And Let Me Kiss You

[Gunther Winthrop]

"Now Miss @Ellory Pendergast ," Gunther began, walking briskly beside her in the direction of the hospital wing, "when we get there, none of this was my doing, alright? You wiped your face and the stuff from the tea got it turning another color too. Please?" he begged her, turning to look at her. He stopped walking to do so, and looked at her in the eyes, trying to make his expression soft instead of its usual hardness. He looked and looked but he couldn't find any anger in her expression. That could mean two things; either she genuinely wasn't angry, or she was very difficult to read.

He gulped and continued to walk, or so he thought. He moved all the proper muscles and such, but his feet just woudn't leave the ground. Gunther froze. Was this some kind of joke? Had Ms. Ellory just cursed him? He turned back to her, a bit angry now.

"What did you do?!" he exclaimed, sighing heavily to regain his composure.

@Ellory Pendergast

  

[Ellory Pendergast]

“If I suspected that it was you who did it, I would have deducted points by now,” Ellory pointed out, half tempted to laugh. She didn’t know who had caused for her lips to turn blue, but she knew that it wasn’t Gunther Winthrop. He had turned her face orange, but he was trying to help. Nevermind that he had failed.

They were reaching the Hospital Wing, when Ellory’s feet were suddenly glued to the floor. Clearly, that day could get worse.

“Nothing!” she replied, a bit sharply. She turned her eyes at her feet with confusion and then looked upwards and she saw it. “Oh, Merlin.”

  

[Gunther Winthrop]

Gunther was absolutely bewildered. If Miss Ellory wasn't doing it, who was? She looked up at the ceiling, and Gunther followed her lead. There was a decorative plant on the ceiling that he didn't recognize, but there didn't seem to be anything else. A plant couldn't possibly be the root cause of this.

"Well now what? If not you, then who?" he asked her, for she seemed to have some kind of knowledge of the situation that Gunther did not. "Do you know any spells that might fix this?"

He looked down at her big eyes and crazy colored face. This was truly unlike any situation that he'd dealt with throughout his schooling at Hogwarts. He was rotten at magic and if anyone was going to charm their way out of this, it wasn't going to be Gunther.

@Ellory Pendergast

  

[Ellory Pendergast]

Mr. Winthrop didn’t seem to have recognized the plant. That was a surprise. You’d expect that a boy would know what a mistletoe symbolizes.

“It’s the mistletoe,” she explained. Which obviously hadn’t appeared above them on its own. Her guess was Peeves. Peeves was the best answer for such occurrences.

“I think,” she added then, more awkwardly. She set her eyes down before adding quietly. “People are supposed to well-kiss underneath mistletoes.”

  

[Gunther Winthrop]

A lump seemed to be growing in Gunther's throat, his stomach felt like it had just jumped off of a cliff. He had to kiss her? Well, he wouldn't say had to, he wasn't objecting. Besides, what if Miss Ellory was just saying that? No, she wouldn't lie to him. A lady wouldn't do that. Still, Gunther couldn't shake his suspicion.

"Well, erm... kiss?" he asked again, a bit bewildered. He'd kissed plenty of girls (as he loved to remind himself) but never one with crazy colored lips and a wild looking face. Miss Pendergast did have nice features, though. No, it wasn't going to be particularly unpleasant; awkward nonetheless.

"So, should we..." he began, but trailed off, rocking back and forth- heel, toe, heel toe. He put his hands behind his back and began wringing them. Where had his confidence gone? A moment ago, he'd been calm and collected, and as soon as romance came up, that all went out the window.

  

[Ellory Pendergast]

Ellory wasn’t sure what to make of Mr. Winthrop’s awkwardness. Part of her wished that he’d be more willing to do the necessary evil, so they could be released from the poltergeist’s stupid trap sooner. It would only make things more awkward if she had to wait for him to find his courage to do it or something. Because she wouldn’t be kissing him.

“We can close our eyes,” Ellory commented. “It’ll be like it never happened. Or we could stay here and wait for Peeves to come with his moral support,” she commented. She’d rather not have him recite annoying songs about kissing or something.

  

[Gunther Winthrop]

It really just was about time for Gunther to suck it up and kiss this girl already. He was the man of the two of them, which stereotypically meant that he was going to do the kissing. Gunther one hundred percent adhered to stereotypes, desiring a sense of normalcy and acceptance. So yes, he was going to just kiss her already.

"That sounds like a good idea," he commented, on her suggestion to close their eyes. He would indeed do it, of course. That being said, that method of kissing wasn't originally how he was going to go about it, at least not consciously. He wanted the thing to be over, but he wasn't dreading it.

So, uncharacteristically gently, he bent down (a considerably far distance) and pressed his lips to her strangely colored ones, his eyes closed. The whole thing was over in two seconds but as Gunther pulled away he felt a bit tingly. He didn't step back, either. He just sort of stayed there, in limbo, not even sure if the spell had broken yet.

@Ellory Pendergast