"We haven't even been here twenty four hours and what does Ollie do? She's pulled out her notebook and pen."
Olive looked up from her writing, wiping the smudged ink from her left hand. A small smile illuminated her soft features as she shrugged her shoulders.
"Sorry- I just had this idea-"
"Do tell."
Ollie shook her head, quickly writing down the last thought she had before closing the notebook and putting the cap back on her enchanted pen.
"You know I can't do that. Not until it's finished."
There were certain things that everybody loved to do. Natalie particularly loved her witty comments and sleeping in, and even had a small joy for schoolwork, Cho enjoyed Quidditch, but Ollie's 'hobby' was more than just a hobby.
She wrote- and that was just an understatement. Olive wrote the most detailed and beautiful stories, often staying up through the night so she could finish them. Missy had gotten her an enchanted pen that never ran out of ink, since they never thought how much the stuff cost until they were making weekly trips to Diagon Alley.
There was a sort of magic about her words that transported the reader into wherever the story took place. Her words could be heard and seen, touched and tasted. No writer ever wrote like Ollie did.
All it was, though, was just a simple hobby, to everyone else at least.
"At least eat, Ollie. This isn't going to be a repeat of last Christmas break." Cho chimed in as she took a seat across from her fellow Ravenclaws.
Cho was referring to the time where Olive hadn't left the Ravenclaw common room once in five days over the holiday break in order to finish a longer story she had been working on. She didn't sleep, and hardly ate, so as a result she had to be taken to the hospital wing after running a fever.
The story, though, was one of her best.
"Sorry. And I've only been up since five, so it won't be." Olive reassured them, taking a swig of her hot cocoa. She used her napkin to try and get the remainder of the ink from her fingers and palm, but until she thoroughly washed her hands- the ink would stay.
"Sometimes I can't understand you, Ollie."
"Cho, I don't think anyone can understand her besides us."
"Yes because I'm completely misunderstood." Olive sassed, biting into her toast with a quirked brow.
The three sat in silence for a while, causing Ollie to travel deep into her thoughts again. She opened her notebook briefly to scribble down another paragraph, but was met with a look from Nat.
"You have a problem."
"Is literature a problem?"
"No, but when you've been here since five it is."
"Just trying to satisfy my writing needs, Nat."
"Mhm, sure."
"Hey, you think that Ollie will go full on kitty to sneak to the library tonight?"
"I think she would."
Ollie rolled her eyes playfully, and slumped her shoulders forward, "I pledge moderately guilty."
"So that's what you wanted to do that for?"
"Yeah, Mrs. Norris won't be able to resist my girlish figure."
"Well, she already goes for Filch, so you wouldn't have much competition."
The three broke into a small fit of laughter, causing a few fellow Ravenclaws to turn their heads, even a few Gryffindors at their table next to them.
Ollie covered her mouth to hide her laughter shaking her head as her two friends continued giggling like crazy.
"This is why you guys have no friends." The raven-haired girl said, tucking her curls behind her ears.
"Oi, neither do you. You're stuck with us." Cho chuckled, calming herself down as she dug into a waffle. Olive agreed, finishing up her breakfast in her usual silence, exchanging a small grin here and there with Nat and Cho.
"As if anyone else would put up with you."
After the first day of classes, the three best friends went their separate ways. Cho went to Quidditch practice, Nat went to take a quick one-hour snooze, and Olive went to her usual place- which surprisingly wasn't the library.
When it was warmer out, she often sat out on a tree by the Black Lake, overlooking parts of the castle and even catching a bit of the Whomping Willow in the distance. The view was peaceful, and was the perfect place to brainstorm ideas and finish stories. The library could become quite crowded at times, which was always a horrible distraction.
Ollie's tree provided privacy, quiet, and shade.
The perfect place.
As she made her way through the corridors from Charms, she couldn't help but pass by a prank being pulled by the Weasley twins- two people Olive wouldn't even be caught dead with. They were loud, obnoxious, and always caused trouble. Olive wasn't one for attention, and they certainly had their big share of it.
The prank consisted of a few paint bombs being thrown at Slytherins from above as they swooped around on their broomsticks.
"We've been here a day and they're already causing trouble." Ollie mumbled to herself, ducking out of the way from a paint splatter. She liked order, quiet, and generally not being bothered. Olive wouldn't consider herself uptight, it's just that she'd rather not get detention, or even get that much attention in general.
But alas, that wasn't always easy. Depending on Ollie's mood, her hair seemed to match. Generally, it stayed black and curly- she liked to try and keep it that way. Even the shy and serene Olive Lark couldn't keep a lasso on her emotions for long.
That's when she got the attention- like the Hogsmeade Incident. Never repeat that in front of her unless you want a beating from Nat.
The chaos in the hallway quickly died down the further Ollie traveled away on foot, not daring to look behind her. She just wanted to get to her spot and write until Cho came to get her after practice.
What about the poor first years? Slytherins or not, that paint was a pain to get out.
Olive sighed, shaking her head. She always told herself to keep to herself and not bother anyone. That's how she survived her first four years of Hogwarts, staying unnoticed. She had a clean record of zero detentions, and she was fairly smart despite being a huge procrastinator when it came to school work.
She was a Ravenclaw, but that didn't mean she always enjoyed schoolwork, especially when other things appealed to her when it came to learning.
Go full on kitty and mess some things around.
She sighed, she shook her head. Today wasn't the day where she would accidentally ruin her clean record by trying to stop a prank pulled on by the Weasley twins. She couldn't even tell them apart, yet they caused so much trouble around here.
Perhaps she'd snoop around one of these nights on her way to her usual spot, see if they decided to cause some trouble in the middle of the night.
The twins often set up pranks in the middle of the night, so when the students woke up and headed to breakfast, they'd be walking straight into a prank.
A prank that some of these students didn't deserve.