moonlight

[Jayden Flynn]

What with the year coming to an end recently, and the Yule Ball impending for Christmas Eve, professors had been trying to cram as much into their lessons as possible before the start of the Christmas Holidays, while students paid considerably less and less attention, choosing to instead focus on dates, and ball gowns and robes, and what their plans were for New Year’s. Along with the increasing amount of homework lately, the slightly snowy November weather had turned into a full-scale storm the night before, and the entire castle had been covered in a thick layer of white fluff the past two weeks; inside the stone walls, Hogwarts was as cold as ever, and Jayden had been including the standard grey woolen vest and his Hufflepuff scarf as default wardrobe items ever since, not that he was complaining, since, really, the colorful scarves around the school, depending on the house to which its wearer belonged to just added to the anticipation of the holidays, and everything that came with Christmas. It had been two days since he’d turned in the ridiculously long essay that McGonagall had assigned them, and with Christmas coming up already, it felt like everything was breezing by way too fast. Jayden put down his quill after crossing his t’s for his Potions homework with a relieved sigh, giving the questions a look-over to check if he missed something as he capped his bottle of ink, careful not to spill any droplets onto the parchment next to him. The common room was still in full motion, as students returned from elsewhere in the castle after enjoying a snowball fight outside during a Sunday afternoon, and people were chattering away around him, their voices filling the warm atmosphere of the cozy couches.

Rolling up his homework, Jayden slipped it into his bag and licked his lips, looking around the common room for something else to do. To his left, Luke was still working out the answers, to which Jayden had refused to give him them, but had agreed to help him with what he didn’t understand, anyway, and he figured he wouldn’t be done for at least half an hour longer. Tapping his feet onto the carpet in front of him, Jayden let out a breath and stood up, slinging his bag over his shoulder as he did so, land nudged at Luke’s calf with the side of his foot. “I’m heading to the room. Gimme a holler when you’re done, eh?” he told him, nodding and waiting until Luke had agreed before turning around and heading across the common room to the sixth year boys’ dormitory. He didn’t really have much else to do out there, if Luke was preoccupied, and he knew for a fact that Calixto and TJ were at Quidditch practice, still, since he hadn’t seen them come in yet, and Lyle was—home. Opening the circular door that led to his room, Jayden stepped inside and closed it against the tunnel behind him, moving to his own bed immediately and dropping his bag carefully in front of his bedside table, so he’d find it ready for him the next day for classes. It had been too many days since Gabby and Lyle had disappeared from school without a word, only to get an owl from her the next day explaining that her father had decided to take her away for a while, after what had happened at Hogsmeade. To be honest, Jayden preferred not to think about it. Not because he was a bad friend, and not to say that he wouldn’t have jumped at the opportunity to console Gabby and try to distract her as much as possible from the event, but because he was not comfortable perusing those thoughts by himself, when he was alone. To admit that something as evil, and as cold-hearted as that existed was a terrifying thought. Truth was, he missed Gabby. It was one of those things where he didn’t realize how good something was until it was gone; like having his brothers and sisters around all the time. Apart from Ryanne, who was here with him, he didn’t see the rest except for the holidays and the summer. And now that Gabby wasn’t here anymore, he realized what a big part of his life she really was. Like her smiles and her ever-present warmth was around all the time, and now, suddenly, he felt a little lost without her.

Figuring he’d do something useful, since he hadn’t heard from her after that last letter he’d sent a couple of days ago, and he had promised her a song he’d been writing—to which he’d gotten started on the second verse already, but was still clueless as to what to do with the chorus, Jayden bent over the edge of his bed and carefully lifted his guitar, caring not to slam it against anything like the edge of the wood, or his trunk. It was comfortable in his grip once he settled it properly on his lap, leaning back against the pillows of his bed and strumming a few chords. Closing his eyes, Jayden’s fingers slid down the strings of his guitar, his left hand coming up to push at each note, and softly played out a melody. He licked his lips and opened his eyes again, sitting up, and moved to his right to draw out the drawer of his bedside table again, pulling out the plain old notebook he always used for lyrics, and a quill, and set it beside him on the bed, twirling the quill around his hand for a while before placing it between his lips and bringing his hand back to the guitar, pushing at his glasses with his free elbow, and set his eyes on the words on the page before starting to play the tune. It was an easy, relaxed song, as far as he’d gotten, with only a touch of melancholy and full of hope, as he’d intended. He hadn’t been sure why he was writing it, still, but with Gabby gone, and everything, he’d decided he could shape it up to intend it for her, and that’s how it had turned out in the end. The lyrics weren’t perfectly structured around her life, but the message meant to. Jayden ran through the chords one time before setting the guitar down and picking up his quill, placing the notebook on his lap and leaning over it to work on it more, his brow furrowing somewhat as he scribbled a line beneath the first chorus one, and scratched something else out. It was a long, and grueling process, composing, but he loved it.

[/color]

tagged: gabby!

[Gabriella Rivera]

To say that it was good to be back would have been a severe understatement; it was great to be back. Amazing, even. Brilliant, fantastic, wonderful - all the other synonyms that were more powerful than "good" applied right now, and Gabriella could hardly believe it. Sure, she sort-of felt bad about the means she had had to use in order to get back, but in her defense the original outcome of her and Lyle's plans that they'd actually wanted was to get their parents together, not to get in so much trouble that their parents decide to send them back. The latter ended up being a bonus, and the yelling she got from her father was worth it, because she was convinced their plan had worked. She was positive she'd see them eying each other, and they'd been whispering and everything after they were done scolding them. Well, okay, actually, she couldn't remember much at all from that night, and it might very well have been her own optimistic musings that were creating these scenes in her mind, but at least it was a step in the right direction! And now she was back to Hogwarts, her second home, with her friends. With Gideon who, most times, appeared more than just a friend, but rather like family. Like the brother that she never had. And God, but she had missed him a lot. It had been like a little wound, sending pangs of sorrow every time she saw something at home that reminded her of him - which wasn't too difficult of a feat, seeing as just looking at the house next door was enough, seeing as it was his. She'd even went over once to say hello to his mother and it had taken all her self control not to rush up to his room once the formalities were over, because that was what she did when she came to visit - said hello to his mother, and sometimes Fabian if he was there, and then she'd flee to Gideon's room. Sometimes, he would have heard her coming and meet her half way, and then they would hug as if they hadn't just seen each other the day before. But she couldn't do that this time, and even Fabian hadn't been there because he had his own apartment now, and even though Mrs. Prewett had greeted her warmly and they'd made some biscuits together, it just wasn't the same. It was strange that she'd felt even lonelier at home, with her Aunt there most of the time, than she had back in Hogwarts. Perhaps it was because this time, she really did feel alone, because she couldn't even see any of her friends. Back when Emmeline and Gideon were dating, there were other friends to talk to, like Lyle and Stefan and Nessa. Their presence made it much easier. And she got to see Gideon and Emmeline every now and then. But now all she really had was Lyle, and even then she couldn't see him for too long because her dad didn't let her out that often (part of her "punishment", she supposed). And she'd been feeling that way up till two days ago and now here she was, back in Hogwarts, cuddled up in Gideon's arms, and it was all a little hard to believe. But it was real, Gideon's arms around her and his chin resting on her head, and his warmth and scent - they were all real.

Sighing happily, she turned her head slightly to bury her face into his neck, taking break from all the mostly nonsensical babbling she'd been doing. She didn't know how long they'd been sitting there, but it didn't really matter; they'd had a lot to catch up on, she'd definitely missed out on a lot of his cuddles; their warmth, the safety she felt when she was within them because of the trust she had for him that had rapidly built up over the years to a point where she would trust him with her life (and, to be honest, her life was probably better protected in his hand than her own, but she would never dare say that out loud because who knows what sort of complexities and worries that would cause for him? He was always telling her to take better care of herself, after all). She held onto him for a while longer and then, after tightening her grip marginally, she completely let go and pulled away, smiling up at him. "I should probably go and greet some of my other friends," she admitted guiltily. She still wanted to see Jayden, especially since she hadn't been able to respond to his last owl and thus had decided she ought to surprise him, too. And she wanted to see her dorm mates, too, but none of them were in the common room at the moment. She'd have to wait until tonight or something, which was fine because she planned to stay up all night with them anyway to catch up over what had happened over the last week and what-not. And since she would get that opportunity, she might as well spend as much time of her waking hours as possible with everyone else. More specifically, her boy friends. Now that she had had her fill of Gideon (for now, anyway, she might be back for more before she went to bed, just because it was Gideon and he was extra special), she could focus on being a good friend to everyone else. And next up was, obviously, Jayden Flynn. Reluctantly disentangling herself from Gideon's intoxicating hold, she leaned up to kiss his cheek and then smiled broadly again. "As much as I'd love to stay here the whole day, I have some other people I need to surprise,"

[/color] she told him while she uncurled her legs and stood, stretching out her slightly stiff muscles. She then leaned over to give him one last, quick squeeze and then hopped off in the direction of the table Luke was sitting at.

Deciding that she wouldn't stay for long since he was obviously struggling with some homework, Gabriella slid down into the seat next to him and waited for him to look up, beaming at him when he did. He greeted her amicably and she smiled wider when he welcomed her back - it was oddly nice to know that you had been missed - but before they could get into too serious of a conversation and end up side-tracking him from his homework, she hastily asked if he knew where Jayden was, and then thanked him when he directed her to the dormitory. She wondered if he was working on that song he'd been writing for her, who's rough draft had been, in her opinion, one of the loveliest things she'd ever read. Then again, she was probably biased. Straightening her skirt as she walked, Gabby peeked into the room and was pleased to find that, except for Jayden, it was completely void of anyone, which meant she could be as loud and squeal-y as she wanted without having to worry about one of his dorm mates waking up from a nap. She took a moment to draw in a deep breath and collect herself, preparing herself for the surprise she was about to give him, but she couldn't seem to have enough self-control to wait for long and thus ended up bursting into the dormitory without thought, and full-out running towards his bed toward him. She seemed to misjudge the distance, however, and her acceleration and she couldn't seem to slow down in time so that, instead of simply leaping into his arms for a gentle hug, she ended up colliding with him and her momentum drove them both backwards so that she landed on top of him in a heap on his bed. While she should have been worried about possibly harming him (surely she was too light to cause actual damage though, right?), Gabriella, for some reason, burst out into giggles, and once she'd started, it was simply too difficult to stop. "Oh Dios I"[/color] giggle "am so,"[/color] snort, "sorry, I didn't,"[/color] helpless laugh, "mean to,"[/color] more giggling, "do that!"[/color] she gasped out through her laughter, struggling to get off him in case she was making it difficult for him to breathe or something. But then she leaned up enough to see his face, and she saw that she'd managed to slightly knock off his glasses so that they were askew on his face and the sight only brought her mirth and she dissolved into giggles once more. "Sorry!"[/color] she managed to exclaim again, reaching one hand to fix the glasses properly on top of his nose before finally crawling off, taking a seat at the end of his bed and grabbing his hand to help him sit up, her giggles slowly becoming less in frequency now. "I hope I didn't squish you. Are you okay?"[/color] She'd finally stopped now, although the smile never left her face. "I'm back!"[/color] she exclaimed suddenly, spreading out her arms in a "ta-da!" sort of way. As if he hadn't already guessed that.


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[Jayden Flynn]

The sudden sound of something inside the dormitory made Jayden jerk a little, snapping his head up to look at whatever had caused it, his mind registering ‘footsteps’ for about a fraction of a second, before a body full-on collided into him—“Argh!”—and sent the quill flying out of his hand, and his body toppling backwards onto his own bed, nearly tipping over the edge but for the scramble he managed to make, and rocked back into the center of the bed, breath knocked out of him and vision entirely blurry from where his glasses had been knocked off his face to hang from one ear and Jayden grunted a little—there was also a body still on top of him. A body who was now giggling. It took Jayden a couple of seconds to regain his bearings, heart racing from the shock of the sudden collision in order to try to brace himself against the pillow behind him on his elbows, frowning and shaking his head because, once he’d gathered his wits again, he recognized that voice. “Gabby!?”

[/color]” he breathed out, as much as he could from the way one of her elbows was still sort of digging onto his stomach, making it hard for him to breathe, and at the same time, sending him squirming a little from the tickles. She was laughing, now, apologizing and moving over him—he supposed in order to get off but all he could see was a lot of brown and skin and random places in his body that were still being crushed—and then a hand on his face, and suddenly he could see again; Gabby’s arm stretched out in front of her after fixing his glasses, moving back on his bed to sit at the end of it, and grabbing his hand; natural instinct made him hold onto it to be pulled into a sitting position again, taking in the way she was still giggling a little, and smiling at him and there. Taking another moment to squirm on his bed, the mattress dipping from the weight of the two bodies, Jayden sat up properly and adjusted his glasses anyway, before taking her in, eyebrows a little raised, and then reacted properly—“Gabby!”[/color]” he cried out, laughingly, and slid off the bed in one rather smooth move, considering how clumsy he usually was, and swooped in to pick her up around her waist and twirl her around the air with a grin before setting her on her feet again, still holding onto her, and pulled her body to his into a warm, crushing hug.

The familiar weight of her body against his made him smile and take in a deep breath of her hair—roses, as usual. He chuckled to himself before pulling back to look at her properly, having to quite literally bend his head down to do so, peering at her face, and laughed again. “When did you get here?”[/color]” he asked her, finally letting go off her, only to drop his hand to hold hers, and tugs her back to sit on the edge of the bed, where his notebook had fallen aside when she’d tackled him, and moved it onto his lap instead, holding onto her hand easily, because they did this—he was a naturally touchy person, and he liked holding hands, and Gabby did so, too; it was normal for them. It wasn’t that Jayden was completely unaware of what touching other people meant—especially girls—or that he was naive enough to think that he could get away with kissing girls on the cheek and have them think it was nothing, but he also knew who he could act like this around. Whom it was okay to hug, and kiss, and hold—friends like Gabby, or Vanessa—and whom he should better keep his distance, at least to a certain extent. It was just that he’d grown up used to people. He’d had two sisters and a brother when he was born, and later on had two sisters more and a brother more, and they were all close. It was more of his family values, a tradition, almost, but they were very touchy, since the start. Hugs were common more often than not, and he kissed his sisters on the cheeks all the time, and tackled his brothers, and rolled around with them, like he did with Luke, but wouldn’t dare do with, say, TJ. It was just the kind of relationship that they had. As it was, Jayden was probably at his highest level of comfort with Gabby; in a way, it had come to happen that after four years of friendship; since his third year, when he’d met her properly, since before that she’d been eleven, and at twelve years of age, he hadn’t particularly been interested in anybody younger than him, and wasn’t about to make an exception for the particularly pretty Hispanic girl who’d ended up bouncing off the Sorting Hat towards the Hufflepuff table.

Turning his face to look at her properly, Jayden couldn’t help but letting out another relieved laugh, even though he hadn’t exactly been worried about her, since she had been home and with her father, and Lyle, it was still freeing to think that she was back now, and reached over to wrap his arms around her waist from the side, pressing her to him again and kissed the side of her head with a loud smacking noise, purposefully. “I can’t believe you’re back!”[/color]” he whispered excitedly, and ran one of his hands through her hair, cupping her head closer to him and kissing the side of it again before letting her go somewhat, still holding onto her hand, and bounced a little on the edge of the mattress, somehow not being able to stop smiling, as he picked up the notebook to show it to her. “Look, I’ve been writing a bit more for your song. It still doesn’t have a title because the one I had tentative was just skawly, but then again, I usually finish writing the song, full with the lyrics and everything, before deciding on the name for it. But it’s definitely dedicated to you—wow, I was not expecting to see you before January!”[/color]” In the owl, Gabby had said that it was most likely that she was going to be staying at home straight into the holidays, and would only be back after them—so much that Jayden had offered to go by her house throughout, just to see her, and he would have but she was here now and it was a little surreal. Perhaps because he’d convinced himself so hard that she wasn’t going to be here, that now that she was, it felt strange. In such, such a good way, though, and he kept on grinning. “Try not to reef me up in the eyes with my glasses next time, though, will you?”[/color]

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[Gabriella Rivera]

Well, he was still alive, at least, even though she'd obviously completely squashed him. But he was still breathing. Gabby could tell that much because she could feel his chest rising against hers. Sort of. Actually, it seemed like it was kind-of struggling, to be honest. Not that she could blame him, since she was on top of him so, no matter how light she was (and she knew she had to be light if Gideon can carry her around from class to class on his back without really breaking a sweat), she must have still been crushing him, and she should have gotten off as soon as possible, but, for one thing, she was too busy giggling her butt off and, for another, for some reason she was determined to fix him glasses onto his face again, even if it meant that she squished him for a little longer. She knew he was almost blind without his glasses on (she knew because once she'd begged him to let her try them on "for fun" and she found out that they were that thick for a reason and she'd almost run into someone when she tried to walk with them on because she'd misjudged the distance between them. Luckily, she was steered to safety (although she couldn't be sure if it was Jayden or not, because he must not have been that much better off) and then he'd taken the glasses back after that before she hurt herself or someone else. She'd always wondered, though, how come one couldn't fix their eyes by magic. After all, if a witch or wizard could transform into an animal, then how could they possibly need glasses? And there wasn't any spell or potion or anything, either. At least, not that she'd heard of - she hadn't actually looked for anything like that, mostly because she thought he looked much better with them on anyway. Honestly, she thought his glasses made him look intelligent and sweet and cute and he looked very strange without them. Then again, maybe that had more to do with the fact that she was so used to seeing him with them on that seeing them off was strange. Anyhow, once she was done with fixing them onto his face again, she no longer had an excuse to linger or top of him (even though he was very warm, but she didn't want to suffocate him), she wriggled off him the best she could without accidentally hitting him with any flailing limbs. Thankfully, she managed fairly well, and he was staring at her while she beamed like a - well, frankly, a bit like a mad woman, but she figured it was understandable since it had been over a week since she'd last seen him. "Jayden!" she exclaimed teasingly in return when the fact that she was actually here finally hit him and she squealed when he picked her up and twirled her around. For a moment, she was grateful for her love of heights and her tendency not to get motion sickness, since all the men in her life seemed to have a penchant for picking her up and twirling her around. As it were, she actually enjoyed it and she wrapped her arms around him tightly when he set her down, nuzzling her face into his neck, the same way she'd done with Gideon earlier. But at the same time, it wasn't the same. That had been Gideon and this was Jayden. There was a significant difference there.

Except for the height thing, she realised when she fell back onto her heels from when she'd automatically risen onto her toes so that she could reach up and hug him properly. While Jayden was shorter than Gideon, he still had about a foot over her and, though she didn't have to strain her neck as much to look at him, there was still some significant craning that she had to do to see him properly, and he still had to duck down to look at her well. She'd have to stay away from flat shoes for good by this point; it wasn't that bad two years ago, but now boys were getting their growth spurts - and still growing, which was horrifying when she thought of Gideon and how tall he already was) and they were shooting up like plants while she was growing at snails pace, about an inch a year. It was why she was glad they were moving to the bed, suddenly that inch she'd grown seemed all the more meaningless, although a little voice in the back of her head swore that the top of her head almost reached his shoulder when it normally reached mid-chest, but it was probably false hope. "Just a while ago!"

[/color] she told him, squeezing his hand. "Luke told me I'd find you here when I couldn't find you in the common room. I've missed you!"[/color] She cuddled into his side, lightly grabbing his arm so that she could pull it around her and then grasping his other, free one; it was a completely natural move to do. She'd long-since lost her shyness around him. As a matter of fact, next to Gideon and Lyle, Jayden had been the fastest of her friends for her to get comfortable around. Although, when she thought about it, she'd always gotten along faster with girls than with boys. It was just that they were so much...simpler to understand, somehow. Girls could be very complicated. Especially girls like Emmeline. That's not to say that she wasn't close with her girl friends, or didn't like them as much. It had just taken her longer to be as friendly with Emmeline as she had with Gideon, or even Fabian. There was just something...intimidating about girls. It was probably because she'd spent a lot of her childhood watching them out of her window or from her lonely corner; they'd always seemed like a completely different species in their pretty dresses and pigtails and stark-white shoes, with their jump ropes and giggles, and as desperately as Gabby had wanted to be their friend, it just didn't seem possible because she wore overalls and her shoes were never really clean. She wasn't like them, so she couldn't be one of them. And so, at first, when she'd met Emmeline and Vanessa and Harlem, she was uncomfortably aware of how pretty they were, and how neat their clothes were, but somehow they were different. Maybe it was because they shared a dormitory, or maybe it was just her paranoia, but they weren't scary at all, and they wanted to be her friend - that, in and of itself, was a miracle.

"You did?! That's brilliant!"[/color] she gasped, angling her head to look into the notebook. "I bet it's lovely,"[/color] she said before she'd even begun to read it, but she was distracted from actually doing so by his next statement and she looked up at him, looking suddenly sheepish. "Yeah, Papi was technically planning on keeping me home at least until January, if not for the whole year, but uh..."[/color] She cleared her throat, looking quite guilty. "Lyle and I got into a spot of trouble, so our parents decided it would be best to send us home."[/color] She couldn't help but giggle then and then jumped to their defense. "We meant to get in trouble, though. See, we have this plan of getting my Papi and his Mami together, because we think they're perfect for each other, and we figured if we got in trouble we'd be able to get them in the same room and sparks would fly!"[/color] she gesticulated wildly with her free hand, mindful not to knock off his notebook (or his glasses again). "I don't remember much of the night, but I could've sworn I snogged someone,"[/color] she stated, her face ponderous. "I'm almost sure I told someone that their face tastes awesome, but I can't be positive if it's because I kissed them or licked their face...well, anyway!"[/color] Her eyes sparkled when she looked from his notebook to his face and then back again. "Will you sing it for me? Please?"[/color] She looked up again, holding out the notebook and widening her eyes into her best impression of the "puppy eyes". She didn't often utilise that move, because she was aware that after enough times it simply wasn't as effective, but she did know that it had caused stronger men to waver (also known as, her father, who was all but powerless when she properly used it. Well, depending on the circumstance, really. He'd been quite good at ignoring it for the past week whenever she tried it on him on the subject of going back to Hogwarts. She supposed more serious matters made him immune. "Do you have a tune to go with it yet?"[/color] she asked, looking at his guitar hopefully. She loved it when he played the guitar.

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