Painting Magic In The Skies ((Sita and Sophia))

[Harmony Chan H6]

((Either of you can start, and the other can join in after that. I wonder whose hair will become bright pink. ;D But I'm so glad we've finally hit this off! ))

Harmony giggled to herself happily as she flicked her wand almost lazily in various directions, letting her boredom get the better of her. She was having a great deal of fun with this colour changing spell, and laughed as she changed blades of green grass to dark purple, and nearby flowers from bright pink to black. Unfortunately, the “paint” wasn’t permanent, but at least there was the advantage of being able to hit absolutely anything you wanted and come to no lasting harm or change. It was rather relaxing, and Harmony found it was a great excuse to have some fun and practise magic at the same time. She made a quick drawing in the sky above her, painting a yellow badger, the animal representing Hufflepuff, and watched it with a smile as it faded gradually. This was the magic of magic. It was simply… magical.

Biting back another laughter of pure amusement, Harmony drew a green version of Professor Snape, which she knew was rather crude, yet all the same, it was funny! Deciding to sketch all of her teachers, Harmony raised her wand higher as she drew her knees closer to her to prevent herself from getting too cold. She had been alone for under a quarter of an hour, some way from the lake, sitting peacefully on the dry grass, having had her lunch earlier. Previously Harmony had been practising a different hex, trying to get the hang of it for her next lesson in Charms, but this easy colour spell she had discovered in a book whilst practising was proving to be much more entertaining, and had been easy to master. Harmony could barely wait to test it out on her friends, and wondered if she could turn their hair different shades of colours to annoy them.

Drawing a red Professor McGonagall with a grin, Harmony added the final touch of a top hat on the teacher’s head. Although she was currently giggling at her “work of art” that looked nothing like the desired person, Harmony liked Professor McGonagall a lot. She enjoyed Transfiguration a lot… Well, Harmony liked every lesson, with the exclusion of perhaps Divination and Potions. The former was unpredictable to the point of boring and pointless, Professor Trelawney babbling on about some weird thing each lesson, although Harmony didn’t have much of a grudge against the batty teacher. She was just a little strange, that’s all. Harmony didn’t excel at Potions, and her enthusiasm was stamped flat with Professor Snape’s lack of… niceness. The man just didn’t possess such qualities. Which was why he suited being the head of Slytherin so much.

Watching the magic “paint” fade into nothingness above her, Harmony decided to let herself go a little, and just aim her wand in a completely different direction for a bunch of laughs. Completely confident she was the only person around, though neglecting to actually check, Harmony closed her eyes, pointed her wand behind her with a playful grin, and thinking of the colour pink, a shocking fluorescent shade of pink, she let her colour spell loose, thinking that it would most likely hit a patch of innocent grass. However, Harmony realised she certainly had not managed to strike grass when a loud yell of surprise rang clearly from behind her, and with a stunned gasp, Harmony scrambled to her feet quickly and turned around, blushing bright red furiously and apologising with embarrassment when she realised the person before her now had shocking pink hair, completely forgetting the fact that the scene looked ridiculously funny. “Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry!”

[Sita Mehadi H7]

Sita's trainers squelched in the mud that had pretended from a distance to be grass. Well, perhaps it had seemed a bit brown, but Sita had tried to be optimistic. Now she grimaced as she lifted her foot gingerly out of the sticky mud with an "Ew" and inspected the rim of half-liquid earth that had been left there. She looked at the ground in front of her and to the side of her, wondering where she could go that would be less muddy. In front of her had been trodden more by human feet... would that make it harder because it was compressed or softened because it was broken up and the grass downtrodden? Sita tried to work this out, but inevitably encountered an entire mental block on the problem. She really couldn't decide which outcome was more likely. She needed Ingy here to tell her that. But that wasn't likely to happen - no, not at all. Ingrid wanted her own space more and more recently. Her 'own space' had used to include Sita, but not anymore, it would seem. Sita wasn't prepared to believe that she'd become just another burden, but it saddened her still that she was an intrusion upon Ingrid's quiet time.

In the end she chose the untrodden path. The grass seemed greener there, somehow. It probably just hadn't had mud trodden over it already. The blades of grass submitted in unison to the blustery wind and Sita watched them ripple in patterns across the landscape. Then she set out running across the grass, letting her spirit take in some of the energy of the wind that buffeted against her shoulders as she ran. She wasn't aware of her surroundings, not one bit. The world was her, the pain that she was blocking out, the ever-hardening ground beneath her feet and the air that she was pushing aside to get nowhere in particular. She didn't stop even when her lungs were ablaze with the effort of taking in enough air to fuel this sudden exertion, but carried on until her chest was tight and her stomach had started to hurt with a stitch as well. Then she came to an abrupt halt, and as she took deep gulps of the cold air she looked upwards at the sky, her hands on her her hips. What she saw there caused her to take an even deeper gulp as she started back in surprise. There was a face in the sky - a witch with her hair in a tight bun, a thin line for a mouth and a pointy hat which tipped slightly towards the ground, as though it were a spear. Sita had never seen anyone who was completely red before, but perhaps it happened. Maybe once in a zillion times, but probably not that often. Still, she had no right to be so certain. This next intellectual problem was something else she'd prefer to consult Ingrid's opinion on, rather than drawing her own judgement on it.

Maybe she was just hallucinating. After all, it wasn't often that you saw faces in the sky. It was a bit disconcerting to think that there was yet another face looking down on her - and this one an absolutely huge one. Sita chose the easiest method of suppressing her qualms, and looked down at the ground. There she saw one of her shoelaces had become undone and trailed in the mud as she ran along. It was crusted with drying mud and Sita wrinkled her nose at knowing she had to tie it up, leaving dried mud beneath her fingernails as it chipped off. But it was imperative that she did tie it up, before she tripped over it; it was a wonder that she hadn't while she'd been running. She just hoped it would actually be dry, and not smear all over her hands too. Once mud got on your hands, it got everywhere. With a resigned sigh, Sita bent down to tie her shoelace up again.

When she looked up, she rather wished she hadn't - she should have known not to after her previous experience. But this time, there wasn't a face staring at her; instead, there was a multicoloured cloud of stars heading towards her. Someone must be messing with her. Sita shouted out in surprise and stared at it with some fear, wondering whether she should dodge it. When she'd first started playing tennis, she'd got quite skilled at dodging the ball, so she would probably manage. But in this crouching position, the only quick option was to roll over onto her side, and she hesitated too long debating whether it was worth getting her light-coloured clothes dirty by doing that. Sita wasn't very good at cleaning spells, and she'd feel embarrassed asking Ingrid to do one for her. That'd be like asking her best friend to do her washing for her. So the spell hit, thankfully painlessly. Sita blinked, trying to work out what had happened to her. Then she noticed that the strands of hair hanging over her shoulders were now an awful colour of bright pink. Sita was a fan of the colour pink, but not one so intense that it almost glowed. At the very least she couldn't support that as a hair colour. Way not subtle!

Her eyes rather dazzled by the bright colour of her hair, Sita blinked again as she tried to work out who it was that was apologising to her. The voice sounded familiar. Oh yes, it was Harmony, she realised as the shock wore off. She was a girl in the same year as Sita - they shared a dormitory, in fact - but Sita had never talked to her all that much. She'd been much too preoccupied with her own group of friends. Sita smiled at her slightly uncertainly.
"It's okay... if you're being serious," she said with a frown. What sort of person pranked you and then apologised? "I just hope a teacher doesn't find us and take points off me for not being in school uniform..." She rolled her eyes upwards towards where a few bright-pink strands of wavy hair were blowing about on her forehead. "I don't think this is a school-uniform colour of hair... of course, if our uniforms were pink, it might work... but they're not." She grinned, thinking it would be funny if Aaron and Gavin had to go around wearing pink cloaks and jumpers. It would be even funnier to see Rowen Kerr's glowering face surrounded by pink, she thought, a laugh escaping her at the thought. Then an awful thought occurred to her, and she turned round to show Harmony the back of her hair. "Be honest... the lime green ribbons look terrible with the bright pink, don't they?" she asked, her hands lingering on them to take them out as she turned back to the other girl with an anxious look in her eyes.

[Harmony Chan H6]

Harmony scrambled over immediately to who she recognised now as Sita, a girl she shared her dormitory with, along with Wendi and Ingrid. Feeling very embarrassed about the situation, she continued to apologise, trying to explain she hadn’t done it on purpose. “I’m so sorry, Sita, I didn’t do it as a joke… I was just practising my spells and stuff and I didn’t realise you were behind me. Actually, I was sure I’d be aiming at some grass… Though, at this rate, this doesn’t look much like grass at all…” Sniffling with a look of horror, Harmony stared down at her mud-caked shoes, having only just noticed that Sita’s area was pretty much swamped with brown, sticky mud, much unlike her spot of dry grass. Ah. Not liking this at all, Harmony merely ignored it for the time being, knowing well she’d clean her shoes afterwards with a quick spell. Chuckling slightly, Harmony turned back to Sita, “Yes, I’m sure the professors would be less than pleased if they saw someone with bright pink hair… Don’t worry, the spell’s not permanent; it wears off after a short while.” Harmony pointed at some nearby flowers which Harmony had bewitched beforehand for practise. The innocent little things had been changed into a shimmering sea blue, and slowly, the petals were fading back to their original plain white. “But I must say,” Harmony commented with a short, humoured laugh, “Bright pink certainly does not go well with lime green! I do like your ribbons though; very cute. That pink sure is bright!” Harmony added with a smile, suppressing the urge to shield her eyes from the painful glow of Sita’s hair. Harmony almost gave a humungous sigh of relief as she watched the pink begin to fade gradually, starting to reappear as dark brown locks that Sita once had. “Thank goodness your hair’s already turning back. I’m so sorry again… I’m so glad that spell wasn’t permanent. Please, forgive me.”

Harmony cocked her head to one side as she watched Sita, who was obviously worried about her rather pink hair, but the colour was thankfully fading. What was her room mate doing down here anyway? “What brings you here, Sita?” Harmony gave her a bright smile, trying to make up for her rather silly mistake. She made a mental note to never use that spell randomly without checking who was in her vicinity, and continued, dismissing the previous incident from her mind. Hopefully Sita would forgive her. “How are you, by the way? I haven’t talked to you much, recently.” Harmony gave a dubious chuckle, knowing full well they never talked much at all anyway, aside from the odd hello and goodbye. But in general, Harmony hadn’t been speaking and socialising as much as she used to, even though she wasn’t much of a chatterbox. She had spent a lot of time locked up in the student lounge, doing homework. Thank goodness she was beginning to let up a bit more, otherwise people would have started thinking she was a bit of a workaholic… Which Harmony certainly was not. Well, that’s what she protested often to others and to herself, anyway. She merely wanted to retain a good standard of work, even if that meant sacrificing free time. Precious free time.

“Um…” Harmony glanced down awkwardly at her and Sita’s shoes again, and almost groaned at the sight of them, seeing the sloppy mud clinging happily to her soles. Praying her shoes wouldn’t betray her now and let the damp seep in, and cursing herself for not waterproofing (and mudproofing) her poor aging shoes beforehand, Harmony flashed Sita an uncertain smile, and decided she couldn’t take having to stand in the slippy area anymore. “Hey, Sita, why don’t we go down there?” She gestured at where she was sitting before, which was obviously much cleaner. “It’s much dryer, trust me. I have a feeling if I don’t get out of here, I’ll probably slip! This place sure is… muddy.” Harmony made a face, giggling a little as she walked gingerly back to her previous space. Before she flopped down, Harmony withdrew her wand, which she had pocketed before seeing to Sita, and pointed them at her shoes. Muttering another spell, one that hopefully wouldn’t go awry, Harmony removed the layers of disgusting mud successfully, and smiled at Sita, “Urgh, I have to get rid of it… So dirty. Plus I don’t think any of the teachers would be best pleased if I ran round school with muddy shoes, soiling their corridors and classrooms.” Harmony patted an invisible chair beside her for Sita, not ready to leave the peacefulness of the outdoors yet. “Do you want to sit with me? I don’t know if you want my company after I made your hair glow pink, but I’m not going anywhere.” A part of Harmony was wary of being with Sita and having to socialise with her, as she felt weird around both her and Ingrid, Sita’s best friend. Well, Harmony was pretty sure they were best friends, though she didn’t want to pry. The two girls had never really talked to Harmony, and she didn’t want to intrude upon their space either. She had always been happy keeping to herself with her own group of very different friends, and perhaps Sita didn’t want to be around Harmony anyway. They had their differences. However, Harmony wanted to make the effort to be extra friendly and get to know Sita a bit better, and they had never been on bad terms. Hoping that Ingrid would not be brought up, as Harmony knew they weren’t having the greatest time right now and it would be terribly awkward for them, she gave a gentle smile, fidgeting with her own hair, wondering what it would be like yellow. Blonde, even. Hm. A Chinese girl with actual blonde hair… Such a weird thought. She’d probably look ridiculous.

Suppressing a rising giggle, Harmony flashed Sita a bold wink as she raised her wand again, and pointed at her own hair this time with a genuine grin, “Hey… why don’t I, in return for making your hair pink, change mine to yellow-blonde for Hufflepuff?” Before waiting from any confirmation or answer from Sita, who Harmony thought would probably think her very weird, she murmured the correct spell under her breath softly, and in a bright flash, Harmony’s once short black hair was now a dashing platinum blonde. “Well? What do you think?” Harmony wanted to be meek now, but threw it to the breeze as she gave a nervous laugh and glanced at Sita. “It looks terrible, doesn’t it? Chinese people don’t suit blonde hair.” Leaning forwards to face the clear water of the lake, Harmony gazed at her rippling reflection reflected on the surface, and almost choked with laughter at how ridiculous it looked. She saw the strands falling from the corners of her eyes and nearly touch the water, and withdrew her head a little to avoid getting it wet. “Ah! The colour’s certainly not flattering!” Turning back to Sita with an amused grin, Harmony shook her locks out to try and speed up the process of getting rid of the colour, knowing full well it probably didn’t help at all, “I guess the up-side is that yellow is my favourite colour.” Harmony gave a fond shrug, and smiled, “Well, I guess now we’re even. We’ve both experienced weird hair colours! And I think mine looked ten times worse. Bright pink wouldn’t have been so bad on you if it weren’t for the lime coloured ribbons! This blonde makes me look like a highlighted banana!”

[Sophia Hallington H7]

Sophia was bored...bored, bored, just simply bored. She had nothing to do whatsoever. She could bear up to facing the extravagent mountain of terror, which somewhere she'd heard referrred to as "homework". Yes, Sophia was definately not as diligent at all when it came to work as she was as a young, timid, first year. She had turned from the "must-do-work-on-day-received" to taking the path apprently more-trodden of "finish-on-night-before-due-in" or "finish-on-morning-due-in". Hmm...she didn't like it at all, but she just couldn't motivate herself any longer...she had discovered other aspects of life, such as actually having friends and a social life. it was bad...nope, in that respect she didn't like the "new Sophia" at all. So what did she do? Well, let's just say it didn't involve staying indoors to work. She had decided to grab her cloak and shoes, and wander outside for a while. At least it was peaceful out there. Cold, admittedly, being the middle of January, but hey, it didn't phase her.

Before long she found herself walking along absent mindedly through a particularly muddy patch of grass. She rolled her eyes as she felt the mud in an especially muddy area squelch into her shoe...great, just what she wanted. She took the oppurtunity while she was trying to find a slightly less muddy bit of land to walk along to try to find out exactly where she was, and discovered that she was somewhere near the lake. Then she faintly heard the sound of someone giggling....strange, when the area around her was completely empty, so she ended up walking on, towards the lake, through the long grass which she could barely see through. Had she even been along this path before? It didn't look familiar...an by looking at the long grass it didn't seem like many people had been there in recent times...but hey, she walked through onwards.

Cutting through the grass at the other side, she saw the culprit of the giggling. A Chinese girl, in Hufflepuff, looking at her robes, in about 2hd year, by the looks of her size. She appeared to be making faces from charms of colour in the sky...hmm, very creative, and imaginative, if not slightly odd. Well, the girl was a secnd year. SHe just hoped that she didn't go anywhere near her with the colours she was shooting...she didn't want to end up being turned blue or having green hair or something...it wasn't until then she noticed another girl popping out to the lake about 50 metres away...and the pink charm fly from the Chinese girl's wand right at her.

Wait...the girl looked familiar...it was Sita, the girl she had briefly met last year in the common room. She'd better look out for that pi- too late...it had hit her, landing her with bright pink hair. Well, from what she remembered, Sita liked pink, so she wouldn't be too phased, hopefully, even though it didn't particularly suit her, and was probably against school regulations. She watched from the grass as Sita walked up to the Chinese girl...well, if she was in second year, she'd know Sita, surely. They started talking together...what about, Sophia wondered? Probably the pink hair....the strange thing was when the Chinese girl, with Black hair, suddenly pointed her wand at her hair, and turned it yellow...hmm, that girl must be eccentric! Mad, at least! So she thought that now was the time to reveal herself to the young duo...

Sophia walked over to where they were, cautiously as to any stray colour charms flying about...well, she didn't want to come to the same fate as Sita, afterall. So reaching them she greeted them with a brave "Hey, what're you both up to over here?" Then asked "What's going on with the colours....any special reason for the decorations...?" Then as an afterthough "oh, by the way, I'm Sophia. I'm a 4th year Hufflepuff. I may look like a mere firstie, but nope. Are you both 2nd years? I've met Sita before, but I don't know you...what's your name?"

[Sita Mehadi H7]

Sita gazed dubiously at Harmony, still unsure about how it could have been anything other than a prank. If you were going to pull a prank like that, you wouldn't do it by halves. Ingrid never had. Sita didn't really know what Harmony was like, but in her opinion, she hadn't done it by halves either. After all, Sita's hair wasn't half pink, or a vaguely tasteful colour. Although perhaps it was already half pink, she thought and soon conceded the necessity of reconsidering her original opinion, as she saw it begin to fade to her normal black hair, the colour slowly fading into a dark void. She pulled at a few wavy strands and then smiled properly at Harmony.
"You mean to say you really think I'm that small?" she said in mock indignation, her hands on her hips. She plucked a fairly unmuddied blade of grass from the earth and held it beside herself for comparison. "Personally, I think it would require an overdose of Shrinking Solution to get me that small." Sita took out her own wand. "Maybe you should practice your aim instead of your spells." She pointed her wand down at the ground and as she muttered a few sparks flew out of it. "See, grass is down there," she explained with a grin, stamping on the ground hastily as it was managing to smoulder despite its saturated state. She raised the wand to point at Harmony. "People at this height... but don't worry, I won't hex you. I'll put my wand away now actually - I somehow think threatening someone would be seen as worse than not fitting in with the uniform code.”

Sita sighed to herself as Harmony changed the topic of conversation to mundane things. If she found something good, she liked to stick with it. That went for food as well as conversation topics, and people too. Was she too adhesive for Ingy to stand? she wondered vaguely, rolling her eyes at Harmony without even particularly meaning to as she resigned herself to the need to reply to such grown-up etiquette as 'How are you?'
"No..." she said, confirming Harmony's statement that they hadn't conversed recently with a huge lack of eagerness. "But don't worry about that, we're not about to start talking anymore if we set a precedent by the time that we've known each other for already." she added, becoming more animated as she thought of a way to make her sentiments obvious without them seeming too rude. She smiled at Harmony's obvious sign of hesitation and awkwardness and then nodded vigorously at her comment about mud. She looked down again at her own trainers. There was simply no excusing the state of them. They were awful. Still not as bad as one of the pairs of trainers she'd seen Gavin wearing, though. But she was supposed to have different standards.

"I think that it's Filch to whom muddying his corridors would count as a crime. Most of the other teachers would only be bothered because of their own peace of mind. At least, that's the impression I get." She looked at the earth close to the lake that Harmony had just patted doubtfully. She never thought it safe to sit down on the ground outside before about mid-May, and even then it was somewhat risky. She didn't really see why one bit of earth was likely to be less muddy than the adjacent piece - nothing was really going to be of seat-grade dryness at this time of year. The last time she'd sat down against her better judgement at someone's bidding was when she'd followed Ingrid out here. Nevertheless, she did sit down. There was no point in being cautious when your trainers were already covered in mud and your tracksuit splattered with it. Speechless even at the suggestion, she watched in astonishment as Harmony committed fashion suicide by turning her hair yellow. She struggled to comment even as Harmony asked her to, although her glance certainly confirmed the other girl's question. "It's very... yellow." she forced out eventually, and then started laughing as her dormmate described herself as a 'highlighted banana'. She tried to ascertain whether she considered the description accurate, but was too busy laughing to be successful before her hair turned back again.

"Yellow's your favourite colour? Bright and cheerful, is that the reason? My favourite colour is purple - light purple - closely followed by pink, actually. Though... not as a hair colour. I think that hair's going a bit -" she broke off and turned around to see Sophia Hallington greeting them. She regarded the older girl gravely. What were they up to? She wasn't a prefect, was she, come to get them in trouble? No, she couldn't be, she'd only been in third year last year and they didn't make people prefects until fifth year. Sita's suspicion cleared immediately and instead she laughed at the other girl. She was quite small, but she didn't look like a first year, as far as Sita was concerned. But then, Sita spent quite a lot of time looking at people's faces.
"You silly, we know who you are - well, at least I do. You can introduce yourself, she's quite friendly," she said, turning to Harmony with her latter sentence and whispering in her ear as imperceptibly as possible: "How about we 'decorate' her with mud? There's no shortage of it." Sita looked back at Sophia, who she considered a friend, if not one of her close ones because they were just people in her year, and grinned. "Well this girl here, who I can't refer to by name because she hasn't introduced herself yet, even though I know her of course, has bad aim and got me instead of the grass. How, I'm not sure. I mean, me -" she raised her hand a little way above the level of her head as she was sitting down now, " - grass." - she pointed at the ground in front of her. "Well actually, mud." she clarified with a laugh. She was being quite outgoing - Sita had never been a shy person - but she wasn't really enjoying herself. She had too much underlying sadness at the moment, and she wasn't able to just cast it aside for the sake of a moment.

[Harmony Chan H6]

Harmony giggled nervously as Sita asked her if she thought she was that small. An embarrassed blush spread itself across her cheeks, despite knowing that Sita was just teasing her. Harmony still felt like an idiot for turning Sita’s hair pink, and she had to admit it wasn’t particularly flattering. “Perhaps I should.” Harmony smiled good humouredly when Sita suggested she practise her aim. Pulling out her wand again, she pointed it carefully at the grass, careful to avoid her companion. Muttering the spell’s words, she changed the patch of grass she sat on from green to a deep midnight blue. It actually looked quite nice, in Harmony’s eyes. Plucking a piece and holding it up like Sita had done, she sent her friend a small smile, “Yep, grass is down there.” Harmony chuckled before letting the wind take away the few blades she held. Watching them being carried away on a gust of air towards the Lake, Harmony turned back to gratefully watch Sita withdraw her wand. She certainly did not want her dorm mate to hex her! Harmony wasn’t much of a fighter, so she would probably not have been able to even defend herself. Harmony knew she was a pretty pathetic dueller, and she had never condoned any sort of violence. She was much too timid, really.

Harmony smiled at Sita’s comment on Filch, and had to agree with her on it. It was typical of the caretaker of Hogwarts. Watching Sita sit down beside her with a dubious expression on her face, Harmony felt a need to make her friend a little more comfortable with her presence, which was ironic, because she herself didn’t feel at ease at the moment. How could she after turning Sita’s hair bright pink? Not many people would’ve believed that it was an accident… Perhaps Sita didn’t either, and that expression certainly confirmed that. Dispelling the thoughts quickly, Harmony was slightly distracted when she noticed the grass below her returning to their original green shade, and cocked a small smile onto her lips. It was fun, this colour spell. Much more exciting than the others, despite it having gotten her into a spot of trouble with Sita. Harmony knew she’d better be more careful on any other occasion. Perhaps she’d hit a less than forgiving Slytherin one day, and that would definitely land her in trouble, even if the thought was rather amusing. Harmony just wanted to stay out of any dilemmas, and for two years she had succeeded pretty well. But maybe that was because Ari was always there to haul her out again.

Harmony couldn’t help but laugh along with Sita, knowing she probably looked a right idiot. However, she didn’t really care, and felt glad that she had done it. The atmosphere was starting to lighten a bit, and Sita didn’t seem so distant anymore. Well, perhaps that was just Harmony’s imagination. She felt that most of her dorm mates were pretty distant to her, which was a sad fact, but Harmony knew that her personality just didn’t mesh up with theirs well. Everybody was different. And Sita only backed that up with her comment on favourite colours. It was inevitable they would go back to this subject, as it was what had drawn them into this in the first place. Harmony nodded at Sita’s question with a bright smile as fluorescent as her favourite colour. “Yeah. And it reminds me of my mummy.” Harmony’s smile turned shy at the mention of her mother; the memory was a precious one, but she rarely thought of it, mainly because it was wonderfully happy, yet also paralysingly sad too. Quickly changing the topic, Harmony nodded enthusiastically, half in thought, half in agreement, “Purple and pink… They suit you.” She didn’t know Sita well, but those two colours seemed to work well for her. Harmony was just about to say that yes, pink was certainly not good for a hair colour, when Sita broke off to look up at an approaching figure.

Glancing up also, Harmony’s eyes landed on a blonde haired Hufflepuff, probably in fourth year, standing near them, talking. Listening curiously as Sita replied to this Sophia, Harmony managed a cheery, not so shy smile, glad that Sita was with her. She didn’t think Sophia looked much of a first year… Her eyes said it all, she thought. But maybe she was imagining things yet again. “Hi, I’m Harmony Chan. Nice to meet you.” Her usual introductory sentence tumbled out of her mouth almost automatically along with a friendly smile. “Yeah, I’m in second year too. We’re in the same dorm too.” Shoving a strand of now completely black hair out of her eyes, Harmony had to stifle a loud giggle when Sita whispered mischievously into her ear about “decorating” Sophia with mud. Glancing around swiftly, Harmony deduced that Sita was right; there was certainly no shortage of mud. Usually Harmony would have been horrified by the thought of doing such a thing to somebody, but Sita had infected her with her bubbly personality. That was what Harmony was like sometimes. A little push in one direction and she could keep rolling down that slope for a while until she realised what she was actually doing. Influence indeed. Harmony laughed along with Sita as she talked about the incident involving the pink hair, dispelling any embarrassment now. “I promised I’d practise on my aim sometime.” Harmony giggled, a twinkle in her eye. Turning back to Sita, she leaned across to whisper back into her ear. “Sure. Tell me when.” Dousing somebody in mud suddenly sounded so irresistibly fun.