Time heals all.. Maybe not

Hogsmeade weekends.

Those were days when the students were allowed to go down to Hogsmeade and visit all the shops with their friends, or alone, and get all the sweets they could carry or go exploring. Anabelle Mulciber, or Hit, was never a huge fan of the weekends, solely because she hardly ever had anyone to go anywhere with anymore. Ryo was always busy with work and Sayuri was away on trips most of the time now. The only two people she called her friends were too busy for her now, and it was to be expected. She was only sixteen after all, much younger than the two of them, and she often wondered why they still even bothered with her the times they were actually able to. Ryo was twenty-five and honestly, the only reason she knew him was because of twenty year old Sayuri. They were siblings, Vampires at that, and that explained why she'd become attracted to them but it didn't explain why they kept a simple human like her around.

It probably wasn't that they just, kept her around, Ryo had become more like an older brother than her own brother and Sayuri the same. They were more like family than her own family and a lot of the time she found herself wishing that she could be one of them, vampire and all, it would make it easier to separate herself from her family that way, they wouldn't want a tainted daughter, who was already the outcast of the family. Still, she knew it wouldn't happen because both Ryo and Sayuri felt a strong sense of protection toward her and wanted to keep her safe, despite their constant bickering. The thought made Hit laugh, the siblings always bickered about something when she around and she always ended calming both sides down somehow.

Snapping back to reality, Hit noticed she had wandered off the path she had originally taken and she was headed toward the Shrieking Shack. That was fine with her, she had planned to go there later anyways. She frowned a bit though, as she had wanted to go to Honeydukes first to get some sweets. The Gryffindor wasn't a huge fan of sweets but there were times when she thought one or two, or seven, couldn't hurt. Shrugging, she decided that she would just get some on her way back when everyone was going to start heading back to the castle.

If she decided to go back. Last time she'd forgotten when she had to go back and she'd been able to sneak back in through a hidden path she'd found, so she wasn't too worried about missing everyone else. She was worried about her Head of House or the Prefects catching her, though it was a slight worry. A breeze of cold air blew in her direction, causing her messy hair to be blown back from where it was over her shoulders, and cascade down her back. As the Shack came into view, she broke into a light jog and entered through a broken window once she reached it.

"This is more like it." She said as she stepped inside, the floorboard creaking under her feet and she made her way to the second floor where she sat herself down next to a window and cautiously looked out at everyone below her, trying to be careful that no one noticed she was in there, but she doubted anyone would as hardly anyone else seemed to come close enough to really be able to tell anyone was inside.

Hogsmeade Weekends didn't really make sense to Nate. Maybe because he was always alone on those trips so it was rather boring for him - or maybe because he thought that encouraging students to waste their money on empty calories is quite silly. Either way, on those days, all he did was take stroll on the path.

But, he figured that it was a good place to think, about the present, the future and even believe it or not, his detestable past. For instance, when he was little, he read a saying in a old muggle book that he found in his father's library, that said, "Some people are like Slinkies . . . not really good for anything, but you still can't help but smile when you see one tumble down the stairs." After he let out that childish giggle he used to have, the first person that came to his mind was his mother. Almost every day after that, he hoped that she'd fall down the white ceramic stairs in the manor and break her ankle. He wanted his good-for-nothing mother to feel the same pain he did that even though may have not been apparent, lingered forever in his soul.

After thinking about his history, the rock that he'd been kicking for a big part of his walk, started to stray further and further away from him. Taking a deep inhale, he shook his head. Nate didn't want to let this ruin his day since after all, it ruined his childhood.

As he looked up, he realized that he was in front of the Shrieking Shack. Suddenly, the Ravenclaw in him started to pouring out. "The Shrieking Shack is an abandoned house in Hogsmeade. For many years, villagers thought it was haunted because they often heard screams coming from inside, and Albus Dumbledore encouraged the rumour, as he was the one who commissioned it, due to Remus Lupin's Lycanthropy." He thought to himself as he approached the creepy-looking structure.

The black roof and the orange-red brick walls seemed as if it would collapse any minute. This intrigued Nathan and he decided to find an entrance way in.

His dark brown eyes lit up as soon as he spotted the broken window. He carefully crept in, trying his hardest not the get cut by the broken glass. His lips curled into a smile as the floor creaked after each step he took. He enjoyed the dangerousness of the shack.

He felt almost as if there was someone there. A ghost? A spirit? He wasn't sure but he sensed a presence.

Nathaniel went up the staircase, taking on two steps instead of one, just in case it would crumple below him. As soon as he reached the second story, he saw a girl peering upon the window sill. At first, he could have sworn she was a lifeless specter but gladly, he finally recognized her from school. "Sorry. I didn't think anyone would be up here." He said through clenched teeth. Nate hated to apologize but he felt as if he was intruding.

She enjoyed the quiet that the Shrieking Shack provided, being able to clear her mind while still being able to hear the cheers, screams and even cries of students who were with friends, family and significant others. She thought it was funny, how Hogsmeade weekends could be fun or they could turn into something horrid. For example, she had seen a girl from her house, Erika was her name?, have her great day in Hogsmeade turned into one of the worst when she found her boyfriend lip locked with another girl who Hit thought looked familiar but she couldn't place her finger on who she was. It was likely that she wasn't from Gryffindor, otherwise Hit would have recognized her.

She liked being a spectator, watching how others went about their day, she was a people watcher. But what interested her more was when the people she was watching were muggles, though witches and wizards would have to do today since not many muggles lived in that area. The girl wished she could go out and about further, so she could observe the forbidden people that her father would pop a vein when screaming at her for being around them.

It was hard being a Pureblood with an extremist father. At least she wasn't the heir to her family, though she was only a year younger than her brother which meant she still had to act dignified in front of other families. Josiah and Naomi got away with things because they weren't the oldest and second oldest. She envied her younger siblings, wishing she could be one of the two of them. She wished she could switch places with one of them, if only for a day.

The hair that had been slung over her left side was suddenly shaken, moved to fall down her back once more as she shifted her gaze from the world outside the Shack to the world inside. A world that now had a new person. Hit felt her eyes narrow, though unintentionally, and she stared at the boy who had made a sudden appearance before her. She hadn't noticed him arrive at all and it seemed strange to her. Was she really that lost in her thoughts? She supposed so, if she hadn't even noticed someone else was present until he spoke.

She shrugged subconsciously answering, "Whatever. It's not like I'm the only one allowed to be here." As casually as possible before she turned her gaze back to the window and to everyone outside. She sighed, hoping her discomfort wasn't apparent. Though what she said was true, the Shack wasn't only hers, she had developed a strange attraction to the run down shack that made her uncomfortable when someone else was there while she was. She disliked sharing most things and this was one of them.

As the girl answered - to what seemed to him as very coldly - Nathaniel narrowed his dark brown eyes. He tried to match her tone but the Ravenclaw boy just ended up sounding upset, "I'm aware of that." That's when he completely regretted his apology. He figured that a girl like her didn't deserve the satisfaction of being right, but it was too late to take it back.

Nate looked around the shack and took a deep breath in. Obviously, because of the dust, he started to cough. "How unappealing..." He thought to himself as he started to walk around the dirty room. As soon as he spotted a sort of cashmere chair, filled with what he believe was an extremely small infestation of bundimun. His structured face began to scrunch up to show his disgust. Gladly, being the intellect that he is, he remembered the perfect spell. Nate reached for his wand but then remembered that he it restricted to use magic out of school.

To him, this was a rather foolish rule emplaced by the Ministry of Magic. What if he was in dire need of protection? Let's just say, a non-wizarding folk tried to mug him. Even though, his strength is quite present, he might not be able to protect himself.

Nate believes that he would be an excellent addition to the ministry. Only putting into place rules that actually make sense instead of ones that do more harm than good.

Anyways, he decided to stand up, looking out of the only other window in the room. He saw all the students entering and leaving honey dukes with smiles on their faces.

Sometimes, Nate wished that he was able to feel some sort of happiness. But for him, it always felt forced and fake.

We realized that if he let his guard down with this girl, he could feel some happiness by making a friend. "It's strangely calming to be in this abandoned house. Isn't it?" He lied to himself but the girl seemed to enjoy it.

Normally, she wouldn't care if there were people going about their business while she was around there. Why would she? She was supposed to be the type of person who stuck to the background, who didn't like the spot light. That was true for the most part but there as conflict in that sometimes, especially when she made decisions like joining the Quidditch team for her house. But she didn't think that most people actually noticed that she was on the team, she didn't think she made that much of a difference though she did play rather well.

Something about that boy being there made her curious though. He didn't really strike her as the type to like being in places like the Shrieking Shack, but then again she didn't strike people as being one of those people either so she couldn't really judge. Curiosity made people do things they wouldn't normally do after all and she could probably bet and win that curiosity was the reason he had even approached the place.

Hit had been watching him from the corner of her eye, not wanting to move and make him aware that she was in fact watching. She felt herself make a face at his reaction to the chair he had set his gaze on, but she couldn't blame him. The Shack wasn't the cleanest place in the world, but that was to be expected, no one really lived in it. Curious students just liked to use it as a hang out but no one ever made any attempts to clean it or move anything around.

When he spoke to her she finally turned her head in his direction, a clearly unamused look on her face from the seemingly disgusted looks he'd been giving the Shack. "Yeah, I like being here for that reason, but it's not everyone's cup of tea. Which is fine, as long as they still respect it." She said, her voice low and soft. She sighed, running a hand through her hair and beginning to play with some loose strands of her hair that remained over her shoulder.

Nathan has never really noticed the girl at school before, almost as if she was invisible. It was strange because he was usually very observant. In fact, when he was a first year, he learnt everyone's name in his house in three days. After all, since he didn't have any friends, Nate did have a lot of time on his hands. Actually, it was almost a hobby of his, to know about others while he roamed, non-existant.

The Ravenclaw boy didn't want to make her uncomfortable by looking at her from the corner of his eyes, so he just peered out the window. But, when he first got there, her image was cemented into his brain. He just kept on visualizing her soft brown eyes and her long strawberry blonde hair. In a non-obvious way, the girl was quite attractive.

As she answered, Nate turned his head towards hers and in his nicest voice, said: "The mess bothered me at first, but I understand how people can get used to the..." He took a small inhale in, an unpleasing look appeared on his face, "...smell." His lips curled into a small smile, showing his teeth. Nate was trying to lighten the mood because she looked rather annoyed that he was here. Since his head was already turned, Nate's eyes went from the tip of her shoes, back to her face. For some reason, he liked to look at her as she seemed so peaceful.

After his stomach grumbled, he took out an apple and before taking a huge bite out of it, Nate turned it around in his fingers. Many say that he's has a sort of obsessive disorder, meaning that in this case, he picked his apples out with such care that they were basically perfect. He took out another one, polished it with his hanky and extended his arm, "Would you like one? They're delicious." He said as he took another giant bite.

A Gryffindor was usually all about being in the spotlight. It seemed to be something they thrived on, because of the attention it meant they would receive. They were the courageous, the brave, the heroes. It made sense for Hit to like being noticed by others.. Except she didn't. She hated it, and she always shied from the spotlight no matter what the circumstance. She felt it was trivial to fight for something or someone's attention and therefore she had no need to be in the spotlight.

Though she was a Chaser for her house's team, she rarely spoke about Quidditch, and didn't like talking to others about her position or any plays she made in previous matches. She'd kept her hand on her hair, entwining it in the strands of her hair, and she watched him as he spoke. He seemed about average to her, just a regular boy, but something about him peaked her curiosity. She couldn't place her finger on it, but there was something and she felt her eyes narrow as he made a face from inhaling the smell of the shack deeply.

Hit raised an eyebrow, narrowed eyes staring at the Ravenclaw. "You don't seem to actually enjoy being here." she stated simply, "So what made you come in here? Curiosity?" She thought his answer would probably be yes since everyone that wandered into the Shrieking Shack usually did so out of curiosity. She shook her head at his offer, moving her gaze to the apple outstretched toward her, "I'm sure they are but no thanks. I'm good." she lifted her hand in front of her to be between the apple and herself.

The Gryffindor shifted her position, sitting straight and pulling her legs to her chest so she could rest her arms on her knees, before placing her head down on her hands lightly. She felt a small smile tug at the corners of her mouth as she watched him eat the apple, he seemed content.. Maybe he wasn't all that bad