Staying warm by the fire

It was a cold snowy day in January and there was not much to do around the castle for a young girl named Quelyn Werthers, who had deemed it too cold to leave the comfort of her bed without three layers of clothing on under her school uniform, returned to the Ravenclaw Common room to curl up with a book next to the fire after a long day of classes. With a sigh she moved a chair as close to the fire as possible and sat down pulling her feet up in the seat with her. And out of her bag she pulled a small blanket and one of her favorite books. With a small smile she opened the book and began to read.

Wally browsed the shelves of the Ravenclaw common room, looking for the book she had put away the night before. She was so close to finishing it and she was intent on recovering it so she could finish up the volume. She circled the room twice, three times, and then let out a groan of frustration.

She stomped towards the fire and collapsed into a sofa. After a moment of dejected silence she raised her head and spotted a nearby girl. But that wasn't what interested her. It was what the girl had in her hand.

"That's my book."

"E-excuse me?" Jacquelyn stuttered scaredly looking up over the book looking for the person who had spoken. "I-I'm sorry. I-I didn't know. It's one of my favorites. I didn't mean to." She spoke in short choppy sentences stuttering like crazy. She was obviously startled by the out burst that had pulled the small girl out of her trance. "W-would you like I-it back? " Quelyn asked while hideing behind the book. She carefully closed the book and held it out to the girl. "I-I've read it s-so many times I-I could r-recite it w-word for w-word."

The girl had to be a first year. The eleven year olds were always so terrified and apologetic. Wally had never been like that so she couldn't understand it. Then again, Wally had probably said two words out of classes her first year. She found those who kept their tongue, kept their life.

"Of course, I'd like it back. I didn't say 'That's my book, enjoy it', did I?" The girl sputtered onward and Wally found herself regretting the time wasted on trying to recover the volume. "If you can recite it, go recite it to yourself and hand the book over."

Sadly Jaquelyn handed the book to the older girl her hands shaking slightly from the unexpected encounter. Casting her eyes down she looked over at the fire which covered her face in gloomy shadows that moved with the flickering of the flames. Though there was nothing to see her gaze was distant remembering a time not to long ago when her father had ripped a copy of the same book from her hands yelling about house useless it was for her to read and threw it into a fire place not to different from the one before her.
The young girl appeared to sit perfectly still un-moving with almost precise posture, not even her shoulders slightly rising and falling as if to show any signs of breathing; almost like a stone statue.

The girl offered the book with a sad face, looking downcast and gloomy. Wally snatched the book from the younger girl and took a step away, opening the book and reading a few lines protectively. This was her book. This was her bookmark left in it. She had been reading it. There was no reason she should feel guilty about rightfully claiming back the book she had been reading from a first year.

Still.

Wally had to be careful. If word got out she made first years cry, the prefects may watch her more closely, which was very dangerous for business.

She let out an exasperated sigh. "Look, there's a ton of books all around us. Just find another one, okay? When I'm done with this, I'll put it back and you can read it another forty times."

The young girl had zoned out as she stared at the fire. It startled her once again when the older girl spoke. "W-What? oh the book..." she whispered her voice trailing off a bit before she looked back over it, "I-I hope y-you enjoy it." She said a distant look still in her eyes. She turned and looked back at the girl the corner of her mouth rising slightly. With a blink she looked back at the fire. Relaxing a bit she took a shutterd breath her mind fully occupied by thoughts of her mean, ruthless, heartbroken father who hadn’t treated her like a father should since her mother’s death.

The noise had been building behind them both and just as Quelyn looked back toward the fire there was a squeal, the sound of glass breaking and a whoosh as a potion on the other side of the common room went up in smoke.

Or did it?

As white ash rained down around them, bubble head charms began popping into existence all around the room.

A boy looked up from his frantic efforts to clear the air and noticed the two girls near the bookcases. He began gesturing wildly, but the charm surrounding his head prevented any sound from reaching them.

Wally rolled her eyes. The girl was so devastated that she had taken her precious book from her, and yet she was so quick to become disengaged int eh conversation. Did first years really have so little fight in them, or had the most pathetic of them picked up her book tonight?

Before Wally could decide on that point, a ruckus sounded or, well, reached its climax. She hadn't identified it but, now, she realized it had been there among the background noise the whole time.

Wally jumped to her feet, facing the cause of the commotion in time to see the perpetrator shout something she could not hear, as a bubble encased his head.

Wally whipped around to the first yell, shouting, "Watch out!" before a bubble formed around her own head.

Quelyn had her wand at the ready at the first sound. "Protego" she spoke quietly but clearly with the wave of her wand as she watched bubbles form around the heads of the two before her. Now all she had to do was figure out how to get the bubble to either pop or go away. She looked at the two with wide eyes that quickly changed to shooting daggers as she glared at the one who had started all of this. Getting up she padded over to the girl she had been confronted by and poked the bubble hoping it would pop. And the first time all it did was move. The second time she tried poking it i popped just like a bubble you see floating around in the summer and spring time. She giggled at how it disappeared and walked back over to where she had been sitting.
"I'm tirsty," she murmured to her self tilting her head to the side staring at the fire.