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Post by xenophilius lovegood on Jan 21, 2009 0:36:41 GMT -5
 _______________________________________________________________...[/size] It was yet another drizzly day. Storm clouds enveloped all of Hogwarts without a hope of sun for hours. The skies screamed in protest as it poured down buckets of water. No wonder the sun was hiding. Storms seemed to bring out many groans and protests from most students. They were forced indoors, and many did not like spending their time studying. Xenophilius Lovegood was quite the opposite. He always loved a good storm. It gave a person a reason to start fresh. It was like the rain washed away everything so that all that was left was a blank canvas. The eccentric Ravenclaw did not dwell on the bad weather. On the contrary, he was much too busy to be too concerned with the angry skies. His wild blond hair jostled as he went through the stone halls of the ancient school. His many necklace charms clinked and banged against one another as he jumoed from foot to foot, and his random outburst of humming were a cause of much alarm as he passed. Needless to say, many people would be able to hear him coming before they saw him. Hopping, skipping, and even jumping was how he was making his way throughout the school. He was taking particular care in where each of his shoeless feet made contact with the stone floor. His toes wiggled furiously as Xeno tried to catch himself after nearly meeting his ‘end’. ”Step on a crack,” Xeno’s voice rang rather highly, ” Break your mothers back.”He spun around on his bright green wool socks and then skipped himself ahead, taking particular care as he did so. He hummed his little tune without even noticing the amount of stares he was attracting from behind him. Ruefully, Xeno smiled at himself. He was happy that he had made it all the way from the kitchens to that particular point. True, it had taken half an afternoon, but what better way to spend a rainy day. Now that he knew about the crack business, his mother would not end up with a broken back. ”Step on a line,” he sang as he jumped four stone panels down one hall, ”Break your fathers spine...how very unkind to parents theses cracks and lines are.” |
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Post by .::johanna devarhoe on Jan 21, 2009 2:28:42 GMT -5
Today was a perfect day. On a day like this, Johanna did not need to shy away from windows to avoid burning her delicate snow-white skin. On a sunny day, the pale, slender young woman would wear long sleeved shirts, and shy away from large windows, doing her best to avoid the sunlight filtering in. On a clouded, rainy day, there was nothing there to avoid. She was free to examine the grounds, and commit to memory every bush and tree that her eyes could see. It was exactly what she wanted to do on a day like this, so instead of sitting in the stuffy hufflepuff common room, or the library, she sat on the sill of a wide-open window, staring out into the grounds below.
She wanted to remember every detail of this school. It had brought her everything she had ever wanted. Acceptance, magic, friends, and even a family that she loved, and they loved her. It was everything she needed, and she had Hogwarts to thank for it. It was no surprise that she loved this place. She never wanted to leave, but that was unavoidable. So instead of staying forever, she would need to remember everything about it. So she sat there, paying little attention to the occasional student passing. Losing track of how long she sat there, hardly moving, even when the occasional wind would blow the rain directly into her white face, causing her white hair to blow out behind her and tangle. Doing nothing more to deflect the water than to rapidly blink it out of her pale red eyes.
”Step on a crack, break your mothers back.”
She jumped, started, when a sudden, singing voice came from seemingly nowhere. She glanced both ways down the corridor. She could not yet see the source of the noise, but she could still hear them approaching around a corner not to far away. She had just turned back to the world outside her window, when the voice sounded again.
”Step on a line, break your fathers spine...how very unkind to parents theses cracks and lines are.”
She was not annoyed in the slightest by the interruption. She was actually quite amused. She remembered the old children's superstition from her orphanage years, and she couldn't help but laugh at the irony of being reminded of her life before Hogwarts, just when she was focusing in trying to remember the school that had completely changed that life. Instead of looking out the window now, Johanna watched the corner around which the voice seemed to be coming, with a humored expression on her face. She doubted that she knew the person, since she was sure she didn't know anyone who would still play that silly game, but she was curious to see who it was.
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Post by xenophilius lovegood on Jan 21, 2009 13:03:17 GMT -5
_______________________________________________________________... [/size] Xeno laughed at his statement and continued on his way. Students laughed as they passed him, but Xeno could see that they had not found out the horrible news. As he rounded the corner he twirled around, taking particular care in where and what he stepped on and faced the laughing students. ”What are you doing? Don’t you know that cracks and lines are a danger to parents everwhere!” he warned them, “Parents have back problems because their children were not good at crack avoidance!”The students looked at him like he was speaking some foreign tongue. They looked at one another, and they hurried away out of sight. It was the same look he got from that particular group that he got from every other person he tried to educate on matters he had discovered. Xeno would shrug it off, thinking their faces must be stuck that way or something. Xeno sighed, not knowing if they would take this new information seriously enough. He just hoped that he hadn’t stepped on enough cracks in his sixteen years to do any serious damage to his mother and father. He hummed the new tune under his breath as he elaborately jumped from square to square, using only one foot. His book bag seemed to weigh him down, but he tried to fight through it all. His attire chattered more than he did as he moved across the floor. The thundering rain thrashed against the stone, but it seemed to sooth Xeno’s worries of cracks and lines for some odd reason. He held onto a small blue book his mother had just sent him that morning. She always found the most wonderous things in her spare time. It was a good thing she had sent him this book, or else he may not have ever known about the cracks and lines rule. He opened ’The Real Mother Goose’ book and flipped to the particular page he had found the rule on. Making sure it was right, he tapped the page and clasped it shut. It was then as Xeno tried to shove the book into his already heavy and overstuffed book bag that he turned his head to see a girl sitting by a window. Her skin was surprisingly paler than his. She reminded Xeno of the delicate flowers his mother always picked in the summer. He looked at her with a glazed over expression. His head was tilted slightly to the left as he stood there on one foot. He wondered if she had been informed on the new crack and line rule. He shrugged it off and continued to hop to the next block of stone. “Sticks and stones, now cracks and lines,” he muttered, ”And I thought I only had to worry about nargles.” |
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Post by .::johanna devarhoe on Jan 23, 2009 18:21:32 GMT -5
The boy that Johanna had heard singing through the corridor skipped and jumped around the corner nearest to her, seemingly oblivious to the stares he was getting from the students shying away to their destinations. He truely seemed to believe the words he was saying. Or perhaps he was just in a particularly childish mood. She sometimes got that way herself. She usually kept it quiet though. Sticking to acting like a child in her own commonroom, or with Alan, her brother. She had never seen anyone running through the hallways in such a way, and wondered if maybe the young man considered this to be normal behavior.
”What are you doing? Don’t you know that cracks and lines are a danger to parents everwhere! Parents have back problems because their children were not good at crack avoidance!”
Johanna had only heard this childrens poem a few times. Mostly from children who were new to the orphanage, old enough to remember these rhymes. The other children didn't bother much with this one. What parents did they have to worry about? It was just them and the nuns. Johanna had always found great amusement in avoiding cracks. What if she did have a mother out there somewhere? She had grown out of it soon enough though. well before she had started at Hogwarts.
She saw the boy looking in her direction and quickly looked away, back out of the window. She didn't want to seem rude for staring, even though so many of the other students were making their glances and stares obvious. She made a point of keeping her attention out of the window, even though she could still feel his eyes on her. Three bushes in a row, approximately ten feet from the lake, followed by a young tree.
“Sticks and stones, now cracks and lines, And I thought I only had to worry about nargles.”
Johanna chuckled again, and turned away from the window again. He was no longer looking at her. Why bother trying to avoid stariing when no one else was. Of course no one else seemed to be staring because they were genuinely interested in what he was saying. They all seemed to be making fun on him with their glances.
"It's a good thing words don't hurt," she said softly, glancing after the boy. "'Else we'd all be in a world of trouble." Johanna immediately started blushing. How could she have been idiot enough to say such a thing. Of course she didn't believe the nonsense about cracks and lines, but sticks and stones rang true enough. She remembered that one clearly. The taunting ring in the other childrens voices. And of course, when she would say it, all they would do was laugh, like words really could hurt her after all. But they were all somehow protected from the effect.
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Post by xenophilius lovegood on Jan 23, 2009 23:21:42 GMT -5
_______________________________________________________________... [/size] Soft words were heard by Xeno’s small ears as he continued on his way. It didn’t so much startle him as it did surprise him. He spun himself around rather awkwardly, nearly falling face first onto the stone floor. Xeno was able to catch himself, and again keep his shoeless feet from touching the lines on the floor. "It's a good thing words don't hurt, 'Else we'd all be in a world of trouble."Xeno saw the pale girl’s cheeks go crimson. He stared at her for a moment, not saying a word. Her voice was soft and quiet that it could really barely be heard over the weathering winds but somehow what she had said held its own against the pounding rain and wind. Xeno smiled one of his crooked smiles. His glazed over expression and wild blond hair stuck out in more ways than one. ”Oh, I don’t know about that.” he mused as he hopped his way over to the girl, ”I find words to be a very powerful force, what we call each other ultimately becomes what we think of each other. Besides, if no one cares, why do we listen to one another in the first place?”Xeno now stood in front of the girl. The rain thrashed against the window pane in clear view. His glazed over stare penitrated the window as he watched the violetn water droplets throw themselves against the glass. He almost got distracted in their fierce dance. Shaking his head rather wildly, Xeno began to shift his weight. His bag made him stand slightly off to one side as the weight was almost too much for the slight sixth year. The small blue book that his mother had sent him was popping out from the top of his bag. ”You like looking at the rain?” he observed with a questionable tone in his voice. Shifting his weight carefully and slowly, Xeno concentrated as much as a person like him could. He did not want to wreck his mother’s back and father’s spine any more than he already had. As he shifted stances, the small book fell out if his tan shoulder bag and onto the ground, right on a line. Xeno’s wild blue eyes grew wide as he looked at the book. Bullocks. He had spent the better part of the day trying to rid himself of stepping on lines and cracks and then his own possessions were working against him. It must have been the Nargles. |
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Post by .::johanna devarhoe on Jan 24, 2009 9:32:00 GMT -5
Johanna's cheeks regained their palor as the stange boy stared at her, like he was trying to figure out what she had just said. She stared back, flecks of violet showing through her dull red eyes, like there was pigment in there somewhere afterall, trying to find a way out. It was silent for a few moments, aside from the wind and rain thrashing outside, which was now splashing on her back and side like waves. The boy, approaching her now, was the one that brok the silence, after only a few second delay, that seemed like longer after such a simple comment.
”Oh, I don’t know about that. I find words to be a very powerful force, what we call each other ultimately becomes what we think of each other. Besides, if no one cares, why do we listen to one another in the first place?”
Johanna really did have to think about what he was saying. She understood what he meant, but still didn't quite grasp what he was actually saying. It was like a puzzle with a picture on the box, where you knew what it would look like in the end, but even though there were only nine pieces it was confusing all broken up. "I suppose," she mused softly, "if someone did want to hurt you with their words, they really could." She glanced out of the window again, staring out at the lake, which was a swirling mass of water in this weather. She wanted to remember that most of all. "Listen to me going on. I hope I'm not bringing you down. You seemed so cheerful." She turned back to him, smiling kindly, and noticed that he seemed to be having trouble keeping balance. She glanced down at his feet, and giggles a small, girly laugh at the sight of his bright socks, and lack of shoes.
”You like looking at the rain?”
The spontaneous question almost startled Jo. She lifted her gaze back to his face quickly, then turned her head quickly to the grounds. "I suppose you could say that," she said, turning back to him again, "I don't have to hide from the rain like I do when the sun is out. I'm free to sit here and stare out into the grounds for as long as I want. I'm hoping to memorize it be the end of next year." She gave an embarrased laugh. "I'll need a lot of rainy day's for that though."
She instinctively put her hand out for his bright blue book as she saw it slipping out of his bag, but was unable to reach it. She lowered herself from the windowsill she was sitting on, careful not to slip in the puddle that was formed at the base of the wall, and picked up the book without even noticing where it had landed, aside from noticing that it was lucky enough to have landed on a dry section of floor. Cracks and lines in the stones had stopped bothering Johanna a long time ago, and she didn't look at where her feet were either, failinf to notice that one of her shoes was rested firmly on top of a crack in the floor. She looked at the title of the book before handing it back to him.
"I remember those stories. I read them when I was small. I was the only child in-" she paused, and changed what she was about to say, "where I grew up, who liked to read. Do you always go without shoes?" She had asked the question without any intention of sounding rude, but hadn't been able to pull it off. To her, it sounded judgemental, which caused her to blush once more at something silly that she had said.
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Post by xenophilius lovegood on Feb 8, 2009 0:06:58 GMT -5
_______________________________________________________________... [/size] "I suppose,if someone did want to hurt you with their words, they really could. Listen to me going on. I hope I'm not bringing you down. You seemed so cheerful."Xeno’s messy hair shook in time to his head. His many charms and chains jingled with each movement, which made a small crooked smile form in the corner of his mouth. It was all a bit off centered, but Xeno never seemed to notice, he was, afterall, a bit off centered himself. Xenophilius looked up and down with his wild eyes, ”Bringing me down? Oh no, I am still standing upright. I don’t know if I could avoid the cracks and lines very well if I was down.” The rain still pounded and roared from outside, but Xeno didn’t seem to mind. He noticed that this Hufflepuff seemed somewhat entranced by the puddles. To Xeno, she seemed almost happy at the drizzly day. It was not very common to see someone welcome a horribly cold and rainy day with open arms. "I don't have to hide from the rain like I do when the sun is out. I'm free to sit here and stare out into the grounds for as long as I want. I'm hoping to memorize it be the end of next year. I'll need a lot of rainy days for that though."Xeno watched as the girl’s face turned to his, a bit of red formed in her pale cheeks as she seemed to realize she was still speaking, or realizing to whom she was speaking to. Xeno was quite intrigued by her story, and listened eagerly. He didn’t often have the luxury of conversation. He scratched his head, which still hung a bit off to the left. ”You hide from the sun?” he questioned. He did not find this weird. He found it quite insightful. ” You are lucky. Many people have to hide most of their life. Not just when the sun is out.”Xeno was so horrified that he had been that clumsy. He had dropped the book his mother had probably spent some time looking for and he had repaid her with dropping it on a crack no less. He hoped her back wasn’t already aching. He was in a bit of a dilemma. He stood rather awkwardly looking down at the little blue book. Then something quite unexpected happened, the Hufflepuff girl bent down and picked up the book, risking her own parents backs in the process. ”Thank you! he said brightly. "I remember those stories. I read them when I was small. I was the only child in-where I grew up, who liked to read. Do you always go without shoes?"”Oh you must have been able to warn all the children on your block about the cracks! I have been telling people, but they all seem a bit hard of hearing today. It must be the rain.” Xeno furrowed his brow and wiggled his socked feet. ” Ah my shoes,” he added, as if he had just noticed they were missing, ” They seem to be lost-actually I always seem to lose them when I come to Hogwarts. I think its the Nargles. They always get the better of my footwear.---“Xeno looked out the window as he strategically moved closer to the window, still avoiding the lines on the floor. ” I bet my shoe stories bore you.” he said with a bit of a highpitched laugh, ” Why are you sitting here just watching, when you could be out there...like you said, free.” |
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Post by .::johanna devarhoe on Feb 11, 2009 23:35:26 GMT -5
[Sorry, it's going to be short, I'm not sure how much time I have.]
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This was an odd one. He was charming in his own way, and definitely friendly, but he was one of the strangest people she had ever met. He took everything so literally. It was already turning out to be one of the strangest conversations she had ever had with anyone at this school. She was so used to the students just taking everything at face value and leaving it at that, but already she could tell that this young man looked into things further than that.
She listened to his comments about her not bringing him down, suppressing the urge to giggle at his response to what she had thought was a basic enough statement. She didn't want to ruin his day, to make him unhappy, but he seemed to think she meant down as it applied to gravity. As odd as this was, she enjoyed his outlook on things, but said no more on the subject. After her worry about bringing him down, she didn't want to make him feel like he misunderstood her, although he obviously had. His next comment made her feel somewhat uplifted, though she could not understand why.
”You hide from the sun? You are lucky. Many people have to hide most of their life. Not just when the sun is out.”
Perhaps he was right about her being lucky. She had never really thought about having to hide any other time, in any other way. She had always been very open about the type of person she was, her love of magic, both in the wizarding world, and what muggles considered magic to be. "I don't care to hide myself from others, either physically, or from their judgment. Let them think what they will. Sticks and stones, right?" She went back to the topic casually, as though her own UV sensitivity had never been what she had meant at all.
She was slightly surprised at the enthusiasm in his voice when he thanked her to handing him the book. "You're welcome," she said, somewhat embarrassed by his sudden outburst. She had been expected a casual 'thanks' at most.
”Oh you must have been able to warn all the children on your block about the cracks! I have been telling people, but they all seem a bit hard of hearing today. It must be the rain. Ah my shoes, They seem to be lost-actually I always seem to lose them when I come to Hogwarts. I think its the Nargles. They always get the better of my footwear.---“
"Sorry to hear about your shoes," she said kindly, "I could ask my brother to lend you a pair, but I doubt they would fit. He has very big feet. She intentionally said nothing about being able to tell the other children where she grew up about the lined and cracks. She in no way wanted to let someone she had just met know where she had grown up, or even have any more clues than she might have already dropped without knowing it.
” I bet my shoe stories bore you. Why are you sitting here just watching, when you could be out there...like you said, free.”
She thought about this for a moment. Why was she sitting in the window, instead of running around the grounds. She turned back to the window as she answered, slowly. "I don't know," she said honestly, then added, "I suppose it might be because this way, if I get sick, I can tell my brother it was the windows fault for being open. Now that you mention it, it would be nice to go outside.. I'm Johanna." She added her introduction as an afterthought, pulling it out of the blue. "Johanna Devarhoe."
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