Lettie Frenchname (letties) wrote in caged, @ 2013-10-03 19:36:00 |
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Thursdays were Joey’s favourite day of the week. He had no classes and no rounds, and it felt like a mini-weekend. Maybe even better than the weekend, because on Friday and Saturday evenings he had rounds. He could decompress after stressful Wednesdays (and with Dark Arts, Muggle Studies, Charms, Potions and late-night dungeon rounds, they were guaranteed to be stressful), sleep in if he wanted, lock his stupid buddy in his trunk and spend some time on the Quidditch Pitch if he fancied it. Of course, today everyone had a day off (really, it wasn’t fair to him, if you thought about it…), but he still tried to act like it was any other Thursday. Joey wasn’t really feeling it this week, though, what with his dad’s name being published in the Prophet as an “undesirable,” and that incident with the dementor. Just the thought of it made him shudder slightly - those things were vile, and shouldn’t be let within a hundred kilometers of children, let alone guarding a castle full of them. In Joey’s opinion, of course, which he doubted anyone cared enough to take into consideration. After lunch Joey had tried to settle in one place, but after going to the library and the Common Room, he’d decided he needed some fresh air and headed out to the grounds. He didn’t go far - just near the lake. It was chilly, to be sure, but not unbearable, and he picked up some stones to throw into the lake, trying to settle his mind a bit. Lettie had been on her way back to the castle after hanging about on the grounds a bit when she’d changed her mind about going inside. Not for any particular reason, really. Just because the weather wasn’t bad enough yet to dictate a perpetual interior existence, and Lettie thought she ought to enjoy the sun while she could still get it. She hadn’t really been expecting to run into anyone. It wasn’t a terrible surprise, of course, people were bound to be about on the grounds especially with the free day, but Lettie hadn’t been trying to run into anyone. So when she saw Joey standing around the lake, she very nearly continued to walk on by. He looked a bit like he could use the alone time, and it wasn’t like Lettie didn’t have any idea about why. She’d seen the Prophet from a few days ago, after all. It had been more curiousity than fear, but she’d seen it. It didn’t take much to get that the Cresswell on the list was Joey’s dad. She turned to walk away before finally changing her mind and doing an about-face, walking over next to Joey. “You should try to find some flatter ones. See if you can’t skip them.” Joey hadn’t heard her approach, but he didn’t seem startled by her appearance. “Hey, Lettie,” he said, glancing over and giving her a smile. It wasn’t his best, most genuine smile, but it was a fairly good facsimile. Joey was usually pretty good at keeping his emotions undetectable (all right, dementor attacks being an obvious exception). “I couldn’t find any flat ones,” he said, although admittedly he hadn’t been looking very hard. He pulled out his wand and with a quick flick of his wrist flattened the few stones that were in his hand. “These will work though,” he said, holding out his hand so she could take a stone to skip as he used his other hand to put his wand back in his pocket. “Clever,” Lettie replied, shrugging slightly and taking one of the stones from his hand before considering the lake. She actually couldn’t remember the last time she’d attempted to skip a stone. Surely she had at some point in her life, but she couldn’t really think of it. Not that it much mattered. Throwing the stone, it skipped all of zero times before sinking to the bottom of the lake and Lettie stared, canting her head to the side and considering. “Well, I suppose I won’t be Hogwarts’ leading stone skipping champion. Let’s see if you’re any better.” Joey easily tossed his stone, which skipped four times before sinking into the lake. “It’s all in the angle,” he explained. “You want it to hit the water so it’s perfectly parallel with the water,” he said, doing it again with another stone, this time taking his time so that Lettie could see how he did it. “Try it again,” he said, handing her another stone. Lettie was a bit skeptical that she was going to get much better at skipping stones, especially when other than this moment she didn’t exactly foresee herself doing much of it. But she supposed in this moment it hardly hurt to try again, so she took another stone and thought about her technique this time. And the stone just sunk with a dramatic ‘plunk’. “Did you go stone skipping as a child? Develop your skills that way?” she asked. In a way, she was almost prying, but she hadn’t really decided if she wanted to so she wasn’t really looking for a particular answer. Joey shrugged. “I guess,” he said, picking up some more rocks and flattening them with his wand. “I don’t really remember not knowing how to skip rocks, but I guess I learnt at some point.” He handed her a few of the stones from his hand. “Try again,” he said, trying to be encouraging. “Practice makes perfect. It took Frank awhile to get it, too, but now he’s better than me.” Well, maybe better was a slight exaggeration...Joey’s brother was hardly better at any kind of semi-athletic pursuit. But it was true that Frank had eventually learnt to skip rocks. “Perhaps it’s a gift. An inherent talent. You’re destined to be a career stone skipper. Surely that’s a thing, right?” Lettie grinned, far more amused with herself than she thought she likely had a right to be, but she wasn’t bothered, either. She took another stone and threw it without much consideration, wondering if that would help instead. It skipped once, and she grinned widely, looking back at Joey. “Success!” She took another couple of stones. “So how have you been enjoying your free day?” “Good job!” Joey said encouragingly, skipping a stone of his own, which made it three times before sinking. Not his best, but this wasn’t a competition. “Well, every Thursday is a free day for me,” he admitted. “Well, except for Choir now, I guess. I’m still not used to having that on my schedule. How about you?” he asked, tilting his head to show he was listening. “Had your fill of butterbeer yet?” “Why did you join choir?” Lettie asked, throwing another stone which skipped twice. “I didn’t realize singing was an interest of yours.” Of course, she didn’t always pay the most attention, so it was certainly possible that she didn’t notice. “And I think I’ve had more butterbeer than I know what to do with. I like butterbeer. I really do, and I think it was incredibly nice of them to provide us a free day and to give us sweets but there’s only so much that a girl can drink, you know?” “Yeah, it would be nice to just have some with dinner every night or something,” Joey admitted. But that would actually be logical, and much less of a grand gesture, which was what he assumed was the point of this whole day. He glanced over at Lettie and then skipped another stone. Five jumps. Pretty decent. “Promise you won’t laugh?” he asked. “Having some at dinner would be great! I’d love that. I wonder if we could persuade them to do it.” Lettie didn’t necessarily think that they would, but it would be so nice of them. She could certainly get behind it. And if the idea was to boost morale, she couldn’t think of anything better. “And I absolutely won’t laugh,” Lettie replied, refraining from skipping another stone so she could look at Joey fully, to show how serious she was. Perhaps she’d laugh in her head, but. She’d be nice and not actually laugh out loud at him. Joey grinned and then laughed slightly at the way that she turned and looked at him. “Well, I just thought it would be a good way to hang out with girls more,” he admitted, somewhat sheepishly. “I really have no desire to sing. At all.” “Oh, Joey,” Lettie replied, not managing to keep the grin off her face. “That’s actually almost adorable.” Oh the things boys did to try and attract female attention. She could understand it, on some level, but it was still amusing. But she didn’t laugh. After all, she said she wouldn’t. “Shouldn’t you have a desire to sing? If you’re going to go through all that effort?” Joey shrugged and went back to skipping stones. “I mean, I have no objections to singing,” he allowed. “I’ve sung ‘Happy Birthday’ many times. But I don’t care about it like I care about Quidditch.” He looked back over at her, then skipped one last stone. “But hey, this year is full of so much crud that it can’t hurt to add one more fun thing to my schedule.” He didn’t mention that Dark Arts seemed to be coming pretty easily, and therefore required minimal studying. He’d rather not dwell on that fact. “Is there a particular girl you have in mind? Or is it just general female attention?” she asked, grin turning into a bit more of a smirk. It didn’t much matter, but she was curious. And it was a lighter topic than the ‘crud’ that was happening during the year. Which she didn’t really know how to think about. There were a lot of conflicting opinions going about and it was hard to know what to believe and what not to believe. “Choir seems fun enough.” “No one specific,” he said. Which was true - there were a few girls he thought were fit, of course, but he wasn’t sure if he really fancied any of them in that way. He was considering asking Lettie for advice on good prospects when he saw a Hufflepuff first year approaching them. “Hey Clarence,” Joey said, greeting the boy. “Is everything all right?” “Professor Carrow told me to find you. You’re to report to their office.” Joey looked over at Lettie. “Well, guess I’d better go,” he said, wondering if he was in trouble. He’d thought that he’d been a model Prefect so far, but maybe he’d slipped up somewhere. Lettie shrugged in response. “I guess you probably should.” It sounded a bit ominous, but Lettie couldn’t really think of what Joey would have done wrong. She’d have to remember to ask him about it later. “Enjoy!” |