relax

Theresa gasped "you mean, cooties are made up and are just to stop girls going near boys" she said shocked. She thought for a moment "that cant be right or that would be an even bigger conspirecy!" she said. She gave it more thought before she cringed "boys are still gross no matter what thoug" she said before giggling madly.

"Cooties are just pretend," Hilary said, unable to stop herself from laughing at Theresa's reaction. "Well, in the muggle world anyway. I was always told that dragons and magic was pretend to, so I don't know anything for sure anymore." She thought for a moment. "But you're right. Boys are icky. And weird too. Maybe they come from another planet," she mused.

Theresa laughed "the poor planet, it would probably be smelly and filthy" she giggled. She grinned "no one has proved that cooties aren't real so I am going to keep believing that they are until someone does, I don't want to catch anything" she said, sticking her tongue out at the girls and crossing her arms stubbonly.

"That's probably a good plan," Hilary said. "My dad always said that cooties weren't real, but you could catch stuff from kissing boys. He said that you could get sick, so you had to be careful." She shuddered at the very idea. "We all have our cootie shots anyway, so I think we'll be safe for now."

Shelby collapsed back onto the grass, exhausted. "I just went to Professor Hunt's class to begin our argument," she said to Hilary. "I think I did a good job. I hope I did a good job," she corrected.

"Anyway, what did I miss?" she asked. "Are you two still talking about cooties and conspiracies?" she raised an eyebrow.

Theresa shook her head "no it's been settled, boys are from a smelly, filthy planet so even if cooties werent real, we are still not going near them because we could catch something and as long as no one has proven that cooties aren't real, I believe they are" she said stubbonely, making a face at Shelby.

"I'm sure you did fantastic," Hilary said. She paused for a moment. "And if not, we can always yell at you about it later." She stuck out her tongue at Shelby.

"Could we stop all the cootie talk, please?" Hilary asked, absently scratching at her arm. "Cooties make me thing of bugs, and that thought it making me itchy."

Theresa laughed, nodding as she kicked her feet out at the water. "So no one has beaten the badgers yet" she said happily. The last time she checked, Hufflepuffs were still first with house points "Although, no one could beat the house of awesome" she giggled, kicking er legs in the water again, finding it fun.

"Of course no one could beat the House of Awesome," Hilary said, giggling. "We're obviously too cool for stuff like house points." She paused for a moment, thinking. "But where did all the points come from? When I had looked this morning, Ravenclaw was almost at negative two hundred? And then when I looked again, just before I came down here, we were almost at two hundred and fifty."

"It was all points from all the lessons, especially Defence Against the Dark Arts, Professor Hunt was very generous" Theresa said, glad that everyone was at least out of the negatives now. "I wonder how long it will bbe before someone loses points and everyone start fighting again" she said, cringing, hoping that it would be a long time.

"Yeah, a lot of the professors just ended their first lessons, so points earned by homework and such have been added now," Shelby said. "I guess that's how we got so many points. After all, homework done by a Ravenclaw is sure to be perfect," she laughed. "Hopefully our DADA argument will earn us even more points!"

"Don't think about it," Shelby said to Theresa. "I think that as long as we don't dwell on what happened, everything will be fine. I think for now a lot of people are staying in the castle. At least we're outside and not thinking too much about everything."

"I hope so," Hilary said, in reply to Shelby's comment about their Defence assignment. "We worked really hard on that!"

"I think it'll be while before people get into that again. I think what happened yesterday was a big shock to everyone, and I think it'll keep them from getting out of line for a while. The fighting on the other hand, I don't know about."

Theresa nodded "hopefully this has shown people that it is better to earn points inistead of blame each other for loosing them" she said. As far as she knew, the Hufflepuffs were not torn up aout the points but she heard a lot about the other houses. Her eyes widened when she remembered something Professor Mitchel had said "do any of you know Merope Lestrange?" she asked.

"Yeah," Hilary said. "It would be nice to be able to sit in the common room and not have to see people at each other's throats all the time."

She frowned at Theresa's question. She had heard the name, and that she had been expelled, but that was all. "No, I don't," she said. "I've heard about her, but I don't know who she is, or what she did to get expelled."

Shelby shook her head. "I know she was expelled. Before yesterday's events. A lot of people got expelled. Like Oriette Rose. I don't know anyone else, but there are at least ten. We had over 100 students before yesterday, and now we're down to ninety-something," Shelby said, trying to think of who else may have been expelled. "I wonder if Nick Hale is actually going to be expelled."

Theresa fained hurt "I wasn't going to ask why she got expelled" she said. "Wow that's a lot of people but I am not going to ask why they were expelled because that would make me a gossiping hen" she said, folding her arms and nodding her head for effect.

"I think we're all guilty of being gossiping hens now," Hilary said, giggling a little at the expression. "All everyone seems to do is talk about each other. I guess it makes sense though. It's not like we have televisions, so we can't talk about the latest episode of whatever is on."

She turned to Shelby, surprised. "Orietta was expelled? She taught me how to fly! Do you know what she was expelled for?"

Shelby laughed at Theresa. "You are a gossiping hen, silly. We all are. We can't help it; there's nothing else to do here! I mean, honestly, there are only so many times we can go hunting for the giant squid in the lake or dare Lauren to jump off a tree into the water," she teased. "Besides, gossip is fun. As long as no one's feelings get hurt."

"No, I don't know," Shelby said to Hilary. "I just heard Professor Hunt say she was gone."

Theresa looked at Hilary confused "a television?" she asked, she wondered what a 'show' was. She had to agree with her, they always gossiped but it wasnt there fault it was fun. "I guess gossiping is one of the perks of being in a boarding school" she said, giggling. She thought for a moment "I am not that bad of a gossip and I didn't know Lauren would do that, plus, the squid was Hilary's idea, I just said swimming" she said, pretending to be insulted.

Hilary often forgot that some of the people who had grown up in wizarding families didn't know what electronic things were. "It's a box with a glass screen on the front, used for entertainment. It's kind of like watching a play. People act out stories or they use drawings to tell the stories."

Hilary laughed, recalling their adventures in the lake. "I think it would always be interesting to go looking for the giant squid. We still don't know for sure that he or she won't eat us, if we got close enough."

Theresa giggled "that box thing sounds funny" she said, imagining people doing a play in a box with a glass thing so people could watch them. "And that whole 'could eat us' thing should be a reason to not look for it again" she said. "I want to go for a climb" she said suddenly before she stood up, smoothed her skirt and skipped to the tree next to them.

"I don't think it would eat us. I think it likes people," Shelby said, watching Theresa head for the tree. "When I was coming down here earlier I saw Professor Williams talking to it and not too long ago I saw it having a staring contest with Indiana Lamperouge. By the way, the thing we saw in the lake was definitely not the squid. I don't know what it was, but it looked nothing like what I saw earlier today."

Hilary shrugged. "Maybe there's something else down there. I've heard that there's supposed to be merpeople, but I don't think that's what we saw. Maybe the giant squid has a girlfriend down there. Or a boyfriend. Do we know the gender of it?"

She watched as her friend scaled the tree. "Please, please, please don't fall from there," she called to Theresa. "If we're going to go to the hospital wing, I want it to be to see if there's a cure for cooties. Not because you broke your neck climbing a tree."

Theresa giggled "and there will be that cure someday" she said before sticking her tongue out. "Don't you two have any faith in me at all?" she asked, grinning. "Aw the squid having a girlfriend or boyfriend sounds so adorable" she said as she hopped onto one of the middle branchs. She purposely climbed higher than the low branches for fun, she was careful.

Shelby laughed. "I don't know. I think it's a boy but I guess it could be a girl. I have no idea how to tell what gender a squid is. Maybe we'll learn if we take Care of Magical Creatures in third year."

"And I agree with Hilary. I don't want to have to drag your unconscious butt up the hospital wing, so you better not fall!" Shelby said, only half joking. Spending any time at all in the hospital wing for an injury was supposed to be really awful and she didn't want any of them to have to experience it.

She laughed at Theresa's comment. "How come it's adorable for squids to have a boyfriend or girlfriend but when it's people you say we'd get cooties? Don't you think that squids can get cooties too?"