| Inked | (George Weasley)

Chapter Twenty-Three

"Go and polish your French horn, Quell. We're having girl talk." The blonde called, sending the boy a quick wink.

"First of all, it's a mellophone-"

"Jasper-"

"Okay! I'm gone. You ladies have a wonderful night." Jasper quickly started to polish his glasses with his pajama shirt as his nimble frame dashed up the stairs. Natalie looked off in his direction with red tinting her cheeks, before turning back to her two friends.

"What were we talking about again?"

"Olive- why are you in such a rush? We don't have class until ten today." Natalie was still in bed, her blonde hair tangled in her face as she watched the Lark girl walked briskly around the dormitory.

"Because, I want to get to breakfast." Olive shrugged, tying up her damp black locks (she took another shower to make sure the pastel colors were out of her hair) into a ponytail.

"But it's seven in the morning- and you're going to wake Cho!" Natalie whisper/yelled, sending a look in the direction of the Ravenclaw a year below them. She was sleeping peacefully, her head buried into her pillow as soft snores came from her direction. Marietta was already awake- and had gotten out of the dormitory as quickly as possible to avoid the older girls.

"I- well... I'm just particularly hungry this morning, is all." Ollie lied, tying her blue and silver tie around her neck to complete her uniform. She wasn't hungry at all, actually, but felt this compelling force to get to the Great Hall early this morning. Olive was particularly curious to see if George managed to escape Filch and avoid detention.

But she didn't want Natalie to know that- because then it would be fairly obvious what the shy girl was going out late last night.

Natalie yawned, pushing knotted blonde hair away from her face, "I'm on to you, Lark."

"Nat, I can save you a seat if you'd like." Ollie offered, grabbing her book bag from the foot of her bed.

"No- I think I'm going to take the opportunity of late classes today to sleep in." The Arnold girl let out a long, fierce yawn, "Especially since I was up last night-"

"With Jasper?" Olive waggled her eyebrows at her friend.

"Yes! No! Maybe- shhh. I'm trying to sleep." Nat pointed a lazy finger in the direction of Cho, "Plus you'll wake her up- and you know how much Cho hates that."

"Okay." Ollie lowered her voice a little, backing away from Nat's bed to the door, "See you in Charms, then, yeah?"

Natalie watched as her shy, socially anxious friend walked out of the dormitory with an impatient bounce in her step. She buried herself again in the sheets of her bed, playfully rolling her eyes to herself.

"Weirdo, that one is."

The Great Hall smelt of freshly made breakfast foods, pleasantly filling Ollie's nose as she ventured closer and closer to the hall. It was one of the first times she'd gone to the Great Hall either a) by herself or b) in a good mood. The events of last night had given the girl slightly more confidence to venture out into a more public setting of Hogwarts breakfast.

The Ravenclaw still kept her head slightly bowed, because although her spirits were lifted, it would take a while to cure Ollie's social anxiety and slight fear of speaking to those she wasn't comfortable with. However uncomfortable she was in that situation though, Olive did a good job to push the feeling into the back of her mind, replacing it with a small distraction.