Searching for Distractions pv Closed

Coriander fidgeted in her seat, tapping her foot against the stone floor. She was aware of the sound it made, the tap, tap, tap, that was underlying beneath the endless drone of their teacher. Perhaps that was the reason she was doing it, to keep some essence of the real world. She was so bored it almost hurt and her stomach flipped with the anticipation of getting out of class.

History of Magic was supposed to be a boring class, but Coriander never knew just how awful it could truly be. After all, she had been homeschooled and while she read about school settings, she never had to just sit there and do nothing. Others were writing down notes that they would likely go over later, and Coriander knew that it was a brilliant idea. It would save her grades, for sure. But, although she had parchment and a quill out, she couldn't bring herself to write anything down.

Coriander looked through everyone in the classroom for the millionth time. It was something to do, and it was vaguely entertaining to see the way some people had a glazed over expression, while others were writing feverishly. It was such a contrast, and Coriander thought about what an anomaly she was. Not interested about the class at all, yet with too much energy to sit still. It was a wonder how other people did it.

Her eyes came to rest upon a Gryffindor boy who was studying others, similar to how she was. She could only see his back, as he was a couple seats ahead and to the side. He obviously wasn't paying any attention, but wasn't zoning out like everyone else. Coriander sighed to herself and kept tapping her foot, coming to the unfortunate conclusion that it was time to unleash her secret weapon: annoying people she didn't know. Coriander ripped a small piece of parchment, going as slow as she could to not make any noise, and rolled it between her fingers until it formed a ball the size of a marble. Carefully, subtly, she aimed it at the boy, and threw it at him underhand. It hit his back, and she waited to see if he noticed.

He had just about worn out the entertainment of watching the other students in his class. After all, bored person can only watch other bored people for so long before remembering just how utterly bored they are. He was contemplating forcing himself to listen to the remainder of the professor's lecture when he felt something hit his back.

He looked over his shoulder to see a girl looking toward him, then he glanced down to see what had hit him. A small ball of paper. Had she thrown it? Nobody else seemed to be paying enough attention to have done it. He gave her a confused look and turned back to his desk. He once again considered pushing himself to pay attention, but class was almost over, and he wasn't even really sure what the professor was talking about at that point. He might take solace in what distractions he could find to get through what was left of class.

He was not sure what her motive for throwing it at him was, but regardless, this was his only opportunity to drone out the incessant lecturing. He waited for the professor to turn away from the class and turned his head around back toward the girl. He did not want to alert anybody around, so he simply mouthed to her, "What do you want?"

Hopefully she would be able to figure out what he was trying to convey.

When the boy mouthed some words to her, Coriander couldn't tell what they were. She had never been good at lip reading, not that she was ever required to do so. It would have been easy to turn back to the lecture and torture this boy with the prospect of never knowing what her motive was, but then she would be bored again. Wasn't the point to relieve herself of the never ending lecture?

With this in mind, Coriander slowly ripped off another piece of parchment. She had never passed a note before, but she knew it was something people did - muggles, at least. Before Hogwarts, Coriander wasn't taught alongside others her age, so the details of it were unknown to her. But, she had always been good at being sneaky, so it was with confidence that she took her quill and scribbled the words, "What did you say?" onto the parchment.

Coriander had been the one to toss the crumpled up paper, but this boy didn't have to retaliate in the form of mouthed words, so really, who was in the wrong? According to teachers, parents, and other forms of authority, Coriander was, but inside her own mind it was justified. Quietly, Coriander crumpled this paper into a ball, and tossed it at the Gryffindor boy.

When Elrich saw the girl reach for another piece of parchment, the first thing that came to his minds was that she was simply going to throw another ball of paper at him. When he saw her reach for her quill, however, he realized that she was going to write a note. This relieved him greatly, as the thought of not getting an answer to his question made his stomach turn into knots. Even over trivial matters such as this, he always felt like when he sought an answer he could not stop until he found it. Finally, the girl had stopped writing, made it into a ball and threw it over.

Elrich stuck his hands out and caught it, then immediately shifted his body back forward so that the professor would not notice. He waited until the coast was clear again and uncrumpled the ball and read it. He felt like a fool for thinking that mouthing words was a smarter path than simply writing down a message. He grabbed his quill, which he had not used the entire class, dipped it in ink and began to write, “Why did you throw that at my back?”

He figured being direct was the best way to convey his thoughts, as the mouthing tactic did not work out so well. He carefully balled the parchment up and threw it back to the girl as soon the professor turned their back again.

Coriander observed as the boy read her note, and wrote her one in return. When he threw it to her, she immediately grabbed it and opened it up, as there was essentially nothing else to do. It was by sheer luck that Coriander wasn't noticed, as she hardly tried to cover up the fact that she was reading a note, but somehow she was uninterrupted and was able to grab her quill to reply.

First, though, she had to think of an answer. Why had she thrown the paper at him? Boredom wasn't a good enough excuse. Everybody got bored. She could be honest and admit to being obnoxious, or make something up. Maybe she had meant to aim it at someone else? Yeah, that sounded plausible. She almost started to write it down before realizing that she would return to being as bored as a brick. So instead, she wrote something else.

"Professor Cazarez is as entertaining as a slug," was what Coriander wrote on the paper. She crumpled it back up and tossed it at the boy, once the coast was clear. Even though it was going well so far, Coriander had already adjusted to the idea of getting detention. It was never all that bad for her, and it was worth the temporary entertainment that this brought.

Elrich kept a watchful eye on Professor Cazarez while the girl was writing her message. He had yet to get into any form of trouble in his time at Hogwarts, and he did not want to start. In all honesty, he didn’t really care about getting detention or being reprimanded. What he cared about was what his parents would do if they found out he had been goofing off during class. They always took his academics extremely seriously, but at that point in time all he really cared about was distracting himself until class ended.

He caught her paper ball and opened it just like the last, then looked down to read it. Professor Cazarez as entertaining as a slug? At first, he thought to himself how the professor was not boring, and how he was a good Head of House, but then he glanced back up at the man and listened to his lecturing for a moment. On second thought, maybe a slug was a little generous. Elrich let out a bit of a muffled laugh, which luckily was only noticed by a few other nearby students. He tried to compose himself before readying himself to write down his reply. He had never done anything to go against authority like this. It wasn’t as hard as he had always imagined it being, even if it was only passing notes in class.

For his next note, he simply wrote, “I think I’d rather watch a slug”, crumpled it up and threw it over to her.

By this point Coriander had stopped tapping her foot. At long last, she was somewhat entertained. When the boy let out a small laugh, Coriander grinned to herself. It seemed that her comparison was accurate, at least in this moment. It seemed to take forever for the boy to scribble a response and toss it back to her. She understood that he probably didn't want to be caught passing notes, which was totally reasonable, but still. She was impatient.

After reading the new note, Coriander decided to illustrate her previous message, to see if she could find any more humor in the joke. After all, that was the sort of person she was - someone who exhausted the same jokes over and over, until her obnoxiousness itself was one. Coriander drew a line, that was supposed to be a wand, and a stick figure. Next to that, she drew a slug, and an arrow between the stick figure and the slug. Finally, she added sparkles to the picture, hoping that he would get the point.

Coriander found herself trying not to laugh at the prospect of Professor Cazarez turned into a slug. Hopefully the boy would find it funny. She crumpled it into a ball and tossed it at him for the third time.

Elrich patiently awaited the girl’s response. Even though the waiting was better than listening to the class, he still wanted to know the next thing to come out of the girl’s imagination. She definitely had a sense of humor he hadn’t seen before and he wanted to know what it could come up with next.

When she threw the paper to him, he extended his arms as he had previously, but this time he could not get a grip on it, letting it fall to the floor. He immediately turned back forward as to make sure the professor had not turned around. He had not, but Elrich noticed a Ravenclaw next him had stopped taking notes to give him a death stare, most likely for distracting her. Elrich just glared back at her until she returned to her note taking.

He was now free to retrieve the note which was still laying on the floor, inches from his desk. As soon as it was safe, he leaned over and grabbed it. Once flattened out, the illustration that the girl had drawn was clear: a stick figure, likely Professor Cazarez, with an arrow pointing to a slug. Elrich had to truly struggle not to laugh loudly in front of the class. However, as he was looking down at the drawing, he noticed something strange. The classroom was silent; totally silent. The lecture had ceased, but it was not time for class to end just yet. He looked up to see what had happened, and what he saw made his brain freeze with panic.

While Elrich was distracted by trying not to laugh at the hilarious drawing, Professor Cazarez had walked up to him and stared down at the note he was holding.

When the boy opened the note, it was obvious he was trying not to laugh. Coriander smiled, the warm feeling of success spreading throughout her. It was always a pleasure, being the humorous one. As long as Coriander could remember, everybody around her had been far too serious - even others her own age. She was supposed to feel a sort of kinship with them, but she only ever did when they were laughing at the same things. Unfortunately, that usually landed them in trouble.

Speaking of trouble, the next thing Coriander noticed was Professor Cazarez walking up to the boy. She slapped a hand over her mouth to stop herself from exclaiming in horror. Of course it was only a matter of time before they were found out, but truthfully Coriander would feel bad if someone else got in trouble for her deeds. She wasn't a complete jerk. Suddenly feeling guilty, Coriander threw her hand into the air.

"Professor Cazarez? It's my note," Coriander said before anybody could get a word out. Her hand was still in the air, which she now realized was completely pointless since she hadn't waited to be called upon. She brought her hand back to herself and gazed up at the teacher, waiting for him to reprimand her. Or him. Or both of them.