These Cooridors Get Crazy Elizabeth Lovett Closed

For the past few days, Lizzy had been following her dorm-mates when it came to traversing the stairs. She found people with the same classes, and when it came to breakfast, lunch, or dinner- she was right on somebody's tail. She had a good sense of direction in general, but this castle was impossible to keep straight.

Elizabeth had not been here long at all, and she was already fed up with these stairs. Everywhere she intended to go, they seemed to purposefully take her to the furthest place from there. Now here she was, walking aimlessly down halls trying to remember just where they were supposed to eat. The stairs had dropped her at the wrong spot, she was sure of it, and now she couldn't figure out what part of the castle she was even in.

There seemed to be no doorways in this corridor, and at every fork she found herself more and more lost. Her stomach rumbled noisily, urging her to hurry up and figure out where she was going. Her eyes strayed out a window as she passed, and she could see it was noticeably getting dark. Dinner must be close to over by now, she would have nothing to eat!

The thought of an empty stomach until breakfast spurred her on, and she quickened her pace. Random turn after random turn left her more and more frustrated, and she couldn't even ask anyone. No one was in the corridor, they were likely all enjoying their dinner.

Lizzy finally heard a noise, the chatter of students? She took a left turn, thinking she had finally made it, and walked directly into the chest of someone. "Ow!" She backed up, holding her nose and giving a furious look to whoever had just done this. "Watch where you-" She trailed off, realizing the boy in front of her looked older than her. It would likely be smart to not use her sharp tongue on him in that case. She had already gotten one detention afterall...

"Sorry." She looked past him, only to see everyone was now filing out of the Great Hall into the corridor. Her heart sank. "I missed dinner, didn't I?" Her hand rested on her stomach and she looked around, hoping to see one of her dorm mates in the crowd in order to ask them what to do. Could she get a meal to take?

Word Count: 403

The THUD was a little harder than he would have liked. Sometimes the strength of being a dhampir came in handy and other times it just complicated matters - like when you collided with another in the corridors. He could tell the annoyance on the girl's face and was wanting to quickly apologize but she began talking before he could even open up his mouth - and she sounded...threatening. Simon raised an eyebrow at her spunk. Instead, she quickly apologized and looked behind him and he could tell that her attention was elsewhere. He couldn't be upset, it was merely an accident and his mind was elsewhere too.

"Well, the most of it. You just heading to the Great Hall?" He was surprised by that. It was practically ten minutes until the end of Supper. The school elves had already begun putting some things away. "Hey, no no, you didn't miss it. Follow me. We're going to get some supper and we're going to have ourselves a picnic before curfew."

"Come on, girl, I've got you," and without even knowing the Gryffindor, he took her by the hand and began to lead her through the crowd. Simon was pretty tall for his age and also relatively broad shouldered and therefore he could walk through a group of peers and they parted ways, much like it was the parting of the Red Sea.

They were able to just get through the entrance and he hurried with her, grabbing a plate and then passed it over to her before hurrying to take one for himself. "As fast as you can go," he instructed the redheaded girl and he began to place a few items onto his own plate. "Sorry, one moment. Just one moment," he told one of the nearby kitchen elves who seemed a little confused as to what they were doing.

"We will only be a MOMENT," he tried to stress to the elf. He really didn't want to appear as coming off rude but he wasn't about to have this girl go hungry. That wasn't a option for him a tall. And it wasn't like Simon had any other way of getting her something to eat because the only thing he had in his bag that could pass for any sort of meal was lemon drops and a bottle of water. That wasn't going to cut it.

"We love you," he whispered to the elf before granting her a smile. He did, he really did! He appreciated all that they did for the school.

Her disappointment quickly disappeared as the older Hufflepuff took charge. He mentioned them having a picnic of some type and she tilted her head. Their curfew would be soon, so they would have to hurry. At her level of hunger though she was pretty sure she could snarf her food down at the speed of light. "Okay!" She perked up quite a bit now that she knew she would eat, losing the last of her snippiness. For now.

He grabbed her hand and she followed the older boy into the Great Hall, noticing that most of the students were now filing out. It seemed that only a few students were still sitting, finishing off their deserts and taking their time with leaving. Perhaps to avoid the crowd filing out of the door. The two Hufflepuff's made their way through the thick crowd, with Elizabeth sticking behind Simon slightly. The students seemed to part around him. She wondered what year he was, he was pretty tall.

She accepted a plate from him and looked around, desperation sinking in as she saw kitchen elves were cleaning up most of the food. She began grabbing item after item of food, piling them onto her plate. One of the elves stopped and stared at them, clearly not sure what to think. She could hear Simon apologizing behind her, but she paid no mind to any of it. Her plate was stacked, and she looked around for anything else to top it off.

Lizzy spotted a chocolate cake with maybe three slices left. She forked one on top of the rest of her food and smiled, her stomach again reminding her to hurry up. She snatched a fork and then turned, noticing Simon's comment and nodding eagerly. "Oh yeah, you're amazing." She took a bite out of her roll and spoke through a full mouth, "A real life saver!"

She returned to Simon's side and looked up at him. "Where to now?" She continued to stuff her mouth as they walked, realizing she had also skipped out on lunch that day to study. She was desperate to do good in this school, and sometimes she lost track of time just a bit too much.

As they walked she found herself peppering him with questions, "What house are you from? What's your name?" She looked at his clothes and then nodded to herself, "You're a hufflepuff too okay. How old are you?"

She had finished her roll as they walked, when she suddenly whined, "Dangit, I forgot to get a drink. Why me?" She pouted, looking over her shoulder in the direction they had left.

Word Count: 440

He motioned for her to follow him as they now found themselves able to travel more easily though the hallways since they were going with the flow of traffic rather than against. "Keep moving!" he encouraged her, even when she said she had forgotten a drink. If they went back now, they might not make it back to the Hufflepuff Common Room by curfew. Besides, he had her covered.

With each turn they took or each corridor that intersected the one they were traveling upon, less and less students remained. Where they needed to be by curfew all depended on their house or visiting school. Being both in the Hufflepuff house, he and the girl would follow a staircase up and then head toward the entrance to their Common Room. They would be met by a pile of large barrels, stacked in a shadowy stone recess to the right-hand side. Simon would look for the barrel, two from the bottom, middle of the second row and tapped to the rhythm of 'Helga Hufflepuff.' This was the right way about going about the entrance, otherwise, if someone was not a Hufflepuff or tapped the wrong barrel or the wrong way, the lids of the other barrels would burst open and soak the intruder with vinegar.

Despite having his plate in one hand, he was able to do the right rhythm and the doorway opened for them, giving way to the brightly colored cheerful room.

Now that they were in there, he was relieved to see that there weren't too many in there. This would be a nice place for a picnic. He walked over to the fireplace that crackled softly and went to sit down on the large space of the floor. Hopefully she would join him as well.

Now that they were out of curfew's way, he felt he owed it to her to answer her questions from earlier. Then he realized he had answered them all since they arrived at the Common Room and she was able to determine his house already, all except for age. Maybe now was a good time to begin some introductions. "I'm Simon," he said, placing his plate off to the side and then he began to rummage through his bag. He pulled out two bottles of water - one that had already had some sips out of it and one never opened. He held the later one out toward her. "Simon Kincaid. Second Year. I'm twelve." It took everything within him not to say twelve and 3/4 but that was something little kids did.