I'm not childish enough

[Beatrice Skye]

Beatrice was studying this period harded than the older students. She was holding a book the whole day, something that even the Fifth years didn't do. Sometimes Beatrice was thinking that when her Owls come she was going to know everything and she would be so bored because she wasn't going to have something to study. She knew some spells which wasn't for her class. But she enjoyed learning them. She couldn't wait a year to learn new things.

Beatrice was considered the biggest nerd in Ravenclaw. Actually the other houses called Ravenclaw the house of the Nerds. Giving labels wasn't an unusual phenomenom. The Ravenclaws were nerds, the Gryffindors were the adventurous, the Hufflepuff were the friendly and the Slytherins the populars. Beatrice was also a freak.

She knew that she was saying weird things the most of the time. And she was too mature for a girl of her age. She was also wearing a lot of colorfull ribbons in her hair which made her look even weirder.

Beatrice was really interested about poetry this time. Not muggle poetry, but poems wroten from wizards. They were much different from the usual muggle poems. Maybe because they had words like broomstick, spell and potion. Beatrice's love for poetry started when she started reading an old poetry book in her old house. There were only five or six books in her old home.

Beatrice was in a empty classroom and she was studying some spells that she was going to learn at her fourth grade. She was quite shy to practice them in the Common room. The other Ravenclaws weren't going to fool her. She was sure that the older one were going to help her. She just didn't want to seem that nerdy. The other second years were always looking staring at her when she was answering something that they haven't learned.

Ravenclaws loved helping others learn new things. But they also loved to be smarter than the others.

  

[Declan Wood]

With the stormy weather outside, Declan was cooped up inside. The staff and professors wouldn't allow him to step foot near one of the entrances (or exits, on this occasion) to the outdoors. He usually spent his time outside rough-housing and getting dirty... but now that he could not do those things, what was there to do? What would keep him busy? He could always study a voice in the back of the mind told him, but that thought was dismissed immediately. Studying was for ninnies. Besides, whenever he tried to study alone it was pointless. He either always got distracted or became too frustrated with himself and his low reading level to get very far. It often ended in books being thrown against walls and out open windows.



Declan's mother often told him that idle hands were the devil's play things. It was especially true when it came to her son. He found himself in trouble more often than not - especially when he had nothing to do. In his search for something that would offer him entertainment, he passed by an empty classroom. Or - he had thought it was empty, until he had heard the soft sound of the page of a book turning. The lower class boy stuck his head in the doorway and recognized Beatrice Skye. She had been in a few of his classes but he didn't know her that well.


Quietly, he slipped his hand in his trouser's pocket and pulled out an exploding dung bomb that he'd taken from one of his classmates. "Geronimo!" He exclaimed giddily as he tossed the exploding dungbomb over near Beatrice. It exploded in a great cloud of green smoke that smelled - disgustingly so - exactly like the dung of a troll.

  

[Beatrice Skye]

The smell was awfull. Beatrice looked around and when she spotted Declan a soft rosy colour appeared on her cheekbones. She looked more shy than angry. Beatrice hates when someone disturbs her when she studies. When she studies she prefer to be alone, so she can be more concertrate bette. But she knew that she won't get rid of Declan easyly so she closed the book in her hands and put it softly on a desk.

" This isn't funny Declan"She remonstrated. Well Declan didn't cared if she finds it funny or not but she justh ad to say something. She crossed her her arms at the front of her chest and raised her eyebrows. She was only a second year but she was colder than a sixth year. She was too mature for her age, and she knew it, but in no of her books was writing how to heal it. Actually books make people mature in some way.

" Doing pranks can bring you big troubles" She murmured. Being the nerd means that you'll never find out what punishment means. But she was well educated about the punishments in Hogwarts. Working as cleaning or cooking were the best of them. Rarely somene had been expelled but Beatrice always had a fear. Hogwarts was the only education she can get so loosing it will mean to be like the muggles in the street of London.

" You should really study harder, education is really important to our time" She commented and touched the book on the desk with her left hand.

  

[Declan Wood]

Her reaction wasn't what he had wanted - girls usually screamed and stumbled around, disgusted by the stench - but she merely lectured him. Declan had received many lectures, usually more than one a day, although they were usually from the professors or prefects. Never had they been from a girl only a year above him. It was amusing really, for her to think that he would listen to her. He hardly even listened to his superiors!



He chuckled, "Gettin' into trouble is fun. Studyin' is borin'. You're proof of it - you're pretty borin', always readin' books all the time. Don't ya ever get out and have fun?" A teasing smirk found its way to his lips, "Ya look as old as my Gram when ya make that face." Granted, Declan had never met his grandmother. They had both been muggles, as well as his grandfathers, and they had all died before he had been born. Such was the way of the poor - you didn't live very long. It was one of the reasons he didn't think studying at Hogwarts was a big deal. He was going to die young anyway, might as well have some fun before he went!



His mother Rosa would lecture him constantly whenever he was home - that he needed to study harder and get better grades. She and the flock of younger sisters that he had were counting on him. Being only eleven, Declan couldn't quite understand the seriousness of their dependence. To him, it seemed like they weren't getting enough food with him being away from them. He wasn't there to steal any money from pockets or to snatch a couple of loaves of bread when the baker wasn't looking.

  

[Beatrice Skye]

"Why should I have fun if it isn't gives me anything for my future?"Beatrice asked the boy with a raised eyebrow. She was planning to get in the ministry when she finished school and she couldn't receive a place there if she was having fun.She never had a happy childhood so she at least wanted to have a happy adulthood. Adults have fun too if they have money. And she was going to stay in the same low position of the society if she was having fun.

She ignored his comment about her look. " Knowlege can bring me future. I don't want to have the same life I had before Hogwarts" She said to the boy." You should really read some books too" She suggested the boy and gave him a polite smile.Sometimes she was thinking that if she is too mature she won't success in life. Cheerfull people were always the other's favourite. She never laughed in her life.Her smiles were fake. She was never happy.

Even as a child she wasn't happy.She nver found jokes funny and she hated talking with her cousins or her friends.Actually she never had true friends. The girls in her neighbourhood were stupid and immature. She expected a girl with such a misery life be a little more mature. But when she came in Hogwarts she founf out that the most of the Upper Class girls are actually more immature than the Lower ones.

  

[Declan Wood]

Declan rolled his grey-green eyes at her response, "Ya sound just like a grown-up. How borin'." He emphasized the last word in an attempt to annoy her. Books were pointless, he believed. Almost everything he had learned that was useful he had learned out on the streets - outside of Hogwarts. The things he had learned at school were how to make things float in the air, and how to turn water into strongly flavored pumpkin juice. Neither of those were very useful when your family was back home, practically starving. He had been shocked by how thin his mother had gotten since he had started schooling - he was quite ready to leave Hogwarts all together, but she made him promise to stay.



"Books are for ninnies," He told her decidedly, "I'm not a ninny and I ain't gonna read a book, whether ya want me to or not." Declan scowled then, frustrated and irritated that she had brought back memories and thoughts that he had not wanted to think of. The frustration he felt for not being out with his family, helping to support them, overwhelmed him. He took a swing at the stack of books on her desk, aiming to knock them onto the floor as messily and loudly as he could, just to prove his point.

  

[Beatrice Skye]

For some reason when Trixie saw her books scattered around her some tears pop out her eyes. She bent to pick them up and so Declan couldn't see see her tears. Books were too important to her. She remembers the cold December she was reading a dirty peace of newspaper under the fade light of a candle. She stole that candle from her aunt. They were too expensive to lose them on reading. And she had too much work during the day to read so her only solution was reading during the night in the store-house.

" Theese are ownership of the library" Trixie commented with a broken voice. Don't cry Trixie, don't...She said to herself holding tighly a fifth year potion book. Trixie from child wanted to look cold about everything. For her it was more embarassing to cry in front of someone than being transformed into a frog in front of all the school.Trixie had the bad habbit to cry when she is to angry. And write now she was pissed off.

Trixie felt her hands to tremble." I learnt to read all alone, the whole December before some years. Books are my only friends. Please don't hurt my friends"She begged the boy.

Perphaps he was doing it because he had difficult life. They both had. Sometimes Trixie found her life before Hogwarts easier than the most Lower Class students. Some of her Lower Class friends had told her that they had five or six brothers and had only a loaf of bread for a week and more, that they had to work as factory workes, maids and the worst, chimney sweeps. Some of them told her that many of their brothers and even their parents had apssed away from hunger or from an illness. At least in her house they had always a loaf of bread and cheese on their table.

  

[Declan Wood]

Declan, being only eleven, was unaware that his actions had made the girl want to cry. He had a half dozen little sisters back home - whenever they cried he would immediately feel guilty. He had made a Ravenclaw first year cry at the beginning of the school year and had felt bad about it ever since. The boy didn't understand how a person could possibly be so attached to a book.



With a pleased grin on his face, Declan shrugged carelessly, "Ya need to get out more - there's loads of girls runnin' around Hogwarts. I bet at least one a them would want to be your friend." He glanced down at the books lying on the floor. A few had fallen open and he had bent a good number of pages.



"It's not like books can talk anyway," He added, "They can't be nobody's friend." Right? Declan had friends and they were people, not books. He ran around with a motley gang of a few Slytherin boys. Some were in his year and some a couple years older than he. Not a single one was a good influence on him. Most often, they encouraged him to behave as badly as possible. Declan wasn't one who could resist a dare, which was why he was in trouble so often.

  

[Beatrice Skye]

" Non of them wants to talk to me" Trixie murmured." They think I am freak" Trixie added. Trixie knew she was freaky, but she was always friendly to everyone. Some sixth or seventh years found her sweet but the concidered her more like a puppy than a girl.

But her classmates always avoided her at the corridors. She had only some lower class friends but everyone though that she was a freak. Mayeb if she had money they wouldn't care about the way she talks or thinks.

Maybe she had to follow Declan's advice. She liked books and reading them but she forgot about her social life. She was clever enough to make a friend, or at least find a person to talk to. How bad that she was too poor to dress herself with beautiful dresses and make her hair. She had only one dark red dress, the one she was wearing right now. She was planning to learn about clothing spells when she finished the ones she was learning right now. She knew that she couldn't make a dress if she doesn't have cloth but she could change the colour of her actual dress or make a new one with one really old dress she had and which doesn't swit her.

" But I don't have humour, like you or a special talent, or just money" Beatrice murmured to Declan looking at the ground.

  

[Declan Wood]

Her confession made him feel a little bad for her. She did some rather miserable. It was her own fault, he reasoned. She was the one who wanted to read books all the time. Nobody normal did that. At least, nobody he knew.



"Maybe ya don't need those things," He said in an attempt to be logical, "Maybe ya just gotta worry about havin' fun once in a while." Declan wasn't entirely sure that this was true. Maybe she did need to have a sense of humor in order to have fun and make friends. He didn't have enough experience in that regard to truly know if she could fly by without it.



Declan crossed his arms across his chest, resigned to at least cheering her up a little. It was no fun to tease girls when they already felt bad about themselves. "What do ya do for fun? And don't say books," He warned.

  

[Beatrice Skye]

" I don't know how to have fun"Beatrice admitted with a painful voice." And I have never laughed in my life.Never"She added with a serious face looking down. " I don't have any special talents, or beauty too"She finished and looked down trying to hide from Declan's eyes.

Trixie often wished she could dance. Dancing was so harmonical, so beautiful art...But when she once tried to dance she was just going ugly and clumsy moves. She also liked music but when she once tried to sing she found out that her voice is too loud and her aunt told her to shut up because her younger cousins were sleeping. Beatrice many times had seen children who sing at the road to get some money. Her older cousin had quite pretty voice but her aunt never allowed to do something like that. She wanted to have good reputation.

" And I don't know what to do for fun"She added sadly." Before I come here I had never touched a book, but I never had free time because I had to work at my aunt's shop. I was one more mouth to feed so I had to work more to have a roof on my head"She explained to Declan.

  

[Declan Wood]

"Bein' pretty and talented doesn't have anythin' to do with havin' fun," He told her seriously. Declan was unaware that she probably had wanted some reassurance that she was pretty or had some kind of hidden talent. Being an eleven year old boy, he was completely oblivious to it. He had yet to discover that girls were any different than boys. He could care less whether he was pretty handsome and talented. All he wanted to do was enjoy himself while he could.

He knew better than anyone exactly what she spoke of. While she had had a real job, Declan had been a thief. He pick-pocketed coins from unaware passerby and slipped bread and fruit off of the stands of merchants. He had been chased on many occasions, but never had he been caught. It could be said that he had been good at his occupation, but he wasn't exactly proud of it. He knew right from wrong and he also knew that stealing was bad. It was all he could do to help feed his family however, and though his mother disliked it, she never scolded him for it. She was grateful for the extra help. He knew it by the smile she had whenever he had set his treasures for the day on the table.

"I'm gonna go find somethin' fun to do. I guess ya can come along s'long as ya don't cry or feel sorry for yourself anymore. And ya gotta have fun, or you'll ruin my fun," He finally said. It was spoken with some reluctance, as he wasn't sure whether or not he truly wanted to hang out with her. All she had done was complain and he wasn't one to sympathize with her. He had plenty of things he could complain about, bu the kept them all to himself.

  

[Beatrice Skye]

Beatrice gave Declan a small shy smile, moving two steps in front of him. Maybe she needed to have fun. She was going to return all the books back to the library. Two books a week were enough, she had a long time in front of her to study. If she readed the whole library in one year, what she was going to read the other?

" I promise that I won't cry, or destroy your fun, Declan", Trixie anwered the boy and let herself to smile. She did a spell to the books, in front of her, and they immediatly disappeared. Probably they were already in the library right now. She hadn't read the most of them. but she borrowed them only because she though that they had something interesting to teach her. From now on she was going to borrow only interesting books.

"What are we going to start with, Declan?" Trixie asked him, a little worried that she sounds stupid. All the girls in her age knew how to have fun, but Beatrice doesn't. She never learned how to laugh, how to play and how to do pranks. Maybe Declan was going to learn her. Beatrice smiled, happy that she took her childhood back.

  

[Declan Wood]

"Good," He said with a nod that meant 'that settles it.' She seemed eager enough, perhaps she would be amusing after all. If not, he could very well just ditch her somewhere around the castle. She was smart enough, she could find her way back to her common room.

"I've got some explodin' squealers that are real loud. I was gonna hide somewhere and then throw them at somebody's feet right when they walk by," Declan told her with a sly smirk, "C'mon." He left the classroom and moved down the hallway. There wasn't anywhere in particular that he wanted to go just yet. Somewhere populated enough where they could scare people several times, but off-to-the side enough to not get caught by teachers or prefects.

He turned down a hallway that went from the Great Hall toward the inner workings of the castle. There were rumors that the Hufflepuff dorms were somewhere around there, but he had yet to discover them.

  

[Beatrice Skye]

Trixie followed the boy, feeling a little nervous but curious at the same time. How difficult was going to do pranks?

" Why not do Magnetarus on the floor? Anyone who steps on the are who did the spell will be hitted by anything you want", Beatrice suggested Declan with her nerdish look. Ok, she did a mistake. They were doing pranks, not homework. Why everything she was saying was about books and homework? But still, this was a good idea. And Magnetarus is teached in the fourth year, so nobody will think that she or Declan did it. Well everyone knew that she knows spells for higher classes, but Beatrice would never do pranks, right?

" And why not put the potion Efthimatrus, in the tea? Anyone who drinks it is going to laugh for about two hours", Beatrice asked the boy, while they walked near the Great Hall. She knew that a bunch of people laughing histerically was going to create chaos!

Then she walked to a corridor with Declan, which supposed to drive in the Hufflepuff Commons. She had read some books about Hogwarts and its history, but there was nothing about the Common rooms. She knew that are something like tasks to get in your Common Room. In Ravenclaw you had to answer a question. She was always curious about what other Houses do.

Beatrice looked around, and spotted a huge painting. There were a lot of fruits on it, painted in rich colors. Beatrice walked closer to the painting to examine it, when she slipped on the wet floor and fall on the painting. Her fingers touched the huge pear and then something strange happened. The pear became a door knob!

Beatrice pulled the door knob, and then she saw hundred House Elfs! They looked at her with their big puppy like eyes and then one of them walked to her and offered her a piece of apple pie." Do you want some, miss?"The creature asked Trixie. It was a small creature, with big bat ears, orange huge eyes and yellowish skin.

" Declan... Beatrice murmured to the boy, with eyes wide of excitement.

---
OCC: The spells above are just some random I made for the post xD

  

[Declan Wood]

"Nah," He said dismissively at her suggestions. Declan wouldn't ever admit this to her, but he hadn't a clue how to do those spells. He hadn't even heard of them, although they sounded rather useful when it came to pulling pranks. He was alright with charms and potions, but only in the practical parts. If someone dictated to him what to do, or he could watch them first, he generally could perform what he needed to.

He continued down the hallway with the assumption that Beatrice was right behind him. It was only when he heard her say his name that he realized she was no longer next to him. He turned around to see the opening of a door, right in the middle of the painting. Oh! What had she discovered?!

Declan hurried over to stand beside her. The two were right around the same height. He had to stand on his tiptoes to see over her shoulder. House-elves were everywhere. Declan hadn't ever spoken to a house-elf. As a lower class boy, his family certainly didn't have any. They were hardly better than house-elves themselves. Nor had he ever come into contact with one whenever he had been running around High Street.

"What is this place?" He asked from behind her as he peered inside, "What've ya found?"