No Sleep {Pickle}

[Christina-Daniella Newman]

If anyone was wandering around outside at this time of night (around two o'clock), they would have been startled, upon looking at the dark castle, to see that a single window was lit. This window was up on the fourth floor, and if you looked very slowly, you could see that the glow emitting from it was tinted very obviously yellow. This window belonged to the Fina common room, which was empty save for an attractive, blonde seventh year female who was sitting, curled up, on one of the sofas, legs tucked under her as she concentrated fiercely on texting of her best friends who was currently out at a club, probably having fun.

Lucky bitch.

Well, at least poor Christina-Daniella Newman had her beloved, dark pink coloured phone. The young woman didn't honestly think that she could live without it and its wonderful, mobile telephone charms, and couldn't believe that rumour that she had heard about the students of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry not being able to use electrical equipment such as phones or laptops or anything. The fact that some hadn't even heard of the things just shocked her! What were they doing, living in cave men times, or something? It was just ridiculous, in her opinion.

Why was Christina in her house's common room in (past) the middle of the night, I hear you ask? She couldn't sleep. She had been up in her dormitory room for half the night, and kept falling asleep then waking up again with a jump when she had a vaguely bad dream. After a few hours, she got fed up of this, and trotted downstairs to see if any of her friends were out and about or had anything interesting to say.

As it was dark, the castle had become quite cold, and the fire in the common room had gone out. So, as Tina had no idea how to get the damn thing back on again - with magic or without - she just had to make do with a fleecy pink blanket with the word 'babe' at the bottom in sparkling, silvery letters. This kept her reasonably cold as she texted, spread across her legs, arms out over the top of it.

It was good that Christina had a big blanket, for her pyjamas were thin. They were blue and stripy, the bottoms long and covering her feet almost entirely. The top was practically a vest, with a little owl on the front in a nightcap. Her long blond hair was pulled back into a loose side ponytail, with a side parting and strands of the golden locks down around her tanned face. Her face, for once, was wiped clean of make up, and, as she had noticed on the way down, she didn't look too bad. Her bright eyes were clear, as was her skin, and her full lips were naturally pink.

Maybe she would try the natural look more often. Not likely, but still...

[Asmodeus de la Ravin]

<sup>For some reason, Asmodeus couldn't sleep. He felt too warm, and curiously restless. For quite sometime, he just lay in the dark, blankets kicked off, pajama t-shirt discarded. Finally, boredom over-whelmed him completely, and with a heaved sigh, he slid from his bed and wandered aimlessly from the room, rubbing his bare, toned stomach, his fingers tracing the lines of his vague six-pack.

Bare feet padded softly on the stairs. His blonde hair was stuck up at all angles, almost artfully. He ran a hand through it, though it didn't seem to make much of a difference. Blue eyes blinked hard, as the common room was darker than his faintly lit bedroom. it was also considerably cooler. Asmo noticed straight away that he wasn't alone. Blue flannel trousers rustled softly as he glided across the room, and quietly took a seat near her. He observed the girl - he knew her as Tina - with a faint entertained smile. She was playing with her phone. Suddenly, a had an idea.

"Wow, that's such a hot phone!" he said in an unusually chipper tone, knowing that it was the most obvious conversation starter. As an after thought, he added almost slyly, "Says a lot about the owner..."</sup>

[Christina-Daniella Newman]

The gentle padding of feet on the stairs leading to the common room had first alerted her to another's presence, and she had looked up fleetingly before glancing back down at her phone again. It was just a boy. He probably just wanted a glass of water or something and had left his wand in here. It wasn't anything strange; people came down all the time when she stayed up late.

But this boy stayed longer, which struck her as rather strange. Christina knew his face, of course, as she had seen him around often, them being in the same house and all. She didn't know his name, however, so she just stayed silent, simply shooting him sideways glances every now and again, over the top of her phone.

And then he spoke, and what he said made her grin rather stupidly, give her mobile a little shake in his direction, and say, "Thank you. It's pretty, isn't it?" She paused and listened to what he mentioned next, head tipped to one side in slightly a curious fashion. "Really?" She didn't quite understand what he said at first, and, in fact, never really did, but connected the 'hot phone' to herself and smiled. "Thanks. That's, like, nice. I'm Tina." She didn't know he knew her name, did she?

[Asmodeus de la Ravin]

<sup>"Tina? Awesome. I'm Asmodeus, but my friends call me Asmo." God, it was almost painful to put on a stupid act... "So what's a pretty girl like yourself doing sitting down here all by yourself? That could be, like, dangerous or something."

Of course he knew her name. He knew almost everyone in Fina's name. In fact, he knew quite a lot of the pupils in the school's names. Asmodeus was an observant boy, and he remembered the things he could put to use later on. Feeling it cold as he was only wearing pajama bottoms, Asmo drew his wand from the waste band, pointed it at the fire, and fresh flames re-kindled in the hearth. With a smile, he tucked his legs beneath him to warm his feet, and sat back in the armchair. Christina-Daniella Newman...This one should be a cakewalk.

"With all those attacks going on in the school..." He said, keeping his face charmingly blank, "Well, we wouldn't want you, like, getting hurt or anything!"</sup>

[Christina-Daniella Newman]

"Wow, Asmodeus is a long name," she commented vaguely, not realizing that if you stuck all the rest of the crap back onto her name Tina, hers was pretty long, too. She decided to call him Asmo, from then on, though; the embarrassment would be hard for even her to take if she pronounced his full name wrong.

She smiled when he said she was pretty, and said, "Yeah, I know. I couldn't sleep, though, and I got fed up of, you know... trying." She shrugged and smiled again. "So I came downstairs with my phone." She looked thoughtful for a second, and added, "But even that, like, gets really boring after a while." She'd also actually noticed that, as she had been talking, he'd put the fire on, and she was grateful for that. At least the room would warm up a bit...

"I know," she sighed at the last thing he said. "I get scared sometimes, but then I think, well, they only attacked the Lioanos, like, right? If they wanted us, too, they would have just taken the whole school." She nodded, but looked a little worried at the thoughts anyway.

[Asmodeus de la Ravin]

<sup>Talkative girl, isn't she?

Asmodeus smiled and nodded to himself. The chatty ones could be such a pain in the ass sometimes, but it was better than lying awake, and alone doing jack all . A subtle warmth was starting to spread into the room from the newly lit fire. It was still pretty cold though. He was starting to wish he'd kept his t-shirt on, rather that pulling it off in his stuffy room.

"Yeah, that's totally true." He agreed, letting his eyes wander around the room, coming to rest on her more than once. Well, she certainly wasn't too bad in the looks department. More a case of 'lights are on but nobody's home', "Wonder why they attacked Lioano. Maybe they, like, just didn't....like them, or something."

Asmodeus almost cringed. Did she have to talk like that? If she just talked like a normal human being, his job would be a lot easier. He frowned slightly. Perhaps he'd just look at it as a challenge...</sup>

[Christina-Daniella Newman]

She was a talkative girl; but that was when she really got going. This was nothing, which you'd find out if you ever mentioned Christina's motor mouth to Mirabelle Miette or Roxie McElroy, Belle in particular. She was always trying to get Tina to shut her pretty little mouth, for once, and let other people speak. It never worked, if she could be honest.

"Mm, I guess." It wasn't often that someone stated that something that Christina had said was true. Most people just ignored or grunted at her in response, deciding that that was the best way that they could deal with her, and the girl never knew any different. It was strange to have someone appear to listen to her.

As for her looks, well... not many seemed to ignore those. She was pretty, she knew that, and she didn't think Asmo was so bad himself. Then again, she always tended to judge looks first on a person by quietly observing then talking to them, rather than learning about their personality instead. Her downfall, perhaps? Maybe.

"I supposed they could have not liked them," she mused. "But I don't know why. It's not like that house, like, did anything to them, is it? Fact, come to think of it, you see a lot of nasty creeps in that house that could help the Death Eaters, so..." She trailed off. It didn't make sense? It was stupid? No, come on, she barely knew the meaning of stupid...

[Asmodeus de la Ravin]

<sup>"Yeah. Lioano isn't a very nice house, but Intermise is, like, worse I think." Asmo said, before adding matter-of-factly "Loads of Death Eaters come from there. Fina's totally the best house."

Asmodeus failed to mention that he had a brother in Intermise, and used to have a sister in Lioano, though the dumb bitch went and got herself caught up with the Death Eaters. He had his fingers crossed for another "family tragedy" when Intermise was inevitably attacked, which would save the hassle of him doing it himself one of those days. On top of that, he'd be the soul heir to the family 'fortune'. Originally, a third was lawfully his when his parents hopped it, but with darling Felicia gone, that was up to half now. He couldn't help a faintly nasty smile rise on his lips, but he quickly smothered it with a feigned look of anxiousness.

"But they might get Fina. Maybe they're doing it one at a time? That would totally suck..."</sup>

[Christina-Daniella Newman]

"Well... I can't really say that about Intermise. I mean, one of my, like, best friends is in that house, and she's kind and nice." Tina nodded again thoughtfully. "She's smart, though, and I definitely wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of her, or make her mad." Er... she kind of often made Belle mad, but oh well. She meant, like, really, really mad, spitting mad. That might be a bit scary.

Christina watched Asmodeus curiously as he seemed to drift away into his own thoughts. She herself did that often, but she never thought like he was now. It was good that Asmo wasn't voicing his particular, or she most probably would have ran for the hills like she had death at her heels. Oh dear.

"...One at a time? Oh no. Dont say that. That's horrid." The thought of being attacked in her own bed made her shudder, and she pushed the thoughts away.

[Asmodeus de la Ravin]

<sup>"Oh, I'm sure they won't!" Asmodeus said reassuringly, leaning forward slightly with a gentle smile, "Even if they did, I'd make sure they wouldn't harm a hair on your head. So just don't, like, worry about it or anything. I heard we've got Aurors in the school too now."

In reality, when the Death Eaters came for Fina, he'd either be far, far away from the castle, or he'd be co-operating even so nicely. After all, he didn't want to go and get himself killed or horrible maimed or anything. No. He didn't care about the rest of the student. They could all go jump off a cliff for all he cared. He was covering his own ass when they came back to the school.

"With Aurors, they won't even be able to get in the front doors, never mind get to the common rooms!"

Lies upon saccharine sweet lies. Aurors were all but useless against a small army of Death Eaters. They had too much of a conscience to preform those crucial Unforgivables.</sup>

[Christina-Daniella Newman]

"Really? Oh, thank you." She nodded, feeling a little more calm again, and then said, sounding surprised, "Have we? Aurors? Oh wow. I haven't seen them yet." She fell silent, but her head was still buzzing with thoughts. Had Mirabelle seen them? She wanted to be an Auror, Tina remembered. Oh well, she'd be sue to mention it to her tomorrow, if Christina could manage to drag herself out of bed in time to find her.

Well, it was a damn good job that Asmodeus was a good liar, - or, of course, Tina was even more dumb today than usual - then, wasn't it?

"Yeah, yeah," Tina agreed whole-heartedly. "Plus, they won't be, like, surprising us this time. The teachers and students are all getting better, and they're all on guard. Plus, plus, we have the Aurors now, like you said." She leaned back, seeming to be relieved, and said, "Phew; they've got just about no chance."

[Asmodeus de la Ravin]

<sup>"Yeah," Asmodeus said, with a ironic half smile, "They've got no chance. No chance at all...."

He stretched out in his large chair with a loud yawn, reclining like a lazy cat, crossing his legs in front of him, and his arms behind his head. His cerulean blue eyes were half shut, and he thought about trotting off somewhere to get a glass of milk or something to eat as his attention was steadily beginning to slip. Hmm, did she have a clock in that flash little cell phone of hers? It was probably about half two.

"Was that one of your girlfriends you were texting?" he asked with mild interest, "Doesn't she not go to this school or something?"</sup>

[Christina-Daniella Newman]

"Well that's good, yes?" Tina didn't really give him time to pointlessly answer, adding with a smile, "Yes." Then there was a little silence. He didn't seem to mind it so much, but she was struggling to find something to fill it with. Eventually, he spoke, though.

"Yeah, she's in Lioano. She's just out tonight, and I'm so, like, bored to death that I'm actually forcing her to tell me every detail." Christina shrugged.

{Shorrrrrt.}