The sun was blazing over the grounds of Hogwarts and glaring brightly off the surface of the lake. The October air was brisk, and the smell of fresh dirt filled the air. A young boy strolled along the bank of the lake, oblivious to his surroundings. He pulled harshly on the collar of his robes, feeling extremely suffocated. He wasn’t yet used to the odd fashion requirements of the wizarding world, and he wasn’t sure he liked the stuffiness of the robes.

Not only the robes, but Paetyn wasn’t sure he liked a lot of things about the magical universe. Like the owl post… what if they pooped in your cereal and you didn’t know because their poopie was white, just like the milk??? And then there was the fact that all the pictures moved around, what happened if they spied on you when you had to tinkle? I mean, of course sometimes it’s cool to hear a painting yell obscenities at you as you run down the halls, but most of the time it was plain annoying.

Paetyn missed writing with pencils and knowing that if he opened a book, he’d see printed words, not a face yelling at him. There were too many dangers at school. And his wand NEVER did what he wanted it to, he kinda thought about going back to Diagon and buying a new one, or trying to talk his new friends into trading with him. Maybe one of their wands would work better. He let out a small sigh and kicked a few pebbles into the chilly water. Then he watched and long tendrils lifted themselves out of the water, searching for the culprit of the disturbance.

He let out a quick squeal as he scrambled up the bank, pulling his wand from his robes as he went. He didn’t know many spells yet, but at the very least, he could throw the wand at the squid, maybe that would appease him and he’d leave the little Huffler alone. He didn’t have anything to worry about though, when the squid realized no one had brought him food, his tentacles slid smoothly back beneath the surface leaving small ripples in its absence. “I wasn’t scared, y’know!” He yelled out over the silence.

“I wasn’t scared, y’know!”

Annette looked up from her book, then down from her perch in the weeping willow tree. A boy from her house was yelling at the squid tentacle that had slithered it's way up to the bank. Annette put her book in the bag she had hung on the branch above her and silently climbed down, the droopy limbs, making a great ladder. She hoped to take Paetyn by surprise, maybe make him pee a little.

She crept up behind him and grabbed his shoulders. "GOTCHA!" Anni yelled in his ear.

Dessa watched, a grin slowly unfurling across her face like a flag, as a fellow first year recoiled from the grasping tentacles of the giant squid, only to be startled by...Anni!

Picking up the pace of what had begun as a leisurely walk across the grounds, Dessa barreled down the smooth grassy hill, waving her arms like a lunatic and enjoying the feel of the wind caught in her robes. "Anni! Hiiii!" she crowed. After a moment, she realized that the boy might feel left out--and anyone was likely to be a tad sulky after having been nearly sucked into the Dark Lake--and opened her mouth again, planning to extend her greeting to include him.

However, the small black gnats that seemed to appear out of nowhere and swarm the air seemed to have other plans for Dessa, and they buzzed about her face, one even landing in her mouth. She sputtered and, in her distress, lost her footing. Because she'd been running full tilt, there was never any hope of slowing, and so the First Year rolled full tilt down the hill, flailing wildly, towards the lake.

Peyton was just getting ready to head back to the castle when out of nowhere, a giant monkey came crashing out of a tree, trying to kill him. He let out his best little girl shriek and started to run away from the attacking Hufflepuff when another student started yelling something inaudible and then commenced to rolling down the hill toward the lake, the crazed Hufflepuff, and HIM! Oh jeez, what the heck was he going to do??? He didn’t know how to stop a fleshy avalanche from crashing into him, and he certainly was NOT going into the lake after almost getting eaten by the squid already.

He glanced around and realized that his best bet was to push the other kid in front of him to intercept the rolling girlie and he could jump over the both of them when they crashed and he could run. “Hey, girlie,” He strained his brain really hard, trying to remember the girl’s name… they’d been in classes together… nope, the adrenaline was blocking any coherent thoughts… “Uh… I’m real sorry about this, but I’m gonna throw you in front of the giant bowling ball over there, ‘k?” He asked, while grabbing for the young girl’s shoulders. He was NOT going in that lake. PERIOD.

The squeal was good enough for Annette as he jumped and ran Dessa came tumbling down the hill. Paetyn grabbed her shoulders.

“Hey, girlie,”... “Uh… I’m real sorry about this, but I’m gonna throw you in front of the giant bowling ball over there, ‘k?”

"I grbatrydess, fine"

Annette was already on the whole 'catching friend thing' Alice had fallen plenty of times, and a first aid kit was never out of Nette's pocket. Annette bent down as Dess was about to hit the lake and put her hands out. Dess rolled right up against her fingers. "Hello Miss Share, what a wonderful day it is today?" Annette said jokingly, holding out her hand so she could help her fuzzy headed lion up.

"Did I scare you Harper?" Annette said, turning her head over her shoulder to the Puff that was much shorter than her coward away from the water. The fresh water licked the edges of her heeled boots. A tentacle snaked out of the water and coiled around her ankle. She turned towards the lake.

"OFF!" She yelled. the squids arm backed off reluctantly. "Okay here!" Annette took another slice of tuna from the plastic baggie in her pocket and threw it a good 20 ft, the tentacle disappeared into the water, he was really active when she brought him tuna, she wondered if anyone else ever brought the Cephalopod a treat.

Dessa thunked down the hill, grass and dirt flying. She tried to keep her mouth clamped shut in order to avoid it being filled with even more unpleasant nature-related artifacts. However, the bigger problem at hand came from the impending doom presented by the lake, which--although Dessa's vision was skewed--seemed to be approaching rapidly.

It turned out, however, that all Dessa's worries were for naught. Anni stopped the Gryffindor's water-doomed trip with a simply outstretch of her hands, and Dessa let out a sigh of relief when she collided with the human barrier and rolled to a stop. She glanced up at her friend from the thicket of curls that currently consumed her friend, and smiled impishly.

"Yeah, absolutely lovely." she replied sheepishly, gratefully taking Anni's hand as she pulled her up. "Hi there Harper, sorry about that erm...display."

Pae watched as the other girl scooped up the flailing Gryffindor like it was nothing. Yeah, that would have been much simpler... And now Paetyn had completely made a fool of himself to the ladies by squealing in his highest prepubescent voice. Now it was time to do damage control, because you should NEVER look bad in front of the ladies. "Hey girls," he began, trying to look super cool, while stuffing his wand back in his robes. "You know, I wasn't really scared... and I totally had that handled, Lotusorder, I could have caught Ms. Share, but I thought you might want the honor."

The young Hufflepuff's cheeks started to tint a bit, like they always did when he was uncomfortable. "Uh... So what brings you two out here?" He said, trying desperately to change the subject from his utter embarrassment. Things were certainly not going as he planned today. Nothing seemed to work the way he wanted it to, at least not since he found out he was magical. Sigh.

"Hey girls,"  "You know, I wasn't really scared... and I totally had that handled, Lotusorder, I could have caught Ms. Share, but I thought you might want the honor."

"Right, of course you weren't scared, never crossed my mind." Nette threw her hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle. "A great honor Mr. Harper" Anni curtsied, using her thumbs and forefinger the pull the edges of her skirt.

"Uh... So what brings you two out here?"

Annette crawled back up her tree a few feet before responding. "You know, doing homework, reading, feeding the squid, climbing trees, the usual." Annette shruged and kept climbing. "You guys gonna come up or what?" She asked settling herself on the towel she had brought from her dorm that now sat on the branch.

Dessa giggled a bit at Paetyn's awkward attempts to save face, but tried to keep her amusement under wraps as she reached up into the branches of Anni's tree and began scooting up the trunk.

"Oh, you know, the usual," Dessa replied to Harper's inquiry. "Throwing myself down hills, only to be thwarted in my attempts to land in the lake by those gosh darned friends of mine." She gave Anni a mock-offended look as she pulled herself up onto the same branch her friend perched on, out of breath but grinning.

She looked down at Paetyn, still on the ground. "Need some help, Pae?" she called, good-naturedly poking fun.

Uh... why were these confounded women climbing trees? Issue numero uno... Paetyn didn't have wings, ergo, he wasn't supposed to be in the air... Issue numero dos... These people were CLIMBING TREES! He couldn't exactly decline the offer to climb their tree, and he couldn't accept Dessa's help. He had to look like a man, that's what men did, right? They climbed trees and acted awesome in front of the girls?

"Uh... naw, I don't need help. Here I come!" He said, taking a deep breath and started yanking on the willowy branches hanging all around, testing their strength. As he struggled up the tree, he started thinking of the dangers... What if he fell? What if the branch broke under all their weight and the three of them tumbled to the ground... with Paetyn on the bottom of the human heap? Not exactly a pretty image. Thinking of all the disastrous possibilities had the young Huffler's hands sweating profusely, and he started to slip down the branches he was holding.

"Hey guys... A little help please?" He asked, his voice rising three octaves.

Annette continued to stifle laughter as Pae attempted to pull a game face and climb the tree.  Being an expert tree climber since age 6, this was a normal occurrence, peole who thought they knew how to climb tree's but really didn't. It surprised her that Pae had never climbed a tree, he had probably never see one before.

"Hey guys... A little help please?"

Annette ambled down the branches and grabbed onto Paetyns and and helped him up onto the limbs and branches of the trees, until all three of them sat in Annette's little tree nest, halfway up the tree.

As Paetyn first declined, and then asked for the two girls' help in making his way up the tree, Dessa shook her head in mock despair. "Oh, Paetyn. How do you ever expect to be an impressive man if you can't even ascend a tree with manly ease?"

She giggled at the odd sight of Anni pulling her fellow Hufflepuff up the tree, and gave a jaunty wave when he was finally plunked down beside her. "Hi there, Harper. Long time, no tree." she laughed at her own bad pun.

Paetyn muttered a quiet 'thanks' to his fellow Hufflepuff as she practically dragged him up the tree. Once settled, he braced himself against the trunk and spared a quick glance down. Then he wished he hadn't. The ground looked incredibly far away from where he sat, and the two ladies sitting with him were acting all nonchalant, joking and making bad puns.

"Hey ladies, mind telling me what the heck is wrong with the ground?" He asked. First they tried to drown him in the lake and now they were torturing him in a tree. Plus, they were making jibes at his manhood... How was that fair? He decided it was a much better bet to look up into the higher branches of the tree and the sky beyond. The light played beautifully through the branches of the tree, making Paetyn's freckled face look pockmarked with bursts of sunlight. "And, uh, are you guys sure that this branch is safe enough to hold the three of us?"

"Just in case, anyone know a softening spell? That way the ground won't hurt so bad. Think ol Nadge could fix us up if we did fall? I don't think I'd like being all disfigured and junk for the rest of forever..." His voice trailed off. He rambled when he was nervous, and this made him almost as nervous as the boat trip across the lake did when he first arrived. He rambled through that entire trip, hopefully his poopie of the mouth would subside soon and he could salvage some of his reputation.

"There's nothing wrong with the ground, unless you're scared." Annette could feel his pain, other than climbing trees, Anni had a terrible fear of heights, flying was extremely difficult for her a first, but now, she wasn't afraid anymore. Nette was sure that the branch was sturdy enough and that it would hold the three critters and possibly a few more.

"Just in case, anyone know a softening spell? That way the ground won't hurt so bad. Think ol Nadge could fix us up if we did fall? I don't think I'd like being all disfigured and junk for the rest of forever..."

She could tell he was nervous, but he was a much different kind of Hufflepuff than her, she had too much that couldn't fit in the other houses, and he had too little. But at the moment, Anni had pulled her first aid kit out of her bag, asking Dessa if she needed and ice pack or something. "The branch is fine and we'll be fine, but if your that nervous, here's a paper bag."

Annette pulled a brown paper lunch bag out of the kit and held it out to him in case he couldn't take the height and started spewing chinks on the people going about their business below them.

Dessa declined Anni's offer of various first aid artifacts, and grinned when her friend handed Paetyn a paper bag. "We're not on an airplane," she pointed out. Then she smiled a bit. It felt good to be able to talk about such Muggle inventions without getting blank looks from those who'd been raised in wizarding homes. Sometimes she began to think the entirety of the Muggle world was a hallucination, and it was always reassuring to hear from someone that it truly did exist.