The Gazebo

{Going to bed would probably be a good idea. Good night and sleep well!}

Hermione laughs; it's amazing how conversations will evolve like that. "It is nice," Hermione says. "It gives me hope that someday things will change and that there are others like me who feel the same way." She ponders Professor Flitwick's possible reactions. "Actually, he'd probably be one of the professors most interested in something like that. Not sure how he'd grade it though." Hermione imagines that Professor McGonagall, despite her strict appearance, would greatly approve of that essay; maybe she'd show it to her later.

Lily chews her lip and mulls it over. "Maybe one day. And in the meantime I guess we soldier on," she shrugs. Giving up and suffering in silence, or letting other innocent people suffer for something not their fault or even in their control, is not an option. She smiles. "Flitwick would find some way to make it count if you put in a paper like that to him. Once I jinxed a Slytherin in the halls for picking on some first years and somehow I ended up with a box of Ice Mice out of it all. I told him I knew there was a reason his class was one of my favourites," she says, grinning.

"Sounds like Professor Flitwick," Hermione says with a smile. "Maybe I'll ask him if he'd be interesting in reading that paper." She stops speaking suddenly, looking slightly to the corner like she does when she's coming upon new knowledge. "I could have it published in an academic journal. Or even one of the newspapers. Get the word out to others." Hermione begins to jot down ideas for this paper, her normally neat handwriting getting more cramped and illegible.

"That would be neat, I'm sure he would love to read it," Lily says, smiling because she is passionate about blood politics and any step towards making the world a better, safer, more equal place excites her. Her smile dims, though, as Hermione starts to scribble along with her chatter about getting her piece published; she is more than just a little bitter about how slim the chances of Hermione having an essay that points out the fundamental failings of magical society published in any of the serious or more reputed papers and journals. Some of the enthusiasm fades from her voice. "Yeah. Tell you what, the day it comes out, I'll buy you a butterbeer, alright?"

Hermione notices the disappointment in Lily's voice and chooses to ignore it. In the back of her, Hermione knows that this essay will probably never get published, just as she knows the majority of the student body will never support SPEW. But Hermione refuses to give up hope, and decides to put all her passion in this essay. The worst thing that could happen is that she could fail, and while failure terrifies her, not having the chance to frightens her even more. "I'll buy everyone a butterbeer if it gets published," Hermione says with a laugh. "I'm sure the Quibbler would take. Not the more reputable source, but it tells the truth more often than most."

"Either way, I'll be there," Lily promises. She really would be thrilled for Hermione (and herself, and all other Muggleborns to be honest) if it was published. Her brow furrows. "The Quibbler? I don't think I've heard of that one," she admits. Short!post is short.

Luna looked around the grounds, smiling and loving the smell of the fresh air, as she wandered down to the gazebo. When she got there, she sat down on one of the benches and pulled her legs up under her criss-cross applesauce style. Her eyes wandered again as she adjusted her robes and she noticed a little bird hopping along the wall next to her so she smiled at it. "Hello there, little bird," she said quietly and proceeded to make conversation with it, stopping every now and then to hear it's little chirps. We wouldn't want it to feel unheard.

Dean had been meaning to escape the castle for a while now. People weren't lying when they said the seventh year work was tough. The first couple weeks at Hogwarts have been hard to adjust to the new workload and trying to balance his social life as well. He finally found time to go explore the grounds, like he had always liked doing. He spotted a gazebo that was usually a good place to get some quite time, and maybe get a few sketches in of the lake. So, Dean made his way over and saw the gazebo was already occupied. He was about to turn around when he saw the very familiar head of long blonde hair and smiled to himself. He had a sort of fondness for the girl that he didn't really understand, but she was good company so he kept on walking towards her. Then he heard that Luna was in fact having a conversation with a bird and his smile seemed to grow a bit wider. He cleared his throat lightly and smiled, "hey Luna. Am I interrupting?"

As Luna looked up from her little companion to see who had shown up, the bird flew away. "Oh," she said, waving to the bird. Then she turned back around. "Oh, hello, Dean," she said, giving him a small but sincere smile. "Are you having a nice day out of the castle? I expect it's a nice break from the amount of work you must be doing lately. From what I've heard, 7th years have quite a bit," she said.

Dean kept smiling and went and sat across from where Luna was sitting. "Oh yes! This is the first break I've had since being back. I could never imagine the workload being this hard. How are you? Did you have a nice holiday? Sorry for scaring your little friend away." He knew most people would probably make fun of her for talking to a bird, but he knew that was just how Luna was and he found it pretty endearing.

Luna wants Dean to know that it's nice that he's so non-judgemental. "That's alright," she said. "We hadn't quite finished, but he can catch up with me later. Or maybe he'll find an even better listener. I've been a little distracted. I have much more homework this year than I ever have though I suppose that's because the OWLs are this year," she said, searching Dean's face- not for anything in particular, but she liked to really look at her friends. Especially since that category tended to be rather small. "Ah. And my holidays were good. As soon as I arrived home, Father was upon me talking about some excursion he was planning, but we ended up just staying close to home since he had a lot of work to do with the Quibbler," she told Dean. "I didn't mind though. It gave me a lot of time to paint, which was nice," she added. "How was your summer holiday?"

Dean listened as Luna spoke with a small smile on his lips. It was always fun to have a conversation with Luna. "Oh, what kind of excursion? That sounds like it could be fun! But time at home is always nice too. My holiday was great! I went on this big camping trip with one of my little sisters . It was great, just the two of us and nature. Well, I turned seventeen over the summer so that was fun, getting to do magic without getting in trouble. I didn't know you painted! I actually really like drawing. I carry a sketch pad with me wherever I go, just in case."

"Oh," Luna smiled. "It sounds like your vacation was quite fun. I imagine the freedom of being of legal age is quite exhilarating," she said, tipping her head to the side as she thought about how life might be different once she turned seventeen. It took her a moment to follow the thought until it passed. Then she blinked a bit and looked up at Dean. "Oh." She glanced down, verifying that he did indeed have his sketchbook, and smiled back up at him. "That's a good idea. And yes. I love painting. It's my favourite medium."

Dean also looked down at his ever present sketchpad when Luna did, smiling a little. "I would love to see your work sometime. If you don't mind of course. I mean, I know sometimes it can be a little personal or whatever and I would totally understand if you didn't normally let people see them because I do that sometimes if it's like, really close to my heart." He took a deep breath and ducked his head, embarrassed by his really random rambling. What the heck was wrong with him? Dean cleared his throat and looked back up, trying to appear normal.

Luna watched Dean intently as he ducked his head after his little ramble. "You know, Dean, I think," she brought a hand to her chin and tilted her head a bit as she spoke, looking a bit distant, "that rambling can be a very helpful thing. It makes us feel more comfortable saying something uncomfortable or personal," she said. Then she focused back on him and dropped her hand into her lap. "Also, I wouldn't mind showing you some of my paintings. Most of them are at my home, but I did bring a few to work on," she told him. "If you're comfortable with it, I'd like to see some of your drawings."

Dean smiled a bit gratefully, glad that Luna couldn't see how hot his face had become. "I suppose you're right. And of course you can see some!" He stood and went to sit next to Luna, opening his sketchpad as he went. He handed her the pad, so she could flip through at her own pace. "I do mostly landscapes, but there's a few of my sisters in there." And usually Dean would make my post example pictures, but I'm lazy so imagine some really good drawings of trees and stuff.

[Sorry! I have to head off to bed. Glee has completely drained me. I will reply as soon as I wake up tomorrow! Night! Love you!!]

Luna took the pad from him, and resting it on her legs, she started flipping through it, taking care not to smudge the pencil with her fingers. She flipped through each page, pausing to contemplate the drawing every time before going on, and finally reached the start of the pages that had yet to be filled. As she shut the book, she looked up at Dean. "You are quite skilled. I think, even if you hadn't told me, that I could recognise your sisters. You portray them well," she said, giving him another smile. "I really admire what you can do with a pencil. I love to see sketches like this, but it's not my personal strong suit. Painting is much more-" she paused, searching for the right descriptor, "There's more of a flow to painting for me," she said finally.

[Okay. I would have been getting off (or trying to) in the near future anyway. Goodnight. I love you.]

Dean studied Luna as she looked through his sketches. He always got a little nervous when people looked at his work, but this was Luna and he knew she wouldn't judge him. While she flipped through the pages, Dean couldn't help but notice how perfect the sun was streaming through the gazebo, and how it illuminated Luna's hair. He had to shake his head to get rid of those thoughts, and had to tell himself it was from an artists perspective and nothing else. Then he smiled as Luna finished looking at all the pages. "Well thank you. It means a lot to hear that you like my drawings. I think I can draw my sisters better than anyone else. I wish they could come here. I told them I would draw every inch of Hogwarts this year, so they could see it." He gave a little chuckle, thinking he'd have to learn to go without sleep if he wanted to do that and keep up with his schoolwork as well. "I've heard painters saw that before. I've never actually tried painting before. Maybe you can show me sometime?" He desperately tried not to look too hopeful.

[Sorry about him, he's hard to control....]

[It's okay. Luna thinks it's nice. She's just happy to have a friend.]

At Dean's mention of drawing all of Hogwarts, Luna sat up just a bit straighter. "Drawing all of Hogwarts?" she repeated. "That would be a really neat project. I'd love to help you with it," she said with complete sincerity. "I suppose you would hear that from a lot of painters. Especially if that's their preferred medium," she agreed. "I couldn't really teach you anything though. It just paint what feels right. It's a very intuitive thing for me," she told him. "If you want to play around with some paints together, though, that would be fun," she added.

[Sooo I made a typo in my post. I meant to type 'say' not 'saw' >.> So now I'm confused on how to respond. <.<]

[Woopsies. I'll just go edit my post and we'll be all better. (:]

[We are all fixed!]

[hehe. sorry for making things all confusing :/]

Dean brightened up. "You'd really help? That would be amazing! I'm sure there are parts of the castle I have never even been to. Me and Seamus used to like going exploring, but this place is huge! And playing around with paints sounds like it could be a lot of fun. I know what you mean about doing what feels right. I do that sometimes when I sketch. I've taught my sisters to draw, sort of, I could always give you some pointers sometime too, if you'd like."

Jenna wandered around the grounds on this beautiful fall day. She was happy, it was still warm, but not hot, and the leaves were just starting to change. She came across a gazebo on the grounds that she had somehow failed to see in the year or so that she'd been at Hogwarts. Weird. But, it had a pretty view of the lake, and a bench so she went inside (if it can be called inside since it's a gazebo) and sat down, looking at the giant squid being funny, and awesome.

Miela was slinking around the school grounds when she noticed a familiar red-head sitting in the Gazebo. Walking up to the girl, Miela confirmed it was Jenna [Too many red-heads around lol] and she proceeded to wave and said "Hey Jenna! Beautiful day out here, it's a wonder why anyone would stay in the castle on a day like this."