A Fruitless Endeavour

[Aurora Night]

Rory stalked back and forth along the corridor, looking for any sign of an entrance to the Hufflepuff Common Room. Her own entrance was a portrait, while Hayley's was just a bare stretch of wall - she really could be looking for anything, but Sophia was remaining really close-lipped about it. Rory thought she had managed to get the answer out of her after excessive badgering (she snorted again at that particular pun, it was still cracking her up), but the only thing she had heard in her sister's mumbling sounded like 'First Floor Corridor.' It wasn't as easy to barge into Sophia's room to tell her something now that they weren't at home - if only she could find a way into Hufflepuff, that would be the first step.

 

[Fleur van Houten]

Fleur had just spent what felt like hours looking for her cat Jack, who had escaped the common room to explore the castle. She couldn't blame him, as she understood the impulse, but man if it wasn't a little annoying anyway. It was a big castle, and Jack was speedy. Somehow he had made his way to the first corridor, though Fleur had to admit she had been searching for a while and he could probably have made his way all the way outside in that timespan. She was glad that hadn't been the case.

She didn't trust her stubborn cat to follow her back, so she was carrying him through the corridor to head back up to Gryffindor. He was being good now, purring in her arms. She knew he would start to feel heavy soon, though. She hummed to herself when she suddenly felt Jack tense in her arms. Perhaps a ghost had passed by unnoticed or perhaps something in one of the portraits had moved without Fleur noticing, but whatever it was had startled Jack. Before she could try to calm him down, the cat had jumped out of her arms and sprinted away. Again."Jack, no!" She shouted, running after him. She saw the cat run up to another student and climb up her leg in his fear. "Jack!" She said, running up to the student and kneeling down to get the cat away from her. "Sorry." She said with a grimace, she recognized the student and groaned. "I swear I'm not using my cat as a new attack strategy."

 

[Aurora Night]

Rory was quickly growing more and more frustrated with each step she took. Why wouldn't her sister tell her where to get in to the common room? Why didn't any of her own friends know? Why didn't she even have any friends in Hufflepuff? What was that ginger blur streaking towards her? Rory was only given a second to try and figure this out before the blur suddenly attached itself to her leg - with its claws. "AH!" Rory yelled, her entire body seizing up in a shock reaction to the claws sinking into her skin. She wanted to shake her leg to get the... cat? cat off her leg, but a small part of brain whispered to her what if it tears all your skin off. It was a stupid thought, but very real, and the pain in her leg from the claws buried in it was also real. Absolutely forgetting all about the reason she had even been in this corridor, Rory was about to bend down to try and remove the cat herself when someone else ran up to do the job for her. The first thing she took any notice of was ginger hair, and it sort of made sense considering the colour of the cat, but then Rory recognised her. "No, its okay - ow." she replied with a wince. "I'm pretty sure it - ow - would work actually, you should do it for real." She attempted a grin, but it was a very watered-down version compared to her usual ones. She hoped that if she was bleeding it at least looked cool.

 

[Fleur van Houten]

Fleur managed to extract Jack from the older girl's leg and clutched him to her as she tried to assess the damage. "I think something startled him. I'm sorry. I'm sure it was nothing personal." Fleur said, blowing a strand of red hair out of her face as she got up with Jack held tightly in her arms. "I hope you're not gravely injured. I'll make it up to you. Uh, somehow. Let me know if you have any suggestions." Pausing, she frowned down at the cat. "We'll have a talk later." Fleur told him sternly before looking back at Rory. "I think maybe your red hair seemed comforting to him. Or maybe he's just a little dumb. Do you like cats?" Then she frowned, pausing to think. "I mean in general, not necessarily right this moment because I can imagine your opinion may have shifted in the last few minutes." She cleared her throat and grinned. "So, I don't think I properly introduced myself last time. I'm Fleur." She knew the other girl's name from the assassin game, as she had the girl as her target and got a name slip. "Seriously though, I'll... buy you chocolate to make up for the claw marks in your leg." She said half-jokingly. Rory seemed like a pretty awesome girl, and she didn't want her to be angry with her.