Fried Foods and Fried Brains PV Meenauh FIN

For the whole barrage of years at Hogwarts she learnt to love the Great Hall during meals. Actually, she loved the meal time in the Great Hall. It wasn't just consumption any more, it was a ritual, a happy moment, meditation time, isolation time, whatever really — it was a moment which you had to value as it was a moment of safety. The Great Hall was like a bunker in which nothing can happen to you. Especially, if there is food involved. Merlin himself must've built the soul protection around the Great Hall during meal time to save the poor souls from fear (unlike any other time in any other part of the castle or the grounds).

The students mixed up, especially the older years, who had friends from other houses as well. She was passing through what was the Gryffindor table to sit at the other edge, as far from the entrance as possible. The hall was huge, long and probably was expanding every year. She tried not to look at people as she was passing them by, and she would be very happy if the people would ignore her as well.

Until some metallic noise attracted her attention. She promised herself to have a rest from her Prefect duties when it was meal time. But it seemed subconsciously she still went to check. The noise source was instantly discovered, without even slightest attempt or delay — the person sat just nearby and was very comfortable with whatever he was doing. Jack Warren, the pretty gravedigger boy.

She hasn't seen or notice him really since that night's incident a year ago, or whatever happened to him after that. The summer went on, nothing strange or frightening happened, so it all settled down in her head as well. She should have probably talked to George more about it, but she just... didn't. It was probably a curse, but she was no curse-breaker (yet), so... whatever.

But still, the boy seemed too happy and smiling with his pretty mouth that Meenauh found herself already standing nearby without even realising how she crossed the distance.

"Hello, Mr. Warren," she talked right away, "How have you been lately?"

Why the hell was she having a casual conversation with him, for Merlin's sake? She involuntarily noted that he was, indeed, good-looking, maybe even handsome. Did she ever notice that before in him? Did she even notice that before in anyone? A sudden blush would appear as her eyes widened, and she had to breathe the redness out as fast as possible. The question was asked, she was still standing and looking at the boy. What the hell, Meenauh?

No matter how charming the boy was, Jack could not hide the smugness that always saturated his classic grin. His sly smile permanently screamed, 'I know something you don't.' He was sure most people rolled their eyes at it, but he couldn't care less. Jack scanned the Great Hall as his fork and knife clinked loudly onto the table. Of course, he was on the lookout for anybody who had happened to notice the obnoxious clattering. At most, he was expecting a few nasty looks or sideways glances, but he couldn't help but notice a certain Gryffindor strutting her way up to him.

What a lovely surprise! The boy leaned back as much as he could on the bench before meeting her eyes with his own. Meenauh and Jack's last real interaction was several months ago, thinking that night's events were more foggy than not. There was an emotional moment with his then-girlfriend, and the rest was a blur. That was when his heavy spikes of irritation and irrational rage came into full view, but that was long past. In the here and now, the boy leaned forward and placed his elbow on the table in front of him. As if posing for the older Gryffindor, the fifth-year lazily placed his chin on his upright fist. Still grinning, the boy waited as the prefect stopped and began to speak.

"Hi Meenauh." He responded in a playful tone. Jack Warren might not be the most observant of individuals, but he was not oblivious. "I've been so good, and you?" His grin grew as he caught the tinges of strawberry red light on her cheeks. Meenauh was attractive, wasn't she? It wasn't the first time he had noticed her, but he found something was encouraging him to play his little games. Playing coy wasn't his M.O., so there needn't be any time wasted on useless words. "Y'know, usually, pretty prefects don't come up to me unless I'm in trouble. Though, I wouldn't mind a detention if you were gonna be there." The boy's lilting, melodic blended perfectly with his puckish demeanor. Jack was a very forward person, but the idea of Dee seeing this conversation only made him want to impress Meenuah more with his suave charms. Just the idea of her jealous look kept pushing him forward. There's no point in beating around the bush. It was time to turn up his charm to eleven.

Lets just have a flirt with @Meenauh Silmataurea

Meenauh calmly listened to every change of tone she could hear in the boy's voice. And she was still standing while he was still sitting. But the manners did not matter at all in the type of conversation they had at that moment.

"I have been good so far as well, sir," she playfully answered the 'how are you' question that was returned to her. And then the totally disrespectful, but pleasant, move on the male side of their conversation made an attempt to throw her off her guard. Half-successful, if being completely honest.

She squinted her eyes and looked at Jack. He was smiling, no, he was grinning wider and wider as if she came to his house and he was totally owning the place. When the pause after his words was long enough, she abruptly stopped looking at him and tucked her hair behind her ears, freeing them for a clearer conversation. Then she took off her satchel and threw it on the bench. Then she stepped over the bench Jack was sitting on, and sat on it, turning towards Jack. The distance between the two of them was now minimal, if they would be talking in the terms of acquaintances. Last time she had a conversation with him was nowhere near a pleasant conversation. It was in the middle of the night, just outside the tent, half-naked boy with a shovel was digging... Whatever he was doing, and whatever he was looking for, and whatever he actually found — it was better to forget, or at least put that information as far as possible, because the answers might have been way worse than the questions.

So, after all this time, she was now sitting less than a meter away from the boy. She took a similar stance, putting her chin on her fist in the same manner, and began to almost whisper without taking her eyes off Jack's:

"Mr. Warren. Please, correct me if I am wrong, but are you flirting with me now?" she paused and a smirking smile appeared on the corner of her lips. She lowered her eyes, freeing the fist from her chin, rotated herself properly to not face Jack, but the table, and continued without allowing the boy to answer just yet: "If so, then I must confess you might be in trouble, Mr. Warren."

Whatever engine was powering her intimidation aura usually, was now overloaded, working at its max capacity. She kept smiling after the last words. The food appeared right on time, because if not, she would have a hard time coming up what to occupy her hands with.

"Well, isn't that wonderful? " Flickers of mischief danced in the shadow behind Jack's dark eyes as they followed the lioness. They flicked away from her face as the girl's slender fingers gently swept a loose strand of hair behind her ear. The troublemaker took that as a good sign as he watched Meenauh haphazardly slip her bag from her shoulder and sit all in one fluid motion, like water cascading over a waterfall's edge. The proximity between himself and his fellow student sent a tingling sensation crawling up his spine like a gentle, invisible touch moving across the back of his neck. The lass had copied his pose, and the boy's wide smile transformed into something more subdued as he leaned closer towards her, bridging the already slim gap between them. As her stormy eyes met his, the hustle and bustle of the great hall seemed to dim like somebody was twisting the knob on a speaker. Maybe he was just a sucker for blue eyes.

Jack's train of thought for a witty comment was thoroughly derailed at the soft utterance. Her feather-touched observations could have been whisked away on an autumn breeze, but the lad couldn't help but hang on to the words. The Hufflepuff's Eyebrow quirked up, pleasantly surprised by the sudden shift in their dynamic. His lips parted narrowly as if he would respond, but her breaking away from his gaze only froze the words forming on his tongue.

The rumble of a soft, amused 'hmm' escaped from him as the prefect pulled away and back to face away from him. Playing copycat, Jack also released his chin from its resting place, only to have his arm drop back flat against the lacquered wood of the long table. For any onlookers, it would seem that he had randomly set his arm down to lean on, but there was full intention as he placed his hand suspiciously close to her arm. The tip of his pinky finger was close enough that he could feel the coarse fabric of the sleeve of her Gryffindor robes. "I couldn't correct you if I wanted to. Which I don't." His fingers drummed against the table's surface, letting his pinky brush lightly against Meenauh's wrist. This was no accident, "Thankfully, I don't mind a bit of trouble, Miss Silmataurea." Another drum against the table. "but, I don't think you're ready for my kind of trouble."

@Meenauh Silmataurea

Every word the boy dared to pronounce was reverberated in her head as if her head was the Great Hall, echoing nothing but the boy's pointy but at the same time sticky words. The flirting pace reached the possible top speed, and resulted in a rush of blood to the head, as if she was swept away by a mountain river. She took a plate, and filled it with a salad that looked like something Meenauh wouldn't even look at in the first place: some gritty beans, mushrooms that didn't look tasty at all and some other weird ingredient that honestly looked like fried fairy wings. She grabbed the cutlery and started to gracefully chew the salad, still smiling, while listening to the boy speaking.

The gentle lioness felt every planned movement or touch, that the boy so shamelessly incorporated into their sweet little conversation. Something brushing her sleeve only widened her smile. What the boy was even thinking? So blatantly breaking her boundaries and daring to lay his fingers on her aura! Unacceptable. As the intimacy reached past all the possible edges and made it to her wrist, she swiftly moved her arm to scratch the opposite side of her head, effectively escaping his naughty fingertips.

As the boy delivered his punchline, Meenauh luckily wasn't chewing anything, so she burst in uncontrolled laughter. It was the sweetest thing she heard from a boy, but it sounded so wicked that she couldn't help but laughing at it until a tear appeared in her eye. She wiped it with the same sleeve the boy was flirting with. Slowly, the closest butter knife detached from the surface of the table (casting Wingardium Leviosa) and approached Jack, pointing with its totally unsharp edge at his face at the distance of mere centimetres. The girl resumed her meal, intentionally not paying attention to the knife, and spoke:

"If..." she put an accentuation on the word, "If I were you, Mr. Warren," she was smiling profoundly, "I would start to exercise meticulous selection of words, as I have no tolerance for empty or deceptive rhetoric."

Her earlier tension was blown away with the burst of laughter, which moved her mood towards a more playful state.

Jack Warren may be clueless in some circumstances, but he could tell whenever he made an impact. He watched her smile grow with every touch of rebellion, and no matter how small the contact, his confidence and ego swelled. Unfortunately, it did not last as long as the brazen boy had hoped. While delivering his speech, the Badger prepared for his home run. However, the lioness quickly pulled away from his subtle touch. He felt like a badass as he landed his line, but like a needle's point against a balloon, Meenuah's laughter echoed through the hall, deflating most of the momentum he had built up for himself. At that moment, it occurred to him that he was probably being a tad bit extra. Sadly, wearing a heart on his sleeve was a severe weakness, and his magnetic grin faltered for only a moment. Laughter was only the response a boy would look for while flirting if it were calculated. The boy clenched his jaw but swiftly pulled his charming mask back up.

Even as they sat there, no matter how tempting the food on the tables was, Jack found it hard to tear his eyes away from his verbal sparring partner. Waiting for any response besides a fit of giggles was killing Jack slowly, but thankfully, he wouldn't be left waiting for long. Lazily drifting from its place, a polished buttering knife climbed from the table's surface. An immaterial hand had pinched the blade between its forefinger and thumb, only to have it stop its glide a breadth's width away from his nose. Whether by stubbornness or stupidity, Jack held no fear of injury. With staunch determination, he stayed unfazed and enraptured by the prefect's honed and deliberate indifference.

Drifting his hand towards his nose, the Badger plucked the weaponized cutlery from the air like a harp string. He would abide by her wish if she wanted him to speak with purpose and deliberation. "Fine then." He finally spoke, though his mouth had become noticeably drier. Jack set the knife flat on the table, his forefinger pressing down on the blade's flat. "No more rhetoric." As if to add a period to his words, he slid the knife before her, letting the tip softly clink against the side of her plate. "You're interesting." He paused, making sure to look like he was really deliberating on what to say next. "I'm interested in you."

It seemed that the last line she had for the boy initiated the tension growth again, and she felt the air becoming thicker. She felt the heat from the boy as he was deliberating every next word as she requested him to. It meant he was going to be serious. Or at least doing a very good job in pretending to be serious. She was done with the salad, which was instantly erased in her perfect memory as something non-existent. And she was now getting to the main course. No, Jack wasn't the main course, it was roast beef seasoned with some unusual herbs. Meenauh was intentionally distracting herself to not get blushed at the boy's persistence in whatever endeavour he thought he had embarked on.

'Interesting'. What was she? A book? Meenauh shook her head, still with her smile on, which she couldn't get rid of. As the boy dropped the last phrase along with the metal clinking on her plate, which echoed much stronger than she expected it to, she couldn't help but turn her head and look at the boy's eyes, which were too close to her. Her smile vanished, and she looked seriously into those darkish eyes, holding the pause long enough before proceeding. She couldn't push him, or move away from him.

"Look at you, so swift to act," she finally responded in tender half-whisper, "And what does it mean, exactly? And since when, I beg your pardon, you started to express such interest?"

Her words sounded as if spoken with weights on her shoulders, as if she had to pause after every couple of words to lift some heavy weight. She returned her gaze to her plate, and started to cut the beef into the smallest possible pieces.

"What have got into that macho head of yours, Mr. Warren?" she asked after a short pause, he must have had a girlfriend, so he couldn't have been honest — but she didn't dare to bring this to his face just yet. Meenauh was oblivious of any relationships students had, like ever.

Strange. Competing wasn't necessary while flirting, but this felt like a battle. Each word was a strike, followed by parries and ripostes. The small silence following his last statement was almost deafening in its emptiness. Did the entire great hall hold its breath in anticipation of Meenauh's response, or was it just Jack? The boy locked his eyes on the girl. He didn't want to miss anything against the Lioness' cool demeanor. She shook her head, and her smile remained nicely on her lips. That's when she finally turned to look at him. The smile she had worn vanished like a line in the sand, and their eyes finally met again.

When did Jack decide that he was interested in Meenauh? Was it the moment his Ex decided to pick some slack jawed American over him? Or was it the moment he imagined the look of pure jealousy on Dealla Prince's face? Possibly. In actuality, the moment of Meenauh's approach and the spark of revenge ignited in his chest. That was the moment of interest. The attraction between them was apparent, so it seemed only natural for him to follow through with it. Swift action bore even swifter results. There was no point in lying, and the prefect had made that perfectly clear for even Warren, who was slow on the uptake in certain situations. "Since I saw you walkin' up." he answered honestly. It wasn't just flirting for convenience that Jack was doing. He had always found Meenauh beautiful, but he would never break his partner's trust like somebody had done to him. So, the option never arose. "That doesn't mean you haven't caught my eye before." Jack sat back upright as if to cut the fine twine of tension between them. "There's a lot of things going on in my 'macho' head." He emphasized the word, poking fun at Meenauh. "But what's the fun in ruining the mystery?"

Mentioning: @Dealla Prince
Interaction with: @Meenauh Silmataurea

The pauses between their verbal (and non-verbal) sparring moves were long enough for Meenauh to be able to bite and chew on the pieces of meat, which made the conversation lengthening further and building up tension again. This time it wasn't much about the awkward flirting tension between a boy and a girl, it was something more serious, thoughtful and solemn. The overall nervousness of the situation made her processing the food much faster than it was allowed, but for the first time in her life these domestic rules didn't matter at all. Her heart was pounding faster and heavier, as if more and more weights were being hanged on it.

Once the boy finally responded to her visibly simple question, she gave him a quick sardonic smile, and mildly shook her head, indicating her disapproval. She didn't express anything as the boy continued. It was impossible to determine whether he was lying, whether he was bluffing or trying to use whatever he could in order to charm her. But why? Why did he do it to her? Why now? She instinctively looked around, as if there was someone who could answer that, or someone who could turn out to be his girlfriend and free her from this emotionally arduous conversation.

By the end of his speech, she was too captivated and frozen from the authenticity of what was happening. Whatever was on Jack's mind, she had to make sure the words were genuine and coming right from his heart and not from any weird entity in his head.

She allowed herself to finish her meal in silence, as if pondering on how to respond, but the response was already prepared and thought through. She was testing the boy's patience. If he endured the pause until she finishes the meal, she wouldn't smile before speaking. If he would, then she'd give it a sort of victorious and soft disappointed smile, more like on the edge with sorrow, as if she was hoping for him to surpass her standards. Anyway, she put away the plate and cleaned her mouth with a serviette, threw her bag over her shoulder and fully turned her whole body to Jack.

"In that case, Mr. Warren," she wasn't shy to break someone's boundaries when it meant to generate some gentle intimidation — so she took Jack's loosened tie and started to straighten it and tidy it up, "I love order and tidiness," she kept dealing with the tie until it was perfect on Jack, "and I find the ability to put nice words together attractive and mentally stimulating," she finally made the tie, and tapped twice with her palm on his chest in a way that the bottom part of her palm would touch the heart area, "So, Mr. Jack Warren," she added the name, "whatever it is in your head," she quickly jumped up from him, smoothing out her robe, but then swiftly leaned towards his ear, not especially close, but unreachable for touch, "I will be expecting a letter from you."

In a single motion, she turned around and walked away so quickly towards the exit that it was almost impossible to catch her.

Meenauh leaves the thread