A lake but no squid. (Anastasia)

[Danny McKay G5]

Danny got up slowly yawning and looking out the window to see that the sun was already up and it was pretty high. He would have been late but there wasn’t any class today. Even if he was late he wasn’t the type to run around in a panic. After yawning and stretching a few times he finally got up and started to change. Danny started to go through his trunk but just kept pulling out school uniforms. “Note to self, don’t let my mom pack my trunk.” He said finally pulling out some of his normal clothes it was just a white shirt and his black leather jacket and a pair of black jeans. After getting changed Danny walked down to the common room to see a lot of people finishing there work for class.

Danny smiled standing at the bottom step then walked to one of the tables with a few friends he knew. They were all working and trying to help each other. “Just seeing you all work so hard and trying to help each other so much makes me want to get some work done too.” He said kind of laughing as they looked up. “But sadly I have something more important to do. I wonder if there’s any breakfast left.” Danny said making a few of them laugh as he waved to them when he left the common room and started heading for the great hall.

Danny was disappointed to see that the house elves had already cleaned off all the tables by the time he made it to the great all. “I wish I could get them to clean my room during the summer.” He said as she turned around wondering were to go from here. Then he finally decided to go outside and bother the giant squid or something like that. After a bit of walking Danny was finally outside and the sun was right in his face making him somewhat close his eyes till he got used to the sun. Finally getting used to the sun Danny headed for the lake.

Danny made it to the lake but the squid wasn’t out and he wasn’t going to make it come out if it didn’t feel like it. Last time he did that it pulled him into the water but that’s probably what Danny would have done if someone woke him up and if he was a giant squid. He sat down by the lake knowing he did have better things to do but he just didn’t feel like doing them. Today was to nice of a Day to be stuck inside the castle. Danny laid back and looked up at the sky and the sun was now being covered by some clouds. Then the sun was out again in only a few minutes and Danny sighed and closed his eyes. Then he could tell the sun was covered by something again even with his eyes closed. He looked over and there was a girl standing right above him and she was blocking the sun.

“Well I was expecting it to be a cloud blocking the sun but it’s much nicer to see it’s a girl.” He said looking up at the girl and smiling not sure who she was.

[Anastasia Castlerock R4]

Finally, the weekend! It was the first week of school and teachers were talking about the importance of OWLs already. Who cared about them anyway? She most certainly did not. She could worry about them next year – or actually – the last month of next year, right before the exams. Now was the time to lay back and have fun, enjoy being fourteen, enjoy the autumn before the cold months of winter arrived, enjoy being alive! One look in the Ravenclaw common room at the bent heads and the stacks of books and Stacey knew that this was certainly not the place to have some fun. Why that confounded Sorting Hat had condemned her to this house she would never know. It was even more of a mystery than how Luna Lovegood had ended up in Ravenclaw. Boring bunch of clever-clogs, that’s what they were.

She walked down to the lake where she was sure she’d find someone to talk to at one point. Even if she didn’t she liked looking at the little fish that sometimes swam next to the brink and make up stories about them. Or look at the giant squid and make up stories about why it had grown so big. She stood next to the lake for a while, lost in her thoughts of what she wanted to do. She was walking around it and she had walked away and back to the same point when she discovered there was a boy lying with his eyes closed not too far from where she was. Stacey stood right in front of him and looked at his face for a while till he woke up, thinking of what he was like. She had got to the point where she had decided he was either a Hufflepuff or a Gryffindor when he opened his eyes. “Oh good thing you woke up. I was thinking maybe I should take a ruder approach to waking you up. And I’m not a rude person by nature, don’t let anyone tell you that about me, and if they do, don’t believe them, because I can see that despite the erroneous judgment that lead you to sleep right where the sun could burn your skin you’re not without any brains. Strange time to sleep though isn’t it? Didn’t you sleep well yesterday? I’m sorry if you didn’t, that happens to me too, it’s great when you can run around the school but now with all the security measures it’s no fun. The other day I had this strange dream right before I woke up, I’ll tell you about that too, but after you answer that last question.” Stacey didn’t stop to think the boy might just want a few moments of peace and quiet for himself. He had crossed paths with her. That meant he was here to rescue her from boredom.

She commented on the first thing he had said to her before she had buried him in questions. “In what way is a girl better than a cloud?” she said, tilting her head and playing with the string of beads she had on. She always had to be doing something with her hands.

[Danny McKay G5]

Danny kept looking up at her not even bothering to stand up or even just sit up. Danny didn’t seem to remember meeting her before but she talked like she knew him and maybe like his mother in a weird way when she asked if he slept well, something his mom always asked him. Danny kind of laughed as she went on talking and asking him weird questions that he didn’t really have an answer to and was being to think that she wasn’t really looking for an answer but to just ask him so many questions. He kept looking up at her and stopped paying attention to what she was saying for a second. Danny laughed again to himself as he looked up and thought, “She looks tall from down here…Idiot.”

Danny then smiled as she finally stopped asking question then asked one more question about what he first said to her. “Well that’s easy, one a girl is much better to talk to then a cloud and two…” He said as he sat up and turned to look at her. “A girl is much prettier then any cloud.” He said smiling up as her. “Ok now to go through that long list of questions.” Danny said laughing and tried to remember them all. “No I wouldn’t believe anyone who told me you were rude, I’d have to meet you in person to find that out. Sunburns well I didn’t think about that but I could always use a tan or another visit to Madam Pomfrey.” He stopped as he tried to remember what else she asked then a few more of her questions popped into his head. “I slept great and I wasn’t sleeping I just had my eyes closed and sure I’d love to here about your dream." He said as he was still smiling up at her.

“Now you have to answer a few of my questions. First what’s your name, year, house and what are you doing here today? And last but most important of all want you sit down next to me or do you just want to stand?” Danny said laughing looking up at her waiting for her reply. "And by the way I'm Danny McKay, Nice to meet you." He added while he waited for her to anwser.

[Anastasia Castlerock R4]

"You really think that? It's not that I don’t think that girls aren't prettier than clouds – but you know there is one great thing about clouds you can't deny can't be found in girls, and that's that with clouds almost everyone sees something different when they look at clouds – I mean you can almost imagine what it is you want to see and see it, but with a girl, what you see is what you get," she explained. "And that is hardly a long list," said Stacey, throwing her hair over her shoulders. She grimaced at the mention of Madam Pomfrey. She didn't like going to the Hospital Wing at all – and she didn’t really believe that the woman ever knew what was wrong with her when she did. True, she did feel better after a few days after going to the Hospital Wing – but Madam Pomfrey never thought outside the box in Stacey's opinion. "Oh you would?" she said excitedly. "It's quite incredible," she said almost proudly, as if she had achieved something by having the dream.

"Have? There's nothing I have to do. I will though because should we continue a conversation for a while you need to know those things about me, as long as you understand they will tell you very little about who I really am. And speaking of a lot of questions, not that you asked a lot, but anyway, surprisingly enough not every girl likes that. Even those girls in my common room that have questions about boring things like what happens if you add an extra sprig of mint to a Cleansing Potion. I mean, what's the worst that could happen if you just tried?" she said, and the disapproving dislike was a little overdone again in her voice and expression.

She stopped moving for a moment and looked at him. "Anastasia Castlerock, Ravenclaw fourth year, call me Stacey, and I really don’t know whether it's nice to meet you yet," she said, plopping down beside him.

((I'm so sorry I left you so long – wrapping my head around Stacey's personality and way of thinking is proving to be harder than I thought.))

[Danny McKay G5]

Danny listened to her as she went on about clouds and how you could see anything in them and with a girl you only get what you see. Danny started to think she was a little odd but that was good it was better then just being around the same types of people everyday that would just be boring. “Well you’re right about that I guess but that’s not always true about girls.” He said smiling up at her. “Sometimes for some people what they see is greater then any cloud could be.” He said smiling a little. “But your probably right want do I know.” He said laughing a little and listened to her some more. “I’m sure it was" He said as she went on about her dream and how it was incredible. “So what was it about?” He asked her about her dream.

Danny continued to listen to her and kept wondering about what she was saying. She really was an odd one probably one of the strangest persons he had met so far this year but the school year had just started so there could be stranger ones yet to come. And somehow it went from him asking her a few questions to her being made at other Ravenclaw for asking so many questions and not trying things out for themselves.
“So that’s all they do in the Ravenclaw common room? Sounds boring.” He said after she was done making what seemed like a speech.

Then she told him her name, house, year and to call her Stacey then said she didn’t know if it was nice to meet him yet which made Danny laugh a little. “Well I guess your right about that too.” he said smiling as she sad down. “So what bought you to the lake, Stacey?” He said looking over to her.

[Anastasia Castlerock R4]

Stacey gave Danny a closer look without being too obvious. She wondered if what he said was true – people interested her, but she could never say that she had seen anyone she had admired or had really inspired her to do anything of value. But then he himself seemed uncertain about his own opinion and Stacey didn’t give the matter any further thought. "My dream?" said Stacey, smiling a little at the recollection. In a strange way she felt as if she had something no-one else had had, something she was lucky to have had and they lucky to be able to hear it from her. "I was on a boat in a lake, and on either side of me there large, overgrown trees. The fruit – this is rather strange, was nothing I could recognise. And then as the boat floated on I started pulling at the different fruits, and though their touch was familiar and so was their colour, it was funny that I couldn't tell what they were, it was as if I was seeing them for the first time in a sense, and yet in another sense I had known them, but never really known them. And they made me keep thinking of well different people for some reason, but I still don't know why my made this connection. And right before I woke up their was this incredible sense of revelation – I woke up then with a thrill of euphoria, but suddenly know I don’t know what I was so chipper about," said Stacey with a little frown. "But what's in a dream?" She asked the question without expecting an answer, shrugging her shoulders and struggling off the mild disappointment she had felt.

The insufferable geeks. "Tell me about it. There idea of fun is coming up with new to learn the uses of dragon blood or Arithmancy tables and stuff like that. There's little to be done indoors and certainly nothing to be done in my common room. I imagined I would come here and enjoy one of my favourite pastimes – I mean, just something I do to pass the time, and that is watch the squid or the fish in the lake and make up stories about them. Or just find someone to talk with for a while. What about you Danny?" she said, standing on her tiptoes and then alternating from one foot to the other.

[Danny McKay G5]

Danny couldn’t help but laugh a little as he listened to her dream. Danny never had any good dreams normally they were just black nothingness or maybe he just couldn’t remember what they were and that’s what he thought they were. Danny was able to remember a few of his dreams but nothing that seemed great and for some reason he never understood he always remembered nightmares more then good dreams it was odd. “Sounds like a wonderful dream.” He said smiling after she was done talking. “There could be a lot of things in a dream and then again there could be nothing.” He said laughing a little as he thought about something. “Just don’t let Professor Sybil hear you say that, you might get stuck in an hour long talk about dreams and the future. Crazy witch but that’s why I love her class.” He said laughing more, he knew that, that was something she would probably do.

Danny listened to her talk it was quite interesting in fact he had never met a Ravenclaw who was mad at other Ravenclaws for basically being a Ravenclaw. “Me, I just came out here because I had nothing better to do.” He said laughing a little. “I was too lazy to finish any of my class work. So I went down to get some breakfast but those darn house elves cleaned it all up before I could get there and then I just walked out here to find the giant squid.” Danny said as he looked out to the lake. “But I guess he doesn’t feel like coming out today.” He said smiling a little. “So what kind of stories do you make up about the squid and fish if you don’t mind me asking?” He said as he looked over to Stacy.

[Anastasia Castlerock R4]

She smiled. “It was,” she said, “I know what you mean, but I think the fact that I remember so much about it us must mean something. Don’t you think it would be great if different people could have the same dream? I think it would mean something different for everyone though,” she sighed as she voiced the thought; it was an interesting idea that she might make up a story from. “I love her classes too, they’re so inspirational. For me to make stories I mean, but I hate how depressive she can get. Then again it’s just funny most of the time, the way she can spin so many sad stories and never run out of new ideas. And it’s never hard work for me that class, and so few Ravenclaws take it so that’s another bonus,” she said happily.

Though Stacey had a lot to say about everything and everyone under the sun she was unwilling to share her stories with someone she just met, she didn’t know exactly why, so all she said was, “Let’s just say ‘Finding Nemo’, if you’ve seen that, is nothing next to my stories,” she said. She didn’t mean it conceitedly, and said it in a joking manner. “Maybe when I know you better I’ll share. Let’s stand closer to the brink of the lake and if some fish swim close, I’ll make up a story now,” she said. “Or the Giant Squid. I like to think of a new reason behind how he got so big every time I come to the lake. What do you think happened to it?”