What is This Sitcom Energy?? Fin

It was a beautiful day. The Scottish climate seemed to have gone on holiday, replaced by rare blue sky and small patches of clouds rolling across the horizon. On the occasion these valuable days coincided with weekends, the only logical thing for June to do was go outside.

As she walked through the grounds on the beautiful almost-summer day, she realized that perhaps she didn't hate being alone as much as she thought. In fact, she quite liked her times alone. It was when it crossed the line into lonelyness that she disliked it. She figured she wasn't unique in that thinking, though. No one probably enjoyed being lonely.

June was proud that she had finally worked up the courage to be in the grounds more. She wondered if this was a common place for mishaps, torment and embarrassment or if she was particularly unlucky. But the draw of the beautiful space was just too much for her to be able to resist.

She strolled through the trees, still avoiding her old reading tree and the tree George had asked her to climb. She wasn't quite ready to take her chances on those spots again. June paused by a "safe" tree, one with no memory attached, and stretched for a moment, closing her eyes and breathing in the clean afternoon air. She could practically hear the shaking of the trees in the slight breeze. She frowned slightly, surely the breeze wasn't strong enough to make that much noise.

“Oh my god!”

BAM!

June instinctively cried out. Something had fallen on June's feet. Hard. Very, very hard. She opened her eyes to see a person on top of her feet. A person who looked quite disheveled, shocked, and who had leaves in their hair.

"Wha- Where did you come from? Did you fall?" June offered a hand to help the boy up. Her feet, her toes especially, were throbbing with pain. She wiggled them a bit to make sure she could move them. It stung a bit to do so, but she could. "I think I'll be alright... Might be a bit bruised for a few days, though. Are you alright?"

He had very much not fallen. In fact, he had quite clearly looked before he leapt and yet somehow, lo and behold, had still managed to land on somebody! Oh, and they were tiny, and not like, your run of the mill short. No, they were tiny, as in first year short.

Crap, he’d totally almost broken a first year's toes. Could have smacked into her, smushed her like a pancake with the way he’d jumped.

“Something like that.” He said, taking the offered hand with a small laugh. All the while he was throwing glances at her foot, giving her once overs as if she would suddenly say ‘sike!’ and break into a yell of pain.

“Me?” he laughed, a choked off sound. “I’m fine, if anything I should be the one fretting over you!” The boy made a gesture to her foot, “I’m not the one that just had a 3rd year play footsies with his whole-body weight against their toes. Honestly, the fact you’re not screaming in pain leaves me in slack jawed awe. I don't know whether to be in awe of your iron toes or our combined luck.”

Elsian shook his head, plucking at a leaf in his hair with a wince. It tugged at his hair painfully. Stuck on a twig apparently. “I really thought I broke your toes for a second.”

He hadn’t though, and bruises were way better to deal with. Hell, he’d happily deal with being yelled at by an angry first year for bruising as long as he wouldn’t need to run his unplanned victim to the hospital wing. At any rate she seemed far from upset. In pain maybe, surprised even, but not angry or out for his blood so he’d count that as another win in his book! Personally, Elsian would have been at least a little ticked if some rando was hopping from trees right onto his feet, but he wasn’t about to complain about this stroke of luck.

“So like…you’re not angry or anything? Your toes are totally just bruised?”

June lifted up her foot, feeling the impact on her toes. She sharply inhaled as she hit the tender injury. "Ooh, that does hurt. I don't think they're broken, though. Might head up to the hospital wing later today, though." She closed her eyes for a moment, adjusting herself to the pain. "Angry? Why would I be angry? It's not like you tried to fall on me." Her gaze narrowed at the boy for a moment. "Unless you did try." He seemed quite sorry, though. If this was all an act, it was a quite good one.

She looked up at the tree he had apparently fallen from. There were... Things in the tree. Odd. "What were you even doing up there?" She tried to make out the objects in the branches, but couldn't quite make out what they were. Her manners came back to her all in one moment. "Oh, um, sorry. Selwyn, first-year. June Selwyn." She offered a friendly smile. "And don't feel too bad. Last month I was in my reading tree right over there," June pointed off in the distance, "and I accidentally dropped a hardcover book on someone's head. Maybe this was just my comeuppance."

He winced, dragging a hand through his hair with a guilty smile. “Yeah that’s probably for the best,” he offered with a small laugh. “And no,” he shook his head with a nervous laugh, “no, no, I did not- that was an accident. I really didn’t realize you were right under me.”

He crossed his heart with a wry look, “Gryffindor honor.”

Not that it counted for much when said Gryffindor was in the act of planning the future demise of some unlucky victims. But she didn’t need to know that.

“Ah.” He floundered, covering up the brief pause with a quick smile, “nothing much. Was just relaxing really, enjoying the weather. Y’know?” She needed to stop looking up. He stepped forward, dragging her attention away with a polite smile, “Elsian, sorry for…dropping in unannounced,” he joked, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly.

Pushing off his heels he peered where she pointed, snickering at her story. “Karma it is,” he said mock solemnly, “sorry, guess you just had it coming.” A strong wind blew past them, rustling the trees aggressively and sending his hair into his eyes. The sound of a small snap filling the air between the sounds of the leaves rustling in the breeze; he peeked up feeling a spike of dread. He looked away, smile feeling a bit more strained around the edges as he met the girls, Selwyns? Gaze. “Y’know, maybe you should go to the hospital wing sooner rather than later. I hit your foot pretty hard, I’ll walk you there.” Another crack of a branch, louder, heavier sounding. There was no way she hadn’t heard that one.

Please don't look up. Please don’t look up.

He moved forward, offering an arm to lean on. “It’s probably better to not put too much weight on that foot after all!”

She wasn't moving fast enough.

He grit his teeth, “I insist.” He went to pull her along more pointedly, politeness be damned. A loud, deafening crunch filled the air, followed by the zip of string whirring against wood and the snaps of branches breaking. He tugged, going to drag her out of the way, only to yelp and let go when the heavy glass of the now empty oil bottle smacked into his wrist, sending a spike of throbbing pain through his arm as he jumped back. The heavy glass thumped against the grass with a dull thud.

The bucket dropped, string going limp.

“Hey look-!” A crash, dull and rattling as the bucket, heavy with oil fell, smacking right into the girl's head much like a fashionable hat. If fashionable hats were made from heavy buckets filled with thick oil curling through her hair and down her shoulders. “Out…” He finished feebly.

…

“Well…” He began, “at least it wasn’t as heavy as a hardcover book?”

Elsian... June repeated his name under her breath so she wouldn't forget it. She laughed, perhaps it was karma coming back to her after all.

The Gryffindor's face was suddenly clouded with... nervousness? Anxiousness? "Really... I'm fine, I can just sleep it off..." Elsian was looking at something, but what exactly June wasn't sure. He extended his arm to her, this strange demeanor not leaving. "Well, if you insist, I guess there isn't any harm in seeing nurse Brumby just to make sure." And just as he was yanking June along-

Crack!
Bang!

And the world went dark.

Not because June lost consciousness or anything, but because something had fallen on her head. Something that was filled with something else wet. Something that June's head was not inside of and something else that was covering her entire head and shoulders and torso.

June wrangled her arm free of Elsian's grip, tearing the bucket (the first something) off of her head. She took a deep breath and wiped the liquid out of her eyes. "What on earth was that?" Fury blazed in the eyes of the young snake as she lifted her hand and watched it drip. "What even is this?" She whipped her gaze back to the perpetrator of all of this. "You'd better have a very good explanation for this..." Or else? June wasn't quite sure, but or else something. She was sick and tired of being made a fool of on the grounds.

Ah…

He choked on a laugh, biting his lip hard to stifle a hysterical giggle. He quickly looked at his shoes. Think of bad things. Like CreamPuff yelling at you, or falling into the great lake, or Kitty getting into the cooking pots agai-

She wretched her arm away and Elsi stumbled, looking up in surprise at the tin bucket rattl-

Ok he couldn’t do this.

He burst into laughter, practically bowing in on himself as he laughed, and laughed, and laughed. It was a hilarious sight! Hilarious situation! And he wheezed out a sorry as she finally wrangled the bucket off her head, accompanied no doubt by a good amount of leaves sticking to the oil but he wouldn’t know for Elsian was currently now on the ground losing his damn mind. He couldn’t breathe! He couldn’t breathe!

Oh Merlin-! Ok, ok. “Sorry,” he gasped out, blinking back the pained tears of mirth, “I’m sorry, I just-” He sat down, straightening up enough to finally steal a look at the other…only to lose it again with a snicker, quickly dwindling into stifled laughter and gasped breaths.

Oh how his sides ached, and his face hurt with how wide he had been grinning.

He looked up again, lips pursed, and he took a breath. “Sorry. Sorry but-” He bit his lip on a shaky grin.

…..

“The oil really brings out your eyes.” He offered with a wheezed apology, smacking his hand against the ground as he doubled over again.

Tears stung the corners of June's eyes. She had never been so disgraced, been made so undignified, been degraded to such a level before. If her blood had literally reached boiling temperature, she would not be surprised.

"You didn't think to tell me that there was something right above me?!?" June shouted (more of a screech near the end, really) as she threw the bucket at Elsian in anger. The fact that the older Gryffindor boy was trying to hold in his laughter actually made June feel worse.

She grit her teeth together. "The oil brings out my eyes, does it?" She pulled out her wand. "I think I know what will bring out yours. Mucus ad Nauseam!" The spell hit Elsian square in the nose, but the effect wasn't quite as dramatic as June had hoped. He was more sniffly than anything, but by then, June was desperate to get out of there by any means necessary.

"If my karma was someone falling on my toes, you'd better watch out Elsian, because karma will come for you too." June huffed and turned, hot tears beginning to fall down her face as she ran out of the grounds, forgetting whatever she had come out here to do in the first place, to the sanctuary of the Slytherin common room. So much for braving the grounds again...

He wheezed, face flushed slightly from absolutely losing it.

Oh the humanity! The horror! The literal insult to injury- Elsian giggled, tears of laughter prickling at the corner of his eyes, and he dragged in a deep shuttered breath, trying with all his tiny, insignificant self-control to calm down and breathe. Get some bloody air into his burning lungs.

“I-” He squealed, barely leaning sideways enough to avoid the disgusting oil and mushy leafy mess of the bucket hitting his face. The handle still smacked into his shoulder painfully, leaving a tiny smear of oil on his shoulder; he could deal. “-I…yes?” He breathed past another painful laugh, hiding the wide, borderline painful grin spread across his face with a hand as the snickers dwindled into something more manageable, and by manageable, he meant calm enough he could speak without it being gibberish. “I mean, no-?”

He scrambled up, unable to hold down one last snort of amusement as he got to his feet, “look I can…”

A snap of a branch interrupted him, a few sticks raining down on them likely loosened and broken from the little mishap with the bucket. Leaves galore scattering around them and sticking heavily, like a blanket of nature to anything unlucky enough to be covered in that oil.

Don’t laugh. Don’t laugh. Don’t laugh.

Silence. The Gryffindor blinked away tears, he practically shook with the effort. Even as she raged about his little oil comment.

“Is it better if I say the leaves look great in your hai-” Laughter. More and more laughter, he just couldn’t do it! What a sight it was! He flopped against the trunk, the tree being the only thing keeping him from collapsing back to the ground in a pile of wheezing, painful laughter. Elsian knew it was rude! Knew he shouldn’t be laughing! But holy- he just couldn’t seem to be able to look her in the eyes, take in that comedic mess of a scene without losing it. He was trying! He was! But-

So lost in his own little world he didn’t have much time to do more than choke on a wheeze, surprised at the spell as he fumbled with his own wand. Fully committing to drawing the thing out to clean up the mess when he got his shit together, only to be out spelled. Not that it was hard with him practically dying as they speak.

“Hey!” The spell was underwhelming though. He could puzzle that together at least as he got a little sniffly, sneezing quietly when a leaf tickled his nose. That could have been worse, he thought. “Wait, really!” Lips pursed to stop a giggle as he spelled some of the mess away with a quickly thrown out, “scourgify,” towards the bucket. “I can just-!” No words after that as he stared at her, amusement at this whole thing obvious on his face as she turned away, maybe he’d have felt worse, even gave chase when seeing she was actually crying, but as it was the state of things left much to be desired and he let her run off thinking it to be a fit of anger.

The tree was Elsians savior as he wheezed, shoulders shaking with the last dying laughter as he all but collapsed against the tree, unable to take it when another few sticks, ones with the bright string for the bucket, fell on his own head.

Danming.

Hilarious.