Chapter Eleven
Scott Lencher
The next morning came all too quickly and before she knew it, Parvati was tapping her on the face.
"Get up, we overslept," she grunted, looking very tired.
Alexia looked over at her clock. It was 9:15; she was already 15 minutes late for Charms. Parvati seemed to have overslept as well, as she tried in vain to flatten her hair, Alexia pulled on her shoes and they bolted out the door.
They arrived to class ten minutes later, both receiving a detention.
"I'm sorry ladies, but it'd been an entire term, you should know by now," said Flitwick writing down their names on a ledger.
Alexia sat between Parvati and Lorelei, with Hari and Breena in front of her. She saw Hari waving and Breena smiling.
During the lesson they practiced a Dusting charm. Feeling very tired, Alexia pretended to be asking Breena for help, when instead she was talking about the previous night. After telling them the whole thing, Hari smiled.
"You met Scott Lencher?" asked Hari.
Alexia nodded and Hari grinned wider.
"He hardly talks to anyone!" she gasped, "Sits all by himself in the common room, reading. I've only seen him talk to Dan, which isn't very often."
"He was quite nice," said Alexia as she pointed her wand at the dust and it flew into the air with a small pouf.
"You're doing it wrong, Lex," said Breena, rolling her eyes.
She lazily moved her wand in a circular motion and the dust made a sphere and she dropped it into the basket.
"Show off," muttered Lorelei behind Alexia.
"So, he took you to Pomfrey to get fixed up?" asked Hari, sending her dust flying onto the floor.
"Yeah, he didn't actually introduce himself until he got to my common room," Alexia said but Breena cut in.
"He walked you to the Hufflepuff Common room?" asked Breena. "Talk about a gentle man."
Hari laughed and Breena looked over her shoulder. Dan was a couple of tables down from them, trying feebly to move his dust pile.
"Dan," she hissed.
He looked up.
"What?" he asked, sounding rather disgruntled.
"Come here for a second," Breena muttered.
Dan shot the dust off the desk and went to go clean it up. As he knelt on the floor he looked at Breena.
"Waddya want?" Dan asked.
"You know Scott Lencher, right?" asked Hari.
Dan looked up and narrowed his eyes.
"Yeah, why?" he asked, sounding very untrusting.
"He helped Lex last night. She had a nasty fall," said Breena.
"Ya break something?" asked Dan.
"My arm," Alexia explained, "He took me to see Pomfrey."
"Well Pomfrey is his Grandmother." Dan said, sounding as though it was something very obvious.
"Oh, wait, what?" asked Hari.
"Madame Pomfrey, it's Scott's grandmother," said Dan again, "Geeze don't you listen?"
"Bite me," muttered Hari under her breath, but Dan didn't hear.
"He's always in the Hospital Wing late at night," said Dan, "Gets food and stuff from him grandma. She's really nice to him, but she hates how he always gets in trouble."
"So he's go connections?" asked Breena.
"Yeah to the wizarding Mafia," Dan said sarcastically, "God you make it sound like he's killing or something."
"But he's in with Pomfrey?" asked Alexia.
Dan nodded.
"He can get a note to get out of anything," said Dan, "Really handy is you want to ditch a class."
"Are you four even trying to do this spell?" fumed Professor Flitwick.
They looked up and noticed that no one was doing the spell anymore but simply watching them. Alexia gave a sheepish grin and returned to her seat.
Before leaving class, Parvati and Alexia talked to Flitwick about their detention. He had assigned them to helping clean out bedpans in the Hospital wing.
"Can you believe this?" fumed Parvati, "Without Magic? WITHOUT MAGIC! He's insane! I'm getting a doctors note!"
"And what's it gunna say?" asked Alexia, "Parvati is allergic to icky things? It won't be that bad."
They entered the Great Hall later that afternoon, Parvati still complaining about their detention. They sat down and Venefica rolled her eyes.
"I've honestly heard of people getting much worse," she said.
"Like who?" spat Parvati.
"My brother, Alex," said Lorelei, "He was to help Snape clean his classroom once, it was awful! He did smell right for a week."
Alexia helped herself to a sandwich and wandered over by Breena and Hari. Moments later, Linnea walked over and sat next to her.
"I hear ya almost got caught by Filch last night," Linnea murmured.
Alexia glared at the others sitting around her.
"Who blabbed?" she demanded.
Hari shook her head and Linnea chuckled.
"God, you're jumpy," she said, "Breena told me today."
Alexia glared at her.
"What?" Breena asked, "You can't honestly tell me you weren't going to tell her."
Alexia was at a loss for words, until Linnea jabbed her in the ribs.
"Here he comes," she muttered.
Sure enough Alexia saw Scott and Dan enter the Great Hall. Scott kept his head down mostly and Dan seemed to be doing all the talking. Scott nodded every so often, but other than that appeared to say nothing. He walked past and Breena nodded.
"Not bad," Breena commented, "Nice choice."
"What are you talking about?" asked Alexia, taking a drink of her juice.
"Oh c'mon!" said Hari, "It's obvious you like him!"
Alexia spit juice out all over the table in shock at this comment.
"Pardon?" she asked, "Did you just say I like him?"
"Duh!" said Hari, smiling, "But he's not a bad choice."
Alexia rolled her eyes and Scott went walking very quickly out of the Great Hall.
"I've met him once," she said, "Geeze, I'm not interested!"
She grabbed her things and at that stormed from the Great Hall. Linnea, Breena and Hari exchanged confused looks.
"Nice one, Hari," muttered Linnea.
"What did I do?" snapped Hari; "I was just saying what I thought! Is that a crime?"
Linnea rolled her eyes and walked off to the Gryffindor table as Hari returned to her meal.
Alexia stormed out of the Great Hall and went up down the stairs. She turned a corner and slammed into someone. She sighed and looked up, apologizing quickly. She looked up to see Scott looked down at her.
"Ya might want to slow down," he said, handing her a book and walking away.
Alexia looked up and saw him half way down the hall.
"Scott, wait!" she yelled.
He turned around and looked over at Alexia as she dashed down the hall.
"What?" he asked, leaning again the wall.
Alexia stopped and looked at him. She suddenly just realized she had nothing to say.
"Erm,well,I just wanted to thank you," said Alexia.
"For what?" asked Scott, looking very oblivious to anything around him.
"For helping me," she said, "Last night?"
Scott squinted a bit and smiled.
"Oy! You are the girl from last night, Alexia, right?" he asked.
Alexia nodded.
"Sorry bout that, don't normally remember faces too well." He said, scratching his head.
"It's okay," said Alexia smiling, "It's just I never thanked you properly."
"Well now ya did," he said, smiling, "And it's not a problem."
He turned and stopped. Alexia was still standing there. He turned and looked at her.
"Can I talk to you?" he asked.
Alexia blinked several times. She had heard that Scott was one of the shyest boys at Hogwarts and she had only met him once. And now he wanted to talk? She didn't know what to make of this. He looked at her and she slowly nodded.
They started to walk down the empty hall, Scott had his hands in his pockets and Alexia was trying to think of something to say, but she didn't have to worry about that.
"Ya know my first year here was hell," said Scott, looking down at Alexia, "I spent all of my days trying to find friends and never did my homework. I didn't take it seriously, I just lived like everyday was my last."
They wandered past the Great Hall and Alexia saw Breena and Hari emerge. Hari looked at her and looked triumphant, as though she had won something. Alexia blushed and turned around, as Scott looked at her.
"You're friends think you like me?" he asked.
"How'd ya guess?" asked Alexia.
"Dan told me earlier today in the common room," he said, smiling, "Personally I don't believe them, you don't seem like the kind of girl who'd fall for someone like me."
"What's that supposed to mean?" asked Alexia, feel offened.
"You just don't seem like the kind of person who would fall for a guy; you're smarter than that," said Scott, smiling.
They walked off and onto the grounds. The snow crunched beneath their feet and Scott started to talk again.
"In my first year another boy from Hufflepuff was awful to me. He tricked me and did all sorts of mean things, said I was a rotten brat and a bastard to boot. I tried to defend myself, but ya know how these things are," said Scott, "Finally one day I just decided that maybe if I am as quiet as possible and only trust a few I could make it through school. So that's what I did. I pretended that I didn't exist. I only talked to a few people in the common room, and I almost never talked to people outside the common room. I've never stopped since."
Alexia stopped in her tracks and looked at him.
"So why are you telling me this?" she asked.
Scott started to laugh.
"You're a trip, ya know that?" he said, laughing still and walking away.
"I'm serious," she said; "Here you are saying that you want to be as quiet and possible and yet at the same time you're telling me your life story. Why are you telling this to me?"
Scott stopped laughing and he looked at her. He moved closer to her and she looked up at him in fear.
"Because there is something special about you," said Scott, "You're not like every stupid girl in this school, you're not so immature, you're act more like my age than you do like an 11 year old."
He smiled and looked at her.
"So what about you?" he asked.
"Waddya mean?" she asked as he backed away.
"Everyone says you're, I dunno, fun loving and just free, how you do you do it?" asked Scott.
"Well, I dunno, I wouldn't really say I'm fun loving," said Alexia, "I just make the most of my time. I'm not afraid to be heard, I guess."
Scott smiled.
"You'll find it's hard to stay that way," he said, "Trust me."
They walked a little more, chatting lightly about their families and random stuff like that. Scott was surprised that Alexia had divorced parents ("You're normal considering what you went through."). Before she knew it the sun was dipping below the horizon and she said good-bye.
"Look," said Scott before she got too far off, "I don't want people to take this the wrong way. We're just friends, nothing else."
Alexia grinned and chuckled slightly.
"I know," she said, walking off.
"See ya later," Scott said.
Alexia reached the common room soon after and entered to see that the others were sitting near the fire. She walked over and Parvati looked at her.
"So where have you been?" she asked angrily.
Alexia blinked several times and looked at her.
"Walking, why?" she asked.
"With Scott," hissed Parvati, Alexia could see her eyes were full of tears, "How could you?"
Parvati threw her books on the ground and Alexia looked at Venefica and Lorelei.
"What was that about?" she asked, sitting down.
"Isn't it obvious?" asked Venefica.
Alexia shook her head.
"Unless I missed something," she started but Lorelei cut in.
"Obviously you did," said Lorelei, "Parvati likes Scott, she has since we got here."
"She likes him?" asked Alexia.
"Duh!" said Venefica.
"I didn't know," said Alexia, "I had no idea!"
"Yeah right," said Venefica.
Alexia was shaking with anger when she heard someone sigh. Verity sat on the far side, shaking her head at them.
"Seriously, this is ridiculous," said Verity, "I saw Lex and him walking outside, they were just talking."
"How do you know?" asked Venefica.
"Cuz I saw them!" yelled Verity, "Geeze! You guys need to be more trusting!"
Verity stormed out of the common room and Alexia sunk even lower into her chair.
"Look, just tell Parvati you don't like him!" exclaimed Lorelei, "That'll take care of everything."
"I don't think that's the problem," said Alexia.
"How come?" asked Venefica.
"I think i likes i," said Alexia, looking up.
Scott Lencher
The next morning came all too quickly and before she knew it, Parvati was tapping her on the face.
"Get up, we overslept," she grunted, looking very tired.
Alexia looked over at her clock. It was 9:15; she was already 15 minutes late for Charms. Parvati seemed to have overslept as well, as she tried in vain to flatten her hair, Alexia pulled on her shoes and they bolted out the door.
They arrived to class ten minutes later, both receiving a detention.
"I'm sorry ladies, but it'd been an entire term, you should know by now," said Flitwick writing down their names on a ledger.
Alexia sat between Parvati and Lorelei, with Hari and Breena in front of her. She saw Hari waving and Breena smiling.
During the lesson they practiced a Dusting charm. Feeling very tired, Alexia pretended to be asking Breena for help, when instead she was talking about the previous night. After telling them the whole thing, Hari smiled.
"You met Scott Lencher?" asked Hari.
Alexia nodded and Hari grinned wider.
"He hardly talks to anyone!" she gasped, "Sits all by himself in the common room, reading. I've only seen him talk to Dan, which isn't very often."
"He was quite nice," said Alexia as she pointed her wand at the dust and it flew into the air with a small pouf.
"You're doing it wrong, Lex," said Breena, rolling her eyes.
She lazily moved her wand in a circular motion and the dust made a sphere and she dropped it into the basket.
"Show off," muttered Lorelei behind Alexia.
"So, he took you to Pomfrey to get fixed up?" asked Hari, sending her dust flying onto the floor.
"Yeah, he didn't actually introduce himself until he got to my common room," Alexia said but Breena cut in.
"He walked you to the Hufflepuff Common room?" asked Breena. "Talk about a gentle man."
Hari laughed and Breena looked over her shoulder. Dan was a couple of tables down from them, trying feebly to move his dust pile.
"Dan," she hissed.
He looked up.
"What?" he asked, sounding rather disgruntled.
"Come here for a second," Breena muttered.
Dan shot the dust off the desk and went to go clean it up. As he knelt on the floor he looked at Breena.
"Waddya want?" Dan asked.
"You know Scott Lencher, right?" asked Hari.
Dan looked up and narrowed his eyes.
"Yeah, why?" he asked, sounding very untrusting.
"He helped Lex last night. She had a nasty fall," said Breena.
"Ya break something?" asked Dan.
"My arm," Alexia explained, "He took me to see Pomfrey."
"Well Pomfrey is his Grandmother." Dan said, sounding as though it was something very obvious.
"Oh, wait, what?" asked Hari.
"Madame Pomfrey, it's Scott's grandmother," said Dan again, "Geeze don't you listen?"
"Bite me," muttered Hari under her breath, but Dan didn't hear.
"He's always in the Hospital Wing late at night," said Dan, "Gets food and stuff from him grandma. She's really nice to him, but she hates how he always gets in trouble."
"So he's go connections?" asked Breena.
"Yeah to the wizarding Mafia," Dan said sarcastically, "God you make it sound like he's killing or something."
"But he's in with Pomfrey?" asked Alexia.
Dan nodded.
"He can get a note to get out of anything," said Dan, "Really handy is you want to ditch a class."
"Are you four even trying to do this spell?" fumed Professor Flitwick.
They looked up and noticed that no one was doing the spell anymore but simply watching them. Alexia gave a sheepish grin and returned to her seat.
Before leaving class, Parvati and Alexia talked to Flitwick about their detention. He had assigned them to helping clean out bedpans in the Hospital wing.
"Can you believe this?" fumed Parvati, "Without Magic? WITHOUT MAGIC! He's insane! I'm getting a doctors note!"
"And what's it gunna say?" asked Alexia, "Parvati is allergic to icky things? It won't be that bad."
They entered the Great Hall later that afternoon, Parvati still complaining about their detention. They sat down and Venefica rolled her eyes.
"I've honestly heard of people getting much worse," she said.
"Like who?" spat Parvati.
"My brother, Alex," said Lorelei, "He was to help Snape clean his classroom once, it was awful! He did smell right for a week."
Alexia helped herself to a sandwich and wandered over by Breena and Hari. Moments later, Linnea walked over and sat next to her.
"I hear ya almost got caught by Filch last night," Linnea murmured.
Alexia glared at the others sitting around her.
"Who blabbed?" she demanded.
Hari shook her head and Linnea chuckled.
"God, you're jumpy," she said, "Breena told me today."
Alexia glared at her.
"What?" Breena asked, "You can't honestly tell me you weren't going to tell her."
Alexia was at a loss for words, until Linnea jabbed her in the ribs.
"Here he comes," she muttered.
Sure enough Alexia saw Scott and Dan enter the Great Hall. Scott kept his head down mostly and Dan seemed to be doing all the talking. Scott nodded every so often, but other than that appeared to say nothing. He walked past and Breena nodded.
"Not bad," Breena commented, "Nice choice."
"What are you talking about?" asked Alexia, taking a drink of her juice.
"Oh c'mon!" said Hari, "It's obvious you like him!"
Alexia spit juice out all over the table in shock at this comment.
"Pardon?" she asked, "Did you just say I like him?"
"Duh!" said Hari, smiling, "But he's not a bad choice."
Alexia rolled her eyes and Scott went walking very quickly out of the Great Hall.
"I've met him once," she said, "Geeze, I'm not interested!"
She grabbed her things and at that stormed from the Great Hall. Linnea, Breena and Hari exchanged confused looks.
"Nice one, Hari," muttered Linnea.
"What did I do?" snapped Hari; "I was just saying what I thought! Is that a crime?"
Linnea rolled her eyes and walked off to the Gryffindor table as Hari returned to her meal.
Alexia stormed out of the Great Hall and went up down the stairs. She turned a corner and slammed into someone. She sighed and looked up, apologizing quickly. She looked up to see Scott looked down at her.
"Ya might want to slow down," he said, handing her a book and walking away.
Alexia looked up and saw him half way down the hall.
"Scott, wait!" she yelled.
He turned around and looked over at Alexia as she dashed down the hall.
"What?" he asked, leaning again the wall.
Alexia stopped and looked at him. She suddenly just realized she had nothing to say.
"Erm,well,I just wanted to thank you," said Alexia.
"For what?" asked Scott, looking very oblivious to anything around him.
"For helping me," she said, "Last night?"
Scott squinted a bit and smiled.
"Oy! You are the girl from last night, Alexia, right?" he asked.
Alexia nodded.
"Sorry bout that, don't normally remember faces too well." He said, scratching his head.
"It's okay," said Alexia smiling, "It's just I never thanked you properly."
"Well now ya did," he said, smiling, "And it's not a problem."
He turned and stopped. Alexia was still standing there. He turned and looked at her.
"Can I talk to you?" he asked.
Alexia blinked several times. She had heard that Scott was one of the shyest boys at Hogwarts and she had only met him once. And now he wanted to talk? She didn't know what to make of this. He looked at her and she slowly nodded.
They started to walk down the empty hall, Scott had his hands in his pockets and Alexia was trying to think of something to say, but she didn't have to worry about that.
"Ya know my first year here was hell," said Scott, looking down at Alexia, "I spent all of my days trying to find friends and never did my homework. I didn't take it seriously, I just lived like everyday was my last."
They wandered past the Great Hall and Alexia saw Breena and Hari emerge. Hari looked at her and looked triumphant, as though she had won something. Alexia blushed and turned around, as Scott looked at her.
"You're friends think you like me?" he asked.
"How'd ya guess?" asked Alexia.
"Dan told me earlier today in the common room," he said, smiling, "Personally I don't believe them, you don't seem like the kind of girl who'd fall for someone like me."
"What's that supposed to mean?" asked Alexia, feel offened.
"You just don't seem like the kind of person who would fall for a guy; you're smarter than that," said Scott, smiling.
They walked off and onto the grounds. The snow crunched beneath their feet and Scott started to talk again.
"In my first year another boy from Hufflepuff was awful to me. He tricked me and did all sorts of mean things, said I was a rotten brat and a bastard to boot. I tried to defend myself, but ya know how these things are," said Scott, "Finally one day I just decided that maybe if I am as quiet as possible and only trust a few I could make it through school. So that's what I did. I pretended that I didn't exist. I only talked to a few people in the common room, and I almost never talked to people outside the common room. I've never stopped since."
Alexia stopped in her tracks and looked at him.
"So why are you telling me this?" she asked.
Scott started to laugh.
"You're a trip, ya know that?" he said, laughing still and walking away.
"I'm serious," she said; "Here you are saying that you want to be as quiet and possible and yet at the same time you're telling me your life story. Why are you telling this to me?"
Scott stopped laughing and he looked at her. He moved closer to her and she looked up at him in fear.
"Because there is something special about you," said Scott, "You're not like every stupid girl in this school, you're not so immature, you're act more like my age than you do like an 11 year old."
He smiled and looked at her.
"So what about you?" he asked.
"Waddya mean?" she asked as he backed away.
"Everyone says you're, I dunno, fun loving and just free, how you do you do it?" asked Scott.
"Well, I dunno, I wouldn't really say I'm fun loving," said Alexia, "I just make the most of my time. I'm not afraid to be heard, I guess."
Scott smiled.
"You'll find it's hard to stay that way," he said, "Trust me."
They walked a little more, chatting lightly about their families and random stuff like that. Scott was surprised that Alexia had divorced parents ("You're normal considering what you went through."). Before she knew it the sun was dipping below the horizon and she said good-bye.
"Look," said Scott before she got too far off, "I don't want people to take this the wrong way. We're just friends, nothing else."
Alexia grinned and chuckled slightly.
"I know," she said, walking off.
"See ya later," Scott said.
Alexia reached the common room soon after and entered to see that the others were sitting near the fire. She walked over and Parvati looked at her.
"So where have you been?" she asked angrily.
Alexia blinked several times and looked at her.
"Walking, why?" she asked.
"With Scott," hissed Parvati, Alexia could see her eyes were full of tears, "How could you?"
Parvati threw her books on the ground and Alexia looked at Venefica and Lorelei.
"What was that about?" she asked, sitting down.
"Isn't it obvious?" asked Venefica.
Alexia shook her head.
"Unless I missed something," she started but Lorelei cut in.
"Obviously you did," said Lorelei, "Parvati likes Scott, she has since we got here."
"She likes him?" asked Alexia.
"Duh!" said Venefica.
"I didn't know," said Alexia, "I had no idea!"
"Yeah right," said Venefica.
Alexia was shaking with anger when she heard someone sigh. Verity sat on the far side, shaking her head at them.
"Seriously, this is ridiculous," said Verity, "I saw Lex and him walking outside, they were just talking."
"How do you know?" asked Venefica.
"Cuz I saw them!" yelled Verity, "Geeze! You guys need to be more trusting!"
Verity stormed out of the common room and Alexia sunk even lower into her chair.
"Look, just tell Parvati you don't like him!" exclaimed Lorelei, "That'll take care of everything."
"I don't think that's the problem," said Alexia.
"How come?" asked Venefica.
"I think i likes i," said Alexia, looking up.