Greylock and Cedric arrived at the Goodwyn House refectory together, having split from Sofia who went to dine in her own House. As it turned out, they had plenty of time, several minutes at least, and needn't have wasted that breath on hurrying. Greylock shrugged an 'oh well,' but Cedric's lungs burned like alchemist's fire. Damned stairs, must be their fault.

They quickly gathered some food parcels onto their plate from the serving dishes floating at the side of the room. At the end of the line, Greylock tapped his wand to the Fork In The Stone that subtracted a meal from his plan. Cedric glanced about, noticed that none of the professors, prefects, or other staff seemed to be paying attention, and pantomimed tapping the thing without actually doing so.

They then each went to sit at their tables - long wooden things seating about ten students each, with a large number inlaid into the center denoting which year they served. Despite being relatively late, Cedric and Greylock managed to take seats positioned as close together as the gap between the tables would allow - given there weren't nearly enough students in Goodwyn House to fill the tables.

"Don't you have any other friends?" Cedric grumbled at Greylock behind him, but made no attempt to move seats. He just kicked his book bag under his chair - he and Greylock were the only ones to have them with, currently, as most students had time to stop by their rooms before meal. And anyhow, Cedric knew his 'accusation' to be true - when Greylock turned back around to face his own table, he was met with plenty of conversation. ...A notable portion of which was wondering why Greylock would intentionally spend time with Cedric. The usual complaints of being cheap for as rich as his father is, awfully awful at doing magic, crabby. Whatever.

...Did they just call him-'disgusticified'? How many mental acrobatics do you have to go through to think that's a word? Cedric was more offended at the cold blooded murder of the English tongue than anything else.

Cedric turned his attention back to his own table, which was just as chatty, but they at least were graceful enough to wait until later for any bad-mouthing they might do regarding Cedric. They also made no overtures of trying to bring him into any conversations, or start new ones. It's not like he would have reciprocated anyway, but he could still blame them for it.

And then, giggling that sounded distinctly like Greylock's came from behind him. Cedric decided to look over his shoulder, to see Greylock looking back at him, holding up a small piece of ripped, folded paper with a purple heart hand-drawn on the front. Cedric rolled his eyes and got back to his meal.

A minute later, there was a small poof of lilac dust in the air above Cedric's plate, and he only barely managed to save the note that fluttered out of the magic cloud from landing in his bowl of stew.

Cedric! Look what I just managed to do! :D

~~Sofia

It seemed Sofia couldn't resist adding in a smile, even when she wasn't physically present. Cedric rolled his eyes, but couldn't help smiling in return. However, after a moment, he noticed the other students at the table seemed to have noticed him, for once. Before they saw the heart on the front of his own note, he did the first thing he could think of: stuck it in his stew.

The ink of whatever purple fountain pen Sofia had managed to find was, apparently, quite vivid. His stew was distinctly cooler in color than his neighbor's bowl, though it ended up being more of a huckleberry than a violet.

Still, he should send something back… On the other hand, she'd sent something to Greylock before she did to himself, which made sense - the two actually shared classes, had similar dispositions. Whatever it was she'd said to Greylock had gotten quite a reaction. On the other hand, all she'd chosen to say to Cedric was just regarding the inherent magic. So, he decided to just eat.

A few minutes later, he felt Greylock poke him in the back. At first, he ignored it, but Greylock seemed to insist on persisting. The spot was quite sore by the time Cedric turned around and asked, "What is it, Greylock?"

"Did you get a note like mine here from Sofia? She tells me she sent one to you, but she thinks it got lost somewhere in transit. Let's hope it didn't say anything embarrassing, hmmm?" Cedric knew exactly what the note said, and that no one else saw what it said, but found himself blushing anyway.

Eventually, Cedric managed, "Well, I. She didn't ask a question. I didn't realized she wanted any kind of response." What a bold strategy, telling the truth and making it sound somewhat plausible. Well. Bending the truth, but still.

A moment of silence passed between them, broken by Greylock asking, "Well? Aren't you going to tell her?"

Cedric sighed and pouted as he turned to face his own table again. He also conjured a small piece of paper and a fountain pen, blotted it on a piece of bread he wasn't so fond of after all, and wrote a return message to Sofia.

I didn't realize you required response. I received your letter fine.

-Cedric S.

In a puff of bright green smoke, it was gone.

After the message was sent, Greylock started, "So, what did-" and stopped himself short. "Cedric, did you conjure a pen for this?"

"Yes. Why?"

"We have our sacks with us. Including paper and pencils. And - Cedric, I can't believe you conjured one of my pens!" He gasped and put a hand to his mouth, though was clearly grinning.

Cedric looked at the pen he held in his hand. "Yours? How can you tell."

"Well, the inscription might be a clue. 'Greylock 15.' Either that's a very bad misspelling of 'Cedric,' or you took one of my pens."

Cedric looked at the pen and rotated it, to see the inscription. Huh. There it was.

"...So, Pinprick, how do you like my pen fifteen?" Greylock was grinning entirely too wide, and put too much emphasis on that for comfort.

Blinking, Cedric asked, "What?"

"My pen fifteen. Is it large enough? How does it feel in your hand? Is the weight decent? -Oh, I see it seems to have made a mess of your bread, getting it all sticky…" Greylock stopped with the thickly…sensual, almost?... tone to say plainly, "That really wasn't necessary, was it? Blotting that much? And wasting good bread, I'd have eaten it." He huffed, then returned to his earlier tone of voice, "So do you like it, then? My pen fifteen? Do you want my pen fifteen?"

"Um…" Cedric looked at the pen in his fingers. "Yes? I would like to borrow your… Why is it labeled as 'fifteen' anyway?"

Still grinning, but back to his usual joking tone of voice, Greylock answered, "To differentiate it from Pens One through Fourteen, obviously."

"All right… why are your pens numbered?"

"To know which one specifically is taken if they're stolen, of course."

Cedric rolled his eyes. "Well, all right. Dear Greylock, may I borrow your Pen Fifteen for responding to Sofia."

Greylock laughed, waggled his eyebrows and gave a thumbs up, and turned back around to his table. Cedric huffed and turned back around as well, to eat and await the next message.

Sofia started asking questions for Cedric to answer in her notes.

Poof. What are you eating? Cedric sighed and wrote back a response that answered her question (thin beef stew, egg sandwich, bread, vegetables) without giving enough details to find an interesting topic of conversation.

Poof. Can you guess what I'm eating?

Poof. Will you tell me what those guesses might be?

Poof. Am I interrupting anything?

Poof. Since I'm not interrupting conversation, the note began, but Cedric just closed the note back up and put it in his pocket, with the rest of her notes - aside from the one still coloring his stew. His answer had been clear that while he appreciated the attempt, he was, in fact, busy eating. He'd expected that there wouldn't be any more notes. When it had appeared, he had expected that it would be a final, 'Well I'll let you get back to that then'. But it wasn't.

Still, he did go back to his meal with a smile.

Behind him, he heard Greylock laughing again. It didn't matter much what, exactly, the other boy was laughing about, it was still adorably - no, wrong word. Aggravatingly loud.

Sofia arrived to Crage House's refectory somewhat later than her companions did theirs. As such, she only barely made it in the door before it was to be shut and locked by a prefect.

With an ingratiating smile and slight bow, Sofia started, "Sorry, uh -"

"Tizzy!" said the older girl. "Or, uh, Prefect Willendorf, I guess. But I like Tizzy better." She grinned and ushered Sofia inside quickly, then glanced around quickly for any other stragglers - there were none to be found - and went in herself, locking the door behind her.

Tizzy followed Sofia to the food line. "Sorry, don't mean to hover, it's just - you know. I've gotta eat too. Oh look out, the stew's hot!" Tizzy grabbed Sofia's wrist, to stop her it glancing the metal serving bowl, then quickly let it go. "Sorry, sorry. I just. If someone got hurt while I was standing watch over the meal, I… Eheh." She stood back and glanced away in embarrassment.

"No, no, you're fine!" Sofia said brightly. "Thank you, for that and the door. So… I take it that being a Prefect is pretty stressful?"

With a nod, Tizzy answered, "Well, yes and no. It's a lot of responsibility anyway, but. Headmistress Willendorf is my great aunt. She never had any kids herself, so I'm kind of expected to be her, uh, next in line, or whatever. So, like. It's…" She laughed nervously.

Sofia nodded sagely in return. "I see. Me, being a lowly first-generation-spellcaster, scholarship kid, I don't know what that's like, specifically. But it's still - she won't say it, but my mom's expecting me to be The Successful One, you know? So… yeah. Not the same, but I think I get where you're coming from." She gave Tizzy a warm smile as she picked up some toast for her plate.

Tizzy put a hand on Sofia's shoulder and smiled genuinely, though not widely. "No worries, nearly half this house is scholarship. I know that doesn't help you much out there, in classes, but here you should be good." She nodded, then looked as if she just remembered something. "And, hey, you're the one who just came in this year, aren't you? If you need any help, feel free to come to me. Or any of the Prefects, Crage House or otherwise." She paused, glanced around then leaned in to continue with a whisper, "Except Sascha. Er, I mean, Prefect Nettle. She's got a bit of a nasty streak, I'd avoid her if you could."

"Hm. Good to know. Thank you." Sofia looked at her plate - egg sandwich, steamed vegetables with cheese, toast, a small cup of yogurt with nuts in, and a glass of juice - and said, "Well, I think that's it. Thank you very much, Tizzy. I hope I'll see you around?" Tizzy nodded and continued picking out her food as Sofia left for her table.

When she got there, she was greeted by the other girls enthusiastically. "Sofia! Here, here, I saved you a spot!" A pale girl with long brown hair who wore a baggy sweater over her uniform moved her familiar, a small pig, off the bench next to her and to her lap, and patted the now empty spot.

Sofia plopped her bookbag and herself down and thanked her friend Mabel for the seat, but before she could say anything else, another girl directly across the table - Shauna, with curly brown hair, darker complexion than was common around here, and as many bows as she could get away with - asked, "Like, what kept you? You're not usually late, let alone nearly-missing-dinner late."

With a broad grin, Sofia said, "This. Familiarus Comhericus!" Clover materialized on the table in front of Sofia. Luckily, it wasn't actually right on top of her food. Unluckily, Clover fell upon Sofia's meal with gusto.

The girls were very impressed with Sofia's achievement, and cooing about how cute her familiar was. Sofia laughed lightly and merely moved Clover to her lap, but he managed to steal more and more from her plate. When directly asked to stop, though, he did - and the other girls didn't take any particular notice of that, either. Thankfully.

When finally over the adorably fluffy new thing, Shauna and Mabel still wanted to know more. How did she get her familiar without The Binding?

"Cedric, my tutor-" The other two girls looked at each other and grinned, and Sofia grinned back, though she felt the color rising in her cheeks, but continued unabated, "-found the necessary things to set up. I guess you guys had some sort of whole...ceremony?" The two other girls nodded, and Sofia shrugged. "We didn't think that was necessary or useful at this point, so we just kinda nixed that." She shrugged. "So we drew the sigils and runes on the table, and…" Sofia gestured to the rabbit on her lap. "But doing all that took longer than expected I guess, because by the time we were ready to go, it was already supper time."

There was a brief moment of silence before Mabel said, "Sooo, now we know about Clover. Did anything more… iiinteresting happen?"

"Did your man, like, sweep you off your feet? Or-"

Sofia was mumbling, "Funny you should mention…" What Shauna was actually interrupted by, however, was a poke to the ribs by a girl to her right as Sofia was starting to answer. "Yeah Alex?" Shauna asked, but rather than answer, Alex handed her a note and pointed to behind them. Shauna turned to look, to see a girl with long blonde hair waving at them from the far side of the Year 12 table.

"Serena!" Shauna squeaked and visibly blushed, but smiled. She immediately read the note, and started to write a return one when she'd finished.

"You knooow," said Mabel, "I recently learned a spell from Dipdop for sending tiny things to other people. You could pass notes to your Cedric tooo." She took out her wand and did a quick demonstration. It was an easy enough spell - odd that they hadn't learned it officially, but maybe that was specifically to try to prevent note-passing.

Sofia took out some paper from her bag, but couldn't find anything to write with. "Take mine!" Mabel said, pulling a strange pen from some pocket Sofia didn't see. Mabel flicked the transparent casing a few times, and Sofia could see the ink inside change color with each flick. When it was a pale violet, Mabel handed it over.

So Sofia started on the notes - to Greylock, first, who'd actually appreciate the gesture. Though Cedric might too, if what she remembered what Greylock said about their shared mealtimes correctly.

Greylock's replies were much faster and more entertaining. He congratulated her on managing the spell, given the first note was just to show what she could do; he asked about whether she planned to send notes to Cedric; and then...they talked about him behind his back. In a good way, definitely! Really, it's more looking out for him. They worked on a plan, which Sofia shared with her friends, who agreed it was adorable and hilarious. Hopefully they'd kiiiiss. Cedric and her, that is, they didn't have any feelings about Greylock. Sofia laughed and shrugged, though looked sideways and started her next note without responding to that.

Cedric's replies were much more curt, once he started responding at all. He answered what he was eating, and… left no room for further discussion, so she had to move the conversation along herself.

Poof. I could guess.

Poof. The egg sandwich. I didn't pay much attention to the rest of the vegetarian fare.

Poof. I am eating my food with no other social distractions than yourself.

And then he never responded to her last note, which was:

Since I'm not interrupting conversation, I wanted to say thanks again. For Clover and everything.

Oh well. This just convinced her further that her scheme with Greylock was a good idea.

A/N did you know trying to nominally edit things to be worthy of posting, while also attempting nano, is hard. and thanks to poly goggles as beta reader etc3