Where do you go when you're blue?

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Claudia hated Sundays. Sundays were the one day a week where not only her studio was closed, but so was every other studio. And no one was susceptible to come and give her a private lesson. Her mom encouraged her to get out of the house and do something with her friends. Well, it was rather short notice to try and get anyone together, but she went to the village anyway via the floo network which her house was tapped into. It was quite handy to be so connected to the rest of the wizarding world. She popped out in a fireplace in the three broomsticks and made her way out into the festival, which was crawling with happy people, obviously, no one was concerned that the dragons of yesterday would return. The village had already been put back together, as if it suffered no damage. Maybe it didn’t. Maybe everyone was just dramatic about the whole thing. Wizards were a dramatic people.

Her eyes stopped when they landed on the familiar head of dark hair. A smirk crept onto her lips and she hurried behind him, making it to him casually and slipping her arm through his arm, holding onto his bicep. “Edmund Windsor, and how are we today?” she asked in a rather cheery, teasing voice, flashing him her smirk. She couldn’t resist the prince.

@edmund
((hehe sorry! Meet Claudia ))

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Edmund needed to escape the castle. After the events in Hogsmeade yesterday, everything was going crazy at home. His mother was freaking out about the dragon attack, talking about possibly not letting them go back to school because of the danger. She wasn't listening to Ed's argument that the school wasn't attacked, just the village and that the ministry was on high alert. She was too busy freaking out that her youngest two children were "almost roasted by dragons". Well, that might have been true for Lusie (he actually knew for a fact that it was, though he wouldn't tell his mother that), but Ed hadn't even come close to a dragon. She was blowing the entire thing out of proportion, which was a sign that Ed needed to leave. He had a tendency to get frustrated with people who didn't listen to him, and often let that frustration get the better of him. 

The good thing was, he was of age. So, Ed left the castle and went back to Hogsmeade, only partially to spite his mother. He was walking up the street, surprised by how well put-together everything was already when he felt someone take hold of his arm as they walked alongside him. Ed looked over sharply, surprised when he saw and recognized the brunette. Claudia Watkins? What was she doing? "I'm ... fine. You?" He wanted to ask her what she was trying to do by grabbing onto him, but decided to see where this went first. He was curious to see what she wanted, oddly enough. 

@claudia

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“Oh I’m just swell.” Claudia smirked as he spoke back to her, she could tell that he was confused and maybe a little stressed or anxious that she was so close, but she was a physical girl and she liked to have a good time. Of course, if Ed told her he didn’t want to talk and asked her to let go of him, she would and would skip away and find someone else whom she could bother to get her social time in. However, Ed was a good guy and she couldn’t really imagine him doing that. Though, she didn’t want to make anyone uncomfortable, that wasn’t her goal. To get people slightly out of their comfort zone, yes, absolutely, but not uncomfortable. “What are we up to? Where are we headed?” she quizzed.

@edmund

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Claudia Watkins was smiling up at him, telling Ed that she was "just swell" and he wasn't quite sure what she meant by that. Well, obviously she was doing well, but if she was so happy then why was she holding on to him? Didn't she have something better to do? He didn't want to be rude though. "Well that's good," he commented, still walking a little bit. Maybe she just wanted someone to spend time with. He was sure she wouldn't want anything serious though. He and Addi hadn't been particularly sneaky about how their friendship changed as of late, though they hadn't come out and made anything official yet. Ed wasn't sure how he could do that. 

He shrugged at her question. "I was thinking of heading to the ice rink," Ed answered, starting to feel a bit more comfortable at the idea of her joining him. "D'you want to do that or was there something else you'd prefer?" he asked with a small smile. He hadn't been skating in a while, which was why he was leaning towards doing that. Also, it was one of the less "romantic" things to do at Hogwarts during the festival.

@claudia

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He seemed to drop his confusion, at least a little bit, and decided to just go along with the fact that she was on his arm now. Whether he was dating someone or not, Claudia didn’t know, and she didn’t really care, she wasn’t trying to date him. She just wanted to have a good time today and he was the first person whom she saw that somewhat peaked her interest. They already knew each other from being in the same house, and while he was a year older than her, and played Quidditch, a game that she had even less than zero interest in, he was still an interesting person to her. She still liked him, enough. “The ice rink? Do you skate?” she asked. She wondered if he was just going there because she asked where he was going and he wanted to be able to say that he was going somewhere. Claudia had never really skated. She never had the chance. But she did have very strong ankles, she figured she’d be a natural. He asked if there was something else that she would prefer and she smirked, how sweet was he, she teased him in her own mind. “Skating is fine.” she declared. It was something to do at least. If she got bored she could always find something or someone else to entertain her.

@edmund

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Claudia almost immediately started questioning Ed about his ice skating abilities. He nodded, "Yeah the ice rink. I used to do it a lot more when I was younger," he admitted her. His father taught him, before the accident where he died. It was one of those things that reminded him of his dad, like skipping rocks. If he had the time, Ed would definitely like to ice skate more often. He smirked over at Claudia, "Do you? If you don't we can do something else, or I can show you how." He didn't really mind teaching her. To him, ice skating wasn't hard at all. It was just an issue of balance. As long as she could balance, she'd be fine. Seconds later, she told him that skating was fine and he smiled, leading her over there. He got the skates, paying for her because it was his idea in the first place. He started slipping the skates on with practiced ease. "Let me know when you're ready and I'll help you up," Ed suggested. Skating was always easier on the ice. Walking on skates off the ice was just plain awkward, so he might as well offer to help her out. 

@claudia

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Edmund explained that he had skated quite a bit when he was younger and then asked if she did. She shook her head, “I can’t say I ever have, but I suppose there’s no harm in giving it a shot.” in reality, there was probably a lot of harm, she never did anything that could result in a potential injury, but that was a lot of things. And Claudia did like to have fun. She had to loosen up a little bit. “You can show me if you think you can.” she agreed, she knew that he could skate, but she had no clue how competent of a teacher he was. She followed him up and laced into the skates that were handed to her. He got his on before she did and told her that he would help her up when she had finished. He was such a gentleman, that was always refreshing. She supposed that a prince had to be a gentleman, he had probably been taught how to be. Once she had managed to get them on and sitting comfortably on her feet, she accepted his hand and stood up, instantly stumbling a little and leaning onto him more than she had meant to. Claudia was used to being good at everything, this was a new feeling. "You make it look so easy." she giggled. 

@edmund

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Claudia explained that she hadn't ever skated before, but she didn't mind trying it out and Ed smiled. "It's not too hard," he told her, though a part of him doubted what he was saying. Skating wasn't hard if one was good at balance. Not all people were, so some really struggled with it. "If you're good at balancing it shouldn't be too hard, I mean," Ed amended, not wanting to give her unreachable expectations. He shrugged, "I can show you if you want. I don't mind." Really, Ed was a little surprised by how this was going. Some girl that wasn't Addi was on his arm, asking if he'd show her how to skate and he actually wasn't nervous about it. Maybe that had everything to do with the fact that he knew Addi knew he cared about her, or maybe he was just getting more comfortable around girls. It was an interesting situation, for sure. 

It wasn't long before they were both wearing their skates and Edmund was helping Claudia to her feet. He tensed when she stumbled into him, but he didn't think she did it on purpose. He glanced down at her, a small smile turning up the corners of his mouth when she said he made it look easy. "Well I have done it for a while," Ed reminded her. "Also, it's a lot harder when you're not on the ice. Here, let's go a bit slower than normal." He led her over to the rink, taking her to the wall so she could grip it while he stepped onto the ice, a real smile covering his face when he did so. He turned to face Claudia. "Okay, so here you just get to slide. Once you're on the ice, you don't really need to pick up your feet or anything. Just let the momentum take you." He offered his hand to her, trying to encourage her to join him on the ice. 

@claudia

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Claudia watched his movements as he got onto the ice and helped her over to the wall. There were many things that, as a professional dancer, she wasn’t supposed to do. Anything that risked falling was at the top of the list. Anything the changed your body shape or image was right below that. Flying wasn’t even something that she risked, just in case something happened and she fell off of her broom. Willingly doing something that was against the unspoken but widely known rules for dancers, was a thrill. But it was also a large source of anxiety. Was flirting with this boy worth possibly breaking her ankle? He was a prince, she decided. However, she wasn’t seriously interested in him, though how could anyone pass up flirting with a prince?

“Just slide. So simple.” she teased him, rolling her eyes as she slowly began to move one foot and then the other on the ice, keeping her feet underneath her and moving her weight along with the foot. One hand gripped onto the wall still and the other found his after his held it out to her. “I guess it’s not much more difficult than balancing on two toes.” That was what dancing on pointe meant, and she had been doing that since she was 10 years old. Blades were similar to pointe shoes.

@edmund

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Claudia was doing pretty good with her balance as they made their way over to the rink. Ed found himself nodding encouragingly. Honestly, the hardest part of ice skating was actually making it to the ice. If one had decent balance, they could do just fine once their feet were firmly on the ice. Well, maybe not firmly. 

Ed chuckled as she teased him, then shrugged, "It is simple," he told her, watching her carefully. He didn't want to let her fall down if he could help it. She was split between him and the wall, holding both with her hands and he tugged her hand lightly, trying to get her to let go of the wall. Claudia mentioned it not being much different than balancing on two toes and Ed nodded hesitantly. "If you can balance on two toes, I'm sure you can do this," he encouraged honestly. "How are you feeling?" Ed hadn't ever tried to help someone like this before. He didn't think he was doing a good job, but he'd do what he could. Hopefully she wouldn't fall. 

@claudia

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Claudia felt the small tug from the prince on her hand and she knew that he was encouraging her to let go of the wall and stake with him in the open area. She bit her lip as she did so, letting her hand slowly let up from the security of the wall and put most of her trust in the dark haired man as he pulled her along. It really wasn’t as hard as she had made it out to be in her own head, but it still seemed a little more difficult than just sliding around like he had made it seem. Overall, she was strong and had good leg muscles and good balance, so the only thing she really had to worry about was her ankle snapping or falling hard onto her knee cap and breaking something that way. If she managed to stay on her feet, she’d be fine. “I’m okay, it gets easier the longer I do it.” she admitted, but she had yet to let go of his hand. “I suppose it’s not as hard as I originally thought it would be.” she smirked. “So you’ve done this before, know any tricks?”

@edmund

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It was interesting, seeing how hesitant Claudia was to actually go onto the ice. He knew she was normally pretty outgoing and flirtatious and all sorts of things, so this was a different side of the girl that he wasn't expecting. He wasn't exactly sure why either. What was so scary about sliding around on ice? If you fell, you just got up again and you'd be fine. He smiled, chuckling when she admitted that it was getting easier. "That's how these sorts of things normally go," he teased, a little surprised at himself for doing so. "Ice skating isn't as hard as most people think it is. I mean, doing tricks sure, but just skating? I think it's relaxing." He shrugged when she asked about tricks. "Not really ... I mostly just like to go fast when I can. Oh, I can skate backwards a bit though." He wasn't the best at that one, but he tried and that was what counted, right?

@claudia

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Claudia hadn’t really noticed the change in her personality at first, but when she did, she began to get a little self-conscious about the whole thing. She liked to keep up her image. She liked to be the fun, excitable Slytherin girl who people could come for it they were looking for a good time. However, whenever injury was at stake she tended to tense up a little bit. She wasn’t sure that she had ever let that side of herself really show through before now, she was good about avoiding it. She knew that there was probably a higher risk of injury while dancing than there was while ice skating, l but she was confident when she danced. She knew what to avoid, and she knew what was inevitable. This was still a mystery. “I can see how it would be relaxing.” she agreed easily, a smile finally making its way across her face fully. He admitted that he didn’t know any tricks but that he could skate backwards, which Claudia felt was a trick enough. The more she thought about it, a lot of her ballet tricks probably transferred over, she certainly had better footing in skates than she did on pointe. As they skated easily, she decided to take the risk and raised her left leg up away from Edmund and into the air behind her. While it worked for a minute, she wasn’t used to moving when she did it and when she swung it back into its place, her momentum sent her to the ground, landing on her butt with a thud. The brunette broke out into a laugh. “Well, at least I tried.” she giggled.

@edmund

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Claudia didn’t really answer him immediately, which was fine with Edmund. He wasn’t really the talkative type, after all. Mostly, he liked silence when he was around people he didn’t know super well. He didn’t know many people well. Still, there was something about ice skating with Claudia that was kind of nice. It was cool to be able to help her do something that obviously made her feel a bit nervous. It wasn’t something he did super often.

He nodded to her comment, “It is relaxing, once you get used to it,” Ed promised. He wasn’t sure if she would give ice skating that sort of a chance, but that was her decision. He noticed the shift of tension in her grip on his hand when she lifted her foot and Edmund smiled over at her, nodding. “Nice job,” he complimented. However, he may have spoken a bit too soon. When she lowered her foot she lost her balance or something and the next thing he knew she was on the ground. At least she laughed about it. Ed chuckled as well, extending a hand to her. “Nice try. I think if you practice, you could be better at this than me. Let me help you up,” he told her with a nod. She might be a flirt and a tease, but at least she was easy to get along with.

@claudia

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Ed laughed also after she had fallen and extended his hand to help her up. He suggested that she could be better than him if she kept practicing. She smirked and allowed him to help her back up onto her feet. “Well it’s pretty similar to ballet, I guess. All the training I’ve done so far in my life has lead up to me being able to ice skate.” she explained, hoping that she was making sense. Things like dance and gymnastics and such went together pretty well. Ice skating definitely fell into that category. “So Ed. what other tricks do you have up your sleeve?” she asked. She had never guessed that he’d know how to ice skate. What else could the prince do that he didn’t tell people?

@edmund