Just lounging ((Amelia))

[cleo]

Cleo picked up a bold tone of red before applying the lipstick to her lips. The rich colour was the only make-up Cleo bothered to use. Why? Because she adored red. And secondly she didn’t need much other make-up. By some stroke of luck she had gotten a clean skin and for staying in shape and looking her best – why, she took care of those parts herself. Beauty wasn’t just the appearance. Beauty was in the time and patience you spent taking care of yourself. And Cleo took care of herself. Pulling on a pair of red shoes Cleo threw one glance at the mirror. As always she was wearing contrasting colours. People sometimes wondered if Cleo even had clothes in other colours than black, red and white. Cleo sometimes wondered too. But today she had gone with black and red once again. A pair of tight black pants and a red silk-blouse with ruffles at the wrists and collar. Classy, sassy, original, relaxed and completely Cleo.

Grabbing a book from her bed Cleo strolled out of the dormitory and through the rather crowded common room ducking gracefully to avoid a screwed up piece of parchemtn that was trhown by a 4th year towards the bin in the corner of the room. It was Sunday afternoon and most Ravenclaws were giving last finishing touches to their homework for the week. Cleo had already done that in the morning however. One of the bonuses of being an early riser. Cleo had had a tour outside and done her homework by 7 in the morning, when other people were only starting to wake. But it was so much better to head out now to spend the next couple of hours spread out on the couch in the student lounge and just spoil herself with a good book.

Naturally the student lounge was rhater corwded as well – a lot of people did their homework here, but Cleo had never understood what was good about doing homework together. In a study-group you all just annoyed each other and no one got anything useful done. But luckily that meant that most of the crowd was swarming at the tables in the student lounge so Cleo dived rather gracefully at the couch in front of the huge fireplace in the student lounge.
Laying on her back Cleo leaned her ankles on one of the hand-rests while her head was popped up against the other so she was rather easily taking over the whole couch. It was rather comfortable really. Well, at least it felt more comfortable as it sounded or might have looked. Opening her book on the first page Cleo inhaled deeply, having always liked the smell of books. It was just encanting. Leaning one of the edges of the book on her stomahc Cleo started to read with her eyes travelling back and forth over the lines quickly.

[ames]

Amelia stared down at the parchment, her hand suspended over the page, staring down at the one word she had written. The. Amelia sighed, biting her lip and thinking hard. She had no idea what to write! Yet she knew she had to write something! Stories don't write them self, though that would be much easier! Her turquoise eyes stared down at the parchment for a long time, thinking hard, but there was a mental barrier surrounding any creativity she had left. Stupid "Writer's Block", she thought angrily and crumpled up the piece of parchment, throwing it across the dormitory. She watched as the yellowish paper ball flew across the room and hit the wall opposite Amelia's four poster bed. She sighed, looking down at her notebook, almost as if giving up.

She stood from her bed, slowly strode across the empty dorm room and picked up the ball of parchment. She glared at it, wishing she could just write something, and and threw in a small garbage basket beside her bed. She walked to her trunk and slipped on her shoes, glancing in the mirror as she did so. Her shoulder length blond hair, fell down in straight strands around her neck. She bit her lip again, waving her wand and watching as her hair flew up into a perfect pony tail, a ribbon from her night stand automatically wrapping itself around her hair. She smiled, satisfied with the hair-do and took hold of her notebook and pencil, walking out of the dorm room.

The Common Room was, as usual, crowded. It was the Gryffindor Common Room! It was always lively and fun... well not always. Some days it was nice and quiet, better environment for reading or writing or a nice game of Wizard Chess. With a last glance of the crowded Common Room, Amelia was out of the portrait hole and down the flight of stairs toward the Student Lounge, where she may obtain some sort of inspiration for her story. She eagerly walked inside the Student Lounge, which was crowded, as well. She looked around for an empty seat, but did not find one. Amelia searched for somewhere to sit, but the only place that was possible for a body to sit was occupied by a girl who was taking up a whole couch by herself.

Wishing there was some other way to sit without being rude, Amelia knew there was none. So she walked forward, smiling apologetically at the girl even though she hadn't even asked her anything yet. "Ahem..." she said clearing her throat, "Could you please make some room? There isn't anywhere else to sit." She felt bad for asking the girl to move. Even if she asked in the most polite way possible, it still felt rude to Amelia. She bit her lip again, looking down at the girl, waiting for an answer.

[cleo]

Cleo flipped the page over snorting at the over-done love-promises. Really. If a guy had to think before decided whether or not he loved you, then he wasn’t worth the trouble. It was as simple as that. Love wasn’t supposed to have any hesitations or doubts. Adna guy who loved two women at the smae time... that kind of aguy most likely didn’t deserve either of the girls. Cleo hoped that she would never become aliek toa soap-opera heroine and that she could kick such a guy out if something like this ever happened to her. Whether or not it would break her heart to do so. She could always piece her heart back together. But it might not be as easy to regain respect and trust and if you took a complete jerk to live by your side, who didn’t even love you.

Cleo finished reading the sentence and then placed her finger at where she had stopped reading before finally looking up at the girl who had spoken to her. She was a 5th year as well, but in Gryffindor. Cleo thought she recognized her form some of the classes, but they had never really spoken. „Would it be overly nasty if I said no? Because making room for you would mean me moving myself and I’m feeling lazy enough to not particularly want to move myself right now,“ Cleo replied with a cool raise of her eye-brow look at the girl rather indifferently. It was true. Even though the book wasn’t the very best but she didn’t have anyhting better to read at the moment – Cleo was feeling very comfortable. She was happy in her small ittle cocon where no one bothered her. Or at least no one HAD bothered her.

Cleo sighed and pulled herself to sit before throwing her legs on the floor with a rather high arc where the heels of her bright red boots clicked loudly on the floor. Scooting over Cleo tried to settle herself comfortably in the corner between the armrest and the back of the couch somewhat succeeding in the task while she shurgged giving the girl a glance: „Feel free to sit down I suppose.“ Picking up the gold dragon pendant holding the ruby – Kris had never taken it back and Cleo had found it rather impossible to take it off her neck herself. Most likely a charm against it as it had been a family jewel. Cleo started to play with the necklace liazily as she reopened her book from the page she had stopped reading.

[ames]

As the girl moved so that Amelia could sit beside her, Amelia smiled again, apologizing for the rudeness, and sat down, adjusting herself so that she could write in her Muggle notebook comfortably. She glanced at the girl who had so nicely moved for her. Amelia understood the girl's attitude towards her, the girl had looked rather comfortable... Amelia smiled again, trying to catch the girl's eye, but when she did not look up from her book Amelia decided to thank her verbaly.

"Erm... thanks for moving. Sorry. You looked pretty comfy." Amelia said, trying to be friendly.

((OOC: sorry it's so short... havn't been very inspired for Ames...))

[cleo]

The girl decided to be polite. Sometimes politeness was really-really-really over-rated. Like at times like these when Cleo was trying to read in peace awhile being comfortable. She had managed to read a total of… umm… Cleo counted quickly with her eyes… a total of 23 words since the girl joined her. Looking coolly other girl over Cleo silently wondered what her name was. Sure, they had been having some classes together for the past 5 years. But that didn’t mean Cleo had any clue as to who the girl was. She didn’t really stalk other people in the class to hear who they were and what they wanted to do. Not that it wasn’t obvious what people did in classrooms. Studying was a rather time-consuming hobby of everyone in the castle.

“I was comfortable,” Cleo stated coolly in a reply for the girls words, while nodding slightly, “I’m Cleo. Cleo Hardwick. Ravenclaw. I think we have a couple of classes together.” Cleo tilted her head lazily, letting her fingers part her hair easily as her fingers slipped htorugh the hair, from which Cleo was sure to keep all tangles out of.

[ames]

The girl seemed... cold almost, yet her words didn't sound threatening. This confused Amelia. Was this Cleo girl a rude Ravenclaw? Or was she just a bit cranky? Whatever the reason, Amelia was going to be nice and polite, who knows! Maybe she was just being paranoid, thinking everyone was angry with her. That would make more sense. Life would be less complicated if everyone just hated her and didn't have their own lives and feelings to deal with. That way Amelia would have one thing for certain and never have to doubt something or anything again!

She sighed quietly and looked over at Cleo. She told Amelia her name as if she had asked for it rudely, but she hadn't even hinted that she wanted to know who this girl was! But... no matter, it wasn't a big deal. Amelia smiled in a friendly way and introduced herself as well, "My name's Amelia Richardson. Gryffindor. And yes, I do think we have a few classes together. I remember seeing you every now and then," She nodded, looked down at her notebook. The first sentence on the page, which she had written yesterday (that and the other three pages before it). She tilted her head, wondering if it was a good sentence... did it even make any sense? She shrugged and looked over at Cleo, wondering if the girl would say anything more.

[cleo]

“Amelia,” Cleo repeated easily, noticing with little surprise that the name didn’t sound very familiar. Then again she didn’t make a habit of stalking Gryffindors to learn all she could about them. She had more pride than that after all, besides Gryffindors were hotheads. Rushing and very often foolish hotheads who didn’t care who they pulled into trouble with themselves. Look at Potter for a clear example. Did he ever think before flouncing off to meet he-who-must-not-be-named. Nope he only seemed to cross his fingers, close his eyes and wish for luck, while leaving it to everyone else to drag his messy head out of trouble. And he was pretty much the role-model of Gryffindors, so those thoughts pretty much concluded Cleo’s opinions about Gryffindors.
Noticing that she had been staring Cleo shrugged rather nonchalantly, not really bothering to offer the bleak and rather meaningless phrase ‘nice to meet you’. She had been much more comfortable in her own company while stretched out. And as she wouldn’t have meant it, Cleo opted to not outright lie into the Gryffindors face and just stayed silent. Sometimes silence was much more polite after all.

Trying to make herself comfortable again Cleo threw her legs on the coffee-table in front of the couch and tried to settle down lazily while throwing a rather apathetical glance at Amelia: “Good for you. Must admit that I didn’t even have a clue about your name, but you seemed somewhat familiar form classes, so I guessed you were an other 5th year. Don’t really recall you any further than that.”

[ames]

Amelia nodded, a slight smile playing on her lips. It wasn't a friendly smile, more of a friendly gesture than anything. She looked back down at her notebook, reading the last sentence and trying to get into the right mind set for writing, but something about the lounge and having someone sit next to her while she tried to think about her book, just didn't seem to inspire her. She sighed, shutting the notebook shut and placing the quill and ink bottle on the floor next to her. She seriously thought about leaving, of going back to her dorm or maybe sitting out by the lake, but she decided not to when Cleo suddenly spoke.

Amelia turned to look at the girl lounging beside her. Some time while Amelia was contemplating where to write her story, Cleo had found a much better position. Her legs sitting on the small coffee table in front of them and the look she gave Amelia rather confused her. Was she a Ravenclaw? Or a Slytherin? Usually Ravenclaws were friendly and wise, but Cleo seemed cold and definatly not interested. And what was with the way she phrases her words? Was that an insult or something? Amelia decided to stay friendly, but needed to be careful not to make this girl angry...

"Yes well..." she said, unsure at what else to say to the girl's comments. She looked down at her hands and then tried to get more comfortable as well. She adjusted herself so that her legs folded nicely under her. She leaned off toward the side of the couch and let her hip lean against the couch arm. She leaned on her elbow, which sat on the arm as well.

[cleo]

Cleo observed lazily how the girl closed her notebook. Cleo couldn’t help but feel a small smirk curving her lip-corners. Was the girl finding her so bothersome that she wasn’t able to write her diary or whatever she did write into the notebook near her? Not that Cleo minded much. However arrogant it might sound she liked her own company. And she liked her books. Cleo glanced at her book as she smirked again as the girl placed the ink-bottle on the ground. Cleo arched an eye-brow eyeing the ink-bottle. It was likely for someone to stumble or for some pet to push it over. Which would result in ink being lost, Filch being furious and some people being annoyed. Such suggestions would sound snappy and overly pushy so Cleo refrained from saying anything other than arching her eye-brow.

Cleo flicked her book open again snorting amusedly at Amelia’s “Yes well…” Snickering lazily Cleo glanced up form her book to the girl with both of her eye-brows raising this time. “’Yes well… ‘how very deep and philosophical. I’m stunned speechless. It shall be my mantra for the rest of my life from now on,” Cleo asked with a perfectly innocent face and tone of voice making sure that all traces or sarcasm were carefully wiped away from it. Giving Amelia a mockingly admiring glance Cleo tilted her head: “Thinking about pursuing a career as a mental guru? You certainly have some enlightening phrases for it already.” Cleo snorted blinking innocently at Cleo before averting her eyes back to her book.

((No offence, Amelia, but Cleo isn’t your random sweethearted goody-two-shoes. To make Kris fall in love with her, she has to be something more, right?))

[ames]

Amelia looked to Cleo as her voice chuckled smugly. An eyebrow raised as the girl began speaking. Her voice and even the look on her face screamed innocent admiration, but her eyes betrayed it. Amelia's face turned cold, her eyes dimming to anger. She was being sarcastic and rude. Amelia's teeth slowly and softly ground together, trying to diminish her growing anger. She wanted to say something to Cleo, something clever and hurtful, but she couldn't think of any. Cleo's sarcastic words continued to provoke her anger.

Amelia crossed her arms across her chest and continued to glare at Cleo with angry eyes. When the Ravenclaw finished, Amelia gave a few dry laughs and looked down at the floor, running her tongue over her teeth as she always did when she was angry. She smiled a sarcastic smile, not trying to hide her anger or her sarcasm as Cleo had.

"You know, I'm very honored to have such a beautiful classmate be so admiring towards me," She paused to glare coldly and then continued. "And yes, I do think that I may become a Mental Guru. Only because you sugested it."

Her glares, even her blue eyes, showed nothing but sudden hatred. True, she didn't 'hate' Cleo. How could you after only knowing someone for so little a time, but she blocked out any other feeling but anger and continued to scowl at Cleo.

((OOC: lol, I never take any offense to what people say while in character. I completely understand that its the character, not the person who is saying this. And wow, hahaha, that's funny. I never read any of Cleo and Chris posts, so I didn't know that she was trying (or tried) to get Chris, but that certainly is funny. ))

[cleo]

((Kris. KRIS! 4 letters. Starts with a ‘k’. Pleas,e it’s ott hat hard of a name, so pelase write it correctly? I’m a bit of freak when it comes to names and writing htem with capitalized letters, but it’s a big deal for me. So please don’t turn him into a ‘Chris’. It’s short, simple and clear KRIS.))

Cleo tried. She really tried. She even held her breath and counted to ten in her mind. She stared at her opened book between her hands and counted backwards from 10 slowly. She gave her very best, but it didn’t work. Cleo burst out laughing loudly at Amelia’s words. The attempt of sarcasm was evident even though it didn’t bother Cleo much. She knew that she wasn’t half that bad-looking. She wasn’t a beauty, but she had her pretty sides. Some people liked her, some didn’t. Personal opinion really, so Amelia’s attempt to cut with her wounds merely made Cleo laughed. Bowing over her book Cleo fought to regain control off herself doing Lamaze’s breathing exercises. True, she wasn’t pregnant, but those exercises really helped to overcome laughter. Straightening slowly again Cleo couldn’t help but snicker at the glare Amelia was direction to her.

“Really, guru, don’t glower. It’s unbecoming. And I suppose this is where the creative difference between us comes out. I’m creative - you’re different. But oh well, some of us do have to sit on the side of life and clap for others. I think I’ll sit and clap as you pass me by. After with your deeply meaningful words you enlighten that annoying time between naps also known as consciousness and fill it with meaning, while I merely ‘am’ and admire those so much more fortunate than I am,” Cleo replied easily. After all she had just laughed in the girls face. Doubt keeping her tongue behind her teeth would help the situation much. Perhaps the girl would merely see the amusing concept of the situation as well. Besides Cleo wasn’t one to bother hiding her thoughts. Her eyes still having a bit mischievous twinkle of laughter in them observed Amelia calmly waiting for the Gryffindors reaction.

[ames]

Amelia had never been more insulted by a fellow student, well... other than a Slytherin. Her anger flared as Cleo suddenly burst out laughing. She gripped the fabric of the couch arm as hard as she could so as not to blow up in Cleo's face. Amelia should be used to this sort of mocking. Her mother's ex-husband was just as sarcastic and blunt. The sudden remembrance of her old step father brought Amelia away from anger and suddenly rammed her into sadness. It had been almost 6 months since Ray had his little "party" and the couple were torn apart. Amelia should have been happy to be away from Ray, but something about the way her mother cried at night, every night as they slept in their new rooms at her mother's best friend's house, that made Amelia feel depressed. She even found herself crying every now and then.

Amelia was brought out of her sudden thoughts by Cleo's abrupt end to her laughing fit by doing heavy breathing excersizes. Amelia faked anger, trying to seem like nothing had happened deep within the vaults of her mind. Cleo sudden spoke, harsh words that seemed to be innocent and light but stung at Amelia's self esteem a bit too hard. She licked her lips, glowering at Cleo even before the girl had finished her retort. She stood before Cleo, a hand on her hip and a fake angry expression on her face.

"Well, you may as well clap, because here I am passing you by..." She made a over dramatic gesture as she walked passed Cleo. She continued out into the hallway outside the Lounge and sighed, leaned against the wall. Her heart beat thumped nervously in her chest as the depression she was hiding so well suddenly overtook her. She felt tears press her eyes and her chin quiver dangerously. Suddenly, realization struck and Amelia stood, leaned against the wall as shock over came her. She had left her notebook, quill, AND ink next to the couch... Sudden worries flooded her mind. What if Cleo reads her story? What if she completely ruins her story by pouring ink on top of it?! Amelia let the tears fall from her eyes. She couldn't go back in there... it was all too embarrassing.