A Surprise Encounter

[Katherine Porter]

Kat quickly descended yet another flight of stairs, hurrying on her way down to the Great Hall. She'd been lounging in the common room rereading her potions textbook to prep for their next lesson, when she realized that dinner was already almost halfway over. Cursing herself mentally, she sprang from her seat and out of the tower going as fast as she could without actually running.

She was trying to be better about not missing meals to study, but sometimes she just got caught up in a book and didn't realize the time. This was one of those times. She descended the last flight of stairs and finally reached the ground floor. Seriously, did her dorm have to be in the towers, eight stories up?

Kat slowed down, realizing that she had time now, and tired from her mad dash down. She rounded the corner into the Entrance Hall and even at her slower pace, she nearly collided with another student standing in the entryway. She came to a quick halt and glanced around. The other girl didn't seem to have noticed her arrival, and she couldn't get around her without bumping her or the suit of armor opposite the girl.

Kat sighed to herself quietly, she hated talking to people she didn't know. She didn't want to annoy the girl by asking, but she did need to get to dinner. She gathered her courage and lightly tapped the other girl on the shoulder. "Erm, excuse me, but could you let me though please?" Her voice was barely above a whisper, but she hoped the other girl heard her and would let her pass without trouble.

 

[Frankie Tillington]

Frankie stopped in the doorway to the entrance hall, her gaze flitting around to try and locate if there was anyone in the vicinity - which there wasn't. Damn. She jingled the coins in her palm, suddenly at a loss for how to proceed. Without any lessons today, her plan had been one that she and mother often partook in when they were visiting large unfamiliar places; sometimes even something they did in their neighbourhood on a particularly quiet weekend. As Frankie had left the portrait hole this morning, she'd asked one of her fellow Gryffindors to flip two coins for her to decide whether she should go left or right, and had since been doing that all day. Having no one around kind of threw a spanner in the works though - the whole point was getting someone else involved along her way. She wouldn't need the Sickle otherwise.

Therefore Frankie swung around gladly upon feeling a tap on her shoulder. She hadn't quite realised that the girl behind her had actually said anything, caught up in her dilemma as she was, so she barrelled along on her own mental path with no regard for the fact that she might be standing in the way. "Oh, perfect, you can do it." She thrust her open palm out towards the other girl, showing her the two coins. "So, this place is huge - I know I can't have seen all of it. Basically, I need you to flip these; the Knut will decide which way I'm gonna go, and I'll tell you what the Sickle's for after." Frankie grinned, wiggling her fingers a little in enticement. "Come on, you'll make my day if you do." It wasn't particularly good to make assumptions, but she felt like the girl would indulge her slightly out of left-field request.

 

[Katherine Porter]

The other girl whirled around to face Kat, though she still did not move out of the way. In fact it seems she hadn't heard Kat at all as she started spewing out something about flipping coins as she thrust her palm at Kat.

Kat blinked in confusion as her brain worked to process what the other girl had said. Finally she caught up and took the coins from the girls hand. "Erm... Okay..." Kat was confused but decided to play along anyway. She flipped the knut in the air first, she swiftly caught it and flipped it to the back of her left hand. She removed her right hand, "Heads." She then repeated the process with the sickle and said "Heads again." as she lifted her right hand off of the coin.

She handed the coins back to the other girl and asked, "Okay, so what is the sickle for then?"