Dare ((Open))

[silas]

Silas couldn't help but wonder about the young Ravenclaw he was escorting back up to her common room- she seemed so awkward, so tense. People, at least the ones he had encountered, weren't like that for no reason at all. Had something happened to her in the past that she was still dealing with? Or perhaps she just wasn't the most popular kid, and therefore liable to be teased. Whatever the reason behind it, Silas saw it as a reason to be compassionate toward her, rather than wordlessly take her back to her commons, even if conversation was difficult for him to uphold when he was tired. "Then you can't've meant many decent seventh years," said Silas in a lighthearted sort of way. They weren't all completely nasty, though he did remember being a younger student and feeling almost intimidated by the presence of a sixth or seventh year.

[natalia]

Nat nodded as he spoke. Maybe that was true. She rarely spoke with people other than those who decided to remind her that she wasn't deserving of magic. Even that wasn't speaking on her part. She kept walking. The only one who had ever irritated her so much to illicit not just a response, but multiple was the arrogant Malfoy. She shook her head. He made her skin crawl. How so much hatred could be in one person. "I hope that's the case," she nodded as he spoke. Magic was fantastic, but if she was going to be spending years facing that, it would get harder. But it probably wont, she reminded herself. She rubbed at the ring on her finger, a habit she did often. Even more so ever since she had lost it, before finding it once again. "What are you going to do?" She asked. "When you're finished here, I mean," she was curious. Was he going to be an auror like the golden trio. It seemed everyone fascinating was an Auror.

[silas]

Silas consciously stepped over one of the many vanishing steps that the Hogwarts staircases held, it had taken him until midway through his fourth year to remember where they all were- and even then he still had the tendency to get caught in them. Silas had always wondered who on earth had thought that it would be a good idea to place trick stairs throughout the school. Surely the building hadn't done that on its own, no matter how magical it was. Silas smiled sympathetically, he knew not all seventh years were cruel- he just figured not many of them spent much time with the younger students, even he didn't regularly hang out with underclassmen. There was just too much an age difference he supposed. "I've had my eye on healing, I'm likely going on to an internship at St. Mungo's," said Silas, now waiting for the usual reaction. People typically assumed he wanted to be some sort of hero like his parents, though the lifestyle had never appealed to him. Silas didn't like dueling, he wasn't attracted to dangerous professions.

[natalia]

Nat was careful to follow Silas' step, unsure why it seemed so cautious. She listened as he spoke, before a wide grin appeared on her face. "That's wonderful," she said. She, herself, had found using Herbology for medicinal purposes a great pastime. Especially when she was still facing the terrors of her abusive brother. She had briefly considered healing herself, before realizing there were too many possibilities in the wizarding world to worry about it at twelve. Sometimes she had to remind herself she was just twelve. "What's St. Mungo's?" She asked, figuring it had to be a hospital of some sort. She hadn't known wizards had hospitals. She figured they all just knew a healer or something.

[silas]

Silas was glad when the girl followed him in awkwardly skipping over the stair, he had a feeling that she would be exceptionally embarrassed if he had had to pull her out from the step. He glanced around a moment at the snoozing portraits, remembering how amused he first had been when he walked around the corridors with his wand lit- how they had all barked at him to put out the light. Silas hadn't thought that the subjects of portraits even needed to sleep. Though to be honest, sometimes they freaked him out, they saw nearly everything that happened around Hogwarts, almost nothing was secret here. Silas smiled when Nat expressed her enthusiasm, rather than appearing taken aback or disappointed that he didn't have higher ambitions. "It's the only magical hospital in the UK," said Silas patiently, now knowing that the girl must be muggleborn, everybody knew St. Mungo's.

[natalia]

Nat followed his gaze idly, looking at the portraits. She wasn't too found of several of them, all grouchy with her when she decided to sit by them on weekends when she ought to be outside. Many gossiped as if they were old women. It was terrible. But not as bad as having to face the black lake, where her friends always insisted she must go with them. She still hadn't conquered that fear of water, and she wasn't planning to anytime soon. She was perfectly content staying up later than everyone else to go to bathe and to say she wanted to get ahead in homework. It was a viable excuse.

A slight blush tickled her cheeks as he explained it was the only hospital in the UK. Something she should have known. She half expected a little quip or joke about her muggle heritage, but none came. She was grateful for that. "Must be pretty big if you only have one," she commented. She was half tempted to ask if there were any in Italy. She was planning on returning after she graduated...the snow had convinced her that Dublin was not the place for her. "So do wizards specialize as Healers? Like, one is more experienced with mental diseases?" She was growing more confident that he didn't seem the type to insult, so she might as well milk it for all the information on Healers she could get.

[silas]

Silas looked around quickly at the landing, in all honesty he had lost count of the flights that they had climbed up. Though he quickly recognized a statue down the corridor and knew that it was the fourth floor. Two more levels to go, and then a hefty jaunt down the sixth floor corridor to the staircase that would lead up into Ravenclaw tower. "It is," said Silas, nodding his head a bit as he started on the next flight of stairs. There were many wards, thousands of patients with millions of conditions, as well as hundreds of healers in the trademark lime green robes. They were going to clash terribly with his hair once he joined their ranks...

Though Silas had never been one to care much about fashion, just as long as he looked presentable he wasn't fussed. Hair combed, shoes tied and shirt the right way round essentially summed up his knowledge of dressing. He thought a moment at Nat's question. "I'm sure there are," said Silas, "though healers deal more in things inflicted by magic, I haven't heard much about them treating mental illnesses not caused by a spell or a potion gone wrong."

[natalia]

Nat was rather pleased and grateful she had someone far more experienced with the school here. She'd managed to get lost in broad daylight, let alone at night. But she was beginning to feel much more at ease the closer they were to the Ravenclaw tower. The only floor she had identified properly was the floor home to the library, only because she spent so much time there. Otherwise, she would have had to rely on counting, which she wasn't sure she would have been able to do at night. In a castle. Which was, literally, haunted.

Suddenly Nat was sure she knew what she wanted to do. If it was enormous, there would be space for a muggleborn like her...right? She smiled as he spoke of it. From the sounds of it, she'd be having a lot more to learn, which was perfectly fine with her. The idea that there was a vast new topic available to her brought a smile to her face. "Potions go wrong that often?" She asked, a bit fascinated and a bit scared to be so careless with her next potions lesson.

[silas]

Silas only then thought on how he really managed to stay in shape whilst in school, and figured that it had to be the sheer size of the castle. There were many flights of stairs he needed to take on a daily basis, and the Hufflepuff commons were essentially isolated from all the classrooms, it was a several minute walk to get from point A to point B in most cases. That was bound to keep one active, well that and his Quidditch. Silas would probably be the last person anyone would expect to be athletic in any way, though he was considerably less clumsy in the air compared to being on the ground.

"Depends on what you're trying to make," said Silas with a slight shrug of his shoulders, "it's the people that tinker or do things carelessly that end up hurting themselves." Of course, he experimented with potions on his own time, though he was always careful. Double and triple checking Herebology books, the phase of the moon, size of ingredient, and every other trivial thing many others tended to overlook. Not everything he made worked as he planned, though Silas liked to think he did rather well.