t r i c k {nix}

[gage]

"I already promised, didn't I?" said Gage. A womanizer he might be, but he was no peeping tom. That wouldn't be gentlemanly of him, and at any rate he didn't think of Nix in that sense. She was his friend, nothing more, nothing less. Gage almost thought of her like something of a cousin. As promised he kept well away from the alley so Nix could have her privacy when she put her shirt back on. Gage walked around in circles, never really content to stand still without walking. Yes, he was fidgety sort of person, he had never had the ability to sit around and not do anything. Hence why school was always so difficult for him, that and his dyslexia. To that day Gage hadn't really told anyone about it, partly because nobody asked, and partly because he didn't want others to think of him as not being capable.

[nixnight]

Nix fiddled with the buttons on her cloak before she pulled it even tighter round her and then walked slowly out from the alley way, she considered taking her wand from her pocket again but thought better of it. She was a quick draw any way so she wouldn't need to have it in her hand to feel safe that way, "well, it's always safe to double check with teenage males these days" she said as she left the shadows before she walked back to gage's side and bent down to grab her sweets. Only them did she remember she was still bare foot, no wonder she felt cold so much. She shook her head at her own lack of judgement before shrugging her shoulders, it wasn't the long a walk back from the village to the school and she loved being barefoot so it wasn't much of a matter

[gage]

"Fair enough," said Gage, figuring that a lot of his peers probably couldn't be held accountable for that sort of thing. But he prided himself on being different than that, if only by a little bit. Gage threaded his bag onto his wrist so he could put his hands into the pockets of his robes. Gage only then noticed that Nix was barefoot, he opened his mouth to inquire about it, but before he said anything closed it again. It was her choice on whether or not she wanted to wear shoes, it wasn't really any of his business to ask her why she preferred one way over the other.

[nixnight]

Nix nodded her head and then started to walk up the pathway that lead back to school before a little question hit her, she paused in her walking and turned to look at the other gryffindor. "why did you come with me?" she asked in a curious voice ,"you could have stayed and watched the prank work out or fail or could has wandered off to do homework, why did you come along?" she asked in a slightly more friendly voice as she explained her question a little bit better

[gage]

Gage shrugged, he didn't think that there was a particular reason he had come along. Sticking around to watch his prank unfold might have been risky, there was no need for him to get landed in detention yet again. "I fancied the walk," said Gage, "and it seemed more fun than standing around waiting for people to get caught in the stairs." Gage took his hands out of his pockets and went back to swinging the bag of sweets on his index finger- if only to give his hands something to do. Truth be told, he would like nothing more than to go for a fly, but a quick snack and doing his homework would have to do for the evening.

[nixnight]

Nix tilted her head to one side before nodding at her friends comment, "I'm not used to the whole friends thing" she said in a small voice to herself before her fingers slipped up the inside of her robe again and brushed over the scars on her arms before she took a deep breath and focused on life again. She slipped her fingers away from the scars and tucked her wand inside her robe, knowing full well that she would take it out again in a few minutes but she needed to swap her sweet bag to her other hand or she knew her fingers would get cut in two by the handle of the bags

[gage]

Gage tilted his head to the side, seeing yet another side of Nix that he had not yet seen before. It was softer, and if he were to say so himself, more vulnerable than he had ever seen her before. "What do you mean by that?" asked Gage. Nix was likable enough, he couldn't see why she wouldn't have many friends. Gage continued to swing the bag of sweets on his bent finger, glad to have something to do with his hands. When he had something to do with them it made it easier to focus on conversation, work, or whatever he was doing at that particular time.

[nixnight]

Nix raised an eyebrow at gage's comment and turned back to looked at him ,"you never realised?" she asked in disbelief. "Because I was raised by a squib and supposedly "squander" my pureblood status, all the slytherin stuck ups hate me. Most of the ravenclaws find me too much of a procrastinator and add my pranks to that and it all goes wrong. Hufflepuff find me and my reputation of brains and cunning scary and seem to avoid me and my own house seem to have come to the idea that I like being alone. I mean I love having time to myself but I still would like friends that were human and didn't have tails" she said in a small voice as she thought of the pack that she had become close friends with the last year

[gage]

"I guess I didn't really think about it that way," said Gage, though he still didn't see that as any reason why she wasn't used to the concept of having friends. Of course, he had become mildly popular over the years, gaining quite a few friends in most of the houses, so perhaps he wasn't the best person to try and understand that. Of course, he did understand what she had said about the Slytherins and the Ravenclaws. Gage was muggleborn and not quiet about it, making most of the Slytherins hate him for that reason alone- and he generally wasn't studious enough for the Ravenclaws, but he had gotten some of the more rebellious ones to come to his parties.

[nixnight]

Nix tilted her head to oneside and started walking up the path again after gage had spoken, many people disliked her for the simple reason of her blood and her family's reputation but she had made sure to leave that bit out. She didn't think that having pureblood made her any better than anyone else, it just gave people more excuses to hate her, so many times she had wished she was a muggle born or half blood just to be able to not have the hassle. "I just don't fit in with humans" she said softly as she remembered her pack once again, aside her adoptive family they were the only ones who really enjoyed having her around

[gage]

Gage raised an eyebrow, wondering what had made her say that of all things. Granted, he now knew about her being an Animagus, but that didn't mean that she wasn't a human. It just meant that she could go from one form to the other where nearly all witches and wizards could not. Unless she was hiding something else from him. But Nix definitely wasn't a vampire, too pretty to be a hag, and much too solid to be a ghost. Perhaps Gage was just over-thinking what she had said, he had a tendency to do that, dig in too deep when the answer was more obvious. "You just haven't found all the right people yet," said Gage with a shrug.

[nixnight]

Nix gave a small smile at gage's comment before shaking her head ,"at 16? I still haven't found anyone who'll happily be around me and that's supposed to be ok?" she said in a mutter to herself. She had Tain and the forest kids of course but they were sort of family so that didn't really count, the pack were all people too in life but she didn't know who they were out of change and didn't really think it would be smart to press to find out. "sometimes I wonder what would happen if I changed permanently" she confessed before lifting her head to see the lights of the castle door and she gave a half hearted smile at the idea of being close to bed where she could just curl up and sleep

[gage]

"I didn't say that it was okay," said Gage, absently shrugging his shoulders again, "it just sometimes seems that the other students don't know how to handle people who are different than they are." Gage in knowing that had gone to great lengths to keep his dyslexia hidden. Nobody thus far had even suspected it, simply thinking him to no be the type to apply himself terribly hard to his studies, which was borderline truth. Gage didn't care quite so much about grades as he did his Quidditch performance. He continued to swing the bag of sweets on his hooked finger, now completely oblivious to the fact that he was even doing so. "Well for one classes would be a lot more boring," said Gage, "and the Quidditch team wouldn't do half as well without you. And who else would ever show me how to make trick stairs?"

[nixnight]

Nix actually forgot to hold her laugh back as she heard gage talk again and turned back to look at him with an honest smile ,"you'd be in dentition too I reckon" she said with a sly grin as she remembered the many a time she had been caught and punished to take the notice away from others she had seen or heard setting pranks and mischief up. Gage's comment had made her feel much better and when she looked forward, she was greeted by the close stone Walls of the castle and she started to look around to spot the entrance doors so she could get inside and warm up and maybe start on her bag of sweets and spoils

[gage]

Gage grinned as Nix smiled at him, glad that he had been able to say something that would make her feel better. He typically wasn't all that good at the whole empathy thing, usually finding that he didn't have much to relate to people with. Though in that realm he had. Before Hogwarts Gage had been made fun of in muggle school, his parents had ignored him, so he had begun acting out to get a different kind of attention. Those ways had been ingrained in him hard, it was almost a struggle not to call attention to himself through pranks, parties, or Quidditch. "Yeah, that too," said Gage as they approached the castle. The walk really had gone quickly. He pulled out his wand in remembering that it was after curfew, ready to hide himself with a Disillusionment Charm.