Heads Will Roll [anyone]

[ever]

[First time I'm writing after a while. Thought it would be a decent starter maybe if someone got annoyed with her for humming, or they could recognize the song, but I'm up for anything.]

Alina Hamad G3

Off with your head, d-dance, dance, dance til you’re dead…

Round and round and round – isn’t that how songs always get stuck in your head? The same line repeated over and over in her head, bouncing back and forth within her noggin like a lost ping pong ball, Alina hummed softly as she carefully applied a coat of mascara as she stared wide-eyed into the mirror. If there was anything she missed about home it was her stack of CDs. Her mother would take her to the store once a month to pick out an album since she was young, but Alina would indulge at least once a week in some new musical discovery.

Turning swiftly upon hearing a noise outside the dorm room door, she paused in her application of make-up, ready to throw a towel over her figure if someone were to open the door. She was still for a few more seconds, waiting expectantly and then breathing a sigh of relief and turning back to the mirror as she realized that it was the sound of someone else’s door. Well if there was anything else she missed about home, it was having her own room. It was not that she minded sharing the space itself, but more so that she didn’t exactly get on with her roommates. They were openly girly with a capital ‘G’ and would burst into the room talking trash about some other person all the while completely oblivious at how utterly stupid they sounded.

Heads will roll, heads will roll…

This opinion may have seemed slightly hypocritical of a girl who was currently sporting a skin-tight sleek black dress robe, a thin silver chain, and a cluster of bangles on each arm; the ensemble added years to the girl’s young face, making her seem at least sixteen. But she was far more clandestine about her femininity, never feeling comfortable flaunting it, particularly in the comfort of other boys. Besides, she didn’t want to seem older to others. She quite enjoyed the protection of youth which afforded her conversations devoid of squealing about who-asked-out-who and which shop sold the most flattering fit of robes. Nevertheless, she liked dipping her toes into late adolescence now and again. It was exciting to pretend to be someone else once and a while…as long as no one who knew you as the sort of quiet, odd girl was around.

She finished her handiwork and stood back, examining the effect, smiling experimentally into the mirror and even daring a wink at her reflection.

“Enchanted,” she said, flinging out her hand and fluttering her eyelashes in an exaggerated way, before breaking character and giggling. Having achieved the desired effect, she then shed her robes, donning a plainer pair of navy blue. She undid the clasp of her necklace and shed her bangles into the trunk, which was stowed at the foot of her bed. The final act of transformation was wiping away the make up, which she did, revealing the face more appropriate of a thirteen year old beneath. Having tucked away her secrets, she flung the door open and made her way down the stairway to the Common Room, a Transfiguration book.
Plopping herself down in an arm chair by the empty fireplace, she cracked open the dog.

D-dance, dance, dance til you’re dead…

She continued to hum softly under her breath.

[Melody Bang-Bala G6]

((I'm pretty rusty, so apologies!))

OWLs year had been tough, more work than Melody had ever done before in her life. But it was difficult to get stressed out now that exams were over - it wasn't just the normal feeling of relief that came with the end to the tedium of normal school exams, but a release of the immense pressure of actually needing to perform well, in exams that really counted for something. Then again, the end of OWLs just heralded the beginning of NEWTs, which everyone said were far more work than the exams taken at the end of fifth year. But older students just liked to boast about how busy they were, thinking it made them sound clever. It didn't really. For a moment, Melody thought fondly of an older Ravenclaw friend she'd had, Dana - she hadn't felt it necessary to boast about how much work she'd been doing as if it made her a worthier person. So maybe Melody needn't be too scared after all...

The imponderable future. Fed up with planning for now, wondering whether she'd have done sufficiently well in her OWLs to take the subjects she was interested in at NEWTs level and so on and so forth, Melody resolved to forget exams and go and find someone to talk to. That wasn't something she did much anymore. Since the jail term, talking to strangers was a dangerous thing to do - they had a tendency to turn on her and reel out their tabloid-induced hatred. She could put a stop to that by sharing the full story, Hebe's letter and all, with the Prophet, but she didn't really want her name splattered across newspaper pages anymore. It was easier to be forgotten, for the moment. Maybe once she'd left school and could seek refuge in isolation, she'd make the effort to clear her name publicly. But not while she would still have to endure taunts in the school corridor - cruel jokes about the truth would hurt much more than the false accusations which she had by now (almost) learnt to ignore.

So, for the time being she was limited to one friend, Matt. But he couldn't hang around with her the entire time - after all, he had a girlfriend and all (Melody had no idea what the girlfriend's opinion of Matt's friend choice was, but she had never asked - she assumed it was best not to know). So for someone to talk to, she would have to brave a stranger in the Gryffindor Common Room. Gryffindors were easier to talk to than people from other houses - Melody's success for the Quidditch team did, if not exactly making her popular, afford her a little bit more respect than those from other houses allowed her.

Melody spotted a likely target over by the fireplace. She appeared to be reading. Melody would normally hesitate to disturb anyone who was engrossed in a good book, but a low volume of humming could be heard from where Melody was sitting, so the girl clearly wasn't concentrating that hard. Melody stood up and purposefully walked over to the group of chairs by the fireplace, sitting down a couple of chairs away from the girl.

"Hello," she greeted the girl simply. Lack of practice led to lack of social skills. "Thoo're a bit keen, studyin' after t'end of exams, don't thoo think?" she enquired bluntly. "Though Ah'm likin' thy choice o' subject - much better'n Potions," she added, with a dark look at the thought of the cauldron-based subject. "Ah'm Melody, by t'way," she told the girl. "Melody Bang-Bala." There. She'd introduced herself. That was fair - now the girl could run away with no blemish to her reputation, if she didn't want to be associated with a released convict. Melody watched the younger girl intently for her reaction.

[ever]

((Nah, it’s great! Your character has a really interesting history. ))

Her performance her first two years at Hogwarts had been mediocre. It wasn’t that she hadn’t the brains to soak up the information, but that she was tired of being the little goody-goody whose only claim to fame was her results. She wanted to explore and venture outside the world of books, really experience something. But what could you do at the age of twelve? After all, she was living at a school, which would make half her life academics whether she liked it or not. Besides, when she had been paying attention, she had realized that her studies here were much different than her studies at the muggle schools and were much more interesting to boot. So she had pushed herself back into the world of academics, granted it was proving to be a little difficult having only skirted by the first two years. It was for this reason that she was sitting, brow furrowed, over a copy of Intermediate Transfiguration.

At the sound of the newcomer’s voice addressing her, however, she could not pretend to be anything but relieved to be given a break from trying to figure out exactly how one would go about turning a beetle into a button and why she had only half managed it in class. The girl seemed to have a friendly face, or at the very least a non-threatening one. Having been the butt of jokes a few times by the prissier girls of Gryffindor, her immediate reaction was usually to have her guard up, but this girl seemed to be of a different mold. Alina trusted different. She recognized the face, but could not put a name to it, so she assumed she was in a different year, slightly older by the looks of it. Didn’t she have some story behind her? Something about Azkaban? But one could never go purely based off of what one heard – at least that was Alina’s belief.

Snapping the book shut, she replied with a grin, “Yeah, I’m a bit behind honestly. Thought I’d try to catch up.” Re-adjusting her position on the arm chair so she was fully facing the girl. “Nice to meet you, Melody. I’m Alina Hamad. You’re a…fifth year, right?” She was about to say more, but then stopped herself. She had a tendency to talk out of nervousness when meeting new people. She felt as little nervous talking to a fifth year, not wanting to seem too uncool.