing he was at Hogsmeade while she sat in her room, set her stomach to turn. She forced herself to pull it together and drag her gaze back to Mandy. "Yeah...I'm fine...thanks. I just forgot an assignment that's due for Charms, is all."
"Oh." She nodded then, accepting Parvati's answer as it was given, not looking for any deeper meaning from a person she didn't know all that well. "I hope you get it finished."
She nodded tersely and took a step back towards the entrance. "Mandy, thanks again for the notes, mate, you saved my skin." The Gryffindor prefect turned and made it back out of the door, just far enough to catch her breath. She looked behind herself, as she knew full well that Mandy had no desire to follow after.
Which would have been a lie; Mandy refrained from following Parvati simply because her body language fairly shouted don't follow me. "You're welcome," she said softly, watching her walk away before turning towards the Ravenclaw table and dinner.