"Couldn't have kept your cool for another five seconds?”
Her rosy red lips twisted into a smile and her head rested on his shoulder. She felt considerably warmer curled up next to Darce with his jacket rested on top of her. Darce was the one person she could feel safe around all the time, the one she could trust with her life. She felt pity for people who didn’t have this kind of relationship with somebody. It was like was that missing piece of the puzzle that everyone seemed to loose. “She scared me alright. I was really out of it, otherwise you know I would have kept my cool,” she said softly poking her tongue out at him in a lightheartedly manner. She was the top dark arts and defense against the dark arts student, she wasn’t frightened by much. Her eyes darkened at the thought of her abilities and her experiences. She closed them painfully for a second and then opened then, glancing at Darce.
“All right, JP, I'll charm some more parchment for you… But only after you've gotten everything written up. I don't think we have the time for multiple drafts." This time her hearty laugh sounded across the grounds and she pushed herself up so she was resting on her knees, looking down at Darce. “That sounds like a deal. You drive a hard bargain Don.” A grin lit her face as she made reference to what Darce was going to the ball as. She personally wasn’t planning on going, no one had asked to go this time around (and she could think of plenty of reasons why) and she thought she would do some work for the Resistance anyways while all the teachers and students were distracted by the affairs of the Halloween Ball. She didn’t have a costume anyways so going was out of the question.
"So, J, anyone special on your arm for the Ball tonight?"
Joss blinked and she tilted her head in confusion. She thought she had told Darce she wasn’t going but it seems she was mistaken. Well, they hadn’t been around each other much lately as both had been working on different things for the Resistance. It was time consuming, along with keeping up appearances in their school work and social life. Heading the Resistance was a hard and dangerous task that Darce and she had undertaken. While there were other members of the Resistance, Stephen, Stephanie, DJ, and Eve it was not in her opinion her position to burden them with work. They were already risking so much and would be risking so much more when the Resistance started to move. Stephanie would be their perfect spy with her ability and Stephen and DJ were some of their fighters. Eve was one of the top dogs as well, being in the little circle that consisted of Eve, Darce and herself. Eve was both Darce and Joss’ bestfriend and while Stephanie was just as much her bestfriend, Joss believed Eve could handle the stress and work far better then her fragile reclusive friend Stephanie. Stephanie wasn’t the same girl she once was but that was okay with Joss. She could still manage to pull some of that old Stephanie out of the new one.
“Well no I don’t,” she said with a small smile. “I thought I told you I was planning on not going, but I guess I didn’t. Why, are you asking me?” She said with mirth in her voice. Inside she was actually nervous. While Darce and she had that perfect best friend relationship, where they went from that was unsettling. Sometimes she would find her eyes searching for Joss, just like a love struck girl would. There would be times where awkward moments occurred and they were uneasy around each other. She knew she loved Darce dearly, but on what level she didn’t know. Sometimes she saw him as just her best friend but sometimes there was that thought in her mind of what else they could be. She had had boyfriends before but none of them ever lasted long because she never found what she was looking for in them. Maybe her standards were to high, but Darce was the perfect man to make comparison to. That was also maybe a cue to how she felt about him, putting him above other men but there was always that hesitation. What if they did decided to take it to the next step and something went wrong. Would they be able to go back to how they were before or would things be different, like trying to shove a puzzle piece where it didn’t belong. They just wouldn’t fit anymore. That was her biggest fear, loosing what they had now. Darce raised his eyebrows at her.
“Well what if I am?” He said back. Joss blinked and her cheeks reddened a little. “Well then of course I’ll go with you,” she said with a grin. “What are friends for?” The minute those words popped out of her mouth, she inwardly winced. Stupid stupid girl. She just gave Darce a smile and stood up. “Well I better go see what I can throw together then, I’ll meet you in front of the great hall when the ball starts?” Darce gave her a nod and she leaned forward and gave him a kiss on the cheek. Standing up, allowing Darce’s jacket to slide off her body, she gave Darce a small wave before turning around. She wrapped her arms around herself, shivering. Her eyes ran across the landscape and her breathing hitched when she saw tiny bodies flying through the air. Okay, so she wasn’t the best Head Girl there was but she was completely against bullying. Her eyes flew to the antagonist and a frown set on her lips when she saw Dexter Lawrence was the perp. Despite her chattering teeth and her body screaming for her to get the hell inside where it was warm, she found herself striding over to her fellow seventh year with her wand drawn.
---------------------------------------
Dexter smiled, or as much as he could smile from the cold. It was more of a lopsided smirk to be honest. He watched the first years flail at the shallow end of the lake. He snuggled into his jacket a little bit more watching the mildly entertaining view, which got boring after a few moments, as he knew they weren’t going to drown, well unless they were stupid. Oh how he wished they were stupid. He chuckled inwardly a little, though he wished that someone else were there to appreciate his quick work of the first years. He knew that at least DJ would have appreciated it, if only a little bit. He would have probably helped. Yes, he would have probably helped, but if Dominique or Corynne were out with him, they would have probably stopped him right away, well Corynne would have. He disliked her compassion, but it was what made her who she was and he wouldn’t have wanted that any other way. If she weren’t who she was, he wouldn’t enjoy talking to her half as much, or maybe less than that. He couldn’t do figures in his head when he was freezing half to death.
He exhaled watching his breath wisp upwards once again on the chilly day as he tried to start thinking again. He would have started to think sooner if teeth chattering and the soft crunch of the frozen ground hadn’t interrupted him. Turning around quickly, he say it was Joss. Head girl. Wonderful. She was all about justice, but even the Purebloods were looking at her as if she was a muggleborn. She was being watched, or at least Dexter thought that she was being watched. It seemed pretty obvious just by how Professors, ghost and the like passed her. It was just by how people carried themselves around her and their subtle behaviours. He had nothing better to watch, so that was what he observed most of the time. Human behaviour towards other people, it was just one of the many things that he did aside from his classified work.
“What planet went out of orbit to bring the might Jocelyn Hart, Head Girl, to the humble me?” Dexter asked, his wand still in hand, his eyes glancing down at her wand for a moment. “Cold?” He said listening to her teeth chatter behind her frowned lips. “If you frown like that, you’ll age faster.” Which was true, in some cases, since it did cause you to, over time, have more winkles, but that wasn’t the point. Dexter just looked at Joss for another moment watching her wand carefully, putting up his own shield as he watched. He could never be too sure with females if they were going to attack him for no reason. If it were someone timid like Riley or Artemisia, he wouldn’t have worried too much, but this was Joss and he didn’t know how violent she could get, but if she were the side of Corynne, then there would be some problems. The shield, for the moment, was just a safety precaution. He didn’t want to gets sent backwards into the lake, that wasn’t a plan or thought that he quite liked. He would most definitely get sick that way.
----------------------------------------------------
Her eyes roamed across his blank face. Dexter was someone she worked with, but she didn’t know him on a personal level. He wasn’t the friendliest person; he hardly ever said anything to her. Only when he had to report to her and those were brief and right to the point. However is ignoring this behaviour was something she could not ignore. She almost snorted when he called himself humble but she kept a leveled head, and a calm façade. Her grip on her wand tightened and she tilted her head. “Perhaps the planet of chaos?” she replied, crossing her arms across her chest, hugging herself as if trying to warm out. It was an understatement that he gave, asking if she was cold. She was frozen to the bone. Chilled like a cooler on ice. Her lips held a frown and she quirked an eyebrow when he talked about wrinkles and aging, something odd for a man to discuss.
“I’ll most likely be dead before that happens, so let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” Her lips twisted into a quirked smile at the cynicism in that statement. Her eyes took notice of the glimmer surrounding Dexter and she almost laughed out loud. “Moving on from the pleasantries however,” the frown returned to her face as she watched small figures drag themselves from the freezing water. They were all shaking uncontrollably, their teeth about to break from chattering so much and snot running down their round baby faces. She turned and approached them, inwardly flinching as they looked at her with fear. She raised her wand and one of them fell back screaming. Pity and anger filled her eyes at the most likely muggleborn’s action but she didn’t stop waving her wand and casting a drying spell on them and then a warming one. “Get to the hospital wing; you know Madam O’Malley will fix you up properly.” The nodded quickly and bolted.
She turned back to Dexter, hoping her face didn’t show how tired or worn out she was. “So is that a hobby of yours? Sending little children into freezing water?” She asked harshly. She resented bullying and the prejudice displayed. “How would you feel swimming around in freezing waters? Maybe your limbs would seize up and you would drown if you were, say, in deeper water. Maybe we should experiment?” She said with a gleam in her eyes. Her hand twitched and she was ready to send Dexter flying into the deep end and let the giant squid have his way with him. Just disarm his shield, and then get on it with it. However she let out a sigh, her breathe floating in front of her in a white haze. She couldn’t get into more trouble then she already had, even if she was a pureblood and head girl. She would most likely get of the hook but she needed to set an example for the other students. She tucked her wand back under her arm and glared at him.
---------------------------------------------
Dexter observed a little while longer, she obviously wasn't the brightest witch... ever, but there was something to be said about pigheadedness. She wasn't exactly bright at all. He would have called her an idiot, but that wouldn't have hit the nail on the head. There was a word, stuck on the tip of his tongue that he couldn't think of, though he was positive that he knew. Joss could have just solved her cold problem easily, which made Dexter think that she either couldn't be bothered or hadn't thought of it, even though it was nearly December. Most students knew how cold it could get at Hogwarts in the fall and winter, hell, even London or even Glasgow was this cold. Not to mention Russia. He was pretty sure it was the latter, but he'd give her just one strike for now. There was no reason to give her another just yet. Well she might have given him a reason, not that he has seen it yet. Yet, being the key word.
Her, closer to being dead? Well that was quite true, though not in the way that she was thinking of it. She wasn't going to freeze to death, no, it wasn't quite cold enough for that. Not yet anyways. Oh there it was, the yet. So it was the latter, as he had - assumed - before.
"It isn't a hobby, Joss, it is call conditioning. Honestly, there are far worse things that other seventh years could do. At least I didn't harm them directly. I just helped them into the water. I didn't touch them." He paused for a moment when she started to talk about him being an experiment. "Well we could do that, though I'm far more intelligent. The treat is the bubble charm and actually starting to swim." Dexter muttered, "But I don't suppose you would know that, because you're talking without thinking, which isn't a very smart plan." He paused again, noting the fact that her hand had twitched, even the slightest bit. She was really thinking about doing it, wasn't she? Oh, the poor thing, she wasn't smart at all. Dexter had given her too much credit from the beginning, it seemed. She hadn't the common sense to act on her common sense. "Not that you have the guts. You'll probably just give me a boring punishment." Which was more than likely true. She wasn't a very inventive person, was she? Detention. He thought, that was all she was going to give him. It was practically written on her face. Joss was just that predictable.
Nodding a small bit he tugged his wand back into his jacket as she removed the slight threat of her wand. She was a stickler for the rules and being a prime example, which was fine by him. Anything that kept him away from the lake was good enough for him. Sighing, he looked at her once more.
---------------------------------------------
“Detention with me….,” her mind furiously calculated when Dexter and her both didn’t have patrol. “Wednesday, seven pm. In the potions room.” Her stared at him hard, daring him to defy her. Deciding she was done with him, she turned and started heading back to the castle where she could book it to the hospital wing to get something to prevent her coming down with a nasty cold. Shivers raked her body and the minute she stepped foot inside the infirmary Madam O’Malley was all over her, fussing. “Darling, you can’t do that to yourself,” she berated, tsking as she pushed Joss to sit down on a cot while gathering a couple of bottles of different potions. Joss didn’t fuss; her mind was on other subject. A costume. She hadn’t exactly bought one before today, seeing as she hadn’t been planning on exactly going to the masquerade ball. She could always just alter something with a bit of transfiguration and charms…but her charms weren’t that good.
Biting her lip, she absentmindedly left the hospital wing after she discharged and headed for the Head Boy and Girl’s dorm. She had two rooms, one private and one in the Castitas room. She however preferred sleeping in the Head Girl room, rather then risking being stabbed in the middle night or something in the Castitas room. The only time she went there was to socialize with her friends. Mumbling the password to the portrait, she stepped inside and froze as she looked at an own sitting on a stand with a package on the table. Owls and her didn’t exactly mix well. She guessed a house elf let it in. Eyeing the bird she approached it. At a closer glance she recognized the bird as her mother’s owl. This bird she could deal with. She gave the bird a few treats and stroked it’s head softly.
Opening the window, she let the owl leave. She shivered at the cold wind and promptly shut the panels shut. She turned and walked to the table and plopped down. Taking the package off the table, she balanced it on her knees and began to untie the string. She wondered what her mother would be sending her. It wasn’t even close to Christmas and Joss hadn’t asked for anything otherwise. She was actually curious. Once the top of the package came off, she blinked in surprise. On top of some clothing and accessories was a mask. How did her mother know that she hadn’t picked out a costume herself? Perhaps Darce had owl’d her mother. Shaking her head in exasperation, she set the mask aside and held up the clothing. Her cheeks warmed up and she buried her face in them. She couldn’t believe her mother would send her such a costume. However now, it was all she got. She’d have to deal.
Putting the package down, she leaned back in the sofa and closed her eyes. Stress was getting to her. However tonight she might just be able to forget about all her responsibilities and problems. Just have fun for once. When was the last time she had truly had fun with all the laughing and contagious smiles? Not for along time. Looking at the wizarding watch, her eyes widened in surprise at the time. It was later then she thought, she better get ready. Putting the costume in her room, she made a bee line for the wash room, Joss filled the bath with steaming water and large bubbles. This was probably one of her favourite perks, the bathes. She had already showered that day but she’d like to warm up and wash off the dirt. When she was done her shower, she wrapped a towel around herself.
Tucking her wet her behind her ear, she didn’t even realize someone else was in the room. “Oh! Stephen,” she said in surprise. Colour rose to her cheeks and she gave him a sheepish smile. “Sorry, I didn’t expect you to be here.” Biting her lip she retreated to her room, leaning against the door in relief. Sitting on her bed, she dried her hair off with a simple charm (something she could actually perform) and began to brush it with her comb. Finishing, she place the brush softly down on the bed. She looked at the books and grudgingly pulled on the outfit. She then went to her vanity set and sat down looking at herself in the mirror. She would leave her hair down, but she would apply so make up. She found the lipstick tube and painted her lips red. She made her eyes smoky and lined them with black kohl.
Finished, she snuck her head out the door and was relieved that Stephen wasn’t there. It would be an embarrassing moment. Satisfied he wasn’t there, she walked to the table in the middle of the room and picked up the mask she would be wearing. She had to admit, the mask for a good choice. Slipping it onto her face and casting a little spell so it wouldn’t need lace, she stepped out of the portrait and into the hallway. It was nearly eight o clock when the senior ball would begin. The halls were already full of younger students who were heading back to their dorms. A small smile quirked on her lips and she slipped through the throng of students down to the great hall. She looked around and everyone was already wearing masks. She wondered how she would find Darce or anyone she knew for that matter.
100
150
100
