(Untitled)

[brandon_childs]

Week Name/Date/Time: 'Expect the Unexpected' / Thursday June 22, 2006 / 3:09 PM.
Location: Hufflepuff Common Room
Open To: Maxie
Currently Involving: Brandon

Comments

[maxielloyd]

Maxie walked into the common room and was momentarily stunned by how quiet it was. There was only a handful of people which was surprising - this past month the common room had been practically stacked to the roof with students studying at every stage of the day.

It unsettled Max for a minute before she saw a friendly, albeit bored-looking face.

"Where the hell is everyone?" she asked in greeting, as she made her way over the him. "I thought I'd walked into the wrong Common Room!"

[brandon_childs]

"Library, I guess," Brandon said, sitting up a little straighter and motioning to the chairs around his.

"I swear, I just don't get everyone's obsession with studying. I didn't study last year and I got by." He shrugged.

"Where've you been, anyway? I know you didn't have classes today."

[maxielloyd]

Max rolled her eyes as she took a seat. "Yes, we all know how smart you are, not having to study and passing with flying colours," she smirked and stuck out her tongue. It would be infuriating if he wasn't such a good friend. Maxie studied for days and days and Brandon didn't even do one iota of revision and yet they'd still get similar marks. She figured it had something to do with him being musically inclined but she wasn't sure.

"I have been trying to find somewhere cool to practice." She didn't say what she was practising, there was no need. Maxie only ever practised one thing - gymnastics. "But it turns out no matter where you go - inside or outside - it's still bloody hot. Merlin's beard, I hate Summer. What are you up to then?"

[brandon_childs]

"I hardly call one or two Es and mostly As 'flying coulours,' but compliment taken all the same," he said with a smile.

"It's pretty empty in here...still hot, but as long as you stay away from the walls, you should be okay. I could watch. It would be a nice form of entertainment. I'm so bored! The entire castle has gone crazy with their studying, and no one wants to talk or hang out. I was about to read I was so desperate. I'd suggest playing some sort of game, but if you'd rather practice, that's cool, too."

[maxielloyd]

"I'm sure that would be heaps of fun for you, watching me bounce around and do stupid little flips," Maxie said, rolling her eyes. "No, we can do something else, if you want." Maxie was always accommodating. "Just not Gobstones again, I've still got the ooze in my ears from the other day. Or Wizard Chess because it's boring." She thought for a moment, biting her lip and staring into space. "Hogwarts should have a body of water that isn't inhabited by a giant squid and several species of life threatening creatures. Then we could have gone swimming."

Max gave up thinking then, the heat was taking all her brain power. Or what little she had left.

"Ideas?" she asked, standing up and stretching.

[brandon_childs]

"It's fun to watch you bounce," Brandon said, then paused. "I mean...you know, gymnastics-wise."

He looked around and smiled. "I wish I was better at Conjuring and Transfiguring. We could turn the entire common room into a giant pool and have a nice party for the non-5th and 7th years."
He picked up his bag and pulled out his deck of cards. "Exploding Snap?" he asked, holding them out. "A bit noisy, I guess, but I don't really see anyone around here studying very hard. Besides, if they want to study in quiet they can go to the library. That's what it's there for."

[maxielloyd]

Maxie blushed but tried to hide it with a laugh. Well, that was awkward, she thought to herself. But Brandon moved on quick enough, so she did too.

"Exploding Snap is good," she nodded and took the cards off of him. "Yeah, they'll go to the library or they'll tell on us, either way, we should get a couple of games in." Max gave him a quick grin and shuffled the cards quickly, before handing them back for Brandon to deal.

[brandon_childs]

Brandon had the tendency to put his foot in his mouth, even when he didn't mean to. He'd only meant that he liked to watch her do gymnastics, just the same way that some people liked to watch him play his guitar, but he'd realized belatedly what it must've sounded like and wanted to clarify. After all, Max was one of his best friends, maybe even the best of all, and he wouldn't want her to mistake his meaning.

He took the cards back gratefully and began to deal them out. "So," he said. "My mum wrote me yesterday to ask if I'd reconsidered my career. She's still nagging me to get a job at the Ministry. She's a Muggle. She doesn't even know what the Ministry is. But she's convinced herself that I'm going to be some dead-beat bum living on the street if I pursue the music thing." He laughed. "You heard from any of your family lately?"

[maxielloyd]

Maxie scoffed. "You should show her the latest addition of Witch Weekly. They've got the highest paid celebrities and there's like two musical acts in the top five. The Weird Sisters made about 25 million galleons. Celestina Warbeck's latest album has broken sales records all through Europe. Trust me, when you're rich and famous, I bet she'll have a change of heart."

Maxie shrugged her shoulders at his question about her family. She only had one family member but she may as well have had none. "I expect I'll hear from my mum around my birthday." That was the only time Max could guarantee a letter. She didn't like thinking about it but luckily the first few cards exploded on the table, taking her mind off of her mother.

She blew a strand of burnt hair out of her eyes comically.

"Your turn."

[brandon_childs]

"Yeah, maybe. It's her fault for taking me to that U2 concert and making me want to become a rock star." He shrugged and put one of his cards on top of the pile.

"Sorry," Brandon said softly. If they'd been younger, he'd have said, 'At least you don't have my parents,' but he'd learned the hard way that it was more insulting than anything else to say that. He may not have loved his parents constantly trying to convince him not to pursue his music, but at least they wrote to him on a regular basis.

Brandon jumped back as the card he'd laid down exploded suddenly, jolting him out of his thoughts. His t-shirt (bearing The Clash insignia, no less) had taken the brunt of it, so he pulled his wand out and did a quick Reparo! on his t-shirt. It was one of his favorites.

As he put his wand back in his pocket, he shifted awkwardly, then said, "Ow," and rubbed at the spot on his ribs he'd injured a week ago. It was faded mostly, but if he moved wrong, it could really twinge.

He motioned down to the cards, then said, "Your turn."

[maxielloyd]

"There's no maybe about it, you're going to be in a famous rock band one day and I'll be sitting in some bar saying to anyone who'll listen, 'I went to school with him, nice bloke'. Of course, I will have to tell them every embarrassing thing you've ever done but understand, I'd do it out of love." Maxie giggled at the thought.

She looked up worriedly as he said 'ow', concerned the cards may have done more damage than just a rip in his shirt.

"What's wrong?" she asked as she put a card down carefully, as if it made a difference to when the cards would explode.

[brandon_childs]

"Then I'll just have to write a song about every embarrassing thing you've ever done, and I'll play it while you're telling people about me," he said with a smile.

"Oh, nothing," he said, rubbing idly at the spot. "Got into a duel with some Slytherin last week, and my ribs have never really...fixed. They still twinge every now and again."

He made a dismissive gesture with his hand and laid down his next card. "Doesn't really matter. I'm fine, really. Anyway, have you decided what you're going to do this summer?"

[maxielloyd]

"Oh, that'll be a hit song for sure," Maxie said with mirth. She strummed an imaginary guitar and sang,

"I knew a girl in school,
she was such a fool.
One day she ate frog spawn,
and wished she'd never been boooooooorn."

Her laughter subsided as Brandon told her of the fight with the Slytherin. She wanted to tell him to go to the Hospital Wing but she knew that it would fall on deaf ears. If there was one thing she had learned from her friendship with boys, is that they never went to see a Healer if they could avoid it.

"Umm, no actually, I have no plans for the holidays. I might get a head start on my N.E.W.T.S? Or get a part time job? The fun never ends with Max!" She threw down her next card and while the pile started emitting smoke, there wasn't a bang.

"What about you?"

[brandon_childs]

Brandon chuckled at her song. "I should hire you to be my song writer. You're better at lyrics than I am." He tried not to think about last week when he'd spent five hours trying to find a rhyme for the word 'orange,' only to discover that there wasn't one, then changed it to 'purple,' and fell into the same trap.

"Probably alternating between trying for my Apparition license and, if I get it, going to a bunch of concerts. And when I'm not doing that, probably hanging out at the Muggle cinema near my house. I was just thinking that if you didn't have anything to do, you could come visit me. Or I could come visit you, if you can't Apparate. I need someone to go concert-hopping with me." He grinned. "Well, that, and someone to sit with me in the back of the theatre and make rude comments about the films. That's always a laugh. We've got a nice guest room you could stay in."

[maxielloyd]

Maxie was thrilled at Brandon's offer. She was secretly sure she was going to pass her apparation test (although she wouldn't admit this to anyone, she was slightly superstitious) so that bit shouldn't be a problem. And it wasn't like her Mum would care or even notice she was gone. What Brandon had planned certainly sounded like a blast. Max enjoyed much of the same music as he did and she hadn't been to the cinemas in ages.

"Yeah, that would be so, I mean, oh absolutely," she gushed. "I mean, if it's okay with your family and all, I'd hate to be a burden."

[brandon_childs]

"They won't mind. They might ask you to 'talk some sense into me' about the musician thing, but they won't mind one bit. They know how much I hate living so far away from all of my friends."

He laid a card down on the pile and waited for the impending explosion. It didn't happen, so he smiled and looked up.

"Your turn," he said.

"Anyway, that's settled then. I'll write to my parents tomorrow so that they know you'll be coming. Oh, and also, we have a big yard that you can practice gymnastics in."