if i f a l l {nix}

[izzie]

Izzie's heels clicked against the floor as she headed up from the dungeons. The Slytherin common room was often too crowded at this time of year to get anything accomplished, so Izzie was hoping to find a nicer place to study. Most days, she would rather do other things than homework, but she didn't want to fail her OWLs, so she was still doing the work. Seeing that the group commons was entirely empty, Izzie shrugged to herself and entered the room.

She settled in one of the plush chairs and started pulling her things out of her book bag, trying not to spill things everywhere. She decided to start with Herbology, since she was awful at the subject. That would definitely need the most work. She was much less worried about Potions and Charms, Izzie had never had trouble in either of those classes. Those would probably be her best two scores.

Turning to the beginning of the book, Izzie began to take light notes on the subject, using pen (as quills were too terribly messy), mostly to refresh herself. Hopefully she could study from this later, as some of her older things weren't written quite so nicely. In the rush to get homework done, nice handwriting tended to become neglected. Izzie always told herself she would write things neatly, but it never seemed to turn out that way.

She didn't get more than a quarter of the way through the book before she grew bored. Izzie looked up at the empty room around her, sighing slightly. She yearned to go outside and fly around, especially since it was probably another nice day. Yet, OWLs were probably the more pressing matter at the moment. Luckily, someone was coming up upon the commons at the moment. Hoping for a small distraction from her studies, Izzie looked up to see who it was.

[nixnight]

Nix wasn't having a good day. She had woken up late and had to run to potions and made the teacher hate her even more than they had before, then she had mixed the potion wrong and ended up with solid gold stuck inside her cauldron. That took hours to clean off and then she didn't even get to keep any afterwards. Then she had missed qudditch practise so her other chaser had been forced to do it for her, then of course she had home work to do when she got back to the common room and once that was all done, minx had decided to go wandering.

So nix was now walking around the ground floor with her wand out and her long red hair over her face, trying to find minx. She walked in to the group common room and walked over to the fire, one if minx's favourite places to sit as she got fuss and warmth and sometimes a little food from people's snack too. She shook her head when she reached it and couldn't find her there so looked around the room to try and spot the cat with anyone, she didn't see minx but she spotted a slytherin in one of the chairs and her eyes narrowed and she smirked out of habit

[izzie]

Izzie gave forth her usual twitch of annoyance at the sight of a Gryffindor. There were very few which she tolerated, and even fewer whom she actually liked. And this girl, Nix, was something of a rival of Izzie's, considering she was the captain of Gryffindor's team and a chaser, like Izzie herself. Still, the two hadn't actually spoken, so Izzie couldn't judge her entirely.

Izzie gave a short nod to the girl, who looked a bit like a Weasley at first glance, though her facial features were a bit different than those in the family. The fiery orange hair did nothing to help her case in Izzie's mind, though. "Looking for something?" Izzie asked after observing the girl look around the fire, as if expecting to find a lost object there.

[nixnight]

Nix rolled her eyes as she looked the slytherin over before walking away from her and over to the fire and then frowning, minx was sitting down there or any where neat the fire for that matter. She heard a voice and turned her head to see the slytherin actually talking to her and raised an eyebrow slowly ,"yea, my wildcat had gone for a walk and I know she'll end up in trouble" she said in simple answer before adding ,"just like me" on her head.

Nix's eyes widened for a small moment as she worked out how she knew the girl, she was a chaser on the slytherin qudditch team and normally the one nix ended up going against too. Nix smiled at the thought of the two meeting on the ground but shook her head, she didn't have time for house rivalries or petty slytherin insults and stupidity.

She turned away from the girl and then dipped her hand in to her robe pocket and took out her wand and then tapped it against her wrist as she thought of places minx might have been. Her room was a no as she had already looked there and down here was a no too, the only other place was the great hall for food scraps but nix really couldn't be bothered to move again now

[izzie]

"Mmm," Isabel murmured in acknowledgement, though she couldn't quite figure what else she was supposed to say to that. The girl was a Gryffindor alright, she couldn't even place her cat. Izzie knew well enough that cats liked to wander off, Zaniah did often enough, but they were smart enough to figure their way back. Izzie had never gone looking for her cat. Zaniah dutifully came back for meals if she needed them and whenever Izzie was heading home. Other than that, the cat stayed largely to herself, settling down with Izzie rarely.

"She's probably finding food of some sort," Izzie offered, since it was a thing that cats liked to do. Some cats were hunters, others found scraps, but either way, they never seemed to be entirely dependent upon their owners for food. That was probably why they fared so well in the wild.

[nixnight]

Nix heard the slytherin speak again and nodded her head ,minx did have a habit of wandering off and coming back full but the issue always was that she also came back with complaints tagged to her fur. Last time she she gone hunting mice, she had ended up in the potions room and had knocked over half the first years homework. Nix rolled her eyes at the memory before looking around for a chair to fall in to, she was tried from qudditch practice as it was and really didn't want to have to keep moving around.

"you know what, this time im not fixing anything if you mess it up minx" she said out loud before spotting a dark chair and walking over to it and falling back in to it and bringing her legs up to her chest. "I'm tired and my legs hurt And i really just can't be bothered" she confessed in to the side of the chairs arm as she let her head drop on to it

[izzie]

Izzie turned back to her Herbology notes as the girl failed to reply past a nod. It was probably worthless trying to talk to the Gryffindor anyway. Izzie was annoyed by them as a general rule and none of them really seemed to like her either, save for Ariadne's friend Stefan, but they didn't run into each other too terribly much.

Izzie looked back up as the girl spoke again, only to realize that this time the girl was speaking to herself. Izzie raised her eyebrows; the girl was acting crazy. "If it talks back, that's the second sign you're crazy," Izzie commented with a slight smirk before deciding to leave the girl alone at focus on her work. If the girl proceeded to talk to her, so be it, but Izzie wasn't going to watch the Gryffindor talk to herself.

[nixnight]

Nix rested her head on her knees and gave a small sigh and tried to not laugh at the comment from the slytherin, that had actually been quite good. She had enough on her plate what with Elizas Funeral and trying to help Tain in the shop and hoping jark wasn't going to die of grief like the doctors said was close to happening. Add to that the fact that she had to keep an eye on Maya and grace and the twins while they were in school and nix had her own NEWTs to worry about, she had come very close to breaking down a fair few times recently. "why can't life be simple and fair" she said in a soft and rather wobbly voice as she thought of the scars on her arms and in her mind and all the stresses she had to deal with now

[izzie]

Izzie looked up at the girl again, annoyed almost that the girl was still chattering away to herself. Normally Izzie would ignore such a person, but this girl was now complaining about how complicated and unfair life was. All from not being able to find her cat. It seemed so trivial to Izzie that it actually angered her.

"Life's not fair and it never will be," she commented flatly. "If you haven't figured that out by now, you never will." Izzie's thoughts went to her family, not for the first time. The Malfoys were a bunch of Death Eater loving cowards, but she loved her siblings dearly, especially Amadeus. Isabel wasn't quite sure where they would all end up in life, but their paths would undoubtedly be clouded with terrible things.

[nixnight]

Nix's skin burned as the slytherin spoke again and she bit down on her lip to keep herself from snarling and snapping at her, she took a few breaths before turning her head to look at the other girl with anger burning through her. "Had your arms cut open by your "family" yourself then?" she hissed in a rather feral voice before she shook herself ,"calm down, don't change, not here, not now" she muttered softly to herself as she felt the familiar burning start over her hands. She lifted one up and looked at it and sighed when she saw no black fur sprouting up from it and then moved it to run through her hair and she hoped her outburst had hidden her odd movements, the last thing she needed was a slytherin knowing her ability.

[izzie]

Izzie was slightly taken aback by the girl's suddenly feral sounding voice. The Gryffindor obviously had a mean temper, but Izzie wasn't terribly fazed by it. She simply blinked at the girl. Over the past year Izzie had noticed that these things didn't both her so much anymore. Maybe it was growing up, or maybe it was the things she had been doing, but she wasn't scared of other people anymore. Her concern for herself was gradually diminishing, which was certainly an odd feeling.

"I never said my life was anymore unfair than yours," Izzie spat at the girl, who was then muttering to herself, as though that would help her calm down. The girl's behavior was very strange, but Izzie didn't comment on it for the moment. "And if that truly happened to you, then you of all people should know that life isn't fair and isn't bound to change anytime soon." Izzie noticed her tone was ice cold, but she unflinching stared at the other girl before continuing.

"I won't participate in a pity-party," she added icily. "Don't assume to have suffered more than me and I won't presume to have suffered more than you either." The girl's angry response had actually gotten on Izzie's nerves a bit, as only those who pitied themselves really could. Luckily she had trained for years to restrain her once hot temper, which now was bitterly cold when called into action. Izzie wasn't going to be fazed by this red-haired Gryffindor girl before her.

[nixnight]

*let's add some fun in with nixs temper*

Nx felt the cold words cut at her ears and she couldn't help herself, she knew she had to control herself and her temper but some people just didn't make it easy for her. "I thought that maybe I had a family I'd get a break, I didn't think I'd lose my second parents and have to raise my siblings almost by myself" she said in a snarl before her hands gave a very loud and ominous crack. She twisted her head to oneside as the other hand cracked and she felt her bones begin to shift and she felt her eyes burn and she hoped they had turned Amber in time for her to glare at the other girl. A thought suddenly hit her as she felt her back shift, she really hoped minx didn't walk in now as she may end up chasing her own cat which really wouldn't go down well. In only a few moments, most of nix's bones were cracking and shifting and her skin was growing darker and darker until it seemed black and she fell from the chair with a snarl again and she felt her skin begin to split to free her fur

[izzie]

Izzie's face burned at the girl's words, obviously she hadn't paid attention at all, except to Izzie's cold tone. The girl was a true Gryffindor idiot, and since she refused to have a civilized conversation, Izzie didn't pity her in the slightest. People who talked to themselves and wanted everyone to pity them weren't worthy of Izzie's attention.

She was, however, a bit surprised when the girl started to turn into a dog of some sort. With all the cracking and snapping, Izzie first thought that the girl was a werewolf, but it wasn't the full moon, so she supposed the girl just had to be a poorly trained Animagus. The Gryffindor seemed to have almost no control over her body at all and was soon no longer herself. Izzie raised her wand, though she would wait for the girl/dog to do something before she acted. The girl was obviously not very bright if she thought that being a dog would help her in the current situation. And Izzie was confident that she could curse the thing if it came to that.

[nixnight]

Nix felt herself growl and she lowered her head before she snapped her eyes as she felt her skin at the lower of her back rip apart and free her tail and she have a soft breath. She always knew the change was over as her tail was freed and she opened her eyes and then looked around the now much brighter and sharper room and her wolfy eyes snapped onto the slytherin. She thought of jumping on her or clawing at her side or even just plain old biting her but that would just make her look like a rather savage wolf and she really didn't to make any more bad press for any of the werewolf pack either. She shook herself and flicked her tail sharply before looking down at her now shredded clothes and she rolled her eyes ,"really shadow, get a bloody hold on your damned anger" she said to herself before she lowered her head to see if her clothes could be saved later or not

[izzie]

Izzie eyed the wolf warily, wondering what the girl was doing in that guise. If she wanted everyone to find out that she was an Animagus, Izzie supposed this was a good way to do it. Isabel would definitely have to tell her friends all about the crazy Gryffindor who had spontaneously transformed in front of her. Izzie knew if she was an Animagus, she wouldn't want to have too many people finding out about it. But perhaps this girl felt differently.

The wolf growled, seemingly to itself, which was somewhat unsurprising to Izzie, as the girl had done similar things in human form. Izzie rose to a standing position, setting down her books behind her. She held her wand at her side in case she needed it, but she wasn't sure that the girl was going to attack her. It would be a foolish thing to do for several reasons. First, Izzie could probably stun her before she got anywhere. Additionally, the girl could get expelled if she used her Animagus powers to attack someone else, especially if unprovoked.