Late Dinner

[Amy Stone]

Amy had just spoken to Bruin and had decided that she would escape from the confines of her house common room and try and eat something. She knew that around about now, the rest of the Gryffindors would be having their house meeting, and Amy didn't want to be present during this. In her hands she had her sketching pad and a pencil. She didn't really like using quills, and so on her return to school had brought with her a few special drawing pencils.

She wasn't really apaying attention, and as a result nearly tripped down the last few stairs going down into the Entrance Hall. She just about managed to stop herself and decided that she really should pay attention in future. Slowly she walked into the Great Hall, relieved to see that it was more or less empty. There were only a few last minute diners, and Amy felt a little more comforted by this thought,

Sitting herself down in the middle of the Gryffindor table, she pulled random pieces of food onto her plate, not really taking in what it was. She put a few pieces, of what appeared to be beef in her mouth and when finished, started pushing the rest of her food around the plate with her fork, while she flicked through a couple of the sketches she had already done.

 

[Violet Bellamy]

Violet was feeling down, and she had no idea why. Since the holidays, she hadn't spoken to another person at all, save for necessary conversations in the common room. Every waking minute, she spent either studying, or reading a book for fun. Well, not fun, more escape. She was driving herself crazy with the amount of study she was doing, and yet she still felt inadequate. She still knew she would never amount to anything, never be the best at anything. And she didn't understand how others could still have social lives and do better than her in classes. It was completely unfair. Violet cried herself to sleep, every night. This sleep usually came in the pages of novels, where the heroines usually got every one of their hearts desires (except when they died tragically). That would never be Violet. She told herself that she was doomed to fail, alone.

She found herself drifting off to sleep in the common room, until the sharp pain in her stomach woke her. Dinner time. And the Great Hall was still open. Violet yawned, and trudged downstairs to join whoever would be left there. It would be pretty empty, luckily.

Violet moved towards the Hufflepuff table, when she saw Amy sitting right nearby at the Gryffindor table. Violet took a breath, and walked over. "Hey, Amy..." she said, quietly. "How are you?" she asked, redundantly.

((i'm assuming gryffindor and hufflepuff are next to each other. i kinda forgot. XD))

 

[Amy Stone]

Amy was lost in her own thought as she continuously pushed her food round her plate. However she was awoken from her trail of thought at the sound of a quiet voice next to her. Looking up she saw someone standing there next to her. Violet.

Amy hadn't seen Violet in what seemed like forever, and she found herself smiling, a deep genuine smile at her friend. Despite all the grief she felt at the moment, all the pain and anguish, Violet had come along just now and managed to make that pain muted.

Her face was pale, her green eyes well dull and seemingly deviod of life. She had deep dark circles underneath her eyes, showing the lack of sleep she had been experiancing lately. But now her features softened some how, as if the smile that now appeared on her face changed how she was feeling.

"Violet!" Amy exclaimed, in her husky and croaky voice, that she had not been using lately.
"Please, come sit with me," she asked her friend. Amy had been avoiding company since coming back to school but now, she wanted nothing more than for Violet to come and sit with her.

 

[Violet Bellamy]

Gracefully, Violet slid in to the seat next to Amy. She hadn't seen Amy in ages, and she'd missed hanging out with her. She carefully regarded Amy. She looked quite different - a little miserable and worse for wear. And she didn't sound too great, either. Violet smiled gently at Amy - she looked as though she was having a much more difficult time than Violet. "Are you okay?" she asked quietly - not sure if it was a good thing to ask or not, but asking anyway.

 

[Amy Stone]

Amy could feel Violet's eyes watching her, very closely. But then the dreaded question came up. Are you okay?'. Amy turned her head down, looking at her food. She had the nagging feeling that lying to Violet wouldn't quite be like lying to anyone else. She took a deep breath and looked at Violet, clearing her throat as she done so.

"Erm, in all honest, not really" she said, her husky voice becoming more pronounced as she done so. Amy didn't really know what else to say. Well she did, but it was such a hard thing to say. She didn't even like saying it in her head, it made everything seem so much more real.

 

[Violet Bellamy]

Violet wasn't quite sure what to say - or whether saying anything would be right. She was always terrible at trying to make other people feel better. "Um...do you want to talk about it? I mean, it's okay if you don't..." she said, a little uncertain. She suspected Amy wouldn't want to talk about it. Violet didn't mind. She just wanted to help Amy feel a little better.

 

[Amy Stone]

Amy listened to Violet's words and smiled feebily at her. Amy was fast regarding Violet as a close friend and she knew from talking to Bruin that it did help to talk about it. Although she didn't want to make Violet feel awkward with what she was about to say. She sighed and once again pushed her food around her plate with her fork.

"It's well, I had some..erm..bad news at Christmas" she all but whispered, her eyes threatening to spill tears down her face. She coughed, and blinked quickly, managing to stop the tears from overflowing.

 

[Violet Bellamy]

"Oh," said Violet. She didn't really know what else to say. She suspected that when Amy said bad news, she meant really, really bad, like a serious illness or a death in her family or circle of friends. "Amy...um, well, if you don't want to talk about it, that's okay. But I'm here to listen if you need me to, okay?" she said, feeling as though her comment was a little redundant, but wanting to somehow reassure Amy.

 

[Amy Stone]

Amy smiled weakly, "Thanks Violet" was all she could think to say right now. She didn't want to talk about herself constantly and so she coughed to clear her throat and attempted a smile.

"How was your Christmas anyway?" Amy asked Violet, thinking that maybe a change of subject would help.

 

[Violet Bellamy]

Violet shrugged. "Oh, you know. It was okay. I got to move back home to Brisbane, and went to the beach for Christmas, so that was kind of nice. It was pretty quiet, though." She smiled. "Mum wasn't terribly pleased when I told her that DADA was my worst subject. It was one of her best. Then again, she was a Gryffindor and she was annoyed that I was sorted in to Hufflepuff." She looked a little sheepish. "Sorry, I'm whinging. I'll stop."

 

[Amy Stone]

Amy listened as Violet spoke, a small smile on her face. It was nice to hear someone talk about themselves rather than everybody listening to Amy's problems.
"Christmas on the beach?! Wow!" Amy replied, thinking what a great thing that must be. She stopped, only just registering what Violet said at the end.
"Your mum was annoyed you got sorted into Hufflepuff?" she croaked, her face showing a quizzical look.

 

[Violet Bellamy]

Violet smiled. "I'm so used to Christmas in summer. I'd probably panic if I had to stay here over Christmas, I'd be searching desperately for the sun and heat!" She gave a small laugh. "I guess you wouldn't really say annoyed, more slightly disappointed. She was hoping I'd be in either Gryffindor or Ravenclaw." Violet shrugged. "But I don't really mind."

 

[Amy Stone]

Amy laughed, for the first time in weeks. The sound seemed alien to her, and she was actually slightly suprised by herself.
"It must be lovely having Christmas on the beach!" she said, wondering what it must be like. The sun, the heat. Even in England in summer the weather didn't reach levels of extreme heat.
"Hufflepuff's a good house! Just as good as any of the others" Amy commented, meaning every word of it.

 

[Violet Bellamy]

"Apart from the mild sunburn, it is quite nice," Violet said, nodding. "And yeah, I think Hufflepuff's a good house. I think every house is just as good as each other. I, um, wrote a piece for the school newspaper about that," she said, with a little blush. It wasn't as though the piece she wrote was particuarly good, it was mostly a rant about how house stereotypes were wrong.

 

[Amy Stone]

"You wrote something about it?!" Amy said excitedly for her friend. Amy herself couldn't write anything like articles or in that form and so anyone who could had her respect.
"That sounds likes it's going to be good!" she said encouragingly to Violet.

 

[Violet Bellamy]

"Oh, it's just a small article. It's not brilliant. There are going to be much better articles to read in the paper," she said. "But thank you anyway," she said, with a smile. "I think Brian's pulling out all the stops and writing a novel about what's gone on this year," she said, with a laugh.

 

[Amy Stone]

"I'm sure yours will be just as good" she said reassuringly. Amy laughed as Violet told her about Brian, and she couldn't say she was suprised by this revelation.
"Somehow I'm not suprised by that fact!" she admitted, voicing her thoughts, a small smile on her face. The Ravenclaw always strived for complete perfection and his dedication was admirable.
"Who else writes for the paper?" she asked Violet, never having given it a second thought.

 

[Violet Bellamy]

"Hmm..." mused Violet. "There's me, Brian, um, Maddiie, Hilary and Katrina, who are all third years. I think that's about it..." she said. "Although I'm probably forgetting some people." Violet knew her terrible writing was probably letting the whole paper down - the others who wrote were all so much smarter and better than she was, which was a depressing truth for Violet.

 

[Amy Stone]

"Oh right, so there's a few of you then" Amy replied to the list of names Violet had just given her. She knew all of them apart from Katrina, who she had never heard of before. She looked down at the remains of her dinner and sighed, she really wasn't hungry anymore.

Looking down at her watch Amy saw it was 7.15, meaning she had another 45 minutes until she was supposed to go up to the common room to meet Bruin. She thought that she might return a little bit late, just in case the meeting over ran. Thinking about this, brought back the images of her dad flooding back. She shook her head, she didn't want to think about this right now. Thinking about it meant that she started feeling the pain again, and this wasn't a good thing.

"How are lessons for you so far?" she croaked, wondering what lessons Violet had this term.

 

[Violet Bellamy]

Violet shrugged. "They're alright. I love Charms, Potions is okay, and Herbology...um, isn't my favourite." She smiled. "What about you? How are your lessons going?" she asked, wanting to turn the conversation away from herself. She didn't like being the centre of attention.

 

[Amy Stone]

Amy smiled as Violet talked about her lessons. It was nice to have jsut a normal ordinary conversation with someone about things as ordinary as lessons.
"I wasn't over keen on Herbology either" Amy said, a small grin on her face.
"Charms is good, History of Magic is suprisingly interesting, as is Transfiguration and I love Astronomy!" Amy replied, going through her lessons and her thoughts on them.

 

[Violet Bellamy]

Violet grinned. "I loved History of Magic. And Transfiguration. And I didn't mind Astronomy, once I got in to it," she said. "I'm such a nerd. I love most classes. Just randomly, what's been your favourite class over all?" she asked, interested to know.

((gah, internet's been playing up - sorry about the slow reply!))

 

[Amy Stone]

"You're not a nerd!" Amy said with a small smile. Her favourite class. One answer sprung to mind immediately.
"My favourite lesson overall would have to be Potions. I don't really know why, I just really enjoyed it!", Amy explained hoping that it would make some sense at least.
"How about you?" she asked Violet in return.

 

[Violet Bellamy]

Violet thought for a moment. "Hmm...I'm not sure. Either Transfiguration, or History of Magic. History of Magic is so interesting, and Transfiguration's really cool. Um, well, I really want to become an Animagus." Violet said, blushing a little. "So I have to like it," she added, with a grin. "Potions is not too bad so far though. Do you have to brew anything in first year?" Violet asked, wanting to know so she could mentally prepare herself.

 

[Amy Stone]

"An animagus?! That would be really cool!" Amy said enthustiastically, a smile on her face. When Violet asked her about brewing any potions, Amy tried to cast her mind back to before Christmas. Indeed it was hard for her to do, the obstacle of what happened over the holidays seemed to get in the way.
"Erm...I don't think so" she replied, after thinking for a minute.