Open Party Tricks

[Miles Flynn]

It was a nice day out, so Miles had decided he was going to try and make the most of the nice weather and get in some extra Quidditch practice while he had the chance. Or, that had been the plan, but upon arriving at the pitch he had found that one of the other teams had scheduled a practice so he couldn't use it. So now, instead, he found himself in the courtyard, the enthusiasm had had when he had left the common room completely depleted. He'd still had the quaffle he'd brought down with him, which was now why he was laying on his back on one of the courtyard benched, trying to balance a spinning quaffle on the tip of his finger. Not really the practice he had in mind that morning, but it was the best he could do seeing as the pitch was booked up.

The trick was harder than it looked, the tip of his tongue poking out in concentration as he tried to balance the wobbling quaffle in front of his face. Which maybe wasn't the best idea as one second he was sure he had it, and the next the quaffle had fallen from his finger, smacked him right in the nose, and was now rolling halfway across the courtyard and into someone else's leg.

 

[Mania Athanasiou]

Mania was regretting the amount of classes she'd signed up for, she had found out the hard way that beyond the excitement of it being new she didn't really care for most of said classes and her effort in the homework went a long way to show it. Even now she'd left the pile of homework in her dorm in favor of a walk around the school or literally anything but doing all that extra work.

Walking down the courtyard Nia was glad for the good weather, though she was doing just fine having a walk all on her own she was bursting at the seams to have a conversation. Given that talking to herself out in the open might have led to people thinking she was insane the Gryffindor scanned her surroundings for anyone familiar to bother. Squinting her eyes she wished she'd worn glasses instead of contacts today because they felt uncomfortable. A smile pulled onto the third years lips as she spotted a familiar face in the distance and she darted towards her classmate. "Miles! Hi!" Nia called out once she got closer but then stopped in her tracks as her brain registered what he was doing. "Wait how are you doing that? That's so cool!" She said while staring at the little balancing act he had going on.

 

[Miles Flynn]

He groaned as the quaffle hit him in the nose, using his hand to rub at it for a moment as he slowly sat up. Not only had he embarrassed himself, he had gone and embarrassed himself in front of someone else. Still, he supposed it could be worse "Practice, I guess," he admitted, "Though I think I need more of it." The fact he had managed to drop a quaffle on his face was enough proof of that fact, his eyes following to where his ball had rolled just a short distance away. He probably shouldn't just leave it there, huffing as he hopped to his feet to go and grab it, tucking it safely under his arm as he turned back to Mania again.

"I was going to do some proper practice on the pitch, but one of the teams have booked it out for practice, so I can't," he shrugged slightly as he wandered back over before plopping himself down on the bench again. As he made a start on trying to balance the quaffle back on his finger again, he was rather distracted, eyes moving between the ball in his hand and the other Gryffindor for a moment. "What are you doing out here?" Not that it was too surprising she was here or anything, but he couldn't really think of anything else to say.

 

[Mania Athanasiou]

Mania watched as the Quaffle fell from balancing on Miles' finger straight to his nose. She could have sworn it all played in slow motion for a second and Nia had to fight really hard not to giggle at least a bit. Honestly she should be rewarded for the accomplishment of not doing so, the effort it took was quite a lot. "You okay?" She asked once she was sure her voice wouldn't waver from the suppressed giggle. "I mean I think you could always just blame my interruption for that one seeing as you were doing quite well before I barged in." She gave a half hearted shrug with a small smile.

Mania tried not to roll her eyes at the mention of another house having the pitch, yeah it was Slytherin. Her sister had talked about it. "Yeah, it's Slytherin." She said. "My sister, Gaia, is on the team. She's become quite insufferable with it too," she explained, not wanting to seem like a crazy fan who knew all the schools house teams practice schedule. "Oh me? Oh nothing just avoiding.....homework.... you know...." Mania explained a little sheepishly. "Honestly I did some of it but like you know needed a little break so went on a walk... through the whole castle.... then came down here just in case I needed more time away you know." It wasn't like Miles was going to judge her hopefully, but Nia still felt like defending her case however reluctant it may have come out.

 

[Miles Flynn]

It was going to take more than a quaffle falling on his face to do any real damage. "I'm fine," he easily waved off with a hand, "I've taken worse actually playing quidditch." After all, he had taken multiple bludgers during practices to know that they hurt a lot more than a quaffle falling a fall inches. Sure, the quaffle had hit him in the nose and a bludger had yet to do that, but it was still something he could manage without complaining about it. "I thought it was quite big of me to own up to my own failure," he did offer with a slight grin, "You don't agree?"

He only just managed to get the quaffle balanced back on his finger before Mania suddenly announced that it was the Slytherin team who had booked the pitch up. "Really? I could have tried to sneak in and distract Logan or something," not that 'bothering Logan' was really at the top of his list of things he needed to do, but the other boy annoyed him. As for avoiding homework, that was something he could relate to, the corner of his mouth lifting into a slight smirk, "I get it. Don't even want to think about the pile of homework back in my dorm room I haven't even thought about starting yet." He did try and get his homework done on time, but it wouldn't be the first time he submitted it a little late.

 

[Mania Athanasiou]

Mania was glad Miles wasn't too bothered by the hit on his nose and waved it off so easily. Not that she expected someone who played Quidditch to actually be a baby about getting hit by a quaffle like that, but it was polite to make sure hey were okay. This time Nia didn't suppress the laugh that came when the other Gryffindor said it was big of him to own up to his failure. "I guess when you put it that way, though I'd hardly call that a failure. If you were to give me that quaffle and I were to try and balance it on my finger?" She gestured to the quaffle, "Yeah, it wouldn't balance at all." Nia shook her head slightly with a smile.

"Gaia gave me a big talk abut how much fun it is being a keeper, Logan's playing a chaser too right? Well she's probably making his practice hell." For some reason everytime Nia spoke about the Slytherin boy near her sister it looked like Gaia had been fed ten lemons all at once so she doubted the girl was letting Logan score easily. "Oh I'm so glad you aren't telling me to go do my homework or something other responsible like that!" Mania let out a dramatic sigh. Not that she'd expected him to scold her or anything but the fact that he was more so relating was sort of validating for her too. "Yeah when I decided to treat the class selection like shopping trip and try a bit of whatever sounded exciting someone should have reminded me that the homework wouldn't be exciting..." She hadn't taken every subject available, but even then the amount of work made her shiver on a good day, lose sleep on a bad one.

 

[Miles Flynn]

Regardless of how Mania span it, Miles knew that he still needed a lot more practice to master his new party trick. At least, more practice so he didn't end up dropping the thing right on his face again. "Do you want to try it yourself?" He offered after a moment, raising a brow as he dropped the quaffle back into his hand before holding it out. "Balancing it isn't really as hard as you think it is. It's trying to spin it which is the hard part." Getting it to balance on your finger didn't really take too much effort and it had taken him far too long to learn how to balance it and spin it at the same time.

"Yeah, hope he's having a terrible time," he found himself muttering, which was honestly rather out of character. Miles didn't like wishing a bad time on anyone, he was a nice person, but Logan was just one of those people who rubbed him up the wrong way. For now though, he just wanted to push the annoying Slytherin out of his mind, instead focusing on the homework both he and Nia were trying to avoid. "Homework is the worst," he agreed with a small huff, "I feel like we shouldn't get as much of it as we do. There is barely any time to worry about homework on top of everything else. How do the Professors expect me to get in any quidditch practice so Gryffindor can win the cup again if they're keeping me pre-occupied with homework?"

 

[Mania Athanasiou]

Mania stared at the quaffle as Miles offered it to her, her stare a bit suspicious maybe. Even though the boy was making it sound so easy Nia knew it wasn't going to be that easy, surely not? Narrowing her eyes lightly she made up her mind. You only live once and all that jazz right? "You know what, sure." Mania gave a shrug before taking the quaffle. "If I fail miserably instantly you have to promise not to laugh at me, I don't think my ego can take that hit." She looked to Miles with a serious expression but the smile tugging at her lips, accompanied with the humorous tone of her voice was sign enough that she was joking.

Mania's brows shot up momentarily as Miles made a comment about hoping the Slytherin Chaser was having a terrible time. Deciding not to press on the topic further she gave a nod and a dramatic eyeroll in agreeance to Miles' comment about homework. "Right, I mean some of it I don't mind but like there's so much." It made her head ache just to think about it. "Yeah I don't know, I don't have all that extra with Quidditch on the side but even then its a lot." Yeah she couldn't even imagine having the extra pressure of being in the team on top of it all.

 

[Miles Flynn]

Now both his hands were free, Miles slouched back in his seat a little, putting both his palms either side of him so he could slouch a little more comfortably. "I won't laugh," he promised with an easy smile and a nod of his head, "Everyone has to start somewhere. You should have seen how bad I was at first. You'll get the hang of it, just takes a bit of practice. Never know, might end up being better than I am." It was actually pretty embarrassing how long it had taken him to at least manage to balance it on his finger for more than a second at a time. Now that part was something he didn't even really have to think about, and he only needed to pay attention when he was attempting to try and spin it as well.

He was somewhat pleased that Mania decided not to pick up on the fact he was wishing Logan the worst. That was just something he would rather not have to explain, and would prefer not to get into all the details about it right now. Instead, the smile was still there as he once more nodded his head in agreement with her words. "Honestly, I barely have any time to myself trying to find the time for everything," there was homework and quidditch and then there were his other extracurriculars like his and Theo's unofficial quidditch club. And that wasn't even including having the time to hang out with his friends as well. "They should just ditch homework, I don't think anyone actually learns anything from doing it anyway."

 

[Mania Athanasiou]

Mania smiled at Miles as he promised not to laugh at her. That was good. Then she fixed her eyes with the quaffle in her hands and hesitantly tried to place it on her index finger. The thing fell right off. Frowning she crouched down to pick it back up. "Yeah this'll take a second." She said nodding before trying again, narrowing her eyes and willing the quaffle to stay, but as she let go of it it fell. Taking a deep breath in she got the thing back up from the ground.

While she was still trying to get the ball to balance of her finger Nia still listened to Miles' words, nodding her agreement. "That's why I have decided to ditch all homework except the ones I truly care for," she said with a one sided shrug. "I want to have time for everything else too so I'm mainly focusing on Potions and DADA, Transfiguration if I'm feeling spicy." She explained. "I still feel guilty looking at the rest though." Nia added, glancing at miles with a small smile. "Honestly I second that, who even needs- OH I DID IT!" She was about to say who even needed Homework when she finally seemed to have managed to place the quaffle in an angle where it stayed on her finger on its own for a second, but then in her excitement it fell. "Oh." The Gryffindor stared down at the fallen soldier with a frown.