It's Clear We're Going To Get Along

Izzy was...bored. And God was that weird.

She never got bored. Hogwarts was full of amazing things and every time you thought you had seen everything it went ahead and surprised you. When her homework could no longer hold her attention she would sometimes go down to the lake and just sit in the grass. When she grew tired of that she would walk around the halls and see how lost she could get. Usually, getting lost means you find a room you never knew existed, which was good for entertainment.

But for whatever reason, Izzy just couldn't think of anything that she wanted to do. It was a nice day outside, which eliminated any desire to be indoors, but a surprisingly small amount of students had ventured out of their dorms. Not that Izzy would have talked to them if there had been more, but still the castle just seemed sluggish. So, she wandered down to the courtyard, her wand tucked into her jeans and her muggle novel trapped under her arm. Maybe she could distract herself there. A small tree stood in the corner of the large area, and she dropped down underneath it. She found that she had little desire to actually read, but she opened her book anyways and forced herself to focus on the printed words.

Darcy was introducing the kite to Hogwarts.

The seventeen year old felt a sense of childish wonder as she ran through the courtyard, the kite twisting and dipping and diving through the air. Darcy used to tie a kite to the mast of her father's ship when she was stuck in the crow's nest, or when she was up working on the rigging. So many of the crew would laugh and scoff and call her names, but she would catch them pausing from their gruelling work to look up and enjoy the sight of the splash of color against the neverending blue canvas that was the skies the sailors used to travel.

Darcy was getting much of the same reactions. Most people scoffed at her as she ran, short hair tussling in the wind as her muscular legs carried her quickly through crowds, around shrubs, and over obstacles. Names followed her but so many of the students were thrilled by the sight, pointing and watching the kite as it ascended into the skies, dancing above the heads of the students and the tops of the trees. She glanced forward, smiling widely. An attractive boy leaning against a tree tilted his head at her. Darcy smiled.

Suddenly, her foot caught someone's leg. She had run under a tree and the legs of someone sitting under the tree had tripped her. She fell painfully to the ground, dirt puffing into the air. She turned her head to see a brunette girl she knew to be a fellow Hufflepuff. "Well... hi."

Izzy had just gotten to the third chapter of her book when something crashed into her calves. She dropped her book from the sudden impact, and jerked her head up. A girl was lying on the ground in front of her, dust smeared on her shirt from her fall. She seemed vaguely familiar, but Izzy didn't really know her name.

"Uh, hi? Are you ok?" she asked. "That looked like it hurt."

The girl had something tangled around her wrist, a thin wire. Izzy followed it with her eyes, and her gaze rose until it was met with a bright flash of color.

"Is that a kite?" she asked, surprised that a muggle toy was being used Hogwarts.

This was just about her luck, so Darcy did not feel too horrid as she withdrew her feet from their perch against this stranger’s legs, before slowly pushing herself up. Plenty of people were laughing, but when you were known as ‘The Hogwarts Pirate’ taunts and teases became very easy to handle. Besides, Darcy had too many good things going for her to be too upset about the cruelty of her peer group. And furthermore, Darcy was just too strong to be taken down so easily. Their rude comments had long ago stopped being hurtful.

She brushed herself off and smiled at the girl. “I’ve suffered worse tumbles. Don’t you worry about me.” The girl looked up and pointed out Darcy’s kite, which had stuck itself in the tree. Of course. “Yeah, that’s a kite,” Darcy said, speaking on the exhale. She drew nearer the tree and jumped for the first limb, pulling herself up, before beginning to clamber for the next branch.

She glanced down at the girl on the ground. “Aren’t you a Hufflepuff?”

Izzy couldn't help the way her eyebrows raised in surprise. She wasn't really used to people recognizing her. Her brother hadn't been too popular when he was still in school, so there were no siblings of her brother's old friends to know her. She nodded her head hesitantly.

"Yeah, I'm a Sixth Year. My name's Izzy." She smiled, closing her book in her lap. The kite was still up in the air, but it was falling a little now that the girl wasn't running anymore. She looked at the girl a little harder. She seemed so familiar, but Izzy just couldn't come up with a name.

"I'm sorry, but do I know you? I feel like I've seen you before." Izzy bit her lip, a little worried that maybe she'd offend the girl by not knowing her name.