Whomping Willow & The Shrieking Shack

"Not entirely. I'm only saying that magic had somehow granted Elise a spirit of her own even though she is a car just as magic somehow granted the RSPK phenomena a spirit of self-awareness that we both now know as Peeves." Zero replied. "Think of magic like God giving life to a car that can now think and act on its own. Just like Elise, magic had done the same to give birth to Peeves from the sum of all RSPK activity."

Reaching for the knapsack, Zero took out a large gallon of cold mineral water along with some freshly sliced lemons, a bag of natural brown sugar, and a large empty pitcher. After filling the pitcher with water, he then squeezed the lemons, adding their extracts along with the required amount of sugar. Once he was done with the additions, Zero took a clean stirring spoon out of the knapsack before stirring the composite mixture for some time.

Setting the pitcher down, Zero reached into the knapsack before pulling out a package of styrofoam cups, opening it and handing one of Negative.

After filling his cup with the freshly made lemonade, he then handed Negative the pitcher. "Go ahead and help yourself."

(sorry about not getting back to you quick,dude)
"I get it all now. It was getting a little spiritual near the end, but I get it."

In the silence, Negative finally decided it was time to take notice and rooted through her bag for bandages. She rolled them around each finger individually, using liberal amounts on the finger tips, and held them in place with her other fingers. "Ze-o, cam you tie all dese for me?" she asked, her mouth full of the fabrics.

Zero nodded before taking the fabrics and began tying Negative's fingers with them, taking great caution since he had a feeling that there might be certain injuries to them. It wasn't a hard task, though he wondered if she carried any medicinal lotion for whatever injuries that she might had taken.

"What happened to your fingers, Negative?" Zero asked calmly as he was near finished in tying the bandages around her fingers.

"It was that party in the Room of Requirement. I- guess I left them. I thought they'd go down, but the blisters are still there. They're really painful," she said evenly, "what about your leg?" she retorted, somewhat defensively.
Using her forearm to push an empty cup to her, and using her palms, she poured herself some fresh lemonade. It tasted weird. "Not enough lemon," she critiqued, squeezing some lemon inbetween her hands. Most of the juice tricked down under the bandages...
"AGH AGH AHHHHHHHHHH! Stings, stings STINGS!"

Zero had just pulled out a cleaning bowl and had filled it with cold water, intending to wash his hands when he heard Negative in pain before seeing that her fingers made contact with lemon juice.

"Here! Place them in the bowl." Zero spoke, placing the bowl of cold water in front of Negative while using his free hand to move the pitcher and lemons aside. "Take the bandages off under the water."

(oops, sorry i thought you deleted your post :L)
"I really love how I'm trying to keep up an exterior of brave, tough and strong," she said, as Zero tried to be as gentle as possible, tugging at the knots he'd made.
What. An. Idiot.
She dipped her hands, still bandaged, into the water.

"It's great how much common sense I have," she said, unsure why the idea of dipping them in water hadn't come to her. It had been a day since.
"What time is it, kind sir?"

"It's probably already past the ten o'clock curfew." Zero replied as he took out a pair of large leather working gloves and placed them next to Negative. He kept them in the knapsack just in case he needed to handle hazardous objects such as broken glass without making direct skin contact.

"If you have any cotton, you could just fill the gloves up with them before putting them on." Zero spoke as he took some fresh lemons out and added more extract into the pitcher along with some sugar.

"Woah, what are the gloves for?"
Negative sipped at the improved Lemonade. "Much better," she said with a grin.
"Ten 'o' Clock curfew. Hm. I guess I might as well stay here the night- Peeves still messes around with Bradley. Brad doesn't like the castle much anyway. Stay here for as long as you like."

Zero was about to answer but had a feeling that gloves may not be a good idea such that he took them back.

"Never mind about the gloves. Wearing them might complicate things. I guess if you head to the Room of Requirement tomorrow, you could try to see if it can provide some ointment cream for the blisters." Zero replied as he massaged the left side of his back with the ice pack. "Just keep your fingers safe and protected."

Setting the knapsack against the wall of the cavern, Zero placed his walking stick nearby before sitting down with his back resting on his carrying bag.

"It took a while for my leg to heal completely but even so, there's still a bit tension that flares up every now and then so I guess I'm still in the rehab phase."

"Oh, were the gloves to stop from touching stuff directly or something?" she asked, hoping she hadn't offended him or anything.
"I could say the same for you- protect your own damn self!" Negative yawned at the end. "And you still haven't explained the whole leg thing with the octopus or squid," she winked.

Zero sighed. "Yeah but I really neglected some facts about blisters."

He then continued. "I was checking out the bottom of the lake and found some really white sand, almost like platinum, before the giant octopus just came out of the ground. When it grabbed my leg, the tentacle constricted too tightly such that it felt like someone had placed my leg in a vice and tried to crush it with the clamp. The bruises are still there no thanks to those suction cups."

Zero then added. "I was lucky to have escaped without losing anything."

"No matter. It's the thought that counts."
Negatives' eyes widened each time Zero added a word to the air. He faced an octopus, which did sound pretty funny. But really, imagining an octopus in front of her was a pretty scary thing indeed.

"Woah, bruises from suction cups. This I gotta see, I'm sorry, suction cups! That's like the octopus version of pincers!"

Zero's eyes narrowed a bit behind the opal visor of his mask. "The tentacle is bad enough but the suction cups is just torture the way they stick onto you. For a moment, it would rip my leg off before I broke free."

He then took a sip from his lemonade through the open section of his mask. "Anyways, those crimson eyes on that giant octopus is something I'm never going to forget."

"Woah, it sounds pretty heated. At least you got out of there eh? And you're going back and also researching why?"
She'd got him there. Even pain didn't get in the way of Zero, and by the sound of it, emotional pain didn't either.
She wondered for a moment how that would be like.
"I'm tired, I'm going to get comfortable on the mattress for a bit."
Negative said this more to Bradley who was sitting on Zero's shoulder. Bradley stayed glued still.
Negative groaned. Stupid frog.
"So tell me about May."

"I'm not going to directly go after the giant octopus until I know enough spells to even the playing field." Zero replied. "Paper research first before direct research much later."

When Negative asked him about May, Zero addressed the subject. "May Lamperouge is twenty-five and is a recon sniper in the U.K. Special Forces as part of their Special Reconnaissance Regiment. My older sister is currently off-duty until the beginning next year. Despite her occupation, though, she really is a very wonderful person to be around."

Negative snorted, "I know that about her, we practically only talked about her at one time. I mean- what is she like? What's her favourite book, what her reaction was when you said you had a wand, what did she do when she was angry- that kind of stuff. The stuff only family really knows.
She always liked to listen to people- that was how you learned after all, but she never let them get a word in edgeways usually. But the look on someone's face talking non-stop about the one's they loved made her see good in the world, and made her happy.
What a sap.

"Good. At least her occupation is not being questioned or found to be atypical." Zero replied. Negative was certainly one not to beat around the bush.

"May cared for me when our parents passed away, taking the role of the older parent whenever she wasn't called for assignments with her team. May has read so many books but her favorite is Les Misérables by Victor Hugo."

Zero took a deep breath before continuing, deciding not to talk about his first signs of accidental magic. "The revelation of me being wizard was surprising but May told me that I would always be her little brother regardless of my abilities. As for May being angry, she'll be talking in such a low and intimidating tone. Rarely would she ever beat up anyone but if I was being hurt by someone, may God save that person from May's wrath."

"Nah, fighting's fighting. People always have a reason for it," she swigged some more lemonade, "besides, how much of a hypocrit would I be if I liked the idea of an auror?"
Negative leant back on the dusty wall, paying close attention to Zero's smile he tried to keep small whenever he said his sister's name.
"Les Misérables... I think I've heard of that. 'there a girl called Appoline? Apolline?"
Negative accidentally spat a mouthful of Lemonade out at the last sentence, "I can imagine that disposition has stayed in the family, then," she said, hiding a smile.

"Do you mean Eponine Thenardier?" Zero asked. "It's been a long time since I read the book so I'm not even sure on the name Apolline. I always focused on Jean Valijean, Cosette, and Marius."

He grinned at Negative's remark. "If it wasn't for the Restriction on Underage Sorcery, I certainly would've reacted the same way if she was in my shoes. Yeah, it certainly does, though I have to say that it came from my late father. He was always protective of my late mother and I think May inherited a lot of that from him."

"That might be the one. It was a long time ago, after all. It's like a love-eh, square, or something. I was young, so my memories aren't that great."
Negative listened to Zero's plaintive words, an empathic grimace finding its way to her face.
"If you don't mind my asking, how did they die?" she said clearly, speaking normally.

Amid hearing Negative's question, Zero stared at the campfire, whose light reflected off the opal visor on his mask. He was glad that he had his face concealed within his helmet/mask to hide the depressing and sorrowful expression in his eyes from being seen. He had grieved and said his goodbyes long ago but remembering the bombshell that had been dropped before him still brought back memories of that tragedy five years ago.

"I was in primary school when I received the news." Zero spoke calmly, hiding the melancholy from his tone. "It was on that day, I was playing tag with other children when one of the teachers said that May was here to pick me up early. I didn't know why my elder sister came or why she looked like she was trying to remain composed until she cried and told me in private that both of our parents had been killed in a train crash while in route to attend a wedding. I didn't know about the cause, though May said that there was some severe mechanical failures that caused the train to derail and crash after it made a sharp turn."

"Mechanical Failures?" she repeated thickly. What a way to go. Wow. "And at Primary School, gosh. Was it an accident, or had someone tampered on the tracks? Or I suppose, you wouldn't know, would you?" Negative put her head down. She shouldn't have asked.
"I wish I could tell you I feel the same. But I haven't lost anyone- bar the obvious. So I can just tell you that I admire you, and I think you're really brave, Indiana. Yeah, Indiana. It felt like a moment to say your name!"
She wiped her nose. So ladylike in a time of drama.

Zero shook his head grimly. "I try not to dwell on it, though the memories still remain rather heavy and I'd rather not think about on what could have been the reason to why the train derailed and crashed."

After a moment, Zero emptied his cup of lemonade before refilling it from the pitcher when he noticed Bradley sitting on his shoulder.

"If I remember correctly, you said that you met and saved Bradley at the circus. Any story behind that?" Zero asked.

Jasmeet could hear the familiar voices of Indiana and Cass outside the Whomping Willow. She walked inside, and smiled, "I hope I'm not interrupting anything. I've just been looking for company all day, and when I saw the chance, I didn't want to let it slip", she said. She had been cautious about everything she did, and everything she said. It had made her a bit more of a loner.

Negative spluttered, "is there ever! Which bit did I tell you- I hate repeating myself- was I telling you how Alex accidentally touched the Portkey? I think that's what it was."

Negative poured herself another lemonade, leaning over the matress. "Went to the circus. The act 'The Great Margerini'- it was for muggles, really, but we knew when we got there he was a wizard. About eight frogs-" Toads, she mouthed, for Bradley wasn't an actual frog, he was a toad not that there was much difference, only who was Cass to burst his bubble? "- all in a line, under the some sort of imperius curse. Only, Bradley remembers it all. It was horrible. The Margerini could've made their legs do every Jazz number under the sun, but you could see the look in their eyes.

So after the show, and Margerini was about to do a horse act, I went in the animal tent, and did my first ever spell: 'Alohamora'. It actually didn't open it, rather just set the lock on fire, but it was enough. I got Bradley, was about to get the rest, but then I heard Alex behind me- must have followed me- and he touched the Portkey- something shiny, I can't remember what- and he was gone.
And I had to run to our Aunt incase the man came back. That's pretty much it."
She didn't need to fidget. She was calmer now than she had been for a couple of days.