Re: The Gazebo

[Rose Weasley]

"France, wow. I've always wanted to go there. And look at you. Besides piano, painting and poetry, you also speak French? All you need is a beret and Hogwarts would have it's own little Frenchy." Rose grinned, slipping her journal and quill back into her bag. "Well, I guess I'll leave you to your reading. I finished writing about half an hour ago. It was... nice talking to you, Scorpius. It actually was."

[Scorpius Malfoy]

'Well, berets aren't really my thing. I can't even begin to describe how ridiculous I look with them on," he laughed. "Sorry for completely distracting you. To think that I was actually going to be respectful and quiet. But yeah, it was nice," he agreed, rather surprised that he actually very much enjoyed talking to Rose. For someone who was so close to Al, it was actually surprising that she gave him a chance. "It only took us over five years to have a conversation," he teased lightly. "I guess I'll see you class tomorrow Rose."

[Rose Weasley]

Rose nodded awkwardly. She was beginning to realize that she actually didn't know quite a few people that she went to school with and she honestly regretted it. "Yeah, I'll see you tomorrow." She told him. On a whim she added, "Save me a seat in transfiguration?"

[Scorpius Malfoy]

Scorpius' eyes widened a bit at her request, for it was one that he truly wasn't expecting. He really had enjoyed talking to her, but he never thought that she would possibly want to interact with him again. "Yeah, I will," he said, a wide smile on his face. "See you in class," he said happily, hoping he still didn't look ridiculously happy.

[Rose Weasley]

Rose smiled, gave a half wave, then hurried back up to the castle. Tomorrow would be interesting indeed.

[Scorpius Malfoy]

And then Scorp read for a bit and then left because Dom doesn't want to just have him awkwardly sitting in a gazebo forever.

[Lily Evans]

Lily sits in the gazebo, her books spread on the wooden picnic table and invisible paperweights holding her place as she works on a Defence Against the Dark Arts essay about the core components of non-verbal spells. She is enjoying the afternoon sun, taking in the fresh air and natural light while she can because soon enough winter will drive her indoors for three long months. Her cloak is bundled tightly around her because the breeze is just enough to ruffle her and Lily feels the chill keenly.

[Arthur Weasley]

*Hermione, because Teresa is at work*

Hermione is carrying her bag, full to the brim of books; however, unlike in previous years, she used a few clever spells to increase the strength of the seams and lighten the overall weight of the bag. She walks toward the gazebo and sees Lily sitting there doing her homework. Hermione smiles and waves to Lily as she approaches the gazebo. "Hi! Do you mind if I join you?" she asks.

[Lily Evans]

lol

Lily blinks and pushes a clump of windswept hair behind her shoulder as she looks up. She smiles at Hermione. "No, go ahead," she offers. After a moment, she realises she's hogging more than half the table and hastily shuffles her books along to clear some workspace for the other girl. She drops her book bag to the wooden deck of the gazebo, wincing slightly at the echoing thud it makes. "The dorms are always hopeless for proper work, aren't they?"

[Arthur Weasley]

"They are," Hermione agrees sadly. "No one understands the concept of quiet, do they? The only I ever get anything accomplished is if I leave the common room." Working in the common room usually is equivalent with babying Ron and Harry through their homework; not that she didn't love her friends, they could just be a tad unmotivated at times. Hermione's bag makes a similar thud against the gazebo floor; she begins to meticulously arrange her Charms books and notes.

[Lily Evans]

"It's a bit rubbish, really," Lily says, fiddling with the feathered end of her quill while she deliberates her next essay point. Homework in the common room for Lily usually involves a healthy amount of guarding her work against being copied, stolen or otherwise sabotaged by a marauder or two. "Especially if you want to pull a late one and the Library is closed and everyone in the common room is still bouncing off the walls. I wonder what the other common rooms are like sometimes, and if it's just our boys who can't help but act like toddlers on a sugar rush," she muses.

[Arthur Weasley]

"I wonder. Maybe it's all the food they eat or something," Hermione muses. Ron and Harry alone ate enough food in one meal to feed a small African village for a week. "I bet the Ravenclaw common room would be nice to study in. They actually appreciate the value of homework." Hermione wonders how unmotivated Harry could be related to Lily, but figures it's the Potter genes at work. "I've taken to sound-proofing the area around my bed in previous years and just using my dresser as a desk."

[Lily Evans]

"Bloody house elves, always too heavy on the sugar. Pretty sure I saw one of the seventh year boys eat six of those treacle tarts at the Welcoming Feast. One's always more than enough for me," Lily says, pulling an 'oh-gross-vomit' face. It's definitely the Potter genes at work there. That bloody prat. "Lene - Marlene McKinnon if you know her - is a Claw, she always says it's good for working. Too quiet, most of the time, she says," she chuckles, knowing that as much as Marlene loved Ravenclaw, she would definitely not mind a more exciting common room once in a while. She scribbles a sentence about the intense concentration needed to perform non-verbal spells, chewing her lip as she considers Hermione's desperation-level solution. "Suppose that could work in a pinch, I might give that a go sometime."

[Arthur Weasley]

"I've never met Marlene; her name sounds familiar though," Hermione says. She flips through her Charms book, finally finding the page on Cheering Charms she was looking for. She neatly writes several lines on how the basic logic behind Cheering Charms relates to Memory Charms, her essay topic. "I'd love it if Gryffindor was too quiet sometimes. Even during OWLs, people still managed to make tons of noise." She rolls her eyes at the foolishness of her housemates. "It's nice to finally share a dormitory with someone who appreciates a quiet working environment."

[Lily Evans]

"Marley is interesting, is all I'll say," Lily says. She was going to say something like 'great' or 'friendly' or 'you'd really like her', but it seems pointless to lie. You either coexist with Marlene, or you decide to avoid her, and she doesn't particularly care which. Lily laughs and rolls her eyes. "Never. Don't you know anyone under the age of twenty is meant to holler at their mates as if they were at the other end of the Quidditch pitch even if, no, especially if they're only three feet away? I can't believe I missed the day of kindergarten we learned that - not knowing has completely buggered my expectations of manners for life." She falls silent, giving up the joke, and shamelessly reading Hermione's work over her shoulder. It's not as though she would copy, she's just interested in another intelligent viewpoint.

[Arthur Weasley]

Hermione laughs at Lily's joke. "I clearly did too; probably was too busy reading, to be honest. Should have been hollering with the rest of them, the troublemaker that I am." Though Hermione does participate in a decent amount of trouble; the hazard of being friends with Harry Potter, she supposes. Hermione notices Lily looking at her work. "What do you think of it?" she asks, grateful for another intelligent human being's feedback. "I can see the connection between the two spells, though I'm not sure if I'm stretching the connection too far."

[Lily Evans]

"No hope for us, is there?" Lily smirks. She doesn't find too much trouble herself: Lily is pretty keen on the rules and doesn't really have a reason to go off flouting them on a regular basis. But that's not to say she doesn't get into a little mischief every now and then. Just... not as much as most kids at Hogwarts. She bites her lip, considering Hermione's hypothesis. "I think Flitwick will see it, as long as you keep it clear on which elements exactly you're marrying up. Cheering Charms might be more emotionally based, and mood-altering than the more detailed cognitive side of Memory Charms, but at a high level it really is about altering the natural functioning of someone's mind, isn't it? And the wand grip alone for both spells is evidence of the similar levels of control you've got to be using."

[Arthur Weasley]

"Agreed," Hermione says, scribbling a few notes in the margin of her essay. Thank goodness it was only her first draft. "Almost forgot to mention the wand grip. Maybe I'll add a little of the compare and contrast element to the essay. I was also thinking of bringing a little Defense Against the Dark Arts into it to; there are so many defensive spells involving control of the mind." She thinks of the Imperius Curse and shudders. "It's scary what wizards can do to others' minds. I mean, you do have Muggles who use propaganda and speech as a means of manipulating others. But never tapping directly into someone's mind."

[Lily Evans]

"It's foul," Lily says with disgusted passion, forgetting the original topic as she gets swept up in the discussion. "I think Imperio is the worst Unforgivable of them all. Pain and death are so physical, but mind-control... I can't think of a worse magical violation, you know. And Legilimency, too. It's a shame we don't actually have something like a Politics and Government class here, because that would be the place for a paper about spells that target the mind and how they should all be heavily regulated ad illegal."

[Arthur Weasley]

"It would be," Hermione says. "I agree with you. I can't believe the Ministry isn't more strict with these things. And Legilimency scares me. It's as though I constantly need to have barriers off because my thoughts aren't even safe." Hermione sighs in frustration, for Wizarding politics could be so foul and laws so useless. "I can't believe people actually think controlling someone's mind is a normal part of everyday magic." Maybe it's because she comes from a Muggle family, but Hermione can't understand how wizards just accept the fact that their minds are constantly at risk of being manipulated magically.

[Lily Evans]

"The Ministry should be more strict with a lot of things," Lily says, her eyes darkening and her lips settling into a scowl. She doesn't have much faith in an official body that doesn't even seem to mind that a good percentage of their citizens (being the Muggleborn population) are subjected to oppression and inequality in such blatant and unabashed ways. She shrugs, a valiant attempt to act as if it doesn't bother her that even her thoughts aren't sacred. "I suppose when you've grown up being told that it's tradition, and that's just the way it is, most people don't particularly stop to think about whether or not whatever they're told is utter bollocks."

[Arthur Weasley]

"I don't care if that's supposedly the way it is. It's wrong and it needs to be fixed," Hermione says passionately, slamming her fist against the table. Her love for social justice and equality is showing through; it's the fire that motivates Hermione's choices. "I can't believe no one's ever tried to stop it before. Even the good guys use Legilimency; yes, it's for the greater good, but it still sickens me." While Hermione trusts Dumbledore with every fiber of her being, she still is suspicious of his twinkling eyes and piercing gaze. She'd like to think he doesn't use Legilimency, but she can't be sure.

[Lily Evans]

"As if 'good' and 'evil' aren't all relative anyway," Lily agrees. Her eyes flash and colour rises in her cheeks. Being surrounded by Purebloods and Half-bloods most of the time means she hasn't got much opportunity to really say what she thinks of the magical world to an audience that understands her. Even her friends who aren't supremacists still get caught up in the old ideas of their society whether they intend to or not, and no matter how much they believe in equality for Muggleborns, they just can't ever really get it the way another Muggleborn does. Yeah, Lily gets scarily passionate about this stuff... "Pretty sure Voldemort thinks he's got the right idea, and so do his thugs. And the Ministry isn't going to get it sorted anytime soon because they're all part of the problem! They go dictating who has the right to do what, using these awful spells like Legilimency because it's for the greater good, whatever that is, and they don't even see what they're doing. It all just boils down to wanting the power and the control to decide on the value of people instead of judging the whole world on an equal footing."

[Arthur Weasley]

"Exactly," Hermione says. She too never has anyone to discuss these things with; with Ron, it's the way he was raised, and while Harry cares, his mind is too preoccupied with other problems, like the fact that everyone expects him to just vanquish Voldemort on his own. They always mock SPEW, but they don't understand that if you treat one group like garbage, you eventually treat everyone that way. "I hate the idea that the Ministry is pretty much run by the few people with the purse strings to buy out the Wizengamot. And evil isn't going to be destroyed by evil; it's going to be destroyed by those good enough to stand up against. Because if evil vanquishes evil, then all you're left with is another evil group leading the country."

[Lily Evans]

"Right. Just try telling them that they're evil, that's where it gets a bit tricky," Lily says, her lips twisting into a wry half smile. She stops then, and looks between Hermione and her essay a couple of times before she laughs. "Don't quite know how we got from Charms to Politics and the state of the world, but it was nice to have a conversation about this with someone who doesn't think that the Ministry is the beacon of all light and salvation or some such bollocks. Wonder how Flitwick would grade you on that."



[Being sent to bed by my twin. You know, since it's almost 5am and all. >.> Night, love, I'll reply later. XXOO]

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