Schedule gap after Transfiguration

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This made it true then, that Casey O'Doherty's allergies had been left with his body, currently occupied by Alvis Norling.

Casey wasn't actually allergic to owls or feathers (because that would make the pets allowed in the Hogwarts acceptance letter an unholy trifecta of allergens to the Slytherin) but he had never gone to any owlery by choice because the dust and other grime that built up in such locations could trigger other allergies. The owlery smelled as bad as he imagined but he wasn't convulsing into a coughing fit on the floor after breathing the air.

Why was he even here? Casey recieved little owl post and sent far less, House Elf delivery was much more efficient. It was, at least, a place to think and trying to think in his usual haunts when he didn't actually look like himself was going to be distracting.

This far along into the day Casey was growing worried on whether this swapped body thing was going to become permanent. What if he and Alvis never switched back? Logistical and family issues aside there was an important secret tied to his amulet he had to keep hidden from Alvis....a secret Casey couldn't fully explain but damn if it wasn't worth protecting.

Pacing back and forth, wand waved but inert to casting a spell, Casey contemplated finding his body again and keeping the amulet secured with some kind of sticking spell to his body's skin. Of course, then Casey would be reunited with his body and then he would have a skin problem to deal with.

He removed and returned Norling's glasses to his head. The one thing Casey had going for him, myriad of other health problems aside, was that he never had vision problems so the glasses were an unfamiliar weight on his nose.

"Bollocks!" Scratch that, Casey couldn't think all that well surrounded by owls. He crossed the owlery floor to the exit.

Veronica was always mildly embarrassed by the Ward family's crochety old owl, Taco. Taco was not the snappiest Whizbang in the world. The poor old bird was constantly soaring directly into closed windows, throwing up mouse bones inside Huck's good Sunday shoes, and making very uncomfortable eye contact with Penny every morning while she got dressed. His chocolate-colored feathers were far from lustrous, and were generally better described as 'mildewy'. On top of all of that, the vague and confused look in his huge pee-colored eyes combined with his dopey facial markings made him constantly resemble a desperate hobo seeing a naked woman for the first time in ten years.

Nonetheless, seeing him in the owlery was always a bittersweet reminder of home, and while she saw her siblings (except Frankie) every day, they lived in a different world together in their comfy house on Railway Terrace. The sight of the stinky bird reminded her of the alternate universe she lived in every summer, where she could decide to not wear makeup, to wear sweatpants and baggy t-shirts if she was feeling less-than-great, and to make a total dork of herself. Seeing Taco at school made something in her heart resentful.

Even when he was bringing her a special something, as he was today. Ever since she learned to write, Frankie had sent her siblings elaborate stories and comics and funny poems about once a week while the latter three were at school. Ronnie suspected that tonight, she would be receiving the ninth installment of a saga that she, Huck, and Penny had been reading over and over that year. In the past, Frankie's stories had always been goofy one-offs and similar drivel. This year, however, she had taken a bold new direction and elected to write a chapter story in the style of a weekly serial.

Whenever the new installments arrived, all three of the Ward siblings currently attending Hogwarts would bring it to the library, find a dark corner, and lie on their stomachs shoulder-to-shoulder, propped up on their elbows, following the adventures of a young boy sailing under a grizzled old goblin pirate.

She was pleased with herself in that there didn't seem to be anybody near the owlery, and therefore the chances of someone seeing her actually excited about something were fairly low. Approaching the door, she could hear Taco's wheezing old hoot already, and she couldn't help but grin that little Veronica Ward grin that made her little eyeteeth gleam like fangs.

Until, that is, she bumped into Alvis Norling- no, she corrected herself- Casey O'Doherty near the entrance to the owlery. She squinted. She had no problem copping an attitude with O'Doherty, but Norling's perennially kicked-dog expression was enough to deter her from getting snippy with him.

That made it difficult to decide what to say next.

"Do people even send you mail?"

Getting out of the rat carcass (or pellets, whatever the damn things were called) infested owl hole was proving to be a challenge where the first obstacle was Veronica Ward.

"Uh..." It sounded like Veronica but given the events of the day Casey was going to distrust every first impression he conceptualized. Furthermore, Casey had only ever looked up or looked equal to Veronica when it came to eye level. Having those extra inches of Norling's height to look slightly down at her with was a bizarre but welcoming treat.

"Supposedly rocketry parts and several home remedies from a great aunt." This wasn't fooling anybody but this was as much of Alvis Norling's life as Casey knew about in an attempt to be witty. "I get plenty of mail. Just not at breakfast, it's a rather untimely time to get a package that has to be taken to class." Of course most of the things Casey ordered, like a Hand of Glory or an Invisibility Cloak were not the sort of things you wanted received in a public setting.

Ronnie smirked a little. She tried keep the corners of her mouth from tugging in their familiar little way but it was a restraint she was never very good at. Publicly, Veronica Ward thought Casey O'Doherty was a nosy little toad, a spoiled rich kid who got a great deal of pleasure at staring down his nose at people metaphorically. Now, swaddled in Norling's skin, he was finally tall enough to do it physically, as well. Privately, however, the impulse almost always crept up on her to smile when O'Doherty opened his trout mouth.

Tilting her head, her frustrating little face still grinning, she pulled a little vial of lip gloss from her pocket and moved slowly, deliberately over to the parcel that Taco was still clutching like a right moron.

"Oh, really? you aren't interested in showing off your little presents? That's... huh."

Casey rarely bothered trying to figure out what the girls of Slytherin were thinking so Veronica was as much of an enigma as the rest. The way she talked was almost irritating as if there was some in-joke about you that you weren't informed about.

He hadn't a clue what lipgloss had to do with mail as, not that he put much pondering into it, he didn't think anyone would come to the owlery to put on makeup. He remained stationary in his spot save for tilting to keep her in sight as she went over to her owl.

"You must think I'm hilarious or something, Miss Ward." Over the years Casey had an inconsistent pattern of drawing focus to his family's good fortunes. Casey being born of wealth was usually clear given his elf and best of everything in school supplies. "It's my personal possessions so it's my choice whether or not to display them." He stopped before adding 'look who's talking' because 1) it was such a cliche and 2) that was even if Veronica Ward could be summed up as a vial of lipgloss, which he still couldn't figure out why she had pulled it out.

She pressed her lips together tightly, rubbed them back and forth, and finally kissed them outwards like two gleaming, gooey, syrupy pink flower petals blossoming. The gloss tasted vaguely like peppermint oil, and it gave her a little rush of excitement to feel her lips so ice cold and tingling.

And for whatever reason, it gave her a kind of smoldering confidence. "Oh, of course I find you hilarious," she said with a little smirk. "Look at yourself. You've no idea how to carry yourself in that ungainly giraffe of a body, have you?"

Taco took off back towards Shildon, dipping dramatically out of the window before he remembered how to use his wings- the old moron. The parcel he'd left behind was currently being squeezed under Ronnie's thumb as she tested out the thickness. And... yep. It was most definitely a chapter of Frankie's story. Hiding her interest under a thick layer of catty aloofness, she cast her glittering gray eyes back towards the beast living in Norling's skin and hugged the parcel to her chest. "Course not," she agreed, combing her hair back out of her face with her fingers, "I can't imagine you ever putting anything on display."

Casey was beginning to reconsider just how nice of a gesture Veronica had meant helping him from the ground after he had fallen out of a tree Hagrid had hung him in during a Creatures lesson. That must have been another instance of her finding him hilarious. "Well, I suppose, I've never been this tall before."

Save an instance over the summer where Casey attempted a self inflicted Stretching Jinx, leaving Dingy to coil him up in a wheelbarrow to St. Mungo's. The self consciousness of being Norling also masked another thought although Casey couldn't place why his subconscious made a note of all the little things Veronica was doing...playing with her hair and makeup, striking a pose...

"What does that even mean, display?" he asked, aware that she was teasing him with some other meaning of the word.

Poor, simple Casey. The boy could probably- no, definitely have run circles around Ronnie academically, and when it came to matters of world knowledge of a more refined nature he certainly had the upper hand. But those were the types of people that often found themselves at the mercy of venomous, pretty little things. And it happened because they underestimated their toxins.

She knew logically, though, that Casey wasn't as easy to toy with as most people. Especially older men.

A sly little smirk tugged her lips before she finally let it sweep her up in a giggle. "Oh, nope. Nope. Not touching that one." A beat, then she cast a very pointed glance. "So to speak. ...So, what are  you doing here, anyhow?"

Veronica Ward was baffling, her actions and words were baffling and it was bafflement on bafflement for his mind to try and sort out on top of what he was trying to comprehend. "What? Never mind."

Girls, especially ones like Ward, were baffling. Finding his mental process stuck on a loop Casey answered her question. "I'm trying to think, just, away from people." Norling had given him a lot to digest after their meeting. Blazes, Casey had hugged himself and that was neither pathetic comment or hyperbole.

"You won't understand it as you survived breakfast unswitched."

Ronnie wasn't quite able to pin it down, but something about Casey's brain in a larger body made her wary. The height advantage usually made her feel superior enough to maintain her swagger. Sizing him up was more difficult.

But, being more petite certainly would have its advantages, if she could get into the swing of using them around someone masquerading as Alvis Norling. She looked up at him, with her gray-green doe eyes, and shifted her weight to her other leg, tossing her hair over her shoulder as she did. "Well, no, and thank God," she agreed. "I don't think anybody else could handle living in this body."

A beat, then- "Whatcha thinkin' about?"

There it was again, the little gestures Veronica did. Ones a lot of girls in Slytherin used. Casey noticed each little detail but his brain was unqualified to quantify the information. As if his attention to detail was charged to notice it but failed to have a means to process it.

A dry derisive laugh escaped his lips. "Nothing that concerns you," because the last thing Casey wanted mentioned was Alvis being mushy while occupying the normally sickly form of the Slytherin. "Right now the current mystery is 'Why do you act so coy?' "

Both when Veronica didn't want to admit she needed help with practicing charms in the courtyard[1] and today when she was showing 'interest' in him and plenty of times in-between.

1.	Laces Out - June 10