Corridor Musings {OPEN}

[Deleted]

Carys found herself at a bit of a loose end, surprisingly none of her friends wanted to hang out in the corridor to watch out for cute guys wandering the castle on a Saturday evening. So instead of sitting in the common room beside the roaring fire, she was standing in a cold and dingy corridor on her own, contemplating her life and shivering slightly. It was incredibly rare for her to be so quiet and the silence of the school at the evening time made her feel uneasy – she was far too used to the giggling and screaming students rushing about the place on their way to classes during the school day. Her mind began to wander, mostly out of boredom.. What if the Muggleborn killer decided to take their anger out on an innocent half-blood witch? She was a perfect target standing in a deserted area of the castle on her poor old lonesome. She could be dead soon, she would die without ever finding her Mr. Right!!

She shook her head vigorously, attempting to force the morbid thoughts out of her head – she needed to think positively, about all the good things in her life, like... her impending birthday, going shopping next weekend in Hogsmeade for presents or visiting her parents in the holidays. Carys quickly calmed herself down and leaned back against the wall. Her hands moved from the inside of her cloak pockets to pull down at her school shirt, unsuccessfully trying to iron out a couple of creases that had appeared.

The sound of footsteps round the corner distracted her simple minded thoughts and she smiled to herself. Someone potentially interesting was heading in her direction after what had felt like hours standing alone (it was probably more like 20 minutes). Perhaps the lucky individual could keep her company for the remaining time they had before curfew. Carys stood up straight against the wall and tucked a piece of hair behind her ear, a small attempt to look cute. As the figure headed round the corner, she shouted loudly in their direction and began to wave, "HELLOOO!"

[cordelia regan smith]

@carys

Whatever had possessed Cordelia to believe there was an astronomy class on a Saturday night was beyond her knowledge. Not only did that not make any sense, there were no other students headed in the direction of the tower. It took about fifteen minutes of waiting at the tower entrance after dinner to finally realize that no one else was going to show up for a class that wasn’t actually happening. After a few more minutes of having to convince herself that she wasn’t going to miss class (because there wasn’t one in the first place), Cordelia strapped her bag back around her shoulders and started the long, lonely march back down to the common room. Not only had she skipped out of dinner early, but she had also been looking forward to the imaginary class. Mistakes happened though, and it was better to carry on than to keep worrying about it.

Making it out of the classroom area of the astronomy tower, Cordelia slowly walked through the halls of the sixth floor. She was pretty sure she had already made a wrong turn, normally use to following other Hufflepuffs in class back down to the common room. All from a considerable distance of course, and definitely without saying more than a word or two on the way back down. It was rather nice that there were barely any other students around; she passed by at least one small group of Gryffindors heading back to their tower, their booming voices echoing around the hallways, soon dispersing into the numerous cracks and crevices that adorned the inside of the castle. After that one little encounter, there was no one else, just the sound of her footsteps tapping along the floor and the occasional snore from one of the paintings. It was rather funny that they actually slept and interacted like they were real beings still.

Having become increasingly bored already from wandering around the sixth floor, Cordelia popped open one of the books in her bag and decided to read it to pass the time walking back downstairs. Turning a corner without looking up, she heard a belting “hello” from the other end of the hallway. Caught off guard, Cordelia let out a small yelp and dropped her book, soon followed by her scrambling to pick it back up as fast as possible, the remaining contents of her bag strewing themselves across the floor as well. Trying to reign all of them in time to see who it was that called at her was going to be difficult. Plus it was rather embarrassing to have someone else witness all of this.

[Deleted]

She pursed her lips slightly, awaiting an instant response from the individual round the corner. Instead of hearing the sound of a friendly hello, there was a soft thud on the floor which was then quickly followed by the sound of another thud. “This had better not be a trick...” She mumbled to herself, imagining one of the pesky Gryffindor lads setting up an elaborate prank to send her tripping down the stairs or an abnormally large pot of paint to drop on her head.

A few seconds after the initial thud, Carys couldn’t wait any longer to investigate – patience was most definitely not one of her virtues, so she slowly edged round the corner of the corridor. She raised her eyebrows at the scene before her; someone’s belongings scattered on the floor and a poor flustered student quickly gathering them up. It took her a moment to recognise the student, a fellow sixth year Hufflepuff known as Cordelia. She felt initial disappointment that it wasn't a cute boy she had encountered, though the feeling quickly passed and was replaced with confusion. Carys was confused as to what the girl was doing up here and even more confused as to why her belongings were cluttering the wooden floor.

“Oh deary, what’s been going on here Cordelia?” She queried, feeling concerned. She bent down slightly and retrieved a couple of items that seemed to have fallen out of the girls bag. Carys immediately jumped to the conclusion that the poor lass had been robbed or even worse, assaulted – judging by the state of things. “When I find out who has done this, they will certainly be sorry!” She quickly added, not bothering to wait for a response from Cordelia, angered by the fact that someone could be so horrid to her roommate!


cordelia regan smith

[cordelia regan smith]

@carys

The sound of footsteps approached the corner in front of her, Cordelia still scrambling to gather her belongings that were everywhere. The first course of action in all of the mess she had made was to retrieve her camera case, which luckily hadn’t gone too far. Quickly checking inside it to make sure everything was okay with the camera (which it was), she went to work dragging notebooks, quills, and other assorted items as close to her without getting up as possible. Hopefully whoever was walking around the corner would keep going, either not noticing her there or completely ignoring the small blonde strewn all over the floor. Neither of those were the case though, so Cordelia kept one eye on the pair of feet that turned towards her, still hoping that the person would continue along, even though she knew it was too late for that.

It wasn’t until she heard the person talk that she decided to look up, only to see that it was Carys standing there. Cordelia watched the other Hufflepuff bend down and help gather some of her belongings, giving a nod of acknowledgement as she placed them back in her bag. Before she could answer about the loud noise she had heard, which subsequently caused her to drop her book and then everything else while attempting to save that, Carys had continued talking, something about making people sorry for what they had done to her. A puzzled look formed on her face at Carys’s statement. Whoever had done this to her? Most of it had been by herself, the rest from the instigator, being whoever had yelled only moments before Carys came around the corner. “It’s o-okay…I dropped everything when that p-person yelled.” Cordelia paused, placing her last book into the bag, before standing up again. “D-Did you see who it was?” It had to have been impossible not to hear the person yelling, but voices seemed to echo in the halls at night, so they could have been anywhere.

[Deleted]

“It’s o-okay…I dropped everything when that p-person yelled.” She raised her eyebrows in accordance with Cordelia’s response – so the poor girl wasn’t robbed, but rather startled into dropping her bag. Carys had to admit to herself that it made more sense than being robbed. She wasn’t sure how often robberies occurred in the Hogwarts castle, reasoning that the professors would easily locate any culprit and the threat of expulsion would be a severe enough punishment to discourage the thieves that resided at the school. “Ah, I see.”

“D-Did you see who it was?” She had to think about that question for a moment, sure she might have heard something in the background but she didn’t really pay attention as to whom it was. Carys shrugged her shoulders to indicate that she didn’t see who it was before adding, “Unfortunately not, they’ll have moved along by now anyway..” Carys couldn’t be bothered looking around the area to try and find someone who had merely shouted and not actually robbed her housemate, so it wasn’t really worth her time. “What brings you to the corridor this evening anyway, Cordelia?” She asked, being her nosy self. Maybe she was meeting up with someone in private or looking for ways to sneak out of the castle in the middle of the night without being caught by the prefects.

[cordelia regan smith]

@carys

That was disappointing. Cordelia had hoped there had been some sign of who it was that had yelled. She had herself to blame for half of it, seeing as the initial scare only caused her to drop her textbook. The rest had been from sheer clumsiness and not really paying attention to where she set her bag down. Unfortunately that happened more often than not with her, so this probably wasn’t going to be the first nor the last time her belongings were scattered across the hall floors. “M-Maybe it was P-Peeves. He does that to me sometimes…” That was the other predicament she was in most of the time. Being alone in the hallways invited the poltergeist to hunt her down. He was devilishly smart when it came to targeting her. Usually he stuck around to see the aftermath, but apparently he had something else to do this time. Assuming it was him in the first place. One day before graduating she’d get him back. Slipping on oil-slicked stairs and getting soaked by buckets of water from nowhere had sealed the deal long ago.

Readjusting the strap on her bag, she hesitated in answering the questions. Most people would probably laugh at the fact that she tried to go to a class on a weekend. She had been hoping to at least make it close to the library before running into anyone. Obviously that hadn’t happened. “I g-got my days mixed up…” She looked past Carys, anxiously hoping Peeves, or whomever had yelled, wouldn’t come back for round two. “…and thought I had an astronomy class tonight.” Saying it out loud wasn’t as bad as she had thought it would be.

[Deleted]

“M-Maybe it was P-Peeves. He does that to me sometimes…”   Carys nodded her head in agreement as to who might have been responsible. It really wouldn’t be much of a surprise if he had done it; he was known for being a vicarious troublemaker and was always flying around the castle causing mayhem wherever he went. She hadn’t bumped into him a while, which she counted herself lucky for. He really was a nuisance compared to the friendlier ghosts dotted about the castle, the Fat Friar was always rather nice to Carys.

"Well that’s good news isn’t it, no schoolwork tonight!” She replied, after the girl explained how she had thought there was an astronomy class that evening. Carys disliked evening classes, her attention span was non-existent by that time of day, she really couldn't focus on schoolwork when she had other things to do like.. drinking tea and looking out for cute boys. "So.. shall we head back to the common room?" Carys asked, followed by a friendly smile. She didn't see much point in hanging around the corridor when there didn't seem to be many people about, especially with a slight chance of Peeves making an appearance. Her initial goal of finding a cute boy to talk and flirt with was going nowhere, so Carys reasoned that she might as well relax for the remainer of the evening in a warm environment. 


cordelia regan smith

[cordelia regan smith]

@carys

Carys had a good point. No class meant no homework. There was a small problem though. Cordelia didn’t know when her actual class was now. That meant she’d have to go and talk with Professor Malfoy at some point to try and figure out where she went wrong with the class dates. Still, that was probably better than being in class all night. Astronomy was one of her favorite subjects, but the classes that went extremely late were almost unbearable sometimes. To add to that, the astronomy tower was exposed. It became frigidly cold up there this time of year too. At the same time though, when wasn’t it cold up there? “True…b-but astronomy is never difficult.” She’d take that over apparition lessons any day. Those were beyond terrifying. The mere fact that they could lose body parts was enough to make her squirm.

“Sure. That’s where I w-was headed. G-Got a little turned around though.” Not just a little though. She had easily been wandering around the sixth floor for at least twenty minutes by now. Maybe longer. “What were y-you doing?” She was sure there were probably other things going on, seeing as it was the weekend. The lack of other students around in the halls said otherwise though. Cordelia started walking and then stopped, realizing that she still didn’t know where they were. “M-Might not be good for me to lead.”