1:00 - 2:00

Transfiguration wasn't one of Naomi's favorite subjects, even less so with Sandusky teaching it--she'd rather skip class and do something worth her time. So she did.

With her uniform folded and neatly tucked into a nest of large rocks, and everything else tucked into her bag that was secured around her waist, Naomi revealed the green two-piece scuba swimsuit she had been wearing beneath her clothes all day. Black curls were loosely tied in one long braid--Naomi decided if she was going to skip class, and follow instructions from Valdaine, she would have fun while doing it at the deep-end and overgrowth secluded corner of the lake.

She was suppose to focus on the effect of transfiguring objects in different environmental conditions; Valdaine mentioned a rainy day, but Naomi decided a lake would be much more entertaining. After pulling and stretching her dark-skinned limbs this way and that, she dove into the water with gills, fins, and scales morphing on her skin accordingly--a much better use of her metamorph powers than what happened that Monday.

She explored the lake for a while, practicing spells underwater, paying close attention to how underwater pronunciation and wandwork differed in the water. Wand movements seemed to be more constricted, it was easier to slur on pronunciations underwater, she was quite enjoying herself. After a little while she swam back to her secluded diving spot on the lake only to find a shadow lurking over the ripples of the water.

Scrawny, disheveled, and about her size--it couldn't be a professor, and it didn't match the silhouette of any prefects she knew, so she swam to get a closer look. But after swimming closer green eyes caught the visage of a blue tie and overly familiar grin and she shook her head, and morphed her body back to its normal state.

She pushed herself up to the face and inhaled a gulp of water before breaking the surface of the water; immediately, she cooly spat a stream of water at the Ravenclaw's face before treading away from him and asking,  "What Todd?"

His face sopping, dripping wet, Connor was laughing as he wiped it with the back of his sleeve. “I was lookin’ fer mermaids,” he answered the back of her head, grinning cheekily; her oh so welcoming tone hadn’t put him off at all. “Guess y’ could say I found one, eh?”

By the time lunch had dwindled down to a few tragic crumbs, the boy still hadn’t been feeling up to going back to Transfiguration yet. Despite the average grades he’d been getting ever since last year, he was actually pretty good at the subject—it was hard, but not too hard, and though he was far from genius the stuff still came more easily to him than it did for others. But after Wednesday’s flop the fourth year wasn’t in a hurry to get his arse back into class; if he had to hear the old man’s voice for an hour straight right after lunch, it would be too soon. It was better to take things one step at a time.

He’d go back, yeah, but he’d get there when he’d get there. The Nosebleed Nougat he’d eaten to skive off (again) seemed to’ve worn off by now, anyway…

Connor peered into the lake’s murky depths once more before looking back at her, blue eyes bright with mischief as that grin slanted into a leer. “Y’ know, Foley, if you want company I’ll be more ‘n happy enough t’ join you—I’m lots warmer than a fish.”

He was treading dangerous waters himself now, but with Naomi he could always count on her to be fun.

Ugh, this kid. Naomi had no idea what made him tic, but she wished that she could so something to make him go away. But for the past four years she had done everything she could think of to get him to respect those invisible borders she drew; the ones separating people from her range of tolerance and her range of roundhouse kicks. He was almost as daring and impossible to stand as her brothers. Almost.

Instead of turning to be offensive, he'd just laugh at her and offer a compliment and a stupid grin--Naomi was always baffled by it. But instead of showing vulnerability, accepting compliments, or faltering her determination, the water-bound Slytherin only narrowed her black brows and she let her lids lazily shade her eyes a her tan cheeks doubtfully pinched her lips together, "Sure, Todd."

Then he opened his big mouth again with an insinuation that caused an eyebrow to rise on Naomi's forehead with a hint of a mock turning her lips up at the corners, "If you prefer stupidity lessons in drowning over Transfiguration," the girl said with a murky lilt to her tone, "'den come an' sleep with th' fishes, bluebird."

The smirk on his face was so wide now, it wasn’t even a smirk anymore—it was a leer, one so wide and shit-eating you’d think his face would break from it. “I aced those lessons a looong time ago,” he told her cheerfully, and with no small amount of pride. His sister, his mum, and his gran had said as much—often—and the looks his teachers and peers sometimes gave him spoke for them. Loudly. “But if we’re talkin’ ‘bout th’ right kind of fish…”

His voice trailing off meaningfully, Connor waggled his brows at green-eyed girl in a way few fourth years could compare. Actually, there weren’t many who could, when it came to Naomi; she was frightening to the sane, that one, someone who’d let her kicks do the talking for her as much as her actual words did. There were few who could match her in terms of anything in their year, if they wanted to. (Only one—another Slytherin girl—did, in his mind.)

And Connor, it seemed, was a whole ‘nother class of stupid altogether. Well aware of how much damage she was capable of, the boy still latched onto her like a particularly stubborn piece of chewed gum from the sidewalk anyway.

Naomi continued to swim in place, and kept her face steady above the water as she witnessed how the Ravenclaw took Naomi's play on words and twisted it to his own benefit (he wished). The witch's expression fell back to its original unamused state: an eyebrow quirked into an arch and lips parted into a harsh purse, while her submerged black hair twisted and curled around her arms and waist--well if the boy really wanted to tempt her...

Naomi sniffed in a huff of air through her nostrils and dropped beneath the ripplinig water and into the shadowy depths of the lake. Luckily for Connor, Naomi could still see the sunlight outlining his disheveled form hanging over the lake edge, and with a quick flick of her wand, between the a deserted kelp bed and Connor's figure, the witch used a spell she'd nearly exhausted in creatures class that Tuesday[1]

And with a sharp splash of water, ropes of yellow kelp whipped themselves from the water of the lake and latched onto Connor, before snapping him beneath the water. Where the boy had just been pulled in, Naomi bobbed above the water pulled herself over the edge of the lake and up onto dry land. She walked over by the rock where she hid her clothes and dropped her small python duffle next to it and pulled out a long thick towel from the bag and wrapped it around her shoulders.

Green eyes then stared at the lake, and for a fleeting moment Naomi wondered if she should make sure the Ravenclaw rose back above the water... Nah. Poor unfortunate soul Connor Todd was not.

1.	Uredo Necto.