Late night conversation ((Aila))

[Ivy Tunstall]

Ivy sighed as she rolled over to turn off her light. Where was everyone? It was gone 10 'o clock, and still no one else had arrived to go to sleep. Ivy had been absolutely exhausted, because she had been practising Quidditch for much of the day, and working for most of the rest of it, so she had retired to bed early. Other people were still working downstairs in the Common Room. They had a lot of work at the moment. Ivy had been assured it only got worse.

She allowed her thoughts to drift, to other things, and inevitably they drifted to the usual subject. She frowned. They always did that. She turned on her light again with a flick of her wand, and took out her embroidery. It was a design Fanny had given to her, with an 'I' on it with ivy intertwined around it. Ivy pictured the little shop where she must have got it from, and smiled painfully as she thought of the empty home that was near there.

As she continued to sew with one particular shade of green, she started to hum softly, and sadly, and finally started to sing the words gently, as she blocked in more colour with thread:

"You were once my one companion,
you were all that mattered.
You were once a friend and father,
then my world was shattered.

Wishing you were somehow here again,
wishing you were somehow near.
Sometimes it seemed if I just dreamed,
somehow you would be here.

Wishing I could hear your voice again,
knowing that I never would.
Dreaming of you won't help me to do,
all that you dreamed I could!"

Ivy looked up sharply as someone entered, and stopped. She smiled as she saw Aila there, and set down her embroidery.
"Hey," Ivy said softly in greeting.

((Words taken from Andrew Lloyd Webber's 'Phantom of the Opera'.))

[Aila]

"Hello there, Ivy!" Aila greeted in return. She looked like she had a long day, and a busy one. Her hair was nothing like it was in the morning - by now it was messed up and kept getting in her face.

"I heard you singing, Ivy, of your father...."

She remained there with her mouth open and an empty look on her face. She saw it, after so many months, the memory was still clear as a mountain spring. Although five years had passed, it still haunted her - that day, when she last saw her mother. A tear started forming in her eye, but then it dissappeared, she closed her mouth and a small smile appeared. Her eyes, however, remained empty.

"We have a lot of homework to do for tomorrow. Everyone is finishing up downstairs. How come you're in bed so early?"

She had deliberately changed the subject, and as much as Aila tried to conceal it, she only talked for the sake of talking. She sat down on a bed beside Ivy and remained there, waiting for an answer, rather more stiffly than it could be expected.

[Ivy Tunstall]

Ivy took in what Aila had said about her singing, not sure what to make of it. "Oh," she said softly, looking downwards and away. It appeared, however, that she was not required to comment any more on it and so did not. She looked up again at Aila as she sat down on a nearby bed, noting that the light brown hair, that was quite similar in hue to her own, was slightly messy. Aila had obviously had a busy day - her hair looked only slightly neater than Ivy's had when she had come upstairs three quarters of an hour ago. Ivy smiled at her. From what she understood, Aila lived with her aunt because she had lost contact with her father and her mother, as far as Ivy knew, had died. Ivy could see, although she knew it was more complicated than that, a connection between their histories, but the two girls had never become close friends in the first two years. Just... aimiable, as Ivy was with most of the Hufflepuffs in her year.

"I was tired, really, that's all." Ivy told Aila. "I was doing Quidditch practice and then homework. I did quite a lot of it yesterday though." She smiled again, trying to ease the tension that she sensed. "Have you been doing homework all day?" she asked, anxious not to appear to be brooding over anything.

[Aila]

"Yes, I've been doing it for a fair while," Aila said, "but I guess I'll finish up tomorrow, in-between classes. I'm rather tired myself."

She undressed and climbed into her bed, that was at a comfortable talking distance from Ivy's. She remained silent for a while before speaking again.

"I hope we'll win this time. At Quidditch I mean. Those Slytherins and Gryffindors have been at it for far too long. It's about time we had a go."

"Make sure we win, won't you, Ivy," she said jokingly.

[Ivy Tunstall]

Ivy smiled slightly, sitting up to gaze at the Quidditch poster above her bed. One of the players zoomed past in their bright robes, holding the Quaffle, closely pursued by another player who was in robes that were a rather unappealing shade of grey. Ivy wished she could be as good as those players. That way, maybe she wouldn't let her house down. Maybe Hufflepuff wouldn't suffer such a humiliating defeat against Gryffindor as they had against Ravenclaw. It would be nice if they won, too. Would be very nice. Ivy didn't know what it felt like to win.

Ivy sighed, looking straight at Aila. "Well, I'll certainly try," Ivy said, "but at the end of the day, I can't make any promises." She smiled at Aila, feeling tired suddenly. It wasn't long until the Quidditch match, and she was starting to feel very tense about it. She didn't want to fail her team. Not like she had last time. 210 - 0, for goodness sake. It was not the performance Ivy had hoped she could provide. But she had been training even more since then, and she would not let go without a fight.