To be friend means...?

Ah the courtyard! A space that soon would be covered in snow and most people would avoid, but for now it was a lovely place to sit. Well sit in the manner that was peculiar to Faith. For somehow, Faith had managed to climb a tree in the courtyard, and was hanging upside down from it like a bat. She wore pants for just this occasion so that her legs were covered and wouldn't get scratched.

Red hair tumbled over her head, but her arms were in front of her face, holding up a book in front of her, and she appeared to be deeply engrossed in it. Every now and then she would shift slightly, and then smile and flex her legs, obviously rather strong to be able to keep herself up in the position she was in.

This was actually quite the normal thing to see these days, since Faith had taken to the Courtyard and the types of trees there, having climbed one, she made herself at home, her school bag sat on the branch above her, tucked against the trunk of the tree, and her robes were tucked under her knees, so that it wouldn't fall and bother her around her head. For all intents and purposes, Faith was right at home.

Definitely that time of year, getting colder means snow. It also meant that people ate more, some people ate more. Ellie had the habit of pigging out on food when it got colder, it had become horribly difficult to break. Each year she tried her best to cut down on the calories that she ate, but to no avail it simpily didn't work. When looking at her it doesn't seem that she had gained an ounce, but that wont stop her from becoming self-conscious about it.

Ellie became fed up with trying to break the habit and failing. When tried to put on her best pair of jeans to figure out that they had become tight, that drew the line. Dressed in a warm jogging outfit, and a water bottle in hand she set off jogging around the courtyard. She had decided that if she couldnt break the habit, she would settle with exercising off the extra colaries that she didn't need.

That day instead of the book she carried around, they saw her jogging, as well as panting up a storm. She felt out of shape and struggled to keep up her resolution to herself. Dodging and bumping into students as she staggered past, she could feel the glares aimed at her, but she kept on going. Her breath became staggered and struggled, finding the nearest tree she walked over to it and laced her hand upon it balancing her weight to her hand. Looking back the distance as she uncorked her water bottle and took a drink. Ellie realised she didn't make it that far from where she had started.

Exsaperated and tired she turned around with her back on the tree. Tilting her head she chugged the last bit of water. Still thirsty she shook the bottle desprate for even a tiny drop. Saddened, she opened her eyes focused on the water bottle, but she could see a fuzzy figure past the bottle in the tree. Lowering her occupied hand and her head, she didnt compute it first but quickly did a doubke take. Her legs weak and with a dose of surprise she fell upon the ground. Of course shes seen Faith in odd positions but to Ellie this topped it. "Oh goodness." Ellie breathed placing a hand on her forehead.

Faith was reading just as normal when suddenly a girl jogged up to the tree, but without being noticed, Faith hardly paid attention to her as she took a drink of water and seemed to have sat down on the ground. It wasn't until Faith heard her voice that she even looked away from the book to view her best friend, laying on the ground, a look of shock on her face, eyes wide and staring straight at Faith.

"Oh! Hey Ellie, long time no see, what have you been up to?" Faith asked nonchalantly. In her head, there was absolutely nothing strange about reading a book upside down from the tree. In fact, she wondered why more people didn't do it. More blood went to her head, and made it easier to think and store the knowledge she was learning in the book. A very interesting book on the plight of Werewolves in the current age, written by a werewolf who only made a living by staying inside and writing about it.

"Care to join me? Much better than whatever you're doing.." Faith said lightly, before closing her book and letting her arms hang over her head, staring at Ellie, a smile on her face, though it was of course upside down to Ellie. "It's not that hard, just keep your legs all tense and such, and you stay up pretty good." She grinned at her best friend again, before flicking her hair out of her face, and swinging her arms up to her feet, and without even a care in the world, pulled her legs off the branch, and hung by her arms for a second or two, before dropping to the ground.

"What ARE you doing anyway?"

Shocked from her sudden double take and realization, Ellie let herself pull herself up into a sitting position. She tried her best to let everything sink into her head, but it took awhile to get over the initial reaction. It wasnt everyday that your best friend is seen hanging upside down from a tree reading, nor all the other ways Faith sat. Letting out a puffy airy laugh she shook her head, she would have though that she would have gotten use to everything by then.

Breathing for a while she tried to come up with a reasonable explination plus logical to what she has been up to. Yet nothing came to her mind. She hadn't really been busy nor overencumbered by homework. Her best answer was a simple shug of her shoulders. It seemed like a natural answer as well as the best, plus she wasnt too reluctant to spout out that she like sneaking to the kitchen to steal a bite. It was a guilty pleasure that she hated.

All the muscles in Ellies body protested as she got up. It wasnt long ago when she had started jogging and her body had already made it clear that it hurt. When Faith asked her to join Ellie looked at the tree then down to her body. 'Im not going to make it up there, i might die the way my muscles are aching.' She thought in disdain. She was thankful when Faith had come down from her branch, it was like relief had become a temporary pain killer.

Ellie let out a slight sigh, and slouched with her arms hanging lifelessly just infront of her. "Well i was jogging before hand, but that didn't work out too well. I realized im sort of out of shape for that." She decided to confess. "I can definitely tell winter is on the way. Must be stocking up to hibernate." Patting her belly and giving a slight laugh. Realizing her bottle wasnt in her hand, she concluded that the bottle must have been flung out her hand, but she shrug it off not caring.

"So what brought you to read upside down? I mean I should be use to that by now." She asked trying to focus on talking and staying standing with out falling on her head this time.

Faith grinned at her friend, who looked absolutely exhausted. Patting her on the shoulder, Faith grabbed hold of the tree trunk, and quickly made her way up it's bark, skimming it like a squirrel would, before she grabbed her bag, and pulled it down with her to the ground again, landing lightly in front of her friend before falling even farther down to sit on the ground by the base of the tree, before spinning herself around, putting her legs up on the tree, her back flat against the grass and her arms over her head.

"Jogging is fun. I like jogging sometimes.. not all the time, but sometimes.. I prefer eating of course." She grinned and immediately started to dig into her bag, pulling out a packet of crisps from the depths and opening it up, taking one she shoved it into her mouth before holding the bag up to her friend.

"Not like you need to lose weight anyway! Look at you! You're thin as a twig, not sure why you're freaking out." She laughed and shrugged, taking another crisp and popping it into her mouth before resting her hands down by her sides.

"I liked it, I don't know, it was more comfortable up there.. sitting upright is just, makes my back hurt, and I feel like the world is too.. straight." She said simply, before looking around her, then looked at her friend and squirmed to the side, giving her room. "Try it, seriously, everything gets all wonky, and nothing is straight when you lay like this, upside down is better, but this works just as well I suppose." She said grinning at her friend like a mad-woman.

Watching her friend glide up the tree amazed Ellie. She watched a bag plopped down on the ground followed by her friend. Relieved and back hurting she plopped on tho the ground but eventually positioned herself to laying down on her back. Standing slouching hurt too much to do it any longer and the ground felt nice, soft and somewhat cool. Rolling over on her side she rested her head an her arm feeling the blood coursing slowly in her veins as it gets cut off.

Her friend was sitting in one of her comfy positions when Ellie decided that she too was comfy, comfy enough to fall asleep. Bit she stopped herself from drifting off. Missing a bit of Faiths conversation about jogging, Ellie snapped back into the real world again when she hear the word eating and the crinkling sound of a bag. That got her attention. Her stomach gurggled, and becoming slightly emnarassed she placed a hand over her abdomen hoping to quiet the sound. "Oh wow, my stomach has never been that loud before and thanks so much i needed that." Laughing she grabbed a few crisps that her friend offered.

"Well, i only went jogging because my favorite pair of jeans didn't fit plus im an eater. I love eating. Somehow its another thing that makes me happy." She tried to get out with her mouth full. "And i know it looks like ive hardly gained a pound. Maybe ill stick with yoga or simple exercises." Not wanting to laugh to hard in case she choked on her food.

She quieted herself down enough to listen to her friend. She had to agree, the world was too straight. Everything had to be perfect at times. It would be nice to "color outside the lines" at time. Nodding her head in agreement, made her arm tingle with the pins and needle feeling. Oddly it didnt seem to bother her, it had a fun sensation to it. "I agree to that, some things needed to be less straight, less perfect." Grinning widly she added "maybe i'll will try it, but not now im too comfy right here and i think my arm fell asleep." Still grinng she looked at her friend who was smiling maddly, and let out a snorty laugh.

Faith grinned at her friend when her stomach started to gurgle, there was a reason this girl was her best friend, though of course, they barely had time to talk to each other, seeing as they were in Ravenclaw and more often than not were alone or doing work instead of socializing, but when they both did have a bit of time, it was always entertaining to talk to the girl she had met so long ago. This girl had been with her through thick and thin, of course Faith had never spoken one bad word about her house, she was sure that her best friend noticed some of the scars that Faith had totted to school year after year.

Now though, there were no fresh ones, no aches of pains on Faith, and she grinned more widely than she ever had before. "So check this out." She held up the book she had been reading upside down, handing it to her friend and grinning again. The book was about Unicorns, their origins, how to properly take care of them, everything you needed to know about the magical properties of their horns, and how sensitive they were to men.

"So the place I'm staying at right, It's the Lupins.. can you believe it? The Lupins! Khaat Lupin! And.. and, they have so many animals, regular horses, and pygmy puffs, and Unicorns! I've already read a bunch of muggle books on horses and wildlife, and other stuff like that, but unicorns had to wait until I got here and could check the library. Khaat has TWO Unicorns! They don't keep them there though, they are allowed to leave if they want, but the unicorns like the house, and I don't blame them, they get fed and watered, and exercised by loving hands, and have great company of the other animals, I'd want to stay there too... well I do stay there!" She laughed and shrugged.

"But yeah, so I found the book in the library, and was just reading about their horns, seriously, you should read it, there is information in there that I had NO IDEA about!" She grinned and put her hands under her head and brushing her hands out, making her red hair fan out around her head like a giant pool of blood (So red is her hair, you might suspect it was, unless you knew better). "You learn anything interesting?"

Ellie was happy that she was having so much fun. She really like Faith when they first met many years ago. And she was happy that her friend was having fun as well. Its been a while since they actually had gotten to do that. When her friend started to go off about her new home, she smiled. She had know something was wrong from years back but always refrained from asking what was wrong. It wasn't her business and some people liked to keep to themselves. She knew she did.

Though the unicorn book had caught her attention, she had been to the library and has never seen. "Oh wow! It looks really interesting? Where did you find it at, ive been to the library a thousand times read about all the books and haven't seen that book before. Well maybe because im short, that could be it." Spoken like a true Ravenclaw, she got caught up in books. "Oh sorry spaced there." She shook her head. "Im so happy that you like it there and the animals sound amazing, much like a free ranged zoos. If there are anything like that or maybe a farm sorta." Her eyes wandered to the sky then rolled onto her back again. She could feel the blood rush back to her arm. It felt slightly odd and warm at the same time.

"Well i have no idea, but it sounds so nice there. Plus amazing. You make it sound so, so... i have no words for it. Im so glad that you are having so much fun and loving it a bunch over there." Drifting again, "Plus it would be nice to see a unicorn, theres still so much that i havent seen in the wizarding world. Im mostly up to date on muggle things... well muggle fashion that is. Its still a learning experiance for me. Oh! Im sorry, i drifted again." She was about to shake her head, but thought better of it. It didn't seem to help. "And for learning anything new or interesting, my preference is to keep to the books. At least they are teaching me something more than what i already know. Classes are like another study hall or something. What about you, do you learn anything that interests you in classes?"

Faith shrugged and smiled at her friend. "Just on the shelf in the magical creatures section.. yeah, it was on a higher up shelf, I bet it would have been just out of eyesight, seeing as it's a pretty small book anyway." Faith laughed and shrugged, holding the book out to her friend for her to look at.

Faith nodded absentmindedly as her friend spoke about the place she lived now. "Yeah.. they have a stable, and a million and a half pygmy puffs.. that's where I got mine. You remember my pygmy puff right? He's sleeping upstairs." she said lightly gesturing towards the Ravenclaw tower with her hand lightly. Faith listened to her friend go off on fashion. This was one trait of Ellie that Faith was absolutely fascinated in. The girl could get pulled off on subject after subject that had almost nothing to do with the original topic, but somehow always managed to bring herself back to the point, and ask a question regarding it.

It was always a learning experience for Faith whenever Ellie spoke. The quiet girl who could say so much in such a short amount of time, if anyone cared to listen.

"Meh.. classes are just the same for me.. I've already learned the things we are covering this year, last year, so none of it is really new to me, the hardest part really is keeping up with the assignments, because I want to read on while I still have access to the library, but the essays get longer and harder each time.. so it takes up more of my precious time."

Ellie nodded in agreement hitting her head upon a tiny pebble. her face contorted just slightly as she reached behind her head and grabbed the rock. bringing it before her face, she stuck her tongue out at it and threw it at away from her. It made a soft thud which was followed by someone yelling "Ouch!" before it clinked to the ground. Not wanting that person to know that she had tossed it she turned her head to the side and pretended to be taking a nap. She was thankful that she heard mumbling with footsteps falling in step with each grumble. Turning her head to the side, she gave a little sigh with a wipe of her forehead.

Bringing her attention back to her friend, she replied, " I love your pygmy puff. He's soooo cute!" She had gotten a little loud but she didn't care. She took the book from Faith, analyzing the cover. It really was small, but she flipped through the pages anyways. Reaching the end she shut the book and set it beside her. "I definitely agree, essays, they seem to keep piling up or getting a lot harder to do. There is little time for anything else, I'm surprised I had any spare time today." She looked around expecting something that seemed out of place, but nothing came.

Sitting up, she started to pat her pockets and clothing in general. Something was missing "The book seems really interesting..." trailing off she looked beside her, she kept wondering what she was missing. She got the feeling when her friend mentioned her pygmy puff, then it dawned on her. She had forgotten her little friend, Sil. Planting her palm upon her face she groaned. "Oh no. I forgot to feed my little mouse."