Ticks and Tocks - ((Dawn+Pansy))

[Charna]

Tick, tock. Tick, Tock.

The slow metronomal homily of the clock never failed. Each second, it ticked, and the following one - well it tocked. It was a rythm, a pulse, mostly drowned out by the general chatter of full students venturing up to bed rather early after their long journey on the scarlet steam engine. The last few stragglers yawned, admitting their defeat to the sleep that beckoned them to their first night all summer to sleep in a dormitory.

No matter how much a merrily crackling flame burned in a fireplace, it was still shielded by cruel iron bars. No matter how slow some wanted the summer to go by, fate always counter-acted and prodded the time to fly faster, almost as if a blur of flashing scenery was quickly melted together and then fastforwarded. Even though it seemed impossible, Hogwarts was a prison to some, those who were itching to be released from their cages of adolescence and out into the free wizarding world. Those like Charna Wellington, for instance.

Tick tock, tick tock.

The clock droned on, never ceasing to keep accurate time. With each movement of the hand, the flames shortened, though the fire imprisoned behind its bars of cruel iron still blazed strongly. Its spider like shadows flickered across a pale face, smoothed by the hands of the very picture of regality. Charna sat proudly, treating the chair in which she sat by the slowly dying fire as if it were a throne. In deep thought, Charna occupied herself with idly twirling her wand in between manicured fingers. Occasionally, curls of smoke in the shape of serpents would issue from the wand tip, but other than that, there was just silence. Not that the subterranean common room was silent; the fire blazed and the clock still ticked and tocked, but Charna experienced the silence of deep thought.

'The hour of the o'clock is eleven,' the bewitched clock announced.

[dawn]

In the late hours of the night, One sole body walked through the dark and murky dungeon corridors. With her dark cloak hood over her head, Dawn wandered the hallways complete and full of thought. She wandered through the shadows of aged cells and worndown corridors, in her mind searching for something. But that something was unknown to her. A sound echoed through the passageway. A light sound hardly ever heard in the lower levels of Hogwarts. Water dripped down the walls and trickled onto the ground. 'Must be rain.' She thought to herself.

At her own leisure pace, she turned a corner and walking into a pale lit hallway. Slowly slipping off her hood, long light brown locks of hair came into view. Walking through fire filled sconces of light. She reached an isolated statue standing against a stone wall. "Daggerblood." the girl said. Her voice thin but sturdy. The statue moved to the left as a door was exposed. Opening the door the girl walked in.

A vast room filled with Green, black, and silver draperies was all the eye could see. It was weakly lit by a fire burning in the middle of the floor. A single person was in the large room other than Dawn McGrogan, that just arrived. Making her way toward the sitting area where the girl was found, Dawn started to take off her cloak. Throwing it over the back of a long and plush couch. She sat down. Fixing her black pants she wore under the cloak, she sat comfortably.

Tick, tock. Tick, tock. And an occasional door slam were the only sounds heard in the common room. Turning her head slightly she looked at the clock. "Quarter after Eleven." Dawn spoke. "I thought it was much later than that. Sheesh!" she turned her head toward Charna, who was sitting directly across from her. "This night has been exceedingly boring!" she steamed as she turned her head once again to glare into the jumping flames in the fireplace. "I Guess I must have been walking for only an hour, at the most." Dawn slipped her hand into her cloak pocket which sat at her side. Taking out her wand she flickled it slightly and said, "Exterminatio Cloak." Her cloak flew to the coat hanger by the porthole and hung up itself. Placing her wand next to her, Dawn layed down on the couch.

[Pansy Parkinson S7]

Angry boots stormed down the steps of the castle dungeon. Those angry boots belonged to one extremely angry Slytherin, Pansy Parkinson. Anger was an emotion that Pansy felt quite often this year. In October her parents had laid down a new set of rules. She was put on a weekly allowance as well! The horrors of it all had left Pansy angry and at the breaking point constantly. Word had spread and younger students got out of her way when she drew near.

The cause of tonight's outburst had come in the form of an owl from her parents. some IDIOT, probably a professor had sent her parents a letter about what she had done that that Durmstrang kid. Like that was her fault! The kid had made her spill her hot butterbeer! What was she to do!? Simply say "ok I forgive you!?" NO WAY! Naturally Pansy had grabbed the kid and threatened to hex him into the next moon cycle. She then forced him to buy her a new butterbeer. However her parents did not approve and had informed her that she was to be punished and would not receive her allowance for TWO weeks! TWO WEEKS!!! Pansy fumed and the vein in the side of her temple throbbed slowly as she stormed to the Slytherin common room.

"DAGGERBLOOD!" She hissed and entered the common room. Upon entering she found Dawn there, as well as Charna. Both of whom looked rather relaxed as they lounged about. The silence of the room was broken only by a tick-tock-tick-tock of a clock upon the wall. The constant beating of the clock seemed to enrage Pansy even more by the second.

Standing in anger, she simply stood between Charna and Dawn seething in anger, eyeing them both. She was not sure what to say, but she did have a pressing desire to smash that stupid clock into 5 billion pieces.

[Charna]

Yawning in a leisurely way, Charna stretched herself for a moment, being in the presence of no other human allowed her such private luxuries. Normally, Charna held her head high and her shoulders back and proud, often behaving as one would if they were awarded some noble or royal title. Though, in the hours of the night when none were present, when thought could provoke a room's sole occupant by the mere sound of its silence, when not a soul dwelled but a single person - Charna certainly thought that it would be wise to allow herself such an action. Doubtless, there would be others like her, Slytherins who considered curfews beneath them and as such completely disregarded them, so in between time was a good time for "a stretch." Though she would never admit it to any of her house mates, she found this 'stretching' to relieve a good deal of muscle tension.

Absently, Charna traced circles into the crushed velvet of her armchair with the tip of one of her manicured fingernails. True to her previous predictions, around a quarter after eleven o’clock, there was another entrance to the common room - the sound of the stone wall slid open, grinding against the stone of the opposite wall, and then with a shattering sense of finality, the stone wall shut again. Vaguely, Charna could hear someone addressing her (as she was the only person in the room) though she did not bother to turn her head, until the actual person doing the addressing came into full view. “Yes, I share that sentiment, Dawn,” Charna began, drawling in a comfortable tone that only the ‘early’ late night, as Slytherins referred to it, could bring. “The night has its tendency to drone on, seconds elapsing seem hours, though when we are in no need of haste, time speeds its clock up at an alarming rate,” she mused aloud, still tracing those circles in the chair.

“So Dawn, how are you this even- what in Merlin‘s name is that?!?” Charna was cut off by a rather loud, angry shout of “DAGGERBLOOD!” By the voice, Charna judged that it was Pansy Parkinson. The allowance imposed upon the younger girl had been rather a shocking blow, and though Charna could understand (not sympathize, as she did not have sympathy for anyone), Charna had noticed that Pansy had been raging about lately. The slightest drop of a feather could send the normally skyrocketed temper of Pansy Parkinson to new heights, some of which Charna had not seen (cumulating in a ‘bar fight’ of sorts). Standing there, just standing there, Pansy looked as if she had the strong urge to curse something to bits. Charna merely raised an amused eyebrow.

“So, what, if I might, has Lady Parkinson in a fuming rage this evening?” Charna inquired with an amused tone.

[Pansy Parkinson S7]

"TWO WEEKS!" Pansy shrieked as Charna asked what the problem was. "TWO WEEKS no allowance!" It was of course totally ridiculous! "They can't do that! They didn't see what that kid did! He spilled butterbeer on me! What was I supposed to do!?" Grabbing a book from a table, Pansy flung it across the room and smacked it hard off the far wall before she slumped down onto a green couch and only then did she see Dawn laying down nearby as well. "Stupid parents" Pansy muttered as she dug into her robe pocket and pulled out a black coin bag which was not hers. "Luckily I found this bag in the library." Pansy carefully opened the bag and dumped out several coins, it was barely 3 galleons, hardly enough to buy much at all but it would have to suffice until her next allowance.

"So why are you two sitting here doing nothing?" The very idea of laying around doing nothing was something that Pansy didn't understand for she had to always be doing something. As she sat waiting, the silence of the room began to play on her last nerve.