#chat:starter

James looked over at the person speaking near him and shook his head before butting in. “Look, it’s not that you’re wrong, exactly, you’re just extremely not correct and it is physically paining me to hear this.”

Malinda looked up from where she lounged with an arched brow at the person that was standing near her. “Do you really need to be doing that so close to me? It’s incredibly annoying,” she deadpanned, dropping her pen onto her notebook on the bench. Her patience was thin lately, and they weren’t helping the situation at all. 

Randall could hear shouting not too far off, and he headed toward the sound, a frown pulling at his lips. He couldn’t understand what they were yelling about though and looked at the person standing not far from him. “Do you know what this is all about?”

As Fiona wandered the streets of Hogsmeade, she wasn’t really paying any attention to the faces that passed her. Before, she’d engage in conversation with anyone, but now, she barely gave people nods and polite smiles. She was crashing on Chad’s couch again, thankful she had somewhere to sleep that wasn’t at home and in Ethelbert’s bed. Chad wasn’t much better, but at least he didn’t try anything funny after the first time. If anything, he’d grown protective over her, something she was very thankful for. 

Now that she’d graduated, Fiona was focusing on the next project: moving out of her apartment and into her future husband’s estate. It would make things a lot easier after the wedding, there would be a lot less work to do right after, and he was starting to get testy about the fact that she was reluctant to leave her apartment. Like he didn’t trust her to have a place to herself. He had no problems with her being in the town or spending extended periods there, as long as he knew where she was, and it wasn’t in her apartment where he couldn’t get to her. 

Randall sat on one of the benches, reading his book without a whole lot of interest. It just wasn’t distracting him the way he wanted it to. All he wanted was a nice and relaxing afternoon with his book, but every time someone passed him, he ended up more interested in what they were doing as they walked on. When the next person walked by, Randall put his book back in his bag and stood, throwing his bag across his body and jogging to catch up with them. “Hey, what are you up to? Mind a little company?” 

Malinda needed a break from everything. Reading, researching, brewing, everything. It was draining her more than she ever thought humanly possible. Even when she was reading for pleasure it wasn’t interesting anymore. So she dug deep into her trunk and pulled out the couple of joints she saved for when she was feeling entirely too stressed to do anything, let alone sleep, and started up toward the astronomy tower. Classes, had ended, and while wearing the face of the Head Girl, she could get away with being out and about after curfew. But even as she walked, she worried someone might call her out and try to send her back to the tower, so she tried to keep a low profile. That is, until she saw someone else breaking the rules. “Hey,” she stage-whispered, “wanna come with me for a smoke?” she asked, holding up the joints and gesturing toward the astronomy tower with her head. “Promise you won’t get a detention,” she added with a wink.

Since getting her job, Malinda had been spending a lot more time in the greenhouses and getting to know the plant and wildlife around the school. It was invigorating, really, to finally have something productive in her life. As she walked throughout the grounds picking out the thing she needed and crossing them off her list as she got them. Each item was put neatly in a separate place in her bag. She’d even gone out and bought a new bag for her job. As she headed out of the greenhouses and toward the forest, Malinda spotted a familiar face, causing her to pause and head toward them. “Hey, how are you? Enjoying the nice day?”