Seeking Solitude (Open to all)

[notthatharry]

Name(s): Harry Dresden
Location: A random hallway
Week: Week 37
Time: Tuesday afternoon
Rating: G for the moment

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[9_tailed_ramen]

Sometimes, as now, Naruto just let his feet carry him wherever they wanted to go. He'd explored the castle enough (had run from teachers and fellow students enough) to only engage his mind and instincts so much, to counter and predict the vagaries of the school itself.

His mind was still buzzing with thoughts of the day though, and Naruto focused, then grinned. Sometimes the best way to forget any problems was to use his body, so he kicked into high gear. He took the staircase in front of him at high speed, hearing telltale creaks and leaping it. Bursting into the hallway in front of him, Naruto ran at full speed and completely failed to see a sudden turn of a corner. He crashed into the wall.

Stumbling backwards, Naruto blinked furiously, seeing bursts and pulses of colorful light. Huh. There was another boy here.

Never be it said that Uzumaki Naruto didn't say hello to people he didn't know, regardless of his mental state.

"Hey," he called.

[notthatharry]

Harry looked up as he heard a massive bang, and saw a blond teenager come stumbling backwards, nearly falling over. He just kind of stared at the kid with a befuddled expression, and debated going back to his reading and pretending he didn't see anything.

Still, he supposed he should see if the other boy was okay, and besides he'd said hi, so Harry couldn't hope he'd just leave.

"Hey," he replied, setting down his reading.

[9_tailed_ramen]

The colors and lights were rapidly receding, since Naruto had an indecently hard head -- or that was what his mentor had told him, anyway -- and he quickly checked the wall to see if he had left any dents. Caressing the wall carefully, he looked at the other boy and grinned at him, combining elements of sheepishness, embarassment, and sheer...welcome. If that was even something of an emotion.

"I'm Uzumaki Naruto," he said, still smiling, while the hand not wandering along the wall scratched the back of his neck. "I didn't hurt you or anything by hitting the wall, right?"

It had been in his experience -- just once, okay, just once -- that hitting things with his head could hurt other people indirectly. Mainly, he'd been sent flying once in a fight, his head had collided with a table, and about four people had their laps scalded when the shockwaves made their bowls of soup spill.

Also, he wasn't thinking particularly straight at the moment, and couldn't quite figure out what to say.

[notthatharry]

Given how widely Naruto was grinning, Harry figured he either had a very thick head, or had hit the wall pretty hard.

Blinking at the strange student, who he know realized he'd seen around the Griffindor common room, Harry managed to process what had happened and said, "Uh, no, I'm good. I'm pretty sure the wall's okay to." Naruto's head on the other hand, had him slightly worried.

"I'm Harry, nice to meet you I guess. Run into walls here often?"

[9_tailed_ramen]

"Oh." He leaned away from the wall, steady on his feet. "Good. Um, no, I don't run into walls that much, only get hit into one if I'm not lucky..."

"Harry, huh?" He scratched the back of his head. "You look pretty familiar, actually. Do I know you from somewhere?"

[notthatharry]

"Okay, whatever you say" Harry replied dubiously.

Tilting his head, Harry contemplated the other boy, finally putting a name to his face. "Ah, yeah, I think we're actually in the same house. I'm Harry, I'm a fifth year, but I actually just transferred here." No sense in being rude, even if the kid did seem a bit...odd.

[9_tailed_ramen]

"Oh?" Naruto asked. "Where did you transfer from?"

[notthatharry]

Ah, there it was, the question everyone always asked. It was understandable that they would be curious about his life before Hogwarts, but it still put him in a rather tricky spot.

"Uh, I was home schooled."