In a Blue Mood ((Jamison))

[rosewood]

It was late December and the wind outside was cold and relentless, but inside the greenhouse she couldn’t hear it but she could see the tree leaves being blown by it and by the looks of it she thought it was a miracle some of the older tress were managing to stay standing. She smiled to see that, it made her remember that a little difficulty along the way didn’t mean you had to surrender. She lowered her eyes and concentrated on what she was doing.

Julie was hard at work and so she was quite warm. She was working on a bonus project for Herbology, something she was actually enjoying. Hard work drove her mind from other matters she would rather not think about. She wasn't too happy that she had to work on her own but everyone else was working on other stuff and Herbology wasn't such a popular subject so no-one was excited about a bonus project especially at N.E.W.T level. But then her whole future was going to be in her family's Herbology shop, so it only made sense that she work at that subject more than anything else.

She looked up at the dark sky again and wondered if it would rain. The sky looked a lot like that time she and Harry had first had their real conversation. The remembrance of that time made her want to smile again. And suddenly it came over her again. She missed him, missed his words, his everyday words that were nothing special but were so special to her, missed the strength he gave her and the confidence he inspired in her, missed his courage and determinance to make everything right again. She couldn’t understand this sudden nostalgia, she'd thought she was over it, for after all she'd knew it had to be this way and Julie wasn't one to waste her time crying over spilt milk. But she couldn’t stop the tears from spilling over, and when she heard someone come into the greenhouse she'd dried them away but there was nothing she could do about the tell-tale red colour of her eyes and nose.

[cdc]

The winds hit Jamison harshly as he ventured through the grounds. He had left his Potions book in the greenhouse during class. Without it, Jamison couldn't complete his potions essay and he knew Snape wouldn't take that nicely. Jamison's Ravenclaw cloak held loosely to his and he could feel the wind against his skin. It was icy and hurt a bit at moments. Of course, Jamison knew his punishment for not completing a potions assignment could hurt a lot more. Not willing to under go that, Jamison had to retrieve his book in good time so he could finish the essay before early January. He wanted to have a head start on it to prefect it and hopefully receive a good mark on it. Of course, school work wasn't the most important thing to him, but it did matter. Without doing his work, Jamison could never work for the ministry researching ancient wizard events, which was what he wished to do.

Jamison's feet sank into the earth as he walked. It was still damp from past rain. It wasn't exactly muddy, but wasn't worthy of having first years run along it as usual. The earth was still a bit icy from a winter full of snow and Jamison was grateful that it wasn't snowing at the moment. That would add to the difficulty of walking to the greenhouse and that was already hard enough. It took a bit of effort to not slide on the earth and a bit more not to just fall from the wind. Jamison was tired as he had been doing a bit of thinking in the past days. His emotions never seemed to much for him to handle, but sometimes he had to stop and think on them. Jamison had to think about who he needed to help in the world. He now had a new responsibility of taking care of his sister, Wendi. Jamison had pretty much been asked to take much care of her as their grandparents were becoming old and weak. They of course would be there for the two, but they needed Jamison to help out more than before. How would her accomplish this? Jamison couldn't determine that for anything.

Jamison watched as the sky became darker as if it would rain. Jamison hoped with all his might it wouldn't, but of course hoping was never enough. That's how it would always be and sometimes that occurred vividly to Jamison. Finally. he approached the greenhouse as the sky became darker by the minute. The journey had taken much longer than expected, but Jamison just tried to focus on getting his book. As he entered the greenhouse, the door rustled behind him and he closed it quickly. Jamison attempted to brush a few leaves off him that had been blow over him. It was then he realized someone else was in the room. It was a fellow Ravenclaw Jamison recognized. She was older than him, but not too much so that Jamison hadn't seen her from time to time. He smiled softly at her and it was just then he noticed the she seemed upset. He decided to continued to be the polite gentlemen that he was and not bring up anything that wasn't wanted. "Hello, I'm Jamison." He said nicely. "I just came here to come retrieve by potions book." He walked casually near her. He noticed she was working on a project, but still acted the same"The weather isn't ideal, but it's fine all the same." He said in an almost joking voice, but it wasn't really one as Jamison was a horrible joker. He waited a moment for her to respond and he stood calmly smiling.

[rosewood]

It was a boy who was a year younger than her – one of those boys she'd heard a lot of the female population at Hogwarts discuss because he was what they romantically called the 'strong and silent' type. Julie had to admit he was quite handsome, but never having been one to pay attention to people's looks and also after her relationship with Harry it'd been a long time since her attention had been taken by anything like that. Julie remembered having seen him in their common room, though never having talked to him before. She gave him a watery smile that was noting like her usual bright wide one but was nevertheless a smile.

She appreciated his not asking her why she was crying. If she'd been in his place she'd probably have acted on her first impulse and run up to the person and tried to comfort them, but she was glad that he had exercised some tact and respected her privacy. He'd been considerate and Julie knew what she had been feeling had been a little too private for her to share with someone she didn’t know – even though she usually didn’t mind discussing most personal things, but this- she needed a few moments to think about and deal with it herself.

"You’re only being nice," she said arching one of her eyebrows. "The weather's anything but fine. At least it's warm inside here – or I suppose I'm just warm because I've been engrossed in my work," she said on second thoughts. "Please don’t leave because of me, I really don’t mind." And she didn’t, in fact, she could use some company. She looked up at the sky which was now a murky grey colour. "You know, I think it might even rain. I'm Julie Rosewood – I've seen you in the common room. Snape assigned you to make a potion with some strange plant leaves or something he hasn’t even got inside his cupboard?" she asked conversationally. It wasn't unheard of for Snape to send them to one of the greenhouses to get ingredients for a Potion instead of asking Professor Sprout to collect them. Anything to make their life harder he found thoroughly pleasurable.

[cdc]

"True." Jamison said with a wide smile. The weather was anything but nice. However, Jamison didn't want to come in complaining about it. He usually was one to make a terrific first impression and Jamison didn't really want that to change much. He nodded listening to her talk about her work. For a second, Jamison was tempted to leave until she told him not to leave on her account. "I've seen you too. Nice to meet you." Jamison replied in his usual warm tone. Jamison nodded once again. "That's how I left my book down here in the first place. But it isn't due for a few days." He paused. "I just have nothing else to do and I want to make sure to get it right." He said thinking about it. Snape wasn't at all the nicest teacher. Actually, he was probably almost the entire Hogwarts Population's least favorite teacher. Well, except for Slytherins. They adored him because he didn't care at all what they did and loved to give them house points. But that just made Jamison work harder to receive them. He had been working extra hard on his classwork for that and also for extra preparation for the OWL's which he would be taking in the spring. Jamison knew he was ready, but that didn't make him any less anxious.

Jamison looked out to the sky. It wasn't raining yet as Julie thought it might, but it looked vary close to it. The sky was a deep dark gray and it looked as if someone poked a cloud with a needle it would burst on the spot. It was actually a pretty comical thought for Jamison and he laughed at it internally. The wind pushed various things through the sky. Leaves were scattered through the grounds and Jamison caught glance of a small hat being blown through the trees. It looked as a first year had forgotten it. It swayed and danced around the trees as it was enchanted. The wind whirled it around and Jamison took his smile down when it plunged into the lake and into the water. Jamison watched as it didn't come back to the surface and he thought that was odd. Until, Jamison remembered the giant squid in the lake who probably captured it. Jamison smiled again turning back towards Julie.

Jamison looked at what Julie was working on. "What's that?" He asked looking at her little experiment. Jamison wasn't quite sure himself what it was. He did know it was a Herebology project but that was the just of it. "So, do you like Herebology?" He asked not really knowing of anything else to say. Jamison was sometimes awkward with conversation, but usually no one minded. Julie did seem rather embursed the project and that made Jamison think she had to like it a bit. Well, on the other hand she could hate it just as Jamison hated Potions and only came down to get it over with. If it was another subject, Jamison wouldn't mind spending extra hours on it, but he found it hard to be happy working on a subject with a teacher that couldn't care less. Jamison waited for Julie to answer.

[rosewood]

"Nice to meet you to. Don’t we all when it comes to Potions?" said Julie, her left eyebrow raised, which was a characteristic gesture of hers that showed sarcasm or surprise depending on the situation. "OWL year, eh? All the teachers keep going on and on about how important it is and give you real advice save for Snape, you’d think he wants us all to fail the way he never motivates you," she said with a sigh. "Don’t worry though. You'll be surprised how different it is taking the test than working under his eye. I've never thought I'd actually find a test easier than a class, but I was much less nervous taking my OWL last year than I ever was in his class," she said, shaking her head, her wavy hair bouncing around her back and shoulders.

Julie wondered if his interest in what she was doing was genuine or he was simply looking for something to talk about. He deserved an answer at any rate and Julie replied quite enthusiastically for this was her favourite subject. "Well we have this project that we're supposed to work on for a few months actually and I'm just working on the first phase. It's a bonus project actually but then I've always enjoyed Herbology and with NEWTs it helps to try and know as much as you can about everything. Anyway, these are singing daffodils. There's supposed to be some kind of charm that tells you what note it is they're singing or message or feeling they're trying to tell you, sometimes the tune is supposed to actually mean something, but I still have to research that. They're supposed to have healing effects though they have to be used carefully, when they're maturing they tend to produce high-pitched and loud noisy sounds that can have the adverse effect. Later on I'm going to look at some mature ones and make notes on the tunes they're producing. Right now I'm just transplanting the baby ones. You see, the daffodils don't produce seeds like most flowers, instead, a seedling rises from the roots of the old one. These roots must be trimmed and the daffodil transplanted for the best bloom and song." Julie was using her pruning shears to do just that. There was potting mix and several pots around her. One of the plants produced a single note as Julie held it in her hand, but they were quite young that was all they could do, hum a single note. "Have I bored you to death yet? I tend to go on and on when it comes to Herbology," she said with a little smile. On an impulse she she extended her hand offering him her pruning shears and asked, "Feel like giving it a go?"

[cdc]

Jamison nodded nicely. "Snape doesn't bother me too much, but I can't say I've never felt the urge to make his nose grow, but I seriously doubt I'd ever do that." He said. Jamison did tell a few jokes now and then, but he wasn't the type to be disrespectful to a teacher. He hadn't been taught that way at all. Jamison often refrained from doing things by having his parents' memories pop in his head. He was four years old when they died, but he could still remember them. No one ever guessed Jamison was an orphan. That was because he never let it show. He would merely say he just lived with his grandparents. People usually thought nothing of it and Jamison like things better that way. In different situations, Jamison would see them scolding or praising him in his mind. But, that was all fantasy. Jamison just wanted to remember reality, but that was difficult. "Well, I'm not exactly nervous, yet. However, when it gets closer, I'll be terrified. I actually just want them to be finished with so I can start NEWT classes." Jamison smiled nicely as Julie talked about Snape. It was good she seemed to have a sense of humor or else Jamison would feel awkward.

Jamison listened intently as she talked about Herebology. It was all very interesting as Jamison didn't know too much about plants. He only knew what he was taught in class. Jamison was much more interested in Charms and Transfiguration, but Herebology was an interesting class too. Julie seemed to know a lot about plants and he had never heard of the plant she was describing. Jamison shook his head as she finished. "No, don't worry." He explained. "It's fascinating. I don't know too much about plants. No, I'm much more of a Charms kind of person." He said smiling calmly. Jamison loved learning new Charms. He found new ones all the time and love to give them a go. He had never found one that didn't seem useful in some way. There were so many. Jamison used them for the simplest of things. Wendi loved to watch Jamison use them and he always laughed at the look on her face. Jamison thought for a moment when Julie asked if he wanted to try. "Okay, but I don't think I'll do very good." Jamison reached for pruning shears. He looked at them for a moment and then reached for a root. He carefully trimmed it hoping he would mess up. "Like this?" He asked after a few minutes of silence. It didn't look totally wrong, but too great. "Well at least I tried, right?" He smiled. "So, did you say it has to be transplanted?" He asked becoming more interested.