Watching The Sunset

Lavender smiled and pulled the two of them to their feet. This was fun, possibly the most fun she'd had in ages.

"Sure," She took Hester's hand and began to walk further into the darkness. "What do you hope we see exactly?" Lavender glanced at the red head curiously, lifting the other girls hand and kissing it. As long as she could see Hester she didn't mind.

Hester blushed as Lavender kissed her hand. She almost giggled, but stopped herself. She was the older one here, she couldn't look too much like an idiot, could she?

"I don't know, but I've heard there are some interesting things in here," she said.

She pulled the other girl after her and pushed her way through the dark undergrowth. A part of her worried about getting her robes torn, but it was a small, hidden part with a tiny voice and she ignored it.

"This way?" she asked Lavender, pointing along what looked to be a track made by an animal of some sort.

Lavender grinned at Hester's reaction to her kiss before allowing herslf to be pulled through some undergrowth. It was dark and their clothes could end up in tatters but she didn't care. When Hester's voice broke the silence again she couldn't help but laugh with joy.

"Yes. Any way you want," Lavender beamed and followed close behind the red head as they followed the path. If anything bad were to appear Lavender could protect Hester easier the closer she was.

Hester grinned to herself and led Lavender down the track. The branches were low but she held most of them away from the younger girl's face.

A moment later she peered at the ground.

"I think I can see some tracks," she said softly. "They look quite big..."

She was worried, but not for herself. She was scared that the First Year would get hurt.

"I wonder what made them," she said to Lavender and stroked the girl's hand.

The breeze was cold as it brushed Lavender's face, causing her to shiver slightly. As they walked Hester held branches out of the way for her.

"Thanks," She smiled. Hester then mentioned tracks. "I'm not sure," Lavender almost shivered again when Hester stroked her hand, the red head was getting used to the idea. "Let's see shall we?" She pulled Hester lightly down to the ground before using her free hand to finger the tracks. "A stag maybe?" They crouched there in silence for a second, perhaps listening for any signs of what created the tracks.

"Perhaps," said Hester thoughtfully. She peered closer. "I'm not big on nature stuff, I'm more of a computer geek." Then she giggled. "What on earth do you purebloods do in your spare time?" she asked jokingly.

She stroked Lavender's hand again; the girl seemed to like it and Hester liked the way it made her feel as well. Then, ever the daring one, she lifted it to her lips and kissed it softly. She felt really happy after that. A warm bubbly feeling rose in her chest and she pulled Lavender even closer.

Lavender laughed a little at Hester's comment about being a computer geek, but it faded when she mentioned pureblood.

"I'm not that into nature myself, though my father is. He took me out into the woods by our house a few times. Showed me some things." She felt her hand being stroked again and all bad feelings disappeared to be replaced with happiness. Then Hester did something really out of character, she kissed Lavender's hand. Lavender pulled them back to a standing position and stared at Hester in the dark for a second, unsure of what to say. She felt proud. "That wasn't to bad was it, see?" Lavender kissed Hester's hand in return. Grinning all the while.

Robert had returned to his cabin at Hogwarts, but wasn’t ready for sleep, his day of following down people, hunting them for information had once again proved useless. It seemed as if he was chasing his own tale, running around in circles and getting nowhere. But he wasn’t going to give up, the former Slytherin still had a few tricks up his sleeves that he would be ready to use if the need came. He had the mentality that the ends justified the means, and if those means meant that he would find Lycas and sort this dispute then he didn’t care what he did.

Not wanted to be cooped up in the small cabin situated on the grounds of Hogwarts, he decided to take a step out into the night and a wander through the forbidden forest. It had been somewhere he ventured a lot when he had been at the school himself, he didn’t care that it was meant to be forbidden, for Robert that was just as good as saying ‘We dare you’ and so he had often sneaked into the dark expanse of trees in the search of anything, or just for the satisfaction that he couldn’t get caught. Well, except for a couple of those times, but he wouldn’t admit that to anyone, his pride wouldn’t allow it.

The night was bitter, so he pulled the hood of his cloak up over his head and in the cover of the night his face was almost hidden. The moon was waxing it must have been only a week or so until the full moon, so the light cast illuminated the ground allowing him to make his way through the edges of the forest easily. But as the trees became denser and thicker standing like centurions on guard, he had to draw his wand and cast a lumos charm to allow him to see where he was going.

He didn’t need to know where he was going, although it seemed that the trees would sometimes move and look different as soon as you turned your back on them, Robert knew the forest like the back of his hand. It was one of the reasons he had been hired as the grounds keeper at Hogwarts, he was able to keep a track of the animals and creatures that lived there. He had been coming out to the forest more frequently between his searches for information, he had started to notice a decrease in the number of sighting he had of some of the creatures, and especially since all of the Thestrals that had been living in the forest that Hogwarts used on the carriages had recently vanished, Robert had no idea why, or for what reason they would just disappear without a trace.

The night was fairly silent with only the muffled steps of his boots on the blanket of leaves that seemed to cover the forest floor. There was sometimes the odd hoot of an owl or snuffling of a badger, fox or other nocturnal creature. So quiet that when Robert heard the distant murmuring of voices he stopped in his tracks immediately. “Bloody kids,” he grumbled to himself. He cast ‘nox’ and the light on his wand went out and he waited for his eyes to adapt to the darkness around him. Whoever it was that was sneaking around in the forest, didn’t seem to care that their voices were travelling quite far and falling on the ears or a grumpy, unforgiving, curmudgeon.

Once his eye sight had adequately adapted, he began to follow the sound of the voices, and soon enough he recognised it to be two girls. He kept his footsteps soft on the ground careful not to step on a fallen branch; he often found that the easiest way to keep people out of his forest was to scare the living daylights out of them and what better way to do that then step out on them without a sound. He was glad that the canopy of trees didn’t allow much of the light from the night sky through and he was able to stand in the shadows and watch the two girls as they stupidly fumbled their way through the trees. He saw his opportunity as they crouched down on the ground with their backs to him.

“Well, well, well, aren’t we a stupid pair,” he growled stepping out from the shadow of a tree to stepping behind them and tower over the two, “It’s not a stag silly girl, that’s the track of centaur and if they had found you out here in their territory there wouldn’t have been much help for you. I think it’s time you got yourselves back to the castle don’t you, you must think you’re quite brave to be sneaking out here at night, but let me tell you, you are nothing but a pair of pathetic children that need to learn the rules.”

He prowled round to stand in front of them, a scowl set deep in his face and his dark eyes glaring at the young girls. He stood with his arms crossed.

“Your pretty little arses. Back to Hogwarts. Now. Before I decided to just leave you here, because I’m pretty sure you’d struggle to find your way back on your own,” he growled, he didn’t understand the small children, why did they have to ruin his evening, “Oh and make sure to get a good night’s rest, because your detention will start before breakfast tomorrow morning in the owlry. Do not be late.” He waited for the girls to get to their feet and make their way back through the trees to the castle. It seemed he would be going to sleep once again without a clear head, due to stupid people that meant nothing to him.

Hester jumped in surprise. She hadn't thought that a teacher would end up in the forest, but then she realised that it was the caretaker, someone she had completely forgotten about.

"Sorry," she said, trying to look as apologetic as possible, as she had realised that that was what people wanted when they told you off. "We'll be in detention tomorrow, don't worry."

Then she took Lavender's hand.

"Come on, we'd better get back to the castle," she said to her.

She had been surprised at being caught, but not particularly scared. She had dealt with one horrible detention before, she wasn't surprised that she had got another one. She kind of attracted trouble through her own actions, and she had decided a while ago that it didn't matter what people said, she would be herself and accept the inevitable.

Plus she didn't want to embarrass herself in front of a first year. A first year who was Lavender.

She hoped that Lavender was ok about it all and would still want to hang out with her. After all, it had been her idea to go into the forest.

The sudden voice didn't surprise Lavender too much, she'd been able to hear quiet footsteps for a while. Not mentioning them in case she worried Hester. However, Hester did jump at the voice, causing Lavender to grab her, feeling overly protective. Though she let go on the realization that it was only the caretaker, who may have looked big and scary but was probably far from it.

"Yeah, sorry," Lavender looked down as Hester took her hand, causing her to grin. "Detention. Tomorrow. Right," With that the two girls set off back towards the castle. She wasn't that bothered about the detention, especially if it was with Hester. Lavender glanced back over her shoulder, not being able to see the caretaker anymore. She glanced at Hester before muttering. "Sorry,"

"Well," said Hester, as they emerged out of the forest, having finally found their way back. "What do you make of that? I didn't think anyone would be in there..."

She led Lavender by the hand towards the castle.

"This detention sounds like it's gonna suck. It'll be my second one as well..."

She paused, thinking. She couldn't do it now, not while everyone was watching (although by everyone, she wasn't sure what she meant, because no one was there). But what if the caretaker came out of the forest and saw her. That would probably mean double detention... She decided to hold off, save it for another time, somewhere special.

"You coming? I'm tired," she said with a yawn. "I'll see you tomorrow at some point, won't I?"

Lavender allowed herself to be pulled out of the trees, though feeling a little reluctant.

"You've already had one?" She was a little surprised by this, Hester didn't seem the type. The red head stood and looked at her for a minute and Lavender wondered what the girl was thinking. Whatever it was, she seemed to push it aside. "Yeah, I'm coming," Lavender nodded. "Of course you will. Try and keep me away," She grinned before they made their way back up to the castle.

"I played a rather disturbing game of something called armour tag in my first year. One of the Hufflepuffs came up with the idea. Anyway, four of us got caught charging around the corridors in bits of pieces from a suit of armour and we had to clean a load of suits as punishment." She shrugged. "So shoot me, I'm a Gryffindor. We're loud and we're not afraid of messing about."

She stepped inside the castle, pulling Lavender after her.

"Slyths are down in the dungeons, aren't they?" she asked.

Lavender furrowed her brow at the game, she hadn't heard of it before. Hester really was surprising her lately, she liked it. She allowed herself to be pulled through the doors of the castle.

"Yeah, down there," Lavender nodded her head towards the corridor that led to the dungeons. "I don't want to go," She frowned, taking both of Hester's hands in her own. The candles around them were flickering pleasantly casting a golden glow over them. Hester's skin looked even softer in this new light.

"I guess we have to though. I mean, we can't just hang around the castle-" She stifled a yawn. "-and there'd be hell to pay if we were in the wrong House."

She sighed.

"I'll see you tomorrow. I promise. I'll come find you."

She wondered if now was the right time, under the glow of the candles. Yes. Now was the right time.

She leaned in, wondering if Lavender would stop her, wondering if she was pushing it too far. But now that she had begun she didn't want to back down so she very gently, very carefully brushed her lips against Lavender's.

She felt her lips tingle as she leaned back again and her stomach fluttered. She placed a finger on Lavender's lips where her own lips had been moments ago.

"Just remember that," she said softly, before blushing bright red and turning away. She hurried up the stairs towards Gryffindor tower, only looking back once.

Lavender watched Hester as she spoke, the light made her look even more beautiful. She was about to speak when the red head kissed her. It was only chaste but they didn't matter to Lavender, she grinned, though it faded when Hester put her finger to her lips. Lavender's heart was beating so fast she was sure it would jump from her mouth. Hester's lips had been even softer than she imagined. Her stomach began to flip over as the red head turned away and rushed up the staircase, looking back the one time. Once was enough. Lavender almost jumped for joy as she made her way to the dungeons.