On A Horribly Beautiful Day... | Open

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[attr="class","eclair-lyrics"]"My Whole Life Is A Dark Room. One. Big. Dark. Room."

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Nina didn't want to be outside. The weather was far top nice and cheerful. The birds were singing, the squirrels were climbing trees, and other students were happily chatting away. It was torture. However, it was also a means to an end. Nina wouldn't be out there if there wasn't a good reason, and there was a good reason. A VERY good reason. [break][break]
Despite her best efforts to make him detest her, a Hufflepuff boy in Nina's year liked her... like LIKED her. Nina had never crushed on anyone, so she didn't know how it worked. Therefore, she was weirded out by someone who did know how it worked and decided to work it on her. So, Nina had to to hide in the one place that the boy would never expect her to go... a place with pleasant surroundings. She hoped the idea would work. As she sat under a shaded tree and read a book, she looked up at the tree where her cat, Bathory, sat on a limb. [break][break]
"Keep a look out, Bathory," she said. "Hiss if lover boy shows up." Bathory gave a nervous meow. "You're stuck, aren't you?" She sighed and rose. "Now I have to find someone who can climb."

[attr="class","eclair-tagged"]@open

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[penelope raisa bainbridge]

The weather was nice—really, really nice. Being the generally sunshine-y person that she was, Penelope was eager to go outside and enjoy it while it lasted. Everyone else seemed to have gotten the same idea, though, and it was difficult for the Hufflepuff to find somewhere nice to sit. She kept walking until she reached the shade of a tree, although she noticed that one of the Slytherin girls in the year below her own was already seated there… until she stood up again.

"Now I have to find someone who can climb," she heard the other girl—whose name was Nina, if she recalled correctly—say. As Penelope got closer, she realized that this was because there was a cat in the tree.

"Is that your cat?" Penelope asked the girl. She looked up in the direction of the cat amongst the tree branches. She didn't exactly climb trees—she'd heard that part—but maybe magic would work instead?

@nina

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[attr="class","eclair-lyrics"]"My Whole Life Is A Dark Room. One. Big. Dark. Room."

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Nina looked over at the Hufflepuff and sighed. Great, another Puff. Okay, she probably wasn't nearly as annoying as the boy who was trying to win her admiration, but she really didn't want to see that familiar badger symbol on a uniform just yet. Still, the girl showed some kind of concern for Bathory... but asking if Bathory was hers... so she figured she'd be civil. Civil was the new "nice" for Nina. [break][break]
"Yes, that would be my cat," she said. "I mean, I can't chastise her for climbing up the tree and getting stuck. Cats and trees have some kind of natural bond that we non-felines can't truly fathom. I just wish she wouldn't remind me of that bond every time I force myself to take her outside." Bathory meowed at her. "Yes, I remembered that you're still up there. I'm trying to find you aid." She looked at the Puff. "Are you good at climbing? It's not one of my few, but immaculate skills."

[attr="class","eclair-tagged"]penelope raisa bainbridge

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[penelope raisa bainbridge]

It was the other girl's cat, though the Slytherin noted that she couldn't exactly chastise her for having climbed a tree. "Cats and trees have some kind of natural bond that we non-felines can't truly fathom," the other girl added. "I just wish she wouldn't remind me of that bond every time I force myself to take her outside."

The cat meowed from the tree, as if chiming in on their conversation. The girl—presumably Nina, although Penelope hadn't checked—then addressed the feline. "Yes, I remembered that you're still up there. I'm trying to find you aid," she explained, though Penelope didn't know how much of that the cat would understand of what her owner was saying.

Before Penelope could volunteer herself to help, the Slytherin had already turned to her. "Are you good at climbing? It's not one of few, but immaculate skills."

"I could try?" Penelope supposed, eyeing the tree. Looking at it again, however, she began to think the better of that idea. "…Or," she considered, "I've got my wand. I could probably summon her down, couldn't I?"

@nina

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[attr="class","eclair-lyrics"]"My Whole Life Is A Dark Room. One. Big. Dark. Room."

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Nina slowly turned to Penelope when she said that she could use magic to summon the cat down. Nina had thought of magic too, but she also reminded herself that she herself was a Fifth Year, and while she was doing well in Charms, she didn't want to risk messing up an incantation a little and turning her poor cat into something. The Puff seemed to have a lot more confidence. Then again, she did look slightly older. [break][break]
"Ummmm... are you sure we should resort to such potentially desperate measures?" she asked. "I mean, I'm sure your magic is up to par given your confidence in it, but that is my one and only cat and multi-year companion. I'd rather her not become a teapot or dust mop or something. No offense." She then looked up to see Bathory hanging off a limb and freaking out a bit. "Aaaaand now she's gone and done that. Outstanding..."

[attr="class","eclair-tagged"]penelope raisa bainbridge

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[penelope raisa bainbridge]

Penelope listened as the other girl hesitated at her suggestion of using magic to get the cat from the tree, calling such a thing “potentially desperate measures”. It was a cat in a tree, Penelope thought. While she might not have had the most self-confidence in the world at times, even she knew that she would have been perfectly capable of floating the cat down from the tree without turning the other girl’s cat into a mop. A Levitation Charm was one of the most basic spells everyone learned in their first year at Hogwarts, and she really wasn’t sure why Nina was so convinced that her cat would end up becoming a teapot. If it would have made sense to turn a cat into a paper airplane or something, then maybe that would have made sense to worry about a possible mishap, but that wasn’t necessary. A basic charm was completely different from complex transfiguration.
 
The Hufflepuff watched in silence as the younger girl lectured her about something that she hadn’t even done, eyes quickly moving to the cat as it began to hang precariously from the branch it had been on.
 
“Aaaaand now she's gone and done that. Outstanding…”
 
For someone who claimed to care so much about their cat, Penelope thought, Nina hadn’t budged to interfere. If she had a cat, which she didn’t, Penelope imagined that she would have sprung into action right then and there to catch the cat instead of lamenting that the cat had ended up dangling. Not wanting the cat to fall, however—and not least because it sounded as though the Slytherin was perfectly content to blame her if something did go wrong—Penelope held out her wand carefully towards the feline.
 
“Wingardium Leviosa!” she cast. She moved as gently as she could, given the urgency of getting the cat to the ground unharmed, and hoped that it had worked.

@nina

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[attr="class","eclair-lyrics"]"My Whole Life Is A Dark Room. One. Big. Dark. Room."

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The Puff did the spell just in time as Bathory lost her grip on the limb. She floated down instead of fell. Nina caught her and the cat seemed to be happy in her arms. Nina sighed and shook her head at her feline before looking at the Puff. [break][break]
"I was wrong. It happens rarely, but I was. Thanks for helping my cat. My name's Nina by the way. I would tell you my House, but my outfit makes it fairly obvious."

[attr="class","eclair-tagged"]penelope raisa bainbridge

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[penelope raisa bainbridge]

Penelope had sprung into action in the nick of time, and she watched as the cat floated gently down from the tree as it lost its grip on the branch. Nina then managed to catch the cat in her arms.

With the cat safely delivered back to its owner, Penelope ended her use of the spell. Nothing bad had happened to the poor cat, who was still just as much of a cat as before. There was neither a teapot nor a dust mop in sight, and Nina seemed to have realized as much, too.

"I was wrong," she admitted. "It happens rarely, but I was." At least she wasn't chastising her again, Penelope thought. "Thanks for helping my cat." The girl also gave her name, confirming that it was Nina, as Penelope was fairly certain that it was. "My name's Nina by the way. I would tell you my House, but my outfit makes it fairly obvious."

"I'm Penelope," Penelope smiled and nodded as she put her wand away again. "And it's not a problem, really, Nina." Really, the hardest part had been trying to prove that she really did know what she was doing. "I'm happy to help."

@nina

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[attr="class","eclair-lyrics"]"My Whole Life Is A Dark Room. One. Big. Dark. Room."

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Nina found many Puffs to be very kind. She supposed that was endearing to an extent. Then again, the boy who fancied her was a bit too kind. She imagined Penelope knew him given they lived together in the same House. She would hold on asking that though. [break][break]
"I suppose I'm the proverbial queen of skepticism. That has worked to my advantage though, given the dishonesty among my House mates. My parents were both in Ravenclaw, but somehow I ended up in Slytherin. I guess after five years, I've become used to it though. Also I like potions. I think I've just given you my biography."

[attr="class","eclair-tagged"]penelope raisa bainbridge

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[penelope raisa bainbridge]

Nina said that she supposed that she was the "proverbial queen of skepticism", which Penelope thought fit. The Slytherin went on to explain, however, that it had worked to her advantage, given other Slytherins' dishonesty. Penelope didn't think that all of them were so bad—and she could think of a few right there and then who weren't terrible people—but Nina explained that both of her parents were in Ravenclaw when they were in school.

Penelope nodded as Nina added that she guessed she'd become used to it after five years in Slytherin, and that she liked potions, and that she had just given her her life story.

"I've got Ravenclaw sisters," Penelope smiled, though both Cara and Diana—two out of the three—were no longer in school. And Kinsey, while extremely intelligent, had never forced her intelligence or her being a Ravenclaw on her. "So I know what that's like." She couldn't say that she was really interested in potioneering, though. Her worst subject that she had continued to take at NEWT level was Potions, by far.

@nina