Little Toy Cars

[Avie Mitchell]

Avie Mitchell knew he should probably be making his best attempt at studying, but really, the teen was never going to do such a thing, instead of being in front of books, the boy had decided to play with his little toy cars, the slytherin prefect had brought them with him to school at the beginning of the year to join the two he had brought originally and now he had a total of six with him, and all six were currently stuffed inside the pockets of his dark grey hoody as he made his way excited through the school, looking for somewhere he could play with them. The teen had gone to many places, the first being the brotherhood, which had people studying in it, the grounds which had the wrong kind of ground for him to play, and then the owlery and the dorm and eventually he had found himself in the Arts club room and had cleared away enough space so that he could play. The teen had removed all the cars from his pocket and was placing them neatly on the ground, giving two to Rockie whom he had removed from his other pocket and placed down on the ground beside him.

Avie in the back of his mind fully knew this was a really poor use of his time, that he could be at least trying to pass, but he wasn't instead he was happily laying on the floor of the arts classroom, army crawling along the ground as he moved the cars along with his hands, making the right noises for them. The teen was hardly about to pass anything and he figured in his mind that he could at the very least just have a bit of fun during this time, with the fact he couldn't really go home for the longer holidays, Avie since losing his mother had gone backwards in a lot of ways, he relied on his best friends more so than ever but he also was getting more spells incorrect, his attention span shortened and really all he wanted to do was play. he was trying to improve himself by learning to read but that was all he was trying, he wasn't working hard at anything else, and even when it came to learning to read things had been slow, but the teen was just happy to play and enjoy himself with Rockie and the toy cars.
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[Charlotte Owens]

Exams were just getting closer and closer and Charlotte was starting to panic. She had prepared so much for the exams and now she was starting to feel extremely exhausted. By now she was sure she had studied enough so instead she was going to use her time to explore the castle a bit more and see if she could perhaps find something better to do. After a lot of thinking she finally decided that she was going to see if she could retrieve some paintbrushes from the art classroom of the Conglomerated Arts Club and borrow them for an artwork she was making for her younger cousin. After all, she missed her cousins and they were probably worried about her. Sending an owl with a creative drawing would surely put them in a better mood.

Making her way to the courtyard, she pushed past a group of gossiping students and made her way over to the Conglomerated Arts Club. Charlotte knew that what she was doing could have some consequences but she was on a mission and would only be borrowing the paintbrushes temporarily. Hoping no one was suspecting a thing she opened the door a fraction and quietly entered it. With her head down she tiptoed over to the art classroom and pressed her ear against the door to see if anybody was in there. Unfortunately, she could hear noises. It sounded like a three-year-old was playing with their toy cars. Why is there a three-year-old at Hogwarts? But when she opened the door, it wasn't a three-year-old at all and was in fact someone older than her who was crawling their way along the dirty ground playing with his toys. What did they think they were doing? Charlotte had never walked in on something so absurd before.

"Uh, hello?" she said softly, looking down at the boy. "Are you okay?"

 

[Avie Mitchell]

Avie loved playing with his cars and he couldn't help but enjoy crawling upon the floor with Rockie by his side as they played with the cars, no part of the teen's mind did it ever occur to him that he was going to have to explain this to anyone, most of the people in the school had grown somewhat used to Avie's unusual behaviour which was likely a good thing the youngest students didn't know as much but Avie had never been bothered by it. He was all about having fun and this was always regardless of what they might think of him and what he was doing, although that could very well be explained by the fact that Avie didn't understand most of what people said specifically when they used long words, Kris had always used long words with him, and Avie hadn't been able to understand them or even say them which had really been fine, because Avie loved Kris and as one of his best friends the teen had always made him explain things, although given that Kris wasn't really around much any more the teen found it better since aside from the odd long word or strange sentences that Lucien and Esme used things for him were fine.

The teen looked up at the new voice and smiled at them, he knew this girl was a first year, she had the young stature of the youngest of in the school and Avie cocked his head slightly at her question, and he sat up, holding one of the cars tightly in his hand as he glanced himself over to see if he was alright, "Yeah!" he said after having twisted in an attempt to see his back and the boy just smiled brightly and nodded at the girl, "I can be quiet if you were here to practice," the boy assured her with a tone that indicated he was going to try his very best to be quiet for her if she needed him to, "Or do you want to play with me and Rockie?" the boy asked not sure which she would rather do, but he was always happy to look for another person to play with.
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[Charlotte Owens]

Charlotte chuckled as she watched the older boy turn inside out to check if he was okay. She had never met someone like him before. "Practice? I don't 'practice' anything if that's what you were thinking." she replied when the boy told her he'd be quiet for her. She stood there for a moment deciding whether or not she should play with the boy or get along with what she was doing. She could always continue her artwork for her cousin later but for now she going to make a new friend. Thankfully, no one seemed to be watching so she accepted the offer and sat down next to the boy. "Yeah, I'll happily play with you and your friend Rockie!" she exclaimed, gesturing over to his toy. "What are you playing anyway? Aren't you a bit too old to be playing with toys? I mean, there's nothing wrong with playing with toys once and awhile but on such a nice day like today, wouldn't it be better to run around, soak in the sun and just live in the moment? You can't be a child all your life." Charlotte babbled on, trying her best not to say anything that might hurt the boy's feelings as she picked up one of the toy cars and gently pushed it along the ground. "By the way, I'm Charlotte." she added, smiling at him.

It wasn't long before Charlotte could feel herself getting bored. Pushing a toy car along the ground wasn't the most entertaining thing in the world - even for a 12 year old. She wanted to lighten the mood and knew just what to do. "Hey! What if the car had wings?" she exclaimed abruptly, lifting the toy car off the ground and flying it around the room. "Or what if they had some sort of superpower like invisibility or something? Have you ever wondered if perhaps that could happen one day? That all the cars in the world would come to life and turn into a car version of those kind of super heroes that they have in the muggle world or something?" She laughed loudly at her silly idea. Maybe if Charlotte believed hard enough then it would actually happen.

 

[Avie Mitchell]

The teen thought it was a little strange that the girl did not actually want to practice anything, this wasn't really the right room to study, the other one with all the books was the one to study in and one of the many reasons why Avie didn't go to such a room, he had absolutely no use for it, and he much preferred any room which he could play in. Though if the girl did require this room to study in then he would try his absolute best to just be as quiet as possible, which might be a little tricky given whom he was, but the teen was always about trying, but it was stopped and the boy looked at the girl who decided to play with him and Rockie, he just smiled brightly and took two of the cars not really being used and pushed them out to her, to take so that she could play with, however at her words he just shrugged, "I'm playing cars, and the ground outside isn't good for these cars it ruins them," he told her matter-of-factly, and then just ignored the rest of what was being said, he didn't need to grow up, in Avie's mind he'd be like the boy from the old story his mother read that never grew up, he would be him.

"I'm Avie!" he exclaimed brightly with a smile as she introduced herself as Charlotte, and then just got back to playing making the little noises and thoroughly enjoying himself with Rockie until she spoke, he looked over at her and then shrugged, he didn't think that cars needed to fly, after all, they didn't need to, and he wondered what it would be like for them to have a superpower but he didn't know if that was ever possible, but it did make for a nice story really, something fun, "Flying cars are planes," the boy stated reciting what he had learned from muggle studies classes, before then just taking out his wand, and pointing it at one of the cars, "Wingardium Leviosa," the teen was glad when this simple spell worked and soon the car was in the air, "I think we can make the cars fly ourselves, but I don't think we can give them super powers." the teen was guiding the car along with his wand as he had it levitating above the ground.
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[Charlotte Owens]

Charlotte nodded at the boy when he told her that the cars didn't really work on the ground outside. He most likely really valued his toys and that was probably why he was being safe and using them inside rather than outside where there was a chance that they could get ruined. He introduced himself as Avie and Charlotte smiled at the enthusiasm. She had never met someone so enthusiastic - especially about their name. Sometimes people confused Charlotte. She watched with wide eyes as Avie started using the levitation charm that Charlotte had learnt recently in her charms class to make the toy cars fly. She couldn't quite contain the excitement and jumped up and down on the spot, smiling at the flying car.

"You're really smart!" she beamed, standing up abruptly to look closely at the car that was in the air. "I mean you did it so quickly and it's so perfect! How could I have been so stupid?" She watched it floating in the air, dumbfounded, wishing that she had thought of this sooner. She had only recently learnt the levitation charm so it obviously wasn't the first thing that popped up in her head. "I want to try!" Picking up one of the toy cars that she was playing with, she sat it in the palm of her left hand and took her wand out. "Wingardium Leviosa!" she said, making sure she used the correct wand movement. She watched as her car had joined Avie's in the air and moved her wand around the room, controlling it. "Isn't this fun!?" she said, glad that this trip to the art classroom was better than she expected. "Have you ever done this with your toy cars before?"

 

[Avie Mitchell]

Avie looked at the girl with a curious expression, no one had ever called him really smart, no one had even called him smart before, much less with the other word in front of it, Avie wasn't actually sure what to do with this piece of information, he felt a little overwhelmed by it in a sense, he wanted to argue with her that he wasn't, but she didn't give him enough time, instead she continued speaking explaining how he was smart because he did it so quickly, but the teen didn't think she was stupid for not immediately thinking of that, or doing the spell, after all, she was a first year, or at least in the younger years, he would've never thought of that then, only now that he believed himself pretty good at the basic spells could he just do something like that while barely thinking about it. But, Avie blushed deeply at the words and struggled to verbally find a response so he just seemed to shrug several times in a row, unsure what else to do, or even if it was necessary for him to say anything at all about the matter.

It was why the Slytherin prefect was actually really glad when the younger girl picked up one of the toy cars and quickly did the spell so that it would join his which had despite the serious break in Avie's concentration stayed lingering in the air where his wand was pointed, and it was then that he looked between the two cars and nodded his head, slowly guiding the car as he moved. There was something really very nicely fun about it, it wasn't too complicated and it didn't require too much effort really, not more than pushing it off the ground. The teen shook his head happily at her second question, "No, never, they are cars and cars run on the ground," he explained as if obvious, the boy was easily making the noises as he guided it along, "This is so much fun though," he exclaimed happily, really finding it to be the most fun he'd had with the cars in ages and it was so much better than going outside! Avie stopped running and then glanced at her, "We should do a race, first one to do an entire lap of the room wins!" he then bolted forward running at what was a little slower than his normal speed, dodging all of the things as he ran around the room.
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[Charlotte Owens]

Charlotte was glad that Avie was sharing the enthusiasm with her. She never thought that she'd be here flying toy cars around with a stranger. Admittedly, it was the best fun she'd had ever since she saw her cousins which was quite a long time ago now that she thought of it. She'd get around to making them their present later. Besides, she had plenty of time before she'd be back at home for the holidays. Charlotte always had a knack for finishing things right on time as well so there was no way that she'd not get it done if she really wanted to.

When Avie offered her a race she stood there confused for a moment. It seemed like such a turn of events and the room was full of too many things for a race. What if they accidentally broke something expensive? They could probably use magic for it but Merlin knows how much trouble they'd be in and Charlotte really didn't want to have to face her head of house again this year. He started running around the room ahead of her and dodged everything around him. "Hey, that's cheating!" she exclaimed, running after him. "You can't do that! It's not a race because it's not fair!" Almost tripping over an easel, she tried to catch up to him but he was too fast. When Charlotte made it back to where they started, she was fumed. "No, that was stupid! What do you think you're doing? This is an Art Classroom. Since when do people race in an Art Classroom?" Pulling out one of the stools at the desk next to her, she sat down to catch her breath. She hadn't ran that fast for a very long time. If only they were running outside instead of inside, then maybe Charlotte wouldn't be as cross.

"I'm sorry," she began once she had regained her breath, realising that she may have upset him. "But that was so intense." She chuckled, hoping she did not upset Avie too much. Sometimes Charlotte just had to calm down and stop getting so angry at nothing. He was only trying to have some more fun and Charlotte couldn't blame him. Besides, they didn't end up breaking anything as far as Charlotte knew so they weren't going to get into any trouble.

Sorry, for the long-ish reply

 

[Avie Mitchell]

Avie hadn't even cared that they were in some Arts room, he as careful enough to avoid things, if they'd gone multple times he knew he would've probably fallen and broken something, but Avie didn't exactly care, he just liked having fun, and it was just about having fun to him, he didn't even care that he was technically cheating, he was just having fun and finally when the race was over he just smiled happily at the girl, his quidditch and enegertic spirit meaning he'd easily won the race, Avie liked winning too, it felt good to win something, but he'd been about to congratulate her on how well she'd done, when the girl started being really annoyed and the boy was startled by her outburst, but didn't really understand it, "But, it's fun," he replied as if it was obvious, as if having fun didn't matter where it was then, as if obviously the more fun they were having the better. It was not in his mind to differentiate between having fun and not doing dangerous or wrong things, in his mind there was absolutely nothing wrong with running around such a room.

At her apology the boy just shrugged, grabbing his toy car in his hand and just smiling a little at the girl, "It's okay, we were having fun," he said to her, "it doesn't matter if we break anything, they can't give us into trouble, we'll just say it was like that when we got here," he told her as if it was obvious to lie, since he'd more than once actually done such a thing, Avie wasn't exactly careful when he played, since he thought it was just fun first and the rest didn't matter, he just looked at the first year, wondering why others didn't have fun like he did, "You should just have fun, there are so many opportunities in this room to have fun," the teen pulled her to the nearest piano in the side of the room and began playing a tune on it, completely made up but the indication was that it didn't matter what they were doing, "Or, we could paint," he told her, looking for art supplies, "I want to paint my hand," Avie got excited and found both paint and then paper, the cars for now forgotten and painting his hand completely green and then putting his hand print on the paper, "Come on!" he wanted Charlotte to have fun, not be weird about having fun.
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[Charlotte Owens]

It wasn't that Charlotte didn't like having fun. To her, having fun was doing something that you enjoyed and everyone enjoyed different things as they were all different types of people. She respected the fact that Avie found running around the room enjoyable but she didn't and instead would have much rathered if she was still playing with the toy cars. She was glad that Avie accepted her apology anyway and he didn't seem as upset as she thought he was going to be. After all, Charlotte felt very guilty for taking her anger out on him like that when all he wanted to do was have some fun.

As Avie played the tune on the piano, she smiled. It gave her memories of when her mother used to gather the family on lonely nights and play songs on her old guitar. It was a very long time ago, before Charlotte even started developing her magical abilities, but the memory was still clear in her head. "I want to paint too!" she shouted, picking up one of the paint brushes and painting her hand blue. "We can make an artwork together!" She jumped up and down on the spot, getting excited. As she put her hand print next to Avie's on the paper, she noticed how much smaller it was and giggled. Charlotte had never seen her hand so small before. Hopefully it wasn't always that small.

 

[Avie Mitchell]

Avie was very glad that Charlotte seemed to want to paint with him, and he took the time to carefully apply paint to his other hand, opting for a bright purple colour this time instead of the green that was his other hand, the teen finally finished it and noted the hand of the girl was far smaller than his own, and he couldn't help but smile at hers and then pressed his other hand against the page pushing it down for a moment and then pulling away, leaving a perfect print of his hand on the page, "My hands are so much bigger than yours," he exclaimed with a smile, at times, even Avie forgot that he was actually sixteen years old and that he would be going into sixth year, he thought of himself as still young as he was sure that most people saw him, but he really wasn't and it was in part why he usually grew so frustrated at his lack of progression when it came to reading, and the teen was just smiling at the younger girl.

"I'm a fifth year, prefect!" he told her as he put his fingers on the page in front of him and made a little design with just his finger prints as he moved his hands over the page, he looked back up to her, "I don't know what being a prefect really is, Lucien says it means I have keep other students in line, but really all I do is wear a badge on my uniform," Avie continued as he looked back down at his work, before sparing a glance up Charlotte, "Are you a first year?" he asked, unsure as to who she really was, only knowing that she was a slytherin like him, and far younger than, as was clear by the much smaller handprint that she had made, "I need blue," he muttered before grabbing the blue paint and coating his already green fingers in it, he didn't care about the mess he was making currently, this was fun.
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[Charlotte Owens]

Charlotte laughed when Avie pointed out the obvious. It was indeed true that her hand was much bigger than his. After all, he was older than Charlotte was and Charlotte didn't have a big build anyway. The fact that he was a fifth year prefect had surprised Charlotte and it was only then that she noticed that he was in Slytherin just like Charlotte was. Before coming to Hogwarts Slytherin was the house that Charlotte definitely did not want to be in and she had always thought that only the mean and angry people ended up in that house. But seeing Avie as he was had given Charlotte the confidence that she needed. She now knew that you didn't at all have to be nasty to be in Slytherin and sometimes some of the houses had shared different characteristics. It wasn't that Charlotte was mean and angry, it was just that one characteristic stood out more than her others and that was why she placed where she was.

"But you must feel really special being a prefect and all! You know, as a first year I'm supposed to look up to you so doesn't it feel like you have power over me or something?" she asked him. She didn't know why the professor she had hated the most had made Avie a prefect but she was sure that he probably had a good reason for it. After all, Charlotte would definitely choose Avie to be a prefect over Esme any day. "Yeah, I'm a first year. But I'll soon be in my second year which means that I won't be the smallest of the lot anymore!" she exclaimed, glad that she was going to be older than other people now. Despite that, it also felt a bit daunting. Her first year had already gone too quickly for her and she was confused as to where all the time had gone. Shrugging, she watched as Avie had started to make a mess of the paints and helped him by mixing some of the colours together and using her hands to spread the paint across the page. She felt like she was a small child now but that still didn't stop her from having some fun.

 

[Avie Mitchell]

The slytherin prefect had never bothered himself with such thoughts of if he belonged in the house of Slytherin, his concern as a first year had been becoming grumpy like professor Styx, but he'd managed to stay happy, or well, as happy as he could be, he even thought that by his own antics he had made Lucien less grumpy, he couldn't find any real backing for this thought, but it was a felling which he had about it, and a feeling which he thought was really more than a little justified. At her words he shrugged, "I wanted to give it to Lucien, he's my best friend, and I wanted him to have it, but the professor picks," he told her as if to answer her question, "And it shows that Professor Styx really loves me, I know he doesn't like to show it, and he won't let me give him a hug any more, but the badge shows he loves me," the boy was so certain in his words that in his mind there was no room for arguments against it, the head of slytherin house, in Avie's mind loved him and this love was shown in the prefect badge he'd been given.

Avie grinned happily at the girl as she then spoke about moving on to second year, his years all melded together in a way that made it difficult to differentiate between them, or really say how he felt about going from a first year to a second year, although he remember that second year was when he began to realise he didn't much like being alone too often, where he'd been fine with it before and really could always find himself something to do, the teen was happier with other, like with Charlotte now, or with Lucien, or Bothizar or with Esme. As the picture seemed mostly done, with most of it covered with paint, Avie glanced up at Charlotte, "You can keep that if you want!" he told her, "Hold on, let me sign it!" he added before rummaging around until he found a pen and then very carefully, writing out his name, "There!" he told her, "We could make another one, or we could go play outside," the teen suggest, sitting back on the ground and looking at the younger girl, keen to keep the fun going.
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[Charlotte Owens]

The fact that there was a possibility that Professor Styx had actually loved someone was slightly unbelieveable. Being the grumpy and strict man that he was, Charlotte could never imagine such person having even a little bit of a soft spot for one of his students. But, in Charlotte's opinion, Avie was such an entertaining person and what wasn't to like about him? Unfortunately, Charlotte was pretty sure Professor Styx had already despised her so there was probably no chance of her ever a getting a badge as important as Avie's.

"What do you mean 'any more'? Did Professor Styx used to hug you!?" she said, trying to imagine Professor Styx giving someone a hug. She shuddered at the thought. She would never give such a person a hug. It wasn't because he wasn't a nice person (Charlotte had never really talked to him properly to find out) but he was a professor and who would ever give their professor a hug? Taking their finished product, Charlotte signed her name next to his and smiled at her new friend. "Thanks!" she said. At least now she had something to give to her cousins that she made with the help of an older boy. They were going to love it.

"Let's go outside!" she exclaimed. She wanted to do something different now. "If we go outside we can race each other without thinking we are going to crash into anything." She chuckled, glad that the boy had suggested that they do something different. Sometimes staying inside was just too boring.

 

[Avie Mitchell]

Avie had forgotten that years had passed since the first and only time he'd managed to hug Professor Styx, though not from a lack of trying, "Well, I hugged him," Avie admitted, though he thought of that as the same thing, he had been working on his master plan to make Styx less grumpy and he was sure it had worked a little, he'd yet to see the man smile, but that was because a hug was what he needed to do, a second hug would solve his problems, make the professor less annoyed and just better, "I know that if I hug him again, he'll be less grumpy" Avie told her with such certainty that for him there was no room for debate on the matter, he would hug him and he'd get everything he'd wanted. With the final touches down to the painting of their hands, the boy just smiled at it, he thought it was good work of them both, and he was happy to be around this new friend.

Nodding happily the teen agreed that they should go outside, but he carefully went around the room, finding all the little toy cars and Rockie and then just smiling at her, of course going outside meant they wouldn't run into anything, and they would have fun outside, "Last to the lake front has to eat seaweed from the lake," he challenged before giving her a small smirk and then rushing out the door. Avie had a natural advantage, given that he was one the quidditch team, older and taller, but he would go easy on Charlotte, since it wouldn't be the first time he'd eaten something straight of the lake and he doubted it would be the last so it wasn't all that disgusting to him, like it might be for her.
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[Charlotte Owens]

It amazed Charlotte how Avie was able to give such a person a hug without them murdering him or something. "You should hug him again!" Charlotte suggested, hoping that would maybe get some of Professor Styx's angriness out of him. Hugs were such nice gestures and Professor Styx probably deserved a few hugs considering how tough his life probably was. After all, Charlotte didn't know how long Professor Styx had been working as a professor for, but it was most likely a really long time considering how amazing he seemed to be at tolerating all of his students. Being a professor was probably hard for everyone though. Who would want to look after a bunch of hormonal teenagers? You'd have to be a professional.

Charlotte watched as Avie began to pick up his toys to get ready to go outside. Not surprisingly, he wanted another race. Sending him a smirk back, she followed after him as fast as she could to the lakefront. She really didn't want to have to eat seaweed from the lake. She had never tried it before but considering it was the loser's prize then it probably didn't taste very good. As the lake was visible in the distance she could feel a stitch form in her stomach but pushed on side by side with Avie, eager to win. Her hair flew back with the wind behind her. She hadn't ran that fast in a very long time.