So far, this Saturday was going just about how every Saturday should go.  Mairead had slept in until the very tail end of brunch before scampering down to the Great Hall to fill herself with eggs and toast. Brunch had been followed with taking Ailill outside for a vigorous walk (or, however vigorous a walk a puffskein could manage).  Actually, it hadn't really been much of a walk.  Mairead had just stood in place as the puffskein winded itself by crossing the great expanse of one end of a courtyard bench to the other.

After a leisurely nap in the warm spring sun, Mairead had dashed back up to Gryffindor tower.  She was supposed to be meeting Erik Collins in the common room.  Their Astronomy project was due very very soon but, over the course of the past month, there'd been no shortage of excuses for putting the exercise off: headaches, puffskein dandruff, urgent meetings with non-existent classmates, simple lack of interest.  She was supposed to meet with Erik last night but Mairead had begged off the session, on account of having acquired a last minute detention. 

For the moment, all record of any meeting with her fellow classmate had, officially, erased itself from her mind.  The looming project hadn't crossed her mind once so far that day and that situation hadn't changed any when Mairead grabbed the broom Grace had given her and started back down the stairs to the girl's dormitory.  Even one of the older girls trying to inform Mairead that Erik was waiting for her in the common room didn't jog her memory. 

"Allo," Mairead offered Erik as she passed him in the common room and started towards the portrait hole.

Ever since Astronomy, at the beginning of the month, Erik had been trying to get Mai to work on a project with him, but she had just been so busy. She didn't seem to have time for anything, so Erik had time to goof off, then get reminded by his twin, over, and over, and over again about the project. But as procrastination left only a few days before the project was due his sister nearly cursed him into doing it, telling him if he could make up outfits and other silly shenanigans for Astronomy then he could make a project. Fine.

He'd just use his pajamas in his project, that made things easier. Erik had spent the morning trying tracing himself, like he died in a crime scene, onto a think plank of plywood (which turned out to be harder than he originally had thought,) and kept asking all the girls who came from the girl's dorm if they'd tell Mairead he needed her assistance. He kept redoing his outline, but it kept coming out as a demented squiggle.

Finally, Erik admitted defeat. He laid down in his outline on the plywood and propped his pajamas under his head for a pillow and sighed.

• "Allo."

"Mai!" Erik sprung up from the ground and threw his space pajama pants on his fellow Gryffindor, and jumped between her and the portrait, "I've got a great idea for our project!"

She hadn't expected much of a response from her fellow Gryffindor.  A nod of the head - a muttered greeting, maybe.  That's what people did when they were distracted by important things that retired concentration.  And, Mairead had gathered that whatever he was doing had been one of those things. 

So, she hadn't been expecting the enthusiasm with which Erik greeted her nor the stray clothing flying in her direction.  Both proved effective, though.  Mairead drew up on her heels, the pajama bottoms draped over the handle of her broom as she stared, blankly, at the boy. 

"An idea?"  Mairead blinked, her eyebrows arching as she tried her hardest to remember why he might be telling her this.  "For ... our ... project?"  That was good?

Then, suddenly, she remembered.  "Ahh...bloody 'ell."  Mairead's eyes shifted from the broom in her hand to Erik and back to the broom.  "Aye - that's ... too bad," she said though even as she started to concoct the excuse, she knew it was a lost cause.  It would prove much more believable if she wasn't standing there with her broom in hand.  "It's due soon, innit?"  So inconvenient.

Mairead sighed again, casting a forlorn glance out the window before propping her broom in a nearby nook and flopping in a chair near the cutout.  "What's the project on, again?  Moons?"

"Nope," Erik responded quickly and proudly, laying his plank of wood on the ground again, "my pajamas." He positioned himself on the board with his back down, his front looking at the ceiling, and placed his arms and legs in awkward robotic positions.

He pressed his lips to the side of his face as he reconsidered what Mairead had said, "I guess we could mention moons, since black holes eat almost everything--Okay, okay," The little Gryffindor wiggled himself happily on the board, "but first trace me, then we do the brainy stuff."

Erik failed to realize that he had not offered much explanation to Mai about what he was doing with the board, or why his pajamas were involved at all, but he was eager to finish the project and get it done that day. Any dialogue or questions that stalled the project were easily discarded by his excitable nature.

Erik was sprawled out on a board in the middle of the Gryffindor common room.  Or, perhaps, he was along the side but it just automatically felt like the middle whenever anyone was ... sprawled.  And, for a brief moment, he was ... wiggling.  Like an excited puppy.  It was ... a little strange.

"They're not that exciting," Mairead said, quietly, just in case Erik was expecting her to wiggle in excitement at the prospects of including moons in their projects on ... black holes?  "Aren't ... aren't black holes made up of lots o' nothing?"  Mairead gazed down at Erik and one eyebrow hitched up suggestively.  Hey - at least, if she mimed handing Professor Trishna something when, in fact, there was nothing there, he'd have concrete proof that she actually paid attention for a few minutes.  That, alone, ought to earn her an A.  That was good enough for her. 

With a resigning sigh, Mairead plopped down next to Erik and picked up tracing where Erik had left off.  "What do dead people have to do with black holes?"  Mairead asked, grimacing slightly as she accidentally colored a section of Erik's hair that had splayed out across the board.  "Is this ... is this like with pirates?"

"Nah, they're made up of so much something they eat anything in its reach--" Erik's dark eyes fell on Mai tracing him as they darted back to stare at the ceiling and shrugged his hands up happily, "like Eirene and her big head or Wakaheater!" The Gryffindor could try for years and he would probably never get her name correct, "...who thinks she's going to get eaten all the time anyway."

"Space pirates?" Erik's voice chirped quizzically, "I don't know, we could give it a pirate hat, I bet the only reason someone would be in space without anyone knowing about it would be because they are a space pirate." It was completely plausible reasoning at this point, and he'd have to pat Mai on the back for such an ingenious suggestion.  "I thought it would be fun to show what happens when someone goes into a black hole, we could make up--er--theorize about it too, since no one has entered a black hole to live to tell..." Erik's brows furrowed as his mind backtracked on his previous statement, "...at least I don't think you're suppose to anyway."

"I bet it's like apparating though! And looks like it too--we could look it up in a minute, probably shouldn't try too hard because I bet no one has dis-proven it before," Erik was obnoxiously confident on that matter as he turned his head a little to see if Mai had finished tracing him.

Ok - so, handing over a handful of nothing wouldn't work.  A growing puppy on the other hand, might.  Ethne's puppies tended to be ravenous.  They'd eat anything. 

A grin flickered at the corner of Mairead's mouth as she shrugged.  "No clue where she gets the idea."  Actually, Mairead was pretty certain she knew where Wakahisa got the idea - or, more importantly, how that idea keeps getting perpetuated.  The hungry looks she and Keegan keep giving her probably don't help. 

"I - yeah," Mairead said, shrugging slightly.  "With pirates, gettin' the black hole ... or spot ... or whatever means yer gonna die.  So..."  Outlining a dead body ... marking someone for death ... it made sense to her.  And, really, when one figured they were space pirates, all the pieces fit.  Sort of.  Good enough for her, at least.

The line Mairead was tracing around her fellow Gryffindor reconnected with where it started and she sat back and handed the writing implement back to Erik.  The line wasn't exactly straight but it definitely looked like a person.  Going in a black hole looked like apparating?  Mairead didn't remember that from class - not that that really explained it all.  "We know what it looks like?" she asked, sounding confused.  "So, someone's actually been in a black hole?  I thought they were really really far away." 

Mai's innocent proclamation at not knowing why the first year Slytherin thought she'd be eaten all the time made Erik snicker from his throat. Of course he knew, Erik knew he was pretty dense at times but that wasn't something he could miss; he loved being a Gryffindor.

But he wasn't sure quite sure how to relate black spots to black holes... other than them both being black. His eyes swang back and forth and he arched an eyebrow, "Uh maybe we should look that one up," despite his active imagination he couldn't wrap his head around how that worked.

"Er well, we can look at them through telescopes, satellites, wizard stuff," Erik bent his knees and hopped up to study Mairead's tracing, "It bends and twists everything--kind of like how apparating is--feels like you're being sucked from one place to another." He smiled and got down on his knees and pulled out his wand.

"My dad's done it with me before--Persecto,[1]" Erik's wand shaft gave off a red sheen as he poked it through the baord and then dragged it along the lines Mairead drew, neatly cutting through the board, "Alton Towers[2] hasn't been the sames since..."

1.	The Carving Charm
2.	A theme park in Staffordshire featuring a few of Britain's fastest rollercoasters (at least around 2005.)

"Black spots!"  Mairead repeated, louder this time, as if annunciating it would enlighten the confused boy.  Then, just in case, she offered an elaboration.  "It's a curse or something.  If a pirate finds a black dot or spot or hole or whatnot in yer things then it means they're gonna die."  She gestured at the outline of a (wiggly) body mapped out on the floor. 

"Satellites aren't wizard stuff."  At least, not as far as Mairead knew.  By now, Mairead was used to feeling like there wasn't much she could contribute to an academic assignment that someone else couldn't do a better job at offering.  Most of the time, she didn't bother trying.  That was harder to do when there were only two of them so when she came across something she did know, she was quick to offer it.  Whether it was really relevant and important or not. 

"I don't know what Alton Towers is," Mairead admitted with a shrug, watching as Erik started cutting out the poor flat bloke.  PFB.  Paddy F. Bryson.  "Is that a wizarding place or something?  I have apparated with someone before.  Not me mum and da, obviously.  They're muggles."  No.  She'd done it with random witches she'd met in Knockturn Alley.  "So, yer going to apparate with Paddy?" 

His partner went on about black spots again, and Erik was starting to fail to process the information "Uhh..." Mairead went on about satellites before he really wanted rethink what he had listed off, and that she might've mushed it all together in a weird way, "No..." he agreed with a skeptical linger, "no they are not," he finally confoundedly agreed. Erik assumed he was conceding to agreeing with himself and Mai as lifted his wand away from the board and the cutout rose unevenly from the wood, which was weird--but she had lost him somewhere around 'marked for death' and he hadn't recovered since.

Erik stomped on the cutout and lifted away the excess wood over his head and stepped through it, "Well if you want to look it up and see if it there's anything about astronomy or apparating..." Erik scratched his scraggily brown hair as the the wood clapped against the floor behind him

The Gryffindor boy bent down to pick up the funny outline of himself as he excitedly spoke up again, "Muggle place: Rollercoasters!" Erik propped the flat wooden guy beside him as he went on, "Theme Parks! We should go sometime, Tynan would probably like it too, brilliant way to kill a day," and his parent's money.

Then she mentioned Paddy... and Erik's head bobbed to his shoulder, "What? Who?"

Mairead was curious, there was no doubt.  And, somewhere in her mind the analogy worked.  But, the same conclusion held true about black spots as satellites: if she had to go through the effort of looking something up to come to an answer, the answer probably wasn't worth knowing in the first place.  Therefore, Erik's recommendation was met with a simple shrug as the girl turned her attention to the cutout. 

Her fellow Gryffindor propped their new, two-dimensional partner up next to them.  "Think we could animate it and make it give the presentation?"  In fact, if that worked, Mairead might consider that tactic for all of her reports and presentations.  She and Paddy could become fast friends. 

"Oh.  Like Funtasia?"  Though the name of the theme park hadn't struck any bells with Mairead, the contents of it had.  "I never been on a rollercoaster.  We don't really have many in Ireland."  Coming to Diagon Alley and Hogwarts had been her first time outside of Ireland.  What she knew of the world beyond Ireland was pretty well restricted to the wizarding world.  She'd seen them in movies though and she'd heard the rich kids talk about them and everything about what she'd heard screamed fun.

And, expensive.  "It'd probably take forever to make that much," Mairead pointed out, quietly.  "But, maybe we can make more in London.  They may pay musicians more here.  Or-"  Or, Mairead could find some more reporters to help bag a story in Knockturn.  Or something. 

"Whoa, whoa-brakes," he held up his hands to keep Mai from coming up with ideas that took more effort than he was committed to do doing,"My dad can just pay, he'd probably let me bring a friend or two," maybe by throwing in it was the end of the world or so, as well.

But as his comrade's suggestion cut up to his thought process Erik's eyes grew wide and he pointed at her. Mouth opening, then closing, and opening again, "Brilliant," he recoiled to admire his cut-out double, "I was thinking we could just steal a house-elf to make it disappear and reappear in and out of the room, but I bet there's stuff in our charm books about animating stuff," Erik immediately passed off his wooden self to Mairead as he dove towards his backpack and started digging for the charms book.

"Maybe a floating spell and something that'll make it move a bit--" he pulled out their charms book and started leafing through the pages, "I think we should still steal an elf for the teleporting bit."

"That may work for you," Oblivious to the fact that Erik was suggesting his father would pay for everyone, Mairead crossed her arms over her chest as she peered over at Erik.  A touch of color rose in her cheeks but she fought against letting her embarrassment show in any other way.  It wasn't customary for Pavee to talk about their financial situation with outsiders and Mairead was far too accustomed with people who didn't understand finding her level of poverty amusing.  She didn't even consider whether Erik understood or not.  The defensiveness had been reflexive. 

"But, me da can't just pay for me to go.  I'd either have to sneak in or get the money somehow.  Ye don't want to help earn it, that's fine.  Probably be easier, anyway."  Whether or not that last bit was true was irrelevant - it had been entirely a defensive dismissal. 

Mairead pursed her lips, watching the back of Erik's head as he rummaged in his bag.  He didn't get it.  None of them got it.  Tynan did, for the most part.  But, it seemed like he was the only one.  "Maybe we can just put him on roller skates," Mairead tossed out, dismissively. 

Erik took it upon himself to correct Mairead, "Well since I invited you I'd be paying party," and by 'paying party' he pretty much meant his dad, "It's a common courtesy thing--or something," he assumed.

The Gryffindor got his pajamas and finally dressed the plank of wood with his animated planet-devouring clothing, tying off the waistbands of the pants as dressed Mairead suggesting roller-skates, "Feh--getting a house elf sounds better," Erik, of course, just didn't want to do any more work.

"And, with an elf, we could probably get snacks!" Erik looked admired the dummy as he thought of a house-elf's assistance, before he retraced his thoughts to what they were suppose to be doing: apparating, black holes--oh right Astronomy project.

"I think he should just hold a sign with all our project information stuff on it, maybe put stuff on his face too," turned it toward Mairead with a thoughtful head slump; he didn't hold a lot of enthusiasm for  that part of the project, so he'd rather do it all in one go.

Mairead straightened up and stared at Erik, her arms crossed over chest as she glared at her fellow Gryffindor.  Whatever he said next about their project had a hard time finding its way past a deep, thudding pulse in her ear.  She hadn't really been that enthusiastic about the project to begin with but now, all she could think about was the ... the offer of a handout. 

The average person might have recognized Erik's offer for what it was: helping a friend attend a social activity she couldn't have otherwise.  They might have been aware that Erik had meant no harm or insult by the offer.  But, years of watching other kids play with their new Christmas toys as she unwrapped a new second hand sweater or getting teased for her humble upbringing had left more than a few nerves sensitive to the touch. 

"I don't need charity!" she tossed at Erik, her fists clenched threateningly at her side in a voice loud enough for anyone in the vicinity to hear.  Completely disregarding that she would have considered helping herself to tickets which had never been paid for, Mairead stubbornly held her own.  Her voice still raised, she continued.  "Just cause we can't just buy things like that on a whim, don't mean we can't work for them!"  Mairead grabbed her broom and turned and quickly made pushed her way past a third year and out of the common room, leaving Erik to finish the project on his own.