Sunday, Nov. 30th
9:15 - 11 AM.

[Outfit]

Her first real day off at Hogwarts! It had been time to go on an adventure: the thrill of exploring Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry! She ate quickly at breakfast that morning, returned to her quarters, and threw on some comfortable clothes that she wouldn't mind getting dirty. For a long time, Penny considered taking her wand. After all, this was a castle of magic; she might need it. Yet since her wand was so moody with her, she wondered if she should take it at all. With a heavy sigh, Penny Lane finally came to a decision, stuffed the wand into her pocket, and took off down the hallway. Students were everywhere! How exciting! Each time she passed a group, she gave them an enthusiastic "good morning!" and kept going.

Her first stop today would be the infirmary just so that she knew where she was going. It was so awkward to ask directions from a student, but the boy gladly pointed her in the direction of something wonderful: a short-cut! He gave vague directions of what to do after the shortcut, but Penny hoped she could figure it out. She was wrong. The girl was standing on the seventh floor trying to figure out where she was after climbing that secret stairway and gave a disappointed sigh.

"You've got to be kidding me," she said frustratedly. "How am I going to be able to get students to be healed in time if I can't find the infirmary? Ugh! Okay, calm down, Penny. No need to get upset, you'll make it worse."

The American was perfectly aware that she was talking to herself, but that seemed to be the only way she could calm herself down. The young woman paced up and down a selection of the hallway, flinging her hands to shake away the anxiety, turned, and retraced her pacing steps only to turn around and pace the same small area again.

"All you have to do is figure out where you're at and try to find your way from there. But how? Ask directions, of course! Ask who? There's no one to ask!"

This was so frustrating the girl might have gone insane! She rapidly paced, shaking her hands, unaware whether or not anyone was watching her.

Cillian had been sitting in his classroom crossed legged on top of one of the tables near the fire marking the dream journals the third years had handed in to him. He found it absolutely fascinating to go over the complexities of some of the dreams these kids had even if half of them were made up, at least they were being accurate in their attempts at interpreting them. Cillian felt a slight pang of jealously over the more normal dreams. As a third year, he had been plagued with dreams of the atrocities the new regime of Death Eaters were dishing out.

A gurgling in his stomach told him that he had once again neglected to eat breakfast. He kept forgetting that part of living at Hogwarts meant he could practically eat whenever he wanted and didn't have to worry about the cost of food or the time it took to prepare. Having lived on his own for the past eight years Cillian had developed horrible eating habits. He had gone days at a time forgetting to eat anything at all. Deciding he could no longer ignore his stomach he hopped off the table and headed out of his classroom.

Turning to head to the nearest staircase Cillian almost ran smack dab into Penny Lane. He gave the woman a smile and a nod. Then something seemed to have occurred to him, "What are you doing up here Penny?"

Cillian had been thankful to find out that the new Potions Professor was actually his neighbour Penny Lane Darling. The young American had been living down the street from him in Hogsmeade for the past year or so. He admitted he didn't know her as well as he probably should given his shy nature but it was still nice to see a familiar face in the school now (one that hadn't taught him or gone to school with him like the Seventh years had)

He glanced around the corridor. There really wasn't much up in this wing of the seventh floor safe for his classroom. He didn't think she was trying to get to either of the house towers since nothing within them would warrant her being there. It was frowned upon for a Professor that wasn't a Head of House to be anywhere near the students living quarters. That only left the Divination classroom and the Room of Requirement, maybe that's where she was trying to go. Then again while it was well known for him, who had been at Hogwarts while Harry Potter was teaching secret Defence Against the Dark Arts classes within it, he doubted Penny had heard about it yet. Which left Cillian with only one conclusion, "Are you lost?"

"What are you doing up here Penny?"

The voice caught her off guard and she jumped, trying to whirl around to see who it was at the same time and ended up tripping over her own two feet and falling to the floor on her back. Ow. Feeling more embarrassed than anything, the young woman sat up and smiled at the person politely. When she recognized him, her smile only grew into a genuine grin and she climbed to her feet.

"Oh, Cillian! Hiii!" She couldn't help but laugh at how silly she must have looked. "I'm...umm..."

"Are you lost?"

The girl tucked a curl of brown hair behind her ear and dropped her gaze for a second to the map. How humiliating!

"How'd you guess?"

She gave a good look around the corridor and tried to recognize something, anything, but to no avail. Nothing here was anything she'd ever seen before. How could she have been so stupid? The idea that the student had given her bad directions just to joke around crossed her mind, but Penny dismissed it. No one would really be that mean to her at Hogwarts would they? Finally giving up the search for something familiar, Penny Lane turned back to her old neighbor from Hogsmeade. She had never really talked to him before, but she had watched him go in and out of his house. Not him in particular, but everyone on her street. It wasn't because she was nosey; people-watching while she was brewing potions in her upstairs loft was a hobby. She used to do it in Salem's Peak, but back in her hometown, she had grown so familiar and friendly with the locals that she had initiated conversations with them. Too bad it wasn't the case in Hogsmeade--or in England. It seemed not a bunch of people in England warmed up to Americans.

"I was looking for the infirmary and this boy gave me directions to take a passageway to get there. I guess I should've asked where I go after I came up the stairs," she indicated the secret passage of stairs hidden in the wall behind her. "Umm... You're the Fortune Teller professor, right? I mean, you teach students to read fortunes with tarot cards and crystal balls. There's a fancy word for it, but I can't remember.."

Penny averted her gaze and shoved her hands into the back pockets of her jeans, trying to remember the word. Declomancy? Something that started with a 'D', she knew. What was that word?

Cillian regarded his neighbour curiously. Watching her glance around frantically made him wish he had gotten to know her better before they took their respective jobs at Hogwarts. He had a whole year with her living down the street from him and he didn't think he had ever even said Hi to her, then again there were A LOT of drunken nights in the Three Broomsticks he couldn't remember. He just hoped she wasn't one of those rare one night stands he had had.

He looked at her with a playful smirk. She had taken a secret passageway that a student had told her to take? He had no idea if the student was just misinformed, if Penny had taken a wrong turn or if whoever it was that was trying to be helpful to her was really just taking the piss out on her. Whatever the situation was it didn't change the fact that she was very far away from the infirmary.

He stifled a bit of a chuckle, "Well last I checked thee infirmary's on thee first floor. Not ta mention thee fact that it was burnt down at thee beginnin of thee year. Thee new healer's workin out o' her hut out on thee school grounds."

He slid his hands into his pockets somehow feeling more shy than usual. He just wasn't used to one on one interactions, especially not in a completely deserted corridor. Usually if he was being forced to interact with someone it was because he was in some sort of group setting where it was mandatory for him, "would ye like an escort, in case ye git lost agin?"