Mysteries of The Morning[ANYONE]

[basketball101]

Maddie stood gazing at herself in the mirror. An act of habbit she would pull when boredom fell over her system. She had already brushed her hair, applied makeup, and painted her fingers, all the muggle way and she still had an hour to spare before her first period class. She didn't figure anyone would be up at this time, well, they might be up, but not down and ready in the common room with their robes already on waiting for classes to start. Normal people slept in and did their homework at night while Maddie went to sleep at eight thirty and woke up at four fifty every morning to do her homework.

Knowing this she grabbed her bag of school books and work and quietly walked down the stairs, eager to persue her lates book, checked out from the Hogwarts library. Yes it was a muggle book, but it was still written exceptionally well. She sat down on a blue chair by the window and opened the book to page two hundred and began to read more of Twightlight. The book was extremely grabbing and she was totally loving Bella's character, almost, though, as much as she was loving Edward himself. Smiling she was so oblivious she noticed nothing of her surroundings except the occasional crackle in the common room fire.

[Cougar Farmer R7]

Cougar had just woken up from a nightmare. One that he did not ever want to relive. He had a cold chill, but was sweating. He panted heavily as memories of "that" day flooded over him. She's in a better place, let it go. She's in a better place let it go He would say to himself in his head and after a few minutes or so he finally regained his composure. He calmed dawn and looked around, groaning when he noticed the time on the clock. "Awe, man! And me and my problem. I guess I'll just go get a hot bath." Cougar had a problem of if he woke up in the morning, there was no rolling over and going back to sleep. He was up. So, Cougar went to have his precious bath, which further calmed him down from earlier. (Sleeping and bath time are his favorite tedious everyday chores to do ;D) He washed his hair thoroughly with shampoo and conditioner, TWICE. He made sure that it was silky and soft. He loved his shoulder length hair, he absolutely loved it. he sat on the side and combed it through until it dried, that was Cougar's secret to getting it to lay the way it did. Then, Cougar got out of the bath and got dressed. He decided he'd let his hair just fall out and not put it up today. So, he grabbed two books (he was just about through with one of them) and headed to the common room. He looked down at this books on the way down. Treasure Island and The Silmarrillion by J.R.R.Tolkien. They were both muggle writers, but having his mother be a muggle was not that strange. He absolutely loved Tolkien and his work.

Cougar finally slipped into the common room and was surprised to see a girl already there. He groaned for a minutes unconsciously as he noticed that she took his favorite chair. "G'morning. You're up early," Cougar said with a smile. "And I don't believe I know you. Cougar Farmer." Cougar said extending his hand. "And you are? Oh! I see you enjoy muggle authors as well? Y'know everything is turning muggle, it's like its becoming fashionable or something." Cougar said sitting in the chair next to hers. He giggled a bit to himself over his "fashionable" comment. This was going to be an interesting day.

[basketball101]

The book seemed to pull Maddie in deeper and she was just getting the part where Bella was going to become a vampire when she heard someone start talking. She seemed to have jumped three feet from her seat and feeling herself calm down a bit and grin shook the boys hand. "Oh, hello, you kind of scared me, well obviously...Anyway my names Madline, my friends call me Em or Maddie. Whichever of the three, I don't mind which ones you use." Madline said, smiling brightly and letting go of his hand from the shake. "Yeah, I love muggle writers especially the author of this series." Madeline replied also letting out a slightly small polite snicker at his supposedly funny joke. Settling back into her blue arm chair seeing as she had had to shift places to shake his hand she placed the large black book in her lap and began laughing inwardly as she glanced down at the book because of one of her friends stupidity in asking what book she was reading.

She had been sitting in her room when her friend Dee had come up to her and glanced at the book. "Mad!" she had semi said/yelled at Maddie, "Why are you reading the bible?" what had mad Madeline laugh wasn't the text Dee herself had used but the contours and extra sounds that had been added to the sentence as well making it more lively and exciting to here instead of a more boring way as to just give Madline a boring look and say in a monotone, "Why are you reading the bible?" because when you really think about it words wouldn't be words without the emphasis different people add to them. Shaking her head as though making something inside her mind disappear like on an E-Z sketch pad muggle thing that younger kids played with the she glanced at Cougar. "So, Cougar, a slightly different name from most I have heard. Were you named after an old family member or something?" Madeline asked, trying not to drift off again and be polite by making a bit of conversation though it was quite obvious the boy had come down her to, like Madeline herself, read.

[Cougar Farmer R7]

Cougar smiled, "How about Maddie? I would offer a shortened form for mine but it would be, what, Co?" Cougar smiled again. That sounded really corny, but he didn't care. Cougar pushed a bit of hair behind his ear and listened to Maddie before responding, "So, what is that book you're reading? Also, well um... the name thing is a bit strange. My grandfather, on my mother's side, was a traveler. But he went places kinda remote like deep jungle of Africa, Siberia, open deserts of Egypt. That kinda stuff. Well, once he went to the Rockies in the United States. He camped a few days and everything seemed fine. As he was packing up his gear to go home, He was um... mangled by a mountain lion. He was in intensive care for a long time. Finally when he got out he still wasn't all himself and would often spout out gibberish phrases. He wasn't sure of his own name, and he couldn't live by himself. So we put him in a funeral home. Anyway, to the point. When I was born my mother took me to see him. The minutes we walked into the room, well my mother walked and she was carrying me, He said, 'Daughter, that child's name is Cougar.' Mother thought he was crazy. 'It's been so long I love you, baby' my grandfather said to my mother. My mother cried from happiness because up until then he couldn't seem to remember her. But it's all so strange. Ever since that day, it's like he has regained consciousness or something because he started acting normal again. It's like he woke up out of a six year amnesia. My mother always fervently believed that it was me that was the cause for him coming back to normal. So she named me Cougar after what he told her. He started proving that he could remember and think for himself, so they let him go home where he lived BY HIMSELF until I was three when he died in his sleep. But when he told my mother to name me that she did it without question. Surprisingly my father agreed with the idea." Cougar stopped as he saw that she was trying to read and he was here rambling on. "Oh, I'm sorry I got carried away. I didn't mean to disturb your reading." Cougar smiled apologetically.

[basketball101]

Madeline giggled at the thought of calling Cougar Co. He seemed to have her kind of humor in a way, not the inappropriate crap that most boys had around the ages twelve and fourteen. Smiling at him she decided Co could be an inside joke. "I am gonna call you Co, just because no one else does yet, obviously anyway!" she told him, sounding a bit odd even in her own two ears. "That's a very sweet story!" Madeline said as he finished up about his name, she couldn't imagine her mother naming her something like that. "I was just named after my mother great great aunt who died of some kind of famous disease that only few people get a decade or something like that." Madeline said, blowing off her name with a wave of her hand, knowing she sounded kind of off because she couldn't even almost start to remember what diesease it had been. Glancing at Cougar again she waited for a moment trying to think of something at all interesting worth saying but found that her mouth was pretty much completely dry and she had no spit. For her to start the next part of the conversation seemed to be utterly and completely out of the question. Her brain was obviously not ready to function this early in the morning. Finally something clicked and she was about to ask her seemingly off topic question when he spoke first.

"Oh, don't worry about it, I have read this book so many million times I know it by heart. Stephanie Meyer is just a really good author that her books are worth reading over and over and over again!" Madeline said as he stated how he was keeping her from her reading. Knowing all of this she was glad that she hadn't had very much homework otherwise she wouldn't have exactly ended up down here in the common room talking to Cougar about names and books and other things of topic. Smiling halfhearedly she watched as her owl Astara stood outside on the window sill waiting to be let in. This was a morning ritual. Madeline always let out her owl when she woke up and then let her back in when she was done or when Astara decided she was ready. Madeline quickly went and opened the window and then came back with Astara perched on her shoulder, her eyes flying around the room at the site of Cougar.

[Cougar Farmer R7]

Cougar listened to the brief story of Maddie's name and was kinda embarrassed that went into a long drawn out explanation of his. But still, She was named after her family. That's nice. And Cougar told her so. Cougar always thought that if he ever had a child he would name it after the Grandpa that named him, but he didn't voice this aloud. Cougar sat there a moments as a awkward silence fell over them when Cougar was trying to find something to talk about. The horrifying dream came back to him and Cougar started panting heavily for a moment. It's just a dream. It's just a dream It's just a dream Cougar kept telling himself. After a minute it subsided and he leaned back in his chair a little more tense this time, however. He put his long blonde hair into a pony tail for the day because he didn't feel like doing it around the guys who'd laugh at him. He really didn't care but it was just kinda annoying. He usually tried to put it up around girls though cause it's usually a good conversation starter. HE didn't know if it'd work or not...


"Oh, really. If you're sure I'm not bothering you.By the way, sounds like a good author. What genre does she write by the way?" Cougar asked politely. Cougar paused a minute as as owl flew to the window and Maddie got up to let it in. "Um, not that I mind, but I didn't know owls were allowed in the common room. Poor ole Dixie stays out in the Owlery all the time." Cougar volunteered, referring to his own owl. Cougar watched the majestic bird...

[basketball101]

"Oh darn! I have never heard they weren't aloud!" Morgan said confused as most people say a blonde should be. "I guess I'll put her out then just for fear of being caught and getting into trouble." Madeline said, placing her outside the window and sighing loudly because her time with her owl was gone. For now she would just have to go the owlery until she bothered asking if they were or weren't aloud in the common room. "So unimportant question people, probably girls, must ask you all the time...why the long hair?" Madeline said grinning. It was an easy sign of polite conversation the could also easily leave to a conversation worth listening too. Grinning as he spoke of her book again she didn't know exactly what to call it. In the wizarding world it wasn't fiction but in the muggle world it was, saying this to Cougar she waited for his response, hoping it would save her answer so that she wouldn't have this trouble next time.

Madeline realized how ditzy she sounded this morning and wondered if she was embarassing herself or actually making a new friend. You never really could tell until the next time they met and how the reacted. If it was a 'Hey I haven't seen you in a while' it meant they didn't care to see you in Madline's opinion. It was truly all about how they started the conversation to see whether or not they liked you or if you were just some annoying little girl they cama across while wandering the halls, or grounds, at the Hogwarts Castle. Very few times Had Madeline actually met someone in Hogsmeade. When Madeline went to Hogsmeade she bought herself a drink and a small snack and went out down the road where no one was and enjoyed herself by reading, writing, but mostly she was always drawing on her weekends. Every now and then someone would stray down the road and see her but they mostly ingnored her because of how she looked reading and laying out in the grass, or drawing and sitting on a rock. There were so many descriptions she didn't know which one was thought the most.

[Cougar Farmer R7]

Cougar tried to correct himself, "I'm not sure that they aren't aloud I just didn't know that they were. I'm not sure if they are or aren't." Cougar added with a smile. He hoped that his didn't sound like a goody-goody-too-shoo to Maddie on her first impression of him, but what could he do. He wasn't sure and he told her what more could he do. He wondered what she did think of him as a first impression. Maybe a guy who is obsessed with his hair and loves to talk alot. Maybe a nerd who reads all the time and follows the rules and a teacher's pet, or maybe yet she saw the book as a cover-up for the long hair and the wild side of Cougar. Cougar didn't know, but almost wished he could've.

Ah, the Topic. Cougar knew it would come up eventually. The great and infamous topic of his hair, his long, blonde, straight hair. He smiled at the prospect of the answer and also in the manner which she asked it. There was so many people who asked about it. "Well, Let me ask you one thing. Why do you think girls mainly ask about it? Well, having asked that, I'm not really sure." Cougar said not really wanting to talk about the real reason with his mother in the vulnerable nightmare ridden state he was in. "I just like it, I mean, my mom loved it, and I guess I did too. Why are you jealous? Need some tips?" Cougar asked with a wink, hoping to let her know that he was just kidding. He anxiously awaited a response.

Cougar wondered back to the many, many times he'd been asked that question. About how the first year of being asked it he cried openly in front of whoever asked it. His father always sort of teased him for it, but always stopped before he went too far. The "guys" always teased him too, but Cougar always figured it was through jealousy. He knew he was different in the ways he chose to go, but that if what made the unique Cougar Farmer, Cougar Farmer.

[basketball101]

Madeline grinned as Cougar began correcting his words because of the basic confusion he had just caused her brain. “Well, I will ask for you and let you know later!” Madeline said grinning. She might as well because she wanted to know herself now that he had made her curious, and plus it gave her an excuse to talk to him again, later on in time because she obviously didn’t bother him, she thought anyway, because he had the choice right now to pick up his book and read during the awkward silence they experienced a bit ago. Madeline grinned as she realized Cougar was about to answer her hair question. She figured it was in fact an easy conversation topic and his hair did look good, but she was a major sucker for blonde hair. Especially her own.

Madeline smiled. Girls loved hair and guys probably just made fun of him for having his girl like taken care of hair. An easy answer. “Because all girls notice hair and eyes first, at least most of the ones I know anyway!” she told Cougar, the grin still playing on her lips, “Boys probably call you out on your hair and make fun of you because they are jealous that so many girls talk to you about your hair, correct?” she asked grinning, knowing this had to be true. Hair was a girl’s instinct, and in a way it sometimes seemed to Madeline’s only instinct, especially when it came to things likes presentation and many other things among these lines. “Please, you’d be lucky to get tips on hair from me; I am just good like that.”

Madeline grinned cleverly at Cougar thinking about how she had probably just read his mind about the whole guys and hair thing. Twisting her hair into a bun she glanced around the common room and wondered what time it was seeing as only a bit ago she had had an hour or so before class. She had already forgotten the time it had been.

[Cougar Farmer R7]

"Cool. I wonder which of us is right." Cougar replied getting a bit of arrogance in his voice. He usually tried to be a smarty-pants and get things right, but he didn't really care at the moment. The arrogance was a fleeting feeling. Now, Cougar was more focused on yet another mis-understanding that had sprung up between Cougar and Madeline. He didn't mean to imply that he wanted tips from her. He was trying to tell her that she would have to wrestle tips out of him... He felt frustrated at this, but she did nail the hair being an attention grabber head on.

"Yes, you're right. Most of they guys do torment me a bit but a small price to pay to meet interesting girls such as yourself." Cougar added a smile as he finished this statement. "I say girls because I'm sure you can tell that girls are mainly the ones that comment on my hair. It's not everyday that a guy comes up to me and goes, 'Oh my God, I LOVE your hair.'" Cougar giggled a bit at thinking about what he had just said. It sounded very strange, but it DID happen once. A muggle going through London with a Pink Floyd shirt on expressed his love for Cougar's hair and demanded that Cougar told him how he did it. Cougar remembered, however, how the guy had walked away bitterly when Cougar had said without thinking, "Well, Um... You've got to wash it and brush it." He knew it sounded Smart, but he didn't know what to tell the guy he was so surprised that the event even happened.

"Also, We must have another mis-understanding. Not to seem rude," Cougar added remembering the memory, "but I don't want your tips I meant that you wouldn't be getting any out of me." Cougar added matter-of-factly. He almost wished he wasn't so smart sometimes, but what could he do? Sarcasm. Bluntness. They all covered up feelings of insecurity and vulnerability. And that is the way Cougar felt. He had been that way (though not so much lately, except for this morning due to the dream) since his mother had died. He covered up his feelings most of the time.

The dream came back to him once more as he shuddered.