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 Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2012 9:05 pm
Francis closed his Care of Magical Creatures book softly and put it back into his bag, doing his best to keep an eye on one of his fellow Gryffindors. He had noticed, after a few weeks that he was a walking, make that running, hazard. No matter where he was going he was always running around like a chicken with it's head cut off. Francis had nearly gotten trampled by him several times before he had learn to stay out of the Cyclone's pathway.
He snickered into his hand; the name really did fit the Gryffindor in question.; He always left a pathway of alarmed, annoyed and angry students behind him. Kids that plotted his destruction. For some odd reason this amused him.
Francis wasn't surprised when the Cyclone bowled straight into a blond Hufflepuff that had paused by the door to pick up something she had dropped. The jerk didn't even notice or pay any mind to the small girl that was now sprawled on the ground with a startled look on her face.
Francis gathered up the rest of his things and made his way over to the girl. He was rather surprised that no one else had stopped to help her. He shook his head in exasperation. How was it that all the other kids in the class were so callous that they couldn't stop to help someone up?
"Hey, are you okay? Need some help?" He asked, coming to a stop next to her and reaching a hand down to her."
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Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2012 9:49 pm
Well, wasn't that just fantastic.
Eleanor, while looking forward to an upcoming free period, had gotten out a book to look through during that and had assumed smooth sailing to a seat to begin some perusal. Then in some moment of weakness, it had fumbled out of her grip and plopped to the floor. Obviously she had to lean over to get it, right when some force unceremoniously and possibly even brutishly pushed her off her feet entirely. She hit the floor with a grunt. With quiet indignation, confusion, and slight anger, she reached again for her book and looked up to see a boy, Gryffindor, surprisingly enough, standing before her. Quietly, she took his hand and stood without making eye contact.
"Thank you," she mumbled out, obviously embarrassed by the whole ordeal, and hustled off with her book tightly held to her chest.
Ellie was so intent on escaping to the security of an empty table that she didn't notice when a piece of paper flitted out and away from the book's pages.
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Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2012 10:26 pm
Francis was a bit surprised by the girl's reaction, and then reasoned that she was probably just super shy. He started to turn to go on his way when he spied a paper floating through the air. He frowned. Surely she hadn't dropped that as well?
Francis managed to catch the paper before it hit the floor and looked it over. He couldn't quite make out the scrawled handwriting, mostly because it had been written with a quill and several of the letters had bled into one another. Definitely the work of someone new to writing with one. He himself was still having that the same trouble.
"Hey wait a second!" He called out and ran after the fast disappearing back of the blond hufflepuff. "You dropped something!" He ran after the girl, hoping he was right in assuming it was hers. If he was wrong he could always just turn it into a teacher in hopes they might recognize the handwriting.
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Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2012 11:58 pm
She silently looked back, but really didn't want to stop in the middle of the corridor. In all of the traffic. It made her antsy. Instead, she went to a wall and looked to him from there.
What was that in his hand...? Oh dear god. Eleanor quickly recognized it, and wanted to grab it immediately. The most embarrassing things she had were her own personal items, and that one sheet of paper was definitely among them.
She sincerely hoped he couldn't read it and wouldn't ask after the subject: flowers. It would be totally boring and dumb and she would look stupid for it. Not that she didn't already look stupid. Her growing nerves were not helping.
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Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2012 8:23 am
Francis saw her looking back at him and for a moment wondered why she didn't stop. Then he realized that it wouldn't have been smart to stop in the traffic in the corridor, it only would have caused other kids to plow into her. He imagined she was probably bruised enough from the first encounter with the Cyclone kid that she didn't want a repeat of it.
He noticed she moved to stand against a wall and went to follow her. He saw a strange look cross over her face when she spotted the paper in his hand. Francis had no clue what it was about, but it must have been something private. He felt rather embarrassed about trying to read it earlier, especially if it wasn't meant for other people's eyes.
"Is this yours?" He asked as he came to a stop next to her and held it out to her. "I couldn't really make out what it said, I didn't try to read it I just glanced at it. I have trouble reading cursive writing."
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Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2012 10:03 am
She took it from him, stll avoiding eye contact. "It's nothing. Just...um...nothing." Eleanor quickly stowed it away. "Thank you...again." Okay, so he didn't read it. Okay, okay... "It would've looked better in pencil," she mumbled after a moment. Why was she still talking? Walk away, walk away and keep things from getting worse...
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Posted: Wed Jul 11, 2012 7:50 pm
Francis frowned slightly when the girl took it and avoided looking at him. A certain phrase suddenly came to mind. She doth protest too much.
He raised an eyebrow at the girl, wondering why she was acting so strangely. He shrugged and turned away when he heard her mumble something under her breath. He turned back around asking, "Pardon did you say something?"
She looked like she really wanted to get away, but she just stood there as though she were in deep thought. Francis tried not to stare, but she wasn't really helping matters. He noticed that a few other people had stopped to stare at them. This was about to get way too uncomfortable.
"Maybe we should get a move on." He said touching her arm lightly and started to walk off down the hall.
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Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2012 12:40 pm
The staring people weren't helping. At all.
At least this boy had the sense to keep going or else it would have just gotten worse. Somehow.
I should go to the dorm, I should really just go there. Ellie was thinking when he touched her. That, for her, was a shock in and of itself. Even if it was barely anything at all and meant nothing between the two children.
Hesitantly, she followed after him as she was continually confused and nervy and really just wanting to hide. What could she say? How could she get out of this mess?
"You touch strangers?" was what ended up coming out of her mouth before she could backpedal. "I-I mean...no offense...'m just not used to that..."
At least it wasn't a poke in the back of the head like her cousins would do sometimes.
That was just annoying.
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Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2012 7:53 pm
Francis could tell that the girl a bit unnerved by all the people watching them, he himself was beginning to get a bit fidgety about it himself.
He felt her tense up when he touched her for that split second. He felt rather bad, mostly because he knew how annoyed he got when people touched him. He wasn't surprised by her question when she blurted it out.
He turned and smiled slightly at her. "No offense taken, I normally don't touch people I don't know. I just..didn't know how to get you to start walking. All those people staring were starting to give me the willies." He replied.
"If there's somewhere you'd rather be feel free to go there." he added, sensing that she really didn't want to be hanging around him.
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Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2012 11:15 am
"I was going to go to the Great Hall...or the dorm..." Ellie grew quieter. "But I don't know anymore." It was all so very stressful. "Just being somewhere without lots of people...or lots of staring people...would be nice." And then she could get back into a better mood, surely.
She didn't say anything about liking or disliking his company, but at least she was able to act a little less like a scared mouse.
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Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2012 12:03 pm
Francis listened, and suddenly got an idea. He knew of several quiet areas in the castle that she might like. Only it sounded like she'd prefer to be along. Francis figured he could always show her one of those areas and then let her decide if she wanted him to stay or not.
"Well if you'd like I know of a few quiet places that no one ever goes to. That way you can always retreat to them whenever you get annoyed by all the loud people. Of course..you'll never know if I'll be there or not." He added shooting her a glance.
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Posted: Mon Aug 06, 2012 1:46 pm
"O-oh? ...Really? That would be nice." Ellie nodded demurely. She shifted her grip on her items from one arm to the other, and wiped the sweat off her free hand on her skirt in a quick and uninteresting motion. Ellie took the time to think about his words. "It would be nice to know if you're there...I like quiet time, but a friend would be, well, nice." she admitted in her awkward way. "I mean, well, if I know you're there I might want to go...?" Words. Use them right. "If you would like to, I guess." And then she could prepare and not bring along anything embarrassing or make her inability to talk worse. "I-um...did I get your name...?"
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Posted: Mon Aug 06, 2012 3:07 pm
Francis was a bit surprised to hear the girl's answer. He had been so sure that she'd have preferred to be alone. He found a smile was starting to turn up the corners of his mouth. "Well I suppose it would be nice to have a friend that isn't a boy. All the boys in my room are barbarians and dirty as pigs. They rarely wash themselves."
Francis came to a stop and held out his hand, "Francis Caffrey, and I think I would rather like to be friends."
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Posted: Mon Aug 06, 2012 8:42 pm
"O-oh. That's...that's gross. Do you wash yourself?" Now Ellie was afraid to be near any Gryffindor boy. Unless he was joking? She couldn't quite tell. He probably was, because...yeah. That would be disgusting.
She soon noticed his hand and gave it her form of a handshake: a very quick, awkward attempt at one that was more of a light touch than anything else before getting her hand back. "Ellie Carter. I think I would like to be friends, too," she nodded with her own little smile and a chew of her lower lip.
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Posted: Tue Aug 07, 2012 7:53 am
Francis looked rather very affronted at her assumption that HE didn't bath like the other boys in his House. "Well of course I do! I'm rather religious about bathing, I do it twice every day, sometimes three times if I have enough spare time." Francis replied. "Truth be told, I'm kind of OCD about it."
Francis wasn't the least bit annoyed when she gave him a quick handshake. He rather preferred when people didn't touch him for long. "Ellie, what a lovely name." He mused for a moment.
He did noticed that she was chewing on her lip and wondered why girls tended to do that. It must be a common nervous habit among them.
"Ah, here we are." Francis said as they finally came to a stop in a small alcove on the third floor of Hogwarts. The alcove normally got overlooked and most people just walked right past it, since there was a huge column that hid it from view. It was actually a little tough to get inside it, since the column was so close. Francis squeezed past the column and slipped inside. "Come on in, you may have to suck in your chest a bit to fit through." He called out to Ellie.
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