One of the favourite things that the 12-year-old enjoyed doing was looking up at the clouds. He always found it rather fascinating all the different shapes that one could see in clouds. It was something the wizard in training could do where his fantasies could run wild, not that he didn’t let his overactive imagination run wild anyway. Cloud watching was certainly one way for the young lad to fire up the mind, his thoughts, his crazy ideas, his sense of adventure, wonder and awe. There was a simple joy to cloud watching Dominic found, it was fun, to him, to see patterns and shapes in the clouds. It was one of the rare occasions where the youngster was actually quiet and relatively calm as well.

Classes had not long finished, and Dominic was still in his school uniform. He lay with his back in the grass looking up at the crispy September sky above him. The little boy focused a bit on the clouds as they floated by. He saw a dragon that was breathing fire onto a….a…car with a person coming out of the car screaming. The Gryffindor frowned a bit, that was a bit much even by his standards. He needed to focus on something more positive. Trying again, the 2nd year looked at another cloud in the sky. It was…a…a pony jumping a…a…skipping rope with some of her friends. Maybe that was a bit too far in another direction; it was perhaps slightly too soppy for the blond lad.

Third time lucky he thought to himself. This time the imaginative boy saw a triceratops chatting to a creature that had a wibblesqurim, with a clown lying down next to them looking up at clouds, who himself was seeing a person playing a horn while petting a wolf. That was more like it. A small grin crept onto his face. This was why he enjoyed cloud watching so much; it was so entertaining. He wondered what the wibblesquirm and triceratops were talking about? Maybe they were discussing what the clown saw in the clouds, but it actually seemed more to be a discussion about something more mundane, like the weather. Oh well, they could all not be super interesting he supposed.

Another part of the sky looked like a fat duck…standing on a diving board while looking at a dog, who was lying on his back while breathing smoke from his mouth. Dominic sighed happily. Sometimes it was the simple things that gave him great pleasure.  

taste of freedom

You got me runnin' baby

wild at heart

Lyla was still upset. Mum still didn’t want her to come home, and she knew that internships had been suspended, but still. She wanted to go home. She wanted to see Delilah. She wanted to see Dad. And more than both of those things, she wanted to see Cal. This was the longest that she had been away from her brother since she was ten years old, and she didn’t like it. Even more so since he was sick. Or he had been sick. She didn’t think that there was any reason to think that that was something that was going to last forever, but this was her family, and she was worried. She knew that she had to be annoying Aunt Odelia at this point, but she just wanted updates. She wanted to know from someone that had seen them.

She wanted to know how Delilah, and Dad, and Owen, and Uncle Langdon were. She wanted to know how Grandmum was. She wanted to know how Mum was handling everything. And she wanted to know how Cal was. If she didn’t get to her brother soon she was going to snap. She was going to lose it even more than she had after they had lost to Hufflepuff last spring. And she had thought that she had gone a little crazy then. This was not something that Aunt Odelia’s tea could fix. Even if her aunt thought that she could fix anything with that stuff, not this. This was too much. It had been too long.

Lyla needed to see her family. She needed to see Mum, and Dad. She needed to see Anderson, and Delilah, and Owen. She needed Cal. She needed to know that her brother really was okay. Because something told her that he wasn’t. She just had this feeling. This feeling in the pit of her stomach that he needed her more than she needed to be in this castle. Getting back there, getting to them, was something that she wanted more than anything. There were rules for a reason, but Lyla thought that there were always ways around them. There were always loopholes, and she was going to find this one. She was going to find her way out of this castle. Around the rule that internships were suspended.

She was going to get out of here, and she was going to do it soon. She had to do it soon. She needed to go home. She needed to see all of them. She needed to hug them, and she needed to hear it from them. She needed Dad to hold her and tell her that they were going to be okay. She needed Mum to tell her that they were going to figure it out. They were the Graves. Things like this didn’t happen to them. They handled things. Mum handled things. She could handle this too? Right? Lyla had to hope that that was the case. That she was going to handle everything. That it was going to work out… It had to work out.

Rounds were taking her mind off of all of that. But she had ditched her partner for the afternoon, and she thought that they knew better than to try and tell her not to wander off. She had been biting people’s heads off for a week. She had taken points from a couple of first years that had been running in the halls early this morning. She could have told them to stop running, she could have just given them a warning, and told them to get to class. But she hadn’t. She had just taken five points each. And that had been that. She had even gone and told Professor Burke what she had done, and the woman had squeezed her arm, and promised her that things weren’t going to be like this forever.

Professor Burke knew Mum. They had been dormmates when they were here at Hogwarts, but Lyla didn’t know the witch. Not the way that she had known Aunt Rora. She missed her aunt now more than ever. She just wanted answers, or she wanted someone to lean on. And she didn’t want to keep bothering Aunt Odelia… She was wandering the grounds, making sure that no one was out here without a coat, or a sweater. She spotted a Gryffindor laying in the grass and headed that way. “Good afternoon…” her voice was soft, but she was still wary. What was he doing out here on his own?

@ dominic • 756 • lyla's outfit + prefect and captain badges

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

Dominic was very lost in his cloud watching activity that he did not notice when the older pupil approached him. So when the seventh year said good afternoon the second year got up with a start. It didn’t matter how softly she had spoken it, the lass had still managed to startle the boy. Not that he would hold that against her. Unless she was a Nimplepin, they always liked to surprise people before they started to eat them. He examined her carefully to see any of the signs that she was one, the tail, eyes before bright pink, having purple smoke shoot out of her ears. The older girl had none of these things so Dominic supposed that she was safe.

Then the little Gryffindor started to wonder if he was actually in any trouble?. Was it now illegal to go cloud watching? Sure there was a danger of accidentally attracting the detention of a tutan swarm, but the chances of those were so remote that he didn’t think it was worth bothering the school about. Besides, he was also quite sure that he had made that up. It was so hard to keep track of the creatures he made up and the ones that were really real in the magical world sometimes.

The girl did not seem cross with him, so he scrapped the idea that she might there to tell him off about something. Maybe she was going to tell him to move? Most older students seemed to believe that they owned the place and could boss the younger ones around. If she had come to boss him around he would stand up for him…he was a Gryffindor after all. He wasn’t going to pushed around. Especially by some girl!

That said, she didn’t look like she was about to try and kick him off either. She seemed like she was being nice? Maybe. ”You you made me me jump then” the youngster stuttered ”I I I thought you might have been a a a Nimplepin, but but I I realised that that you didn’t have bright pink hair and and and no purple smoke shooting out of of of your ears.” he said to her matter-of-factly. He gave her a small grin with a tiny glint of mischief in his eyes.

”I I am not in in trouble or or anything am I…?” he asked the older student. There was no real concern in his voice about being in trouble, at least not yet. He just sounded more curious if he was in trouble or not. … I I was just cloud watching it it it it can be so fun to to to see what the the clouds look like in in in the sky. I I I mean that there…” he pointed to a random cloud in the sky ”…likes like a a tree that that is is about to to be eaten by by a giant pig with antlers.” He looked around some more ”Oooh ooh oho and and that one looks like a person is about to to eat a a a mushroom that has a a some smoke coming out of of itt.” It was clear that he was starting to get very excited again ”ooooh and and and that cloud there is a a a book that is about to to be chopped by by a a an axe.” and was probably starting to talk too much because of it,

taste of freedom

You got me runnin' baby

wild at heart

This was not someplace that Lyla wanted to be trapped right now. She just wanted to go home. But Mum had forbidden it. And she knew that she couldn’t leave anyway. The school was on a different sort of lockdown. One that she was none too thrilled with, just the same as the last one. She hadn’t liked either of them, and she didn’t think that she was going to get any further trying to talk her way out of this one than she had the last one. Last time Aunt Rora had just died. She had wanted to be anywhere besides the school. Not when she had been turning corners and seeing her aunt there around every bend. Not when LJ had been home, and alone, and she couldn’t get to him.

It had been a mess back then, and this was another mess now. At least then she had had Cal. She hadn’t been entirely alone. Now she was alone. And she was trapped in this castle that reminded her of her aunt. This castle that had been the only place that she thought that her aunt had really been happy, nad Lyla hated it here. She hated all of the good memories that were associated with this place, that were tainted, from all of the pain that there was now on top of them. She knew that that wasn’t fair. She knew that it wasn’t Hogwarts fault. But she hated it just the same.

She hated being helpless. She hated being trapped here, when everyone that she loved was there. When everyone that she cared about was sick, or alone. Because Mum was alone. Dad and Cal were in the hospital and that meant that Mum was alone with Anderson, and Lyla just wanted to be there. She just wanted to help. She was half convinced that she shouldn’t have come back this year at all. Now she knew what LJ had felt like last year. Why he had hated it here so much. Why everything about this place was tainted, and nothing would ever be the same.

Last year had been different, for her. They were still together. It was being apart that was the worst part. Last year she had had LJ here with her, in Ravenclaw. And Cal had been downstairs in Slytherin. Even having Fitz around was like having another brother. They were together all of the time. The four of them. She had never really felt like she was too young. She was just one of them sometimes. And she didn’t have anybody now. She was all on her own. And she hated it. She hated all of this.

“I’m sorry.” Lyla wasn’t exceptionally good with kids. At least kids that weren’t Anderson. She could handle her brother, and she thought that she would learn with Cordelia. She wanted to learn, when her baby sister got here, how to help. But she didn’t think that she was all that good with older, younger, kids. Not ones that were already Hogwarts age. She could manage Carin, because if Vesper could handle Carin, then she could too. “I… Yeah, none of that.” Lyla didn’t really know what to think of this Gryffindor, but she was trying not to judge too much.

“You’re not in trouble. You’re not breaking any rules.” Unless he had been breaking rules, and she just didn’t see him doing it. But if she didn’t see it, she wasn’t going to go hunting it down. It wasn’t like she could really do anything other than take him to Professor Ndumiso. When he started to point out the clouds Lyla put her hand over her eyes and tipped her chin up to look at the sky. “I guess… I think I read somewhere that they all look different to everyone.”

@ dominic • 638 • lyla's outfit + prefect and captain badges

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

Dominic looked at the girl with some curiosity if he was honest he was a bit unusual for older students to approach younger ones unless the younger ones were doing something naughty or dangerous. As far as Dominic was aware he was not doing either Which might be seen as being a bit unusual for him to be honest. Especially those in different houses, and from the captain’s badge on her clothing she was a Ravenclaw. They were the most boring house in the Gryffindor’s opinion, so studious and concerned with their academic, no real sense of fun or adventure. Then again he had been told off before about being so judgemental towards houses based on stereotypes. He knew he should give his student a chance on her own merits.

The Gryffindor lad gave the Ravenclaw captain a weak smile when she apologised for making him jump.”it it it it is okay” he said, it didn’t really bother him that much if he was honest. Being made to jump could be fun sometimes, and it was not like she did it on purpose. ”It it it is probably best not to to to think about them. That is is is now the the the Nimplepins track you you down…” he gave a small but grave mod to the older girl like he was imparting some vital information.

It was a bit of a relief to find out that he was not in trouble. Dominic found himself getting into trouble on occasion. It was his due to a mixture of his hyperactivity, his own sense of adventure and his prankster nature. Still he had not been doing anything wrong and the 12-year-old was pretty sure that lazing around had not yet become a punishable offensive in the school which was sure that looking at the clouds was not a criminal offence too. The 2nd year looked interested when the young lady said that clouds look different to everyone. He never really thought about that, he just assumed that everyone saw the same thing ”Really?” he asked excitedly ”ooh ooh ooh oho then tell me what what you see?” The Gryffindor bounced up and down slightly, excited at the prospect of hearing what this girl thought the clouds looked like.