Somewhere by the Lake

LOL that's why I'm making her behave. She's still pulling faces at me.

Marlene snorts. "Well, least you'll always have a job - plenty of demand for healers, I bet." Marlene knows that a lot more people are going to die in the brewing war than can be saved, but she figures that if at least someone can be saved, well, lucky for them. This time, anyway. Marlene has seen it for herself; the kill shot itself is fast and clean and clinical, it's everything that comes before that causes so much pain and she wonders how many people who are saved sometimes wish they'd died. God she's depressingly jaded... "Have you always wanted that, or is just just 'cause of the war?"

Sidney thinks for a minute before she answers, "Well, I guess I have always wanted to, but I've never given much thought to it really until the war." Now that there were far worse things happening, of course there would need to be more healers. She didn't just want to heal because there's a war, she genuinley wanted to help others.

"Cool," Marlene says vaguely. "I thought about being an Auror because of the war, but whatever. Too much of a target," she mumbles. Marlene figures they're all close enough to death without sticking their necks out even further.

"Oh, I see," She says with a small nod. "Why did you decide you want to be a cursebreaker anyway?" She asks, putting her bookmark in her forgotten book and putting it down. When she came to think about it, Marlene wasn't so bad.

Marlene smirks slightly. "Seems like a bunch of cool shit to do," she says lightly. Besides, Marlene isn't as hard-nosed as she does her very best to have the world believe and she thinks that sort of job could still do the world some good.

"Oh, ok, cool." She said and reopened her book and started to read again, as the conversation had worn out. Again, she hoped that Marlene didn't think she was being rude or anything, it's just, she wasn't that good at making conversation, unless there was something that she could build on from. So, in the times when she can't, she does something to occupy herself and maybe the other person is a conversation maker and they can talk because Sidney feels like more of a listener.

Mya is now trying to eat a Frosty Fruit, and Marlene isn't a conversation starter either, so she's gonna bail now.
Marlene watches Sidney open her book again and figures that the conversation is done. She doesn't mind, she simply shrugs and exhales a cloud of cigarette smoke. "Seeya," she says, and wanders off down the shoreline.

Sidney looks up when Marlene leaves and says, "Bye." As she starts walking off someplace. She then puts her head back down and reads on for however long she decides, then goes back up to the castle when it starts to get cold.

Pansy wandered down to the lake, her bag stuffed with books and candy, as much as she could possibly fit of both. Draco was walking beside her, not looking too terribly pleased. "Draco, you know you've got to study charms no matter how much you hate it. You'll thank me when you see that glorious O on the top of your test after Flitwick hands them back." She laughed slightly, finding a spot for them to sit where the grass wasn't too terribly dry looking, so that it wouldn't be too itchy. She opened up her bag and pulled out her books and the bags of candy, spreading things out and opening to the first chapter they would need to learn.

Draco walked after her, wishing that she wasn't going to make him do this and trying to think up ways to get out of it. Max walked next to him and nudged the back of his knees. Draco sat next to her and pulled out his own books and a bar of bacon chocolate. He flopped back next to her and stared at her. "I don't need charms do I?" Max dropped down onto Draco's stomach and Draco let out an oof as the weight settled. "Damn Pans, how much are you feeding him."

Pansy turned to look at Draco as he laid down in the grass, shaking her head and smiling. "Yes, actually, you do. It's not nearly as pointless as you make it out to be." She ruffled Max's ears and pushed him off Draco's stomach, the black dog getting up and running in a circle around them before he flopped down on the ground and rolled around for a while. "I feed him enough. He's just going to be a big dog, is all. You have seen the size of his paws, right?" She grabbed his book, which she had shoved into her bag, and dropped it onto his stomach before she turned over and laid down next to him on her stomach, propped up on her elbows and looking at her open book. "Now, we've got to start at chapter 23. That's after 22, but if you see 24, you went too far."

Draco narrowed his eyes at her and picked up the book and rolled over so he was next to her and flipped through the book. "I'm so glad I have you here to count for me, and I do know how big he is. I'm still surprised he didn't spend all of his time as a puppy tripping over himself." Max walked back over and flopped down in front of them, messing around and chewing on some of the grass. "Ugh alright so what was this chapter about?"

Pansy smirked to herself as he joined her and opened his book. She watched as Max tore up mouthfuls of grass, chewing up some of it and spitting out the rest, sticking his tongue out at strange angles and curling up his lips as he excitedly turned his head all around and continued to occasionally roll over on his back and wriggle in the longish grass. "I think he's a little excited to get outside with us again." She laughed, then turned to look at Draco when he finally arrived at the correct page. "What, I counted for you, do you need me to read for you too?"

Draco nodded and laughed, "I think he must be." When she asked if he needed her to read for him he put his head down on the book and pouted at her. "Please, can you? It's so boring Pans." He really did hate charms. It was the only class where no matter what he could never find any real motivation to study. He had to admit though that at least the thick book made a decent pillow.

"Draco..." Pansy pouted right back at him. "You would never pass this class without me. You definitely owe me one." She sighed and looked at her book, and started to read a bit of the chapter to him, explaining it and giving examples and pronouncing the correct way to say the charms and showing him how you ought to flourish your wand with the incantation. It was good review for her as well, because you had to understand it yourself in order to teach it to someone else. "Get it?"

Draco watched her, deciding that of all the ways to learn charms this had to be the best, not that that really said much. When she asked if he understood he nodded. "Yeah, I get it but that doesn't make it interesting or something I want to work on." He reached out and tugged on Max's tail until the big dog turned around then let go and watched him start to try to bite his own tail. "I just want to read my potions book, is that too much to ask for?" As he spoke his hand slid in the direction of his own bag, snaking through the grass so his fingers could wrap around the spine of his new book.

Pansy sighed in mild frustration, turning away from him to read her book quietly. That is, until he decided to switch to reading potions. She waited until he had the book in his hands and then took it from him. "It is too much to ask for. If I can't just read astronomy instead, you can't just read potions instead. Come on, Draco. You know your father's watching your grades closer now. You've got to do well." She hid the book away, sitting up a bit so that she could put it on the ground and lay on it. "Charms. We've got to do charms at least for a little while."

Draco sighed and flipped through the charms book, skimming sections of it. He knew she was right but that didn't mean he was going to enjoy it. He could still see the corner of his book under her and debated for a moment whether or not a tickle attack would get him the book back but more likely than not all it would achieve would be a smack with the book. Stopping on a page he turned to her and nudged the book at her, "What exactly is that wand movement there?"

Pansy kept reading where she was, glad he had gotten back to work. It is a very good thing he didn't try for a tickle fight, as getting hit with the book would be exactly what he would get out of it. She looked up when he pushed his book toward her, looking over at the page he was on. "Oh, that's just," she attempted to do it in the position she was in, but found it quite difficult. She sat up, sure to grab his potions book and hide it behind her again, and pulled out her wand, showing him the motion that accompanied the incantation on the page he was looking at. "Like that." She tugged on his arm to get him to sit up too. "Try it, Flitwick has the practical portion on this test you know, and we have to be able to show him the movements."

Draco watched and she put the book behind her and groaned and sat up, pulling out his wand. He had to admit it had been hard not to smile a little when she pulled him up, glad that she was initiating small moments of contact again. Fortunately, or unfortunately, charms was just the thing required to put a scowl back on his face again. "Did he really? Shit." He held up his wand and watched as she slowly showed him how it worked, copying her motions but not casting the spell. "Was that okay?"

"Yes, he does, weren't you - well, no, of course you weren't listening." Pansy sighed and smiled a little at him, watching as he tried the motion. "Er, not quite." She showed him again, but realized that if she was facing him, he was sort of seeing it in reverse. She turned around a little to sit beside him, quite close so that he could see the motion better. She lifted her arm and showed him once more. "Try it again. Like this." She traced out the shape again before putting her hands back in her lap and watching him.

Draco smirked when she said he wasn't listening but frowned when he didn't do it quite right. He looked over her shoulder as she sat next to him, trying to figure out what it should look like. "Oh... okay so like this?" He moved his wand again, trying to work the silly little flicks and swirls slowly and carefully. He furrowed his brow in concentration, "Wait that was wrong." He tried again, biting his lip slightly. "There. I think that was bit better. What am I doing wrong?"

Pansy watched him, chewing on her lip as he went through it a few times, trying to get it right. "A bit, but right in the middle, when you, uh..." She couldn't find a good way to describe it, so she cautiously reached over and wrapped her fingers around his wrist, moving his hand slowly. "Like this. And when you get here, you go up and then do the swirl, not at the same time. You've got to keep the swirl bit even, or you'll end up shooting the spell off into the sky and that's not very useful, is it?" She laughed a little, letting go of his wrist and returning her hand to her lap. "Think you've got it now?"

Draco payed close attention as she moved his wrist, showing him exactly when to start the flicks. He chuckled when she let go and tried it again himself. "I think I've got it. Thanks Pans." He smiled at her and pulled the book over in front of them, flicking on a couple of pages and occasionally waving his wand to test out the motions. He laughed as Max looked up and his eyes followed Draco's wand. With a shake of his head Draco transfigured some of the grass into a chew toy for him and tossed it past the big black dog sending him running across the grounds in pursuit.

Pansy smiled satisfactorily as he performed the motion correctly, reaching for her own book and putting it in her lap, just staying where she was sitting because she was too lazy to move. Yep, that was the reason. Not because she liked sitting so close to Draco again, nope, not that at all. She laughed when Max twisted crazily and bolted off after the toy Draco threw. "You know you're going to have to do that until your arm falls off now. That dog is tireless with chasing things." As if on cue, he came bounding back up to them, thundering to a stop and dropping the toy into Draco's lap, leaping back and forth and barking, begging him to throw it again. "Told you."