Elijah had been so busy with preparing for midyear exams, plus being on the quidditch team, that he hadn’t even planned a Divination Club meeting in over a month. Not exactly a good plan for the president, but what choice did he have? It was like he was being stretched in a million different directions and there just wasn’t enough of him to go around. Like too little jam spread over too much toast, he just couldn’t cover everything. But that was still no excuse, so there the Ravenclaw was, on a Friday, no less, trying to scrounge up an idea for the next meeting. Only problem was… he didn’t really know what he could cover that hadn’t already been covered in class.

People called the Grimlish boy a lot of things, but repetitive and boring weren’t on that list. So, instead of his normal haunts: the library, the tower, the grounds… Eli was down in the dungeons, hoping for inspiration to strike. Off in the distance he could hear dripping, probably a leaky pipe, but in the dungeons everything sounds more sinister. He shuffled his feet, sound echoing in the drafty corridors. How the Slytherskins dealt with the chill, Eli would probably never know.

Turning a corner, the boy noticed a striking figure, standing alone, down the corridor a bit. He cleared his throat, so the other person would know they had company, just in case they were scratching their privates or something equally awkward or gross, before walking forward. Torchlight distorting the boy’s features, it wasn’t until Eli was almost upon the boy that he recognized the face: Ezra Inkwood. They had Divination together, so maybe he’d have an idea… even if he did try and avoid the snake population as much as possible. “Uh, hey there Inkwood,” He said cheerily, a smile is infectious, this Eli knew. So maybe… if the Slytherin saw Eli smiling, he’d be less likely to hang him from his toenails from the dungeon roof…

Ezra ducked around the corner and slunk deeper into the dungeons.  Once he felt like he was far enough out of the way of common traffic, he paused and pulled his wand out.  With careful aim and a whispered word, he increased the amount of light pouring from the ever burning torch on the wall.  The area flooded with light. 

With a delicate frown of concentration, Ezra unfolded the letter  he'd gotten from his mother this morning at breakfast.  It was filled with innocent anecdotes about various people they knew but something was off.  Something about the tone of the letter and only a brief mention of his father sounded warning bells in his head.  He couldn't prove it though.  And even now, in the silence of his solitude, he couldn't decipher anything specific. 

There was noise behind him and then a clearing throat.  He turned to see Elijah Grimlish coming down the corridor.  He was smiling  broadly like he wasn't flirting with danger by appearing in the Slytherin's dungeons.  There weren't enough Hufflepuffs in these parts to lend a Ravenclaw any kind of safety.  There was wickedness in Ezra's manner but no true malice in his heart so he just quirked and eyebrow and smirked.

"Grimlish," he greeted coolly.  "What's a pretty little Ravenclaw like you doing so far from the library?  Aren't you afraid of snakes?"

Even as a joke, Elijah wasn’t sure how to take someone calling him pretty. It didn’t matter to Eli if it was a man or a woman… hell; Eli’s pop was a vampire for the sake of Merlin! Still… other than a short-lived crush on an older Gryffindor, Eli was woefully ignorant in the ways of wooing and courtship, so any compliment, innocent or sinister or sincere, came with a load of discomfort, because he didn’t know how to deal with it. So, Eli dealt with it in the only way he knew how: with a smug and cunning quip right back, “Don’t you know that Eagles eat snakes like you for breakfast? What have I to be frightened of?” A slight blush of red covered the back of the Grimlish boy’s ears and neck at his clever retort.

A grin spread across the boy’s features, a bit less terrified now that there was actually sufficient lighting in the hallway. “Why’re you out here alone, Inkwood? I mean… kudos to you for braving these dank dungeons alone, but shouldn’t you have some of your cronies around you? I thought you Slytherins traveled in packs.” He pulled his hand out of his pocket and offered it to the other boy to shake. He didn’t want to upset the boy off the bat, who knows… maybe Ezra had an idea on what they could do for the next club meeting, and besides… if he had to pick a Slytherin to run into all alone in the halls, he could have done a heck of a lot worse than Ezra Inkwood.

Just think… what if he had run into Theo Whitman? They probably would have never found the poor Ravenclaw’s corpse. I mean, sure, Eli was rather positive that he’d be coming back as a vampire once his life as a human ended, but that didn’t mean he was eager to cut his first life short. Dying, even if it was only temporary, was bound to be rather painful.

Ezra's eyes narrowed in special delight and his smirk turned into a full and satisfied grin.  "A Ravenclaw who's smart and witty, this must be my lucky day," he mused teasingly, turning to face Grimlish full on.  Although there were many uncomfortable things he could add about eating snakes for breakfast, Ezra just huffed a quiet laugh and allowed the Ravenclaw to move on.

His quip about Slytherin cronies tempted him to inform the other boy that, contrary to popular belief, Slytherins didn't actually get along all that well in packs with so many aggressive egos.  This was not the time or place for a lesson in Slytherin politics though so once again he was letting a comment slide by.  He took the offered hand with a perceptive tilt to his head.  "I happen to be looking for a little privacy, hence the unused corridor."

With a slow, purposeful step forward, Ezra's voice lowered in mild threat.  "The real question is, what are you doing here.  Unlike me, you have no logical reason for lurking down here."  His eyes were light, taking the edge off of his threatening voice.

It took all of Elijah’s willpower to not make like a bat and fly away when Ezra stepped close to him. He wasn’t worried about a duel, he was sure he could hold his own against the Slytherin magically. It was the odd feelings he was getting in the pit of his stomach when the boy got close, and he couldn’t be sure, but it looked like there was something a little… playful in the boy’s eyes. Just a glint before it was gone, but Eli was sure it was there. Instead of stepping back and stepping down like he wanted to, Eli bravely looked up into the Slytherin’s eyes and spoke in a calm, cool voice.

“I was looking for your boyfriend, he said he’d meet me here for a good snog before bedtime,” Okay, so maybe that was a low blow. Perhaps he shouldn’t provoke the Slytherin, maybe he could be an ally, but it just wasn’t cool to threaten and provoke a kid wandering the halls.

“Sorry man, uh, that was uncalled for,” He took a step back, finally conceding the territory to the striking snake, “I’m really just trying to find a little bit of inspiration. Thought somewhere new might give me a new perspective, y’know? But if you need some alone time, I can leave…” He said, voice trailing off as he turned to walk away.

For better or for worse, Elijah had an impressive set of stones.  Ezra was actually a little shocked by the comeback, which wasn't an easy thing to do.  So rather than be upset by the intended insult, Ezra was jointly impressed and amused.  The glint in his eyes bloomed into a wide smile that revealed all his teeth.  He couldn't feel ashamed about the small weakness of revealing his amusement because the Ravenclaw backed down a second late and issued an apology.

"Come now," he hummed lyrically.  "If you're gonna go and say something so wonderfully entertaining for a Ravenclaw, you shouldn't apologize for it." It would be unusual for a Slytherin to stop someone from willingly walking away in shame like this because allowing it would certainly give him a step up.  His interest was peaked now though.  He just had to ask.  "What is it you need inspiration for that has you down here in the dark?"

At the sound of his voice, Eli turned back toward Ezra. Thankfully the boy had taken the insult as a joke and didn’t get too offended. Though Eli could stand and fight, it wasn’t really in his nature and he’d walk away, given the choice. That’s what he had decided to do, after a cheeky insult, walk away to keep from stepping deeper into a cauldron full of draught of shitstorm. “Just so we’re clear, I wasn’t walking away because of the apology. I was walking away to give you the privacy you requested.” Eli took a couple steps and slid down the wall, taking a seat near Ezra’s feet.

“I apologized because I’m not usually that rude to people without provocation. Just had a bit on my mind, I suppose,” Eli looked up, meeting the handsome man’s eyes. “I’m down here because I can’t think of anything new to bring to the Divination Club. Everything I can think of, Cosmos has covered in class. And things that I can think of, aren’t exactly Hogwarts approved. Not that I even really care about that, because I’m a diviner. I know what I’m going to do after Hogwarts, and it’s pretty shitty that the arses that run this place don’t let me learn all the skills that it takes to be a competent wizard in my chosen field.” Eli grimaced, realizing too late that he’d been ranting. He didn’t usually go on and on when talking to people outside his family.

“Anyway, doesn’t matter. Why did you want to be alone?” Ezra started the question game, so anything’s fair game, right?

"Of course," Ezra soothed easily, with a healthy does of sarcasm.  "Privacy."  But then Elijah slid down the wall and sat on the floor by his feet.  With a heavy sigh, Ezra rolled his eyes.  He could sit or her could stay standing.  Both were awkward and unappealing.  Finally he eyed the floor and sat down.  "I'll have you know that these are very expensive trousers and if they get ruined because I have to sit here and play twenty questions with you, I'm sending you the cleaning bill."

He licked his lower lip and glanced over out of the corner of his eye, knowing the other boy would get a good look of his dark hair, dark eyes, and full lips.  He was comfortable with his beauty preferred to spread it around.  And there were worse people he could bestow it upon.   Much worse.  But like all Ravenclaws, Grimlish was preoccupied with his studies.  It was Divination though, something with which he had a bit of personal skill.  He swept a long, tapered finger across his chin and decided to help without revealing too much too soon.  "Have you researched the Divination practices of non-European cultures?  Not all of them are as gruesome as something like reading entrails."  He had further ideas but the Ravenclaw was pushing in the other direction.

Ezra tucked the letter from his mother into his pocket and gave the other boy a speculative look that lacked a lot of the humor of his previous looks.  "Not that it's any of your business but I was reading a letter from home." 

A small laugh escaped the birdy’s lips as Ezra complained about expensive trousers and cleaning bills. “Are you a wizard or not?” Eli asked playfully, “There are spells for cleaning your trousers, and even if there weren’t, I’ve never seen a stain that the Hogwarts elves can’t get out. Besides, I didn’t tell you that you had to sit with me; I just didn’t wanna be standing for ages.”

Eli looked over at the boy as he sat, secretly admiring the boy’s masculine charms. It wasn’t crushing or even anything close. Actually, Elijah wasn’t even sure he felt romantically for boys, he just knew that as a human, he had the ability to tell if someone was attractive or not, and Ezra certainly didn’t disappoint. The boy was, by many standards, very handsome, though sometimes Eli wasn’t sure if his personality matched his features. Like most snakes, Eli doubted it was that simple.

"Have you researched the Divination practices of non-European cultures?  Not all of them are as gruesome as something like reading entrails."

“Do tell?” Eli asked, his interest peaked by something Eli could actually talk about: Divination. He loved magic in general, but he actually had an affinity for fortelling events and he was eager to learn whatever he could, even if it was from someone like Inkwood. He had assumed the parchment had been a letter, but it could have just as easily been potion instructions or a scrap of information about the goblin rebellions, it was impolite to assume. Instead of responding with more questions, Eli just let it go. If Ezra wanted to tell him, he could. If not, he wasn’t going to pressure the man, they barely knew each other, after all.

Ezra grinned and shrugged easily, the tension a moment before completely forgotten.  "Can't pull the wool over your eyes," he mused.  When Eli mentioned that he didn't have to sit on the floor with him, Ezra gazed across the corridor with small frown.  He didn't have to, so why was he? 

But the reason why he sat in the first place didn't mean much now.  He actually knew quite a bit about Divination.  If he were more of a joiner, he'd probably be in the club.  so it would be interesting to see what the President knew about the subject.  The light in his eyes as he talked about Divination revealed that famous Ravenclaw passion.  It remained to be seen whether or not that passion was an annoying obsession like with some Eagles.

"There are more forms of Divination than you can possibly imagine," Ezra finally said.  "I knew a Cajun witch who could predict weather patterns in shifting water of the bayou.  Of course, some methods are more reliable than others.  Phrenology is meaningless, of course, but most divination attempts made by muggles are."  Ezra shrugged elegantly.  "What have you already done with your club?"

The Ravenclaw ran a hand through his already messy hair and let out a breath. He always felt like he was being judged and graded on the Divination Club. Truth is he hadn’t really done much of anything since he got promoted to president, not that he had been in the position all that long. “Well…” He began, “For our first meeting, we all sat around, like a meet and greet thing and just chatted over a nice cup of tea. Professor Cosmos let me borrow the class set. Anyway, when everyone was done catching up and telling stories, we swapped cups and read each other’s leaves.”

Eli grinned sheepishly.  Now that he spoke it aloud, it sounded kind of silly and elementary. “And I’m planning an awesome sleepover for the start of the year. If I can get the headmistress to approve it and a chaperone or two, I want to have a giant sleepover in the great hall and in the morning, we can do dream interpretation. Complete with pillow fights and ghost stories and sleeping under the open stars. Well, you know what I mean, right?” Eli knew that they wouldn’t really be under the stars, but the ceiling in the great hall made it seem like it. “The only issue with my plan is that there’s breakfast in the morning, so we’d have to be out pretty early. Unless we had it somewhere else.”

Now Eli was rambling again. Not cool. “Uhm… but yeah, we’ve only done normal stuff.” He said, putting his lips together and refusing to open them again.

The picture he painted was unbearably quaint with ghost stories and pillow fights.  It disgusted him a little bit on principle alone but the basic principle wasn't atrocious.  Dream interpretation was an interesting field that could often be difficult to control.  "How many people are you expecting?  You could always use an empty classroom if you're not expecting too many.  Might be... cozier."

Ezra shrugged and fell silent, feeling uncharacteristically helpful.  It didn't sit well with him.  With a wicked gleam in his eye, Ezra swiveled to face the Ravenclaw.  "Have you ever tried to divine using some other method? Casting bones?  Animal entrails?  There's more, of course.  You can't very well do something new with the club if you've never tried it yourself."

“Uh…you could come to the sleepover, you know, if you wanted to,” Eli said, a nervous flush adding color to his features. “I mean, we can always use more members, and it’s a good place to make friends from other houses,” Now he was backpedaling. He wasn’t sure why he invited the boy to the meeting. Sure, he could play it off as trying to get more members in the club, but was that the honest truth? Eli wasn’t sure.

A nervous habit, running your fingers through your hair, but Eli couldn’t seem to stop. Again, his fingers raked through his unkempt hair and the blush that crept into his features deepened. “Uh, well, no… I’ve never actually done anything like that. I mean, it’s taboo. People don’t do that kind of thing around here. I’d like to try new things, but I’ve pretty much come to realize that it’ll have to be after I graduate, since Hogwarts doesn’t exactly approve of the slaughtering of animals to throw their guts on the ground.”

Eli scrunched his nose. It was kinda gross, when you really thought about it. He knew he’d never rely on anything like entrail reading in his life’s work, but shouldn’t he know what it’s like? But then, on the other hand, who was he to take the life of an animal for his selfish curiosity? “I mean, and you have to go to somewhere like Knockturn to find casting bones, and that’s just not somewhere I’m willing to go. That place is sketchy,” One time, when he was out with his mum in Diagon, she took a trip down Knockturn Alley for something, and held tightly to his hand. It was creepy.

Ezra quirked an eyebrow at the invitation and the other boy's stumbling attempts to explain it.  Warm, wicked pleasure unfurled low in his stomach at the thought that he might be making the Ravenclaw nervous.  He swiped his tongue of his lips and informed Eli in a roughened voice, "I'm not much of a joiner.  Just imagine what it would do to my reputation if I were seen swapping gossip in my pretty pink night gown."  A smirk twitched at the corner of his lips.

"Does blood make you squeamish?" Ezra asked slyly, eyeing the look of disgust.  "Well, that's ok.  One of my childhood mentors told me that there are a lot of different types of magic and you have to find the one that works best for you."

Ezra leaned in close, his eyes pointed and intense.  He was near enough that his breath brushed over the other boy's skin.  "You can borrow my casting bones, if you want.  No creepy trip to Knockturn required, although... you will need to spend a little bit more time in a snake's presence which can be creepy enough for most."

Elijah tried to shrug off the rejection. It wasn’t a rejection of Eli, after all, simply a rejection to join his silly little club. He should be used to that, it seemed like no one really wanted to be a part of the club unless they were freaky, like him. Well… that’s not true, there were plenty of awesome, normal people in the club, but there was obviously a dearth of Slytherin representation. “I think I’d pay a pretty knut to see you in a pretty pink nightgown,” He giggled, and then paled, all trace of color draining from his face. What a poor choice of words! He’d pay a pretty knut? What if Ezra took that in the wrong direction, oh bollocks!

“It’s not so much the blood,” Eli began, eager to steer the conversation away from nightgown clad snakes, “it’s the thought of taking another’s life. All life is significant. I suppose if I found a dead animal I’d have far less reservations about reading their insides.” He shrugged.

Eli blanched for a minute, completely at a loss for words. Why… why in the world did this man have a set of casting bones? It was a question that Eli didn’t really want to ponder too much, but he couldn’t resist the allure of trying something new. “Uh, sure… I mean, I don’t know much about it, so I’d need you to teach me. That is… if you don’t mind,” Eli finished, a bit shyly, biting back a shiver as the boy’s body came closer and his breath sent shivers through Eli’s body.