I so know what I'm doing... I guess now would be a better time than any for development ._. Also sorry for not updating *inserts excuse * _

The next day those lost hours of sleep came back to bite her in the arse. Crystal woke up in a less than graceful manner falling off her bed onto the hard ground beneath. She groaned as she slowly pushed herself up from the floor, not even bothering to check the time as she dragged herself to her clothes to get dressed. She yawned a least 5 times throughout her slow march from the dorms to the great hall her mind void of all other intentions aside from filling her empty stomach and getting some rest.

She flopped down onto the table in front of the twins with the grace of a dead fish and she lifted her arm towards the toast, her movement likening to those of a zombie. Knowing the dangers of irritating the tired girl, the twins resisted the urge to poke her with a fork.

"Woah, Crys, you look like Ron when he's been deprived of chicken!" exclaimed Fred spewing forth croissant crumbs with every syllable.

Crystal groaned in response as she summoned the strawberry jam from the other side of the table. Without much thought, she spread the jam onto her toast and took a bite frowning at the taste- that was not grape.

"Wrong jar, Crys" said George, stating the obvious. He took the toast from Crys' hands and placed his own half eaten one into them instead "let's swap."

Crys simply nodded and took a bite out of the toast, ignoring the bite-marks already on it. It didn't take long for the twins to figure that their friend was truly out of it and the lack of sleep had led to her being spaced out instead of cranky. They let out a sigh of relief and started, instead, to see how far they could go in terms of annoyingness without getting a single response from their little friend.

They continued in that manner until it was time to head off to their lessons which mean that, by the end of their experimentation session, Crystal had eaten one bite from 13 different slices of toast with varying toppings (including marmite) and had had her hair charmed to do a range of things from changing colour to shooting out sparks whenever the word toast is mentioned. Luckily, the twins had made sure to clean up after themselves before they left and Crystal walked to her charms lesson looking vaguely normal.

Fortunately for Crys, by the end of the charms lesson, she felt slightly less like an undead mermaid on land after being hit by flying projectiles sent by fellow students as practice for the summoning charm. By the end of her transfiguration class she had been firmly woken up by the shrill sounds of her relatively decently transfigured mockingbird . Nevertheless, her tiredness was not gone as she made her way to the forbidden forest one last time. She'd already walked into the shoulders of three other people on her way to the main tent before she walked straight into the one she'd been looking for with a soft 'oompf' . With a sheepish grin, she apologised before greeting the redhead with a firm hello.

"Mornin', Crys I'm glad you came, we'll be needing an extra pair of hands preparing the dragons" said Charlie with a smile. Crystal's eyes lit up and he chuckled "thought you'd like it; how long have you got today?"

The girl's grin grew wider "I've got the rest of the day of today" she said happily.

"Great" said Charlie as he began to explain what she had to do for the rest of the day. Crystal felt her tiredness wash away with the prospect of working with dragons and they got on with the work, arranging and testing the dragon manoeuvring and safety checks on the site.

Time seemed to pass by in a flash and the work and by the time the early winter sun had made its way down the horizon, and darkness was starting to envelope the clearing, the team had finished all the work that they had set out to do. The others had already set up a fire and began passing tea around as a reward for their work. Charlie and Crystal took this opportunity to sit down in front of the fire, cups of tea in hand, to rest after a full day of hard work. The former looked down at the younger girl beside him and noticed her happiness radiating from her entire being, complementing the warmth of the fire in front of them.

"You know, I'm surprised." he began as Crys looked up with a questioning look in response "most people would quit after one or two hours of work but you looked pretty content working for eight hours straight."

"It was fun" she replied with a hint of pride in her voice "Plus, I couldn't give up this opportunity to gain actual hands-on experience"

"Good point." replied Charlie "but you ought to be pretty tired right?"

Crystal nodded as the fatigue finally caught up to her replacing the excitement beforehand. "Could I stay here for a bit?" she asked "I feel too comfortable to move."

Charlie chuckled at her reasoning but nodded anyway taking in the warmth of the fire.

'A bit' is a subjective phrase, what to most meant five or ten minutes, to the pair ended up being longer. As they grew more and more comfortable with each other's presence, the space between them closed all while many of the other workers took their leave to rest while others took their place leaving only three others with them. At the same time, Crystal felt her eyelids grow continually heavier, the lack of sleep the day before and the fatigue finally taking its toll on her. This was not helped by the comfort that the fire brought, though not as comfortable as the sofa in the Gryffindor common room, she felt completely at peace in the forest next to the man she had fast become friends with within weeks. She eventually drifted off to sleep, her head falling into place, using Charlie's shoulder as a pillow.

The sudden weight startled Charlie as his was snapped out of his daze. His face flushed red when he turned to see the cause of the impact. He quickly glanced back towards the fire sitting awkwardly as he contemplated waking her up, but as his gaze was led once more to the sleeping girl beside him he decided against it on the principal of not waking up someone who was clearly exhausted. So, he sat there, awkwardly at first but then, slowly, he got used to it and stayed in that position until his shoulder started aching.

He decided now was a better time than ever to test his stealth and move attempt to move Crystal from his shoulder to somewhere less uncomfortable. Unfortunately for him, he failed and she woke up with a start her eyes wide open.

"Shit. Did I fall asleep?" she asked, the profanity sounding odd on her lips.

Charlie nodded.

"For how long? What time is it?" she asked in one quick breath.

Charlie thought for a while and replied "Not long. It's around nine." he took this time to move his poor strained shoulder.

Crystal's eyes widened even more "Merlin, I should've been back in the castle two hours ago!" then she looked at Charlie and her actions finally filtered through her head, she blushed at the thought of what she'd just done but quickly turned around, making a run for it. "Bye!" she shouted as she ran through the forest, hoping that the cold air would cool down the heat from her reddening face.

Hmm... I don't know what I just did there.

Sorry.