Closed Well that was stupid . . . PV Mahlioz Evethisawe + Jordan Niveo

Mahlioz tried desperately to feel calm again. It wasn't Irina's fault that she let the Room of Requirement slip, or Jordan's for giving themself a nickname connecting to books. Things happened sometimes. And Mahlioz really didn't want to lose her friend over something as stupid as being mad about accidentally giving a secret away. The Slytherin really had to calm down. Taking a deep breath, she turned to Jordan first. "Sorry, I... that was rude of me. I'm just a little stressed, you know? I'm sorry for snapping at you." They would have to talk about books at some point.
She then turned to Irina, giving her a tentative smile. She couldn't really apologize to her aloud, because Jordan was right there, and she might give away more about their secret mission to the Room of Requirement. But she hoped her friend understood that she felt bad for being angry earlier. It hadn't been her fault.

Jordan - props to them for being the bigger person - suggested none would take the Bookworm nickname, saying they could take one related to plants and botany. "Okay, I do like the idea of nicknames," Mahlioz said with a smile, before laughing at Irina's suggestions. Laughing felt a lot better than staying mad. "Noooo, those definitely don't fit you! Daredevil sounds good, actually..." She wasn't sure what a Bowtruckle was, but it sounded exactly like the kind of person Irina was. "But, er... perhaps we should focus on keeping Rina alive, and we can figure out the code names later?"

Irina tried to stand up, but it was obvious she wouldn't be able to do so. Her side seemed to hurt as well, though Mahlioz wasn't sure how much. A "tad sore" wasn't very descriptive. She hoped her friend would be okay. Jordan said that they could try to carry her together, to which Mahlioz nodded. She was no longer angry, thankfully, but it wasn't as easy to get rid of her worry. Helping Irina to her feet (she kept wincing when her bad foot touched the ground, and every time Mahlioz instinctively imitated her, hoping she was okay), the three students slowly made their way back to the castle. Not exactly sure how we'll get up to the hospital wing, which is on the third or fourth floor or something, but hopefully the stairs will help us.

At one point in their trek up to the castle, Irina gave a start and a yelp, followed by a question wondering about whether she could see the other two's wands. It was rather random, but Mahlioz understood why - wands were really important to people. Showing someone else their wand was a great show of trust. And what type your wand was also said a lot about you.
Still holding the Gryffindor with one arm, she took her wand out of her pocket. She passed it to Irina, automatically saying, "23,7 centimeters, acacia wood and Horned Serpent horn, slightly bendy." It was a bit of a habit. She had memorized it as soon as it had chosen her, back in her grandmother's house. She did not hesitate to give it to Irina - the girl had more than proven herself to be an amazing person and a trustworthy friend.

Jordan, who had also already handed her their wand, seemed like they suddenly regretted their decision - after all, such a small piece of wood was worth much more than it seemed at first glance. Mahlioz had the urge to put her hand of their shoulder and reassure them that Irina was awesome and would never take advantage of them. But that was for Jordan to discover, not for her to tell them. Besides, she was curious to see it too. "What about you?" she asked Irina. "Can we see yours?"

Irina breathed a small sigh of relief as Mahlioz apologised to Jordan and Jordan seemed unfazed by the conflict of names. She was also intrigued to hear that Jordan was a fan of botany!
"Oooh, I love botany! I don't know a huge amount about it but my mum is a Potion Brewer and botanist by trade, so I've picked up some stuff. It's pretty cool!"

The conversation about codenames continued and Irina was delighted with Jordan's suggestions. "Haha, Daredevil makes me sound a lot cooler than I am. Bowtruckle sounds great too!" Looking at Mahlioz, she saw a feint air of confusion on her face and quickly clarified, "It's a magical creature that usually lives in wand trees and look a bit like a stick. They're completely vicious if attacked! They're super cool."
She gave a small giggle as Mahlioz moved the topic on to "Keeping Rina alive." Whenever Mahlioz used her nickname, it caused a small burst of happiness to erupt inside her - it caused their friendship to seem all the more real. She smiled at Mahlioz by way of saying thank you, gald to see she appeared to be more calm.

As Jordan handed her their wand, she beamed, delighted to find that they trusted her enough to look at it. However, as soon as the wand left their hand, Irina immedietly sensed how anxious they had become. It was completely understandable - even after a short period of time with ones wand, certain connections had formed especially with the more conscientious people. She looked them directly in the eyes and smiled, saying with as much sincerity as possible, "Thank you. I promise I'll be careful with it."
She looked down at it and studied it closely, being as gentle as possible with it so as not to increase Jordan's fear. "Roughly 23 centimetres, hornbeam wood and . . ." she furrowed her brow, taking time to figure out the core - they were always hardest. Using her current knowledge of Jordan she decided her immediate hunch about the core was probably correct and continued, "Dragon Heartstring core? Just like mine! And it's reasonably springy flexibility. The wand is really gorgeous." She handed it back to Jordan with a broad grin, aware how stressful it must have been and not wanting to prolong their fear.
"I know it seems very random but I just love seeing other people's wands. First off, it's a great sign of trust and means a lot to me and second, it says a lot about a person. I always like to know the sort of person I'm dealing with."

She took Mahlioz's wand with a smile and a nod, listening as her friend proudly gave it's description. "23,7 centimeters, acacia wood and Horned Serpent horn, slightly bendy."
'It's funny,' Irina thought, looking down as the gorgeous wand and spinning it softly in one hand, 'but hearing the description is almost like hearing Mahlioz describing herself. It just fits so well!'
"It sounds just like you," she said, handing it back to Mahlioz, "And it looks just as beautiful as Jordan's!"

When Mahlioz asked to see hers, she handed it over without hesitation. Mahlioz had proven her kindness and Irina trusted her with almost anything. "23,0cm, walnut wood, dragon heatrstring core, slightly bendy." As Mahlioz examined it, she mulled over her new findings about her friends.
For both Mahlioz and Jordan, it revealed much that she hadn’t been aware of previously. It confirmed her guesses about Jordan and was exactly as she would have guessed for Mahlioz. Yet despite this, many questions formed in her mind and her curiosity was aroused once more, desperate for answers. But from experience, she knew people could be very private about wand meaning as well as the learning of another’s wand meaning. So (for once) Irina kept her mouth shut, determined to say nothing unless asked to talk about it. After all, her knowledge on wand lore was pretty nerdy and she didn’t want to seem too knowledgable - it might seem a bit odd.

She was pulled abruptly from her musings when her foot caught on something and she stumbled, gritting her teeth with pain and stifling another groan. How were they going to get all the way up to the Hospital Wing!?

Watching Irina interacting with their wands was a treat. It was always considered strange in muggle school when Jordan would fixate on their current scholastic obsession. Sure, they had gone through quite a few strange ones, including a very creepy “identifying bones” phase that, well, Jordan probably shouldn’t bring back to the forefront of their mind again.

“I vote Bowtruckle, then. It honors the botanical and the…,” Jordan paused as they searched for the correct adjective. “Spunk that you showcase so clearly.” Then Jordan turned to Mahlioz and set a finger on their chin, but Mahlioz then suggested that safety should come before nicknames, and Jordan found themselves agreeing.

It was then that Irina had a small stumble, and Jordan had to brace themselves against her to keep from a worse injury. “Well, I think we’re either going to need to be stronger or find something to give us more ‘oomph’. Leverage or muscles … I think that’s our best bet.”

Jordan looked around at the surrounding campus. There doesn’t seem to be anything similar to a gurney. Nothing to hold her completely, at least. If only we knew Wingardium Leviosa, or something else actually useful. No amount of glass turned to sand would make a difference with this. Wait! There!

Forgetting to say the thought out loud, Jordan suddenly gave the portion of the weight they had been lifting to Mahlioz and took off down the hill. There was a lounge chair that someone had set up by the shore just a few meters away from the tree where Irina had fallen originally. Jordan quickly introduced themselves to its owner and convinced them to let them borrow the chair, running it back up to the other students, hoping it hadn’t been too long.

“Here! We’ll put Irina on the chair, then carry that into the castle. It will be way easier to get to the Hospital Wing that way!” Jordan was bursting with excitement.

It was only after spurting out all the words that Jordan realized they should probably look at their new acquaintances-that-could-become-friends and judge their reactions. Thinking about it now, shoving someone onto someone else was probably not the smoothest of moves, and probably should have at least been explained before their sudden disappearance.

“Sorry for just running off like that. I get a little too excited when I get a good idea,” said Jordan.

"Bowtruckle sounds perfect," Mahlioz said with a laugh once Irina'd explained what the animal was. She was rather curious as to what Jordan and her own nicknames would be, but as she'd noted, they had more important things to take care of. Which apparently meant wands to Irina. Mahlioz was flabbergasted at the talent her friend had for identifying wands. She sounded exactly like the Slytherin's grandmother, who'd been a wandmaker herself.
Thankful Irina described her wand before passing it to her, Mahlioz admired it as well. She knew very little about wands, and could definitely not identify one with a quick glance like her friend had, but, well, the wand was still pretty? The girl made a mental note to do some research later.

Okay, back to work, Mahlioz thought, passing the wand back to its owner when she stumbled. Let's get Rina to the hospital wing. As though they'd heard what she'd been thinking and decided they wanted nothing to do with it, Jordan suddenly dropped Irina and ran off, leaving Mahlioz to try and hold her poor friend up. "What the-" she stuttered, too shocked for anything else. She was luckily strong enough to keep Irina on her feet (well, the one that wasn't injured), but there was no way she could get her into the castle, let alone the hospital wing! What the heck was Jordan doing??

It was only after a few minutes of desperate confusion that Mahlioz spotted them, running back up the hill to the two girls with - was that a lounge chair?! Excitedly, they explained that they could use the chair to carry Irina to the hospital wing. Mahlioz was immensely relieved that Jordan hadn't just up and abandoned them, but was instead helping even more. Although she'd been quite stressed. They seemed to notice it, because they quickly apologized, saying they got too excited when they got good ideas. That reminded Mahlioz a lot of Irina. "That's okay. You stressed me out there, but you're good, I get it." She smiled.

"Okay, let's do this." Together with Jordan, she helped Irina into the lounge chair, trying to make sure her friend wasn't hurting. Once they'd managed to set her in the chair, she went to one side of it, getting ready to lift it up. She wasn't sure whether she should warn Jordan that she wasn't exactly the most athletic person out there, but she decided against it. She could do this, right? For the sake of Irina.

Irina was lost in thought about the two wands she had just observed, attempting to lose herself in her findings and forget about her pain, when Jordan suddenly ran off, causing the two girls to stumble slightly as Mahlioz strained to take Irina's weight.
"What the-" stuttered Mahlioz in surprise.
Irina squinted after the running figure and looked back at her Slytherin friend, a smiliar look of surprise on her face. She opened and closed her mouth for a few moments, trying to piece together before giving up.
"Well, um . . . that was unexpected! Any clue why they -"

She looked over her shoulder to see Jordan running back, a large, mishapen object bumping around behind them. As they drew closer, she saw it was a lounge chair! It took her a few seconds to understand what they were getting at.
Jordan apologised and explained what they intended to do with the chair. Irina nodded, an impressed look on her face as Mahlioz and Jordan lowered her onto the chair. They went round to each side of it, and lifted it up. It wobbled for a few moments before the odd party slowly started making their way toward the castle.

'This might be one of the first times I'm actually grateful to be skinny,' she thought to herself. Although she had a more athletically shaped body, she was pretty thin, and very small - something she was normally embarrased about. On this occasion however, it seemed to come in useful.

"I could get used to this," she joked, putting her hands behind her head and giving a cheeky grin, as they neared the entrance to the Great Hall. "But seriosuly, Jordan, this was a pretty smart idea! Cheers!"

It struck her then just how much Jordan was trying to help. It made sense for Mahlioz to help out, as they were super close (though it didn't make Irina's gratitude towards her any smaller), but Jordan could very easily have left her after checking she wasn't too injured. She wracked her brains to think of something she could do to thank Jordan for his help.

As they neared the steps leading up to the Great Hall, Irina placed her hand on Mahlioz's and gave her a smile, mouthing, "Thank you."
It wasn't that she didn't want to thank Jordan as well, but she knew how stressful the ordeal must have been for Mahlioz and she wanted to make sure her friend knew just how much this meant to her.

"I reckon we should ditch the chair now; stairs could present a problem and I don't know how happy the teachers would be to see a lounge chair getting carried through the castle."

“I’m so glad that actually worked! Cheers!” Jordan said with elation, doing their best not to jump with excitement, lest they accidentally spill Irina off the chair.

They had made it up the steps towards the Great Hall when Irina suggested they needed a change of pace. First, Jordan made sure that Irina was unharmed from the escapade up the stairs, then they turned to Mahlioz and met their eyes, then looking toward the ground to communicate the plan.

“Okay,” Jordan said as they knelt to place the chair on the ground. “Now to just come up with another way to get you through the castle…”

Caught up in the excitement of an idea that actually panned out, and a bit on an idea half-formed, Jordan nearly forgot to be embarrassed about running off in the first place. They did remember though, after a moment, and put a hand on the back of their neck as the blush formed over their cheeks. Just like that they were transported to the memory of this morning - the only plan was to spend the day studying in nature.

Now, there was opportunity. Maybe for an adventure. Maybe even for a friendship. They’d have to play it a bit more cool if they wanted to have someone other than their books who they could make plans with. Come on now, Jordan, you can do this. Their inner-voice gave very bland pep-talks.

“I’m not sure where to go from here. I think Hogwarts: A History says that the Hospital Wing is toward the east wing? Or, no, maybe it was west…” Jordan looked down at their hands, trying not to make eye contact as they struggled to remember.

“Whatever the direction, I’m certain that you’re not well enough to simply walk there, Irina. Maybe we should have you sling your arms over our shoulders? Then the three of us could time it just walking together,” Jordan now made the effort to meet Mahlioz’s and Irina’s eyes to judge their perception of this plan.

If nothing else, at least Jordan made a suggestion. If it got shut down, they would likely still remember that it was given in the first place. Maybe that would be enough for a good impression?

Now they'd arrived at the castle, carrying a (somehow still grinning) Irina in the lounge chair, and they needed a different plan to go up the stairs. After a few moments of pondering, Jordan wondered aloud where the hospital wing was. "I'm... not sure," Mahlioz said, unhelpfully. It wasn't like she'd ever gone before, because she hadn't needed to until now. If anyone knew where it was, it would have to be Irina. Mahlioz was absolutely sure the girl had definitely gone before, if not more than once, clumsy and risk-taking as she was (which, the Slytherin had to admit, was one of the reasons she loved her).

Jordan then suggested Irina sling her arms over they and Mahlioz, and the three could take their time trying to walk together. The first year had no other ideas, and this one sounded good enough, so she nodded. "Sounds good to me, but I'm not the one who's probably broken something - what do you think, Rina?"
Jokingly, she added, "Man, you come up with all the suggestions, don't you? First the chair, now this!" It wasn't that she was jealous - Irina had made sure she wouldn't be, with the mouthed 'thank you' that had warmed the Slytherin's heart - but she felt like Jordan was a little insecure and needed some appreciation.

Honestly, they were starting to grow on her. At the beginning she'd been slightly jealous, and annoyed, mostly because of the stress that her friend was hurt. But Jordan obviously had good intentions, and they were nice, and smart too. And they also seemed pretty introverted, which meant Mahlioz could definitely relate to them a bit, but that didn't stop them from helping people who needed it. Okay, maybe the Slytherin was still a little jealous, thinking about it now. But in a good way. She hoped once this was all over with Irina's incident, they could become friends.

Irina listned dissinterestedly to her companions musings on the location of the Hospital Wing. She squinted her eyes in concentration before reciting, "It's up the main stairs to the first floor, through the fake wall next to History of Magic, up those stairs which weirdly takes you out to the Third floor rather than the Second and then we come out in the Trophy Room. Then it's a right and we're at the Hospital Wing."
She stopped and looked at her friend's faces . . . then realised exactly what she had said. Her cheeks went slightly rosy and she grinned sheepishly.
"Errm - yeah, I . . . I've been there quite a lot."

Jordan's idea of supporting/carrying her was a good one - she heard Mahlioz agree and she nodded her own head heartily. Irina gave him the biggest smile she could through the now dull throbbing in her ankle. She really, really liked them. It wasn't hard to find kind people in a place like Hogwarts. It wasn't even hard to find people Irina liked (she had a tendency to like everyone unless their first impression was awful)! But there was something about Jordan, something about the quiet, nervous way they suggested ideas that caused her to like them. They were pretty smart and very clearly more capable than they realised.

"As long as you don't drop me down the stairs or something, it sounds like a good plan," she joked. As Irina looped her arms around their necks, she giggled slightly at a memory from before Hogwarts.

Actually, that's happened before. My brother and I had been jumping on the beds and he bounced into me. I fell of and injured my ankle. I was actually fine, it was just a sprain or something, but our parents were out so he had to get me downstairs."
Irina started laughing even more.
"Anywho, he was getting me down the stairs when he slipped and dropped me. Broke my wrist from the fall."
Irina was now laughing so hard, she was struggling to keep herself upright. Her family really was quite chaotic.

They had now made it up the stairs and she directed them towards a seemingly blank wall. Behind it was a small spiralling staircase she had discovered in her second week. The strange thing was, it spiralled downwards, even though she knew it ended up on the third floor. "It's alright. I've used this tunnel a lot, it definitely goes to the hospital wing."