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Post by Michelle Beckett on Apr 10, 2012 13:54:19 GMT -5
Shelly crossed her legs, basking in the watery sunshine of the mild easter afternoon, feeling refreshed and surprisingly and uncharacteristically calm. Her blonde hair was coiled into a bun her foster mother had fixed her hair into, and shopping bags were littered around her feet, full to the brim of new quills, supplies for potions class and new robes as her old ones had gotten too small for her, despite the fact that she had remained as skinny as ever. Perhaps she was just getting ganglier, she thought suddenly, her forehead creasing as her gaze snapped to her limbs. A beaming waitress approached and Shelly was distracted, grabbing the menu at the waitress' asking for her order. Flicking through the pages, Shelly ran her finger down along the list of ice-creams, biting her lip happily. Heath had promised her an ice-cream and she knew that she had to chose the best of the lot. Finally, she pointed at the Triple Chocolate sundae, proclaiming, "Yes, that's the one! No, my friend's paying for it, he's coming in a few minutes," she motioned to the empty chair across from her, beaming at the waitress.
Heath didn't arrive until she had started on her ice-cream, and her eyes widened in delight at the sighting of her friend, gesturing at the chair across from her with her spoon excitedly. "Sit down! What took you so long?" her face turned immediately reproachful as she licked ice-cream off of her fingers, "This is really delish. D'you want to try some?" She offered him the spoon. "I told the waitress you'd pay for me." She treated him with a winning smile, curving the spoon around the bowl and industriously setting out to finish the rest of her ice-cream. "Why d'you want to see me here, anyways?"
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Post by Heath Macmillan on Apr 13, 2012 17:23:29 GMT -5
Heath walked into the ice-cream shop cheerfully, which was rare for him especially because NEWTs were not that far away and he had been stressing quite a lot in anticipation of them over the past few weeks. However, his Easter holidays had been going very well even though he hadn’t hung out with any of his close friends, as he’d gotten to spend some quality time with his mother, which was something he’d been looking forward to for several months. He’d sent a letter to one of his younger friends, Shelly Beckett, earlier that day to see when she’d be free to come meet him somewhere – he saw her occasionally in the common room at Hogwarts but could never seem to get her attention for long enough to hold a proper conversation, not to mention that he didn’t want to embarrass her in front of any of her fourth-year friends – so he’d thought that the holidays would be a perfect time to catch up with her with the additional benefit of ice-cream.
He spotted Shelly immediately, strolling over to the table she was sitting at and already enjoying what looked like a chocolate sundae. “Hey!” he exclaimed in greeting, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, forgive me! I don’t really have an excuse, either – but I’m here now, so it’s all good. Nah, I’m good - I'll get my own in a second. And it’s cool, you knew already that I was going to pay for you – my treat,” he grinned at her, taking a seat in the opposite chair that she was gesturing at and sighing.
“Oh, no reason,” he responded quickly – too quickly to sound genuine, if he was being honest with himself, but he went on innocently nonetheless, “well, there might be a reason or two, but it’s no big deal. We can just talk for a bit, yeah? You can tell me what you’ve been up to lately...” he suggested with a smile, giving her his full attention. He knew her well enough to realize that she probably wouldn’t tell him about the worse things that he was aware she was always getting herself into, but he could still try to get her to open up to start off the conversation that he wanted to have with her without making things awkward for himself. He was more worried about her than he should have been, considering she wasn’t really his little sister, but she was the closest thing he had to one, he reminded himself, which was why this talk was necessary...
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Post by Michelle Beckett on Apr 14, 2012 8:15:16 GMT -5
"That's good then," Shelly replied, licking ice-cream off of her spoon thoughtfully. "I've got no money left anyways. Spent it all on, like - school supplies. Proud of me? I was seriously tempted to buy these really amazing red shoes, or maybe try and get a tattoo or pierce my lip or something, but I decided that ultimately the school stuff would be a better choice." She considered Heath for a moment, cocking her head to one side and surveying him unabashedly. There definetely had to be a purpose as to why he had invited her along today, and she'd worm it out of him eventually. Honestly, she thought as she sighed and returned to her ice-cream, Heath could be so bloody obvious at times. If it were her, she'd be far sneakier.
"No reason -" she began, in a mocking tone, before cutting herself off and pointing her spoon accusingly at him, grinning widely. "See?" She demanded cheerfully, eyes widening, "See, I knew it. A reason or two," she tacked on in a terrible imitation of Heath, dredging up a ridiculously posh-sounding voice that sounded nothing like her friend out of nowhere. "Jolly good. Spiffing," she continued, voice slowly returning to her usual high, verging on being sing-songy tones. "I haven't been doing much, actually," she said honestly. "I mean. I've mean lounging around the house quite a lot, watching telly - what've you been doing?" Interrupted by her own thoughts, she refocused on Heath eagerly. "I mean, you're a seventh year now, yeah? Shouldn't you be...like...at parties and stuff all the time? That's what I'd be doing, if I was in seventh year..."
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Post by Heath Macmillan on Apr 20, 2012 22:02:57 GMT -5
“That does sound like quite a good way to spend it,” he remarked, nodding approvingly in her direction, “so yeah, I am proud of you. Making excellent life choices like I know you always do. Right?” his tone was still light and playful, but he had changed his expression slightly in order to give her a serious look, one that basically said ‘I know you’re going to try to be cute to weasel yourself out of this one, but it’s not going to work with me this time.’ It was a look that he’d had to practice constantly in order to perfect over the years, and it was no easy feat. Shelly was just the type of girl that was so easy to be manipulated by, despite the fact that she was four years younger than him. She was actually quite intelligent, which he was also proud of, but he knew that she used her intellect for things that he probably couldn’t even think of at the moment.
“Alright, you got me,” he admitted with a sigh, holding his arms up in the air as if to declare a truce, “you win the prize of figuring me out – though it’s not that hard to do, so I’m probably not going to give you an actual prize for this one. Sucks to be you,” he added jokingly, making a quick face at her terrible impression of him. “Hey! That’s definitely not what I sound like – in any universe,” he reprimanded before going on, “Telly. Okay. Same here – the lounging around the house bit, that is – I’ve just been writing. And stuff. The usual. And nooooo,” he drew out the word for emphasis, “I’m not at parties all the time. I mean, there’s the occasional good one but it’s not all I do or look forward to. There’s always better things to be doing... Parties get boring and repetitive after a while, you’ll see.”
The thing was, he was pretty sure that she wouldn’t see – they were stark opposites in that case, because he could already tell that she was going to be the type of girl at every party that he’d grown to dislike to a certain extent. She was going to enjoy every party she could ever get herself into, and that itself wasn’t a problem, but it was what she was going to do there in the next few years without thinking rationally that was troublesome to him. Who was going to be there to look after her and make sure she was alright the next morning once he’d graduated?
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Post by Michelle Beckett on Apr 21, 2012 9:38:02 GMT -5
"Well, there's no way I could get a tattoo anyways, because I don't look at all old enough," Shelly replied, quite seriously, although her head cocked to one side at his tone, and her eyes narrowed although her gait remained relaxed and her mouth remained turned up in a smile. "Yeah, that's me," she responded softly, eyes flickering down to the ice-cream as she daintily scooped up another spoonful and considered it thoughtfully. "Excellent life choices all the time. You know me." She locked her gaze with his again, placing the spoon back into the bowl with a clatter and resting her chin on her interlinked fingers, still looking perfectly cheerful although there was a hint of knowingness underneath the cheer, "Staying away from boys, not drinking alcohol, not lying, doing my homework every night, no tattoos, no lip piercings. Why, I'm a model student." She spoke lightly, with barely an edge of any other emotion in her voice, nodded importantly at him - barely suppressing a giggle - and then returned to her ice-cream.
"Oooh!" Shelly brightened up. "You could buy me another ice-cream?" She batted her eyelashes, never being one for subtlety, and pushed the empty bowl towards Heath, motioning for him to look in it and see the sorry sight of an empty ice-cream bowl. "Another ice-cream for figuring me out? Come on, that's fair. I'm still hungry," she wheedled, pressing her hand against her skinny stomach and widening her eyes even more endearingly. "Oh, la-di-daaaa," Shelly was off again with her dreadful imitations, sounding very much like an old, terribly posh man with a headcold. "Definetely not what I sound like. Not in any universe. Not at all, Heathy," she cooed as though she was talking to a very young child, switching her voice back to normal and tapping Heath lightly on the nose, as she had grown accustomed to doing to older boys. Writing? What writing? Can I read it?" She'd never read any of Heath's writing before, although she'd always longed to, and she was beginning to feel the pressure of time as he'd be graduating soon.
"Heath," Shelly said sorrowfully, leaning forward with a sombre look in her eyes. "I hate to tell you this, but I really am afraid I have to. Promise you won't be mad?" She didn't give him a chance to respond, instead leaning in further and gesturing for him to do the same, narrowing her eyes and turning her head from one side to the other suspiciously in case anyone was listening. When she turned back, she continued, quite solemnly, "Heath, if you don't mind me saying, you're being quite..." she paused dramatically, and then, in a carrying whisper: "Boring."
Shelly was quite possibly the opposite of Heath in every way possible, except for them both being Ravenclaws, and she thought that quite possibly he was unsure why they were even friends, but Shelly had always been in the mindset that Heath was positively spectacular, thank you very much, even though he didn't seem to like parties or firewhiskey or sex or anything other teenage boys - especially the ones in his year - seemed to like so much. In fact, Shelly contemplated as she considered Heath from under her lashes, that may have been why she'd always liked him so much. That and he was a complete and utter darling, she reminded herself.
"Don't be silly, Heath," one eyebrow cocked, Shelly straightened her shoulders, sounding far less up-in-the-air than she did normally, and said, "No party I'm at could ever be boring."
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