when i saw her standing there -- louis weasley

chapter eight

"Ava, hand me the tape, will you?" Naya called down to her friend from her place on the ladder. She obliged and handed the roll of tape up. 

The two girls had taken it upon themselves to decorate the Hufflepuff common room for Halloween, and had roped a few others into helping them. One seventh year, a couple of third years, and a fourth year, Louis' younger cousin, Hugo. The seventh year, a boy named Silas Reed, had been reading in the common room when Naya and Ava interrupted him with decorations. So, he was helping them, hoping that with his help, they would be done faster and he would have the peace and quiet of the room back. 

"Hugo, where are the bats? Great, could you tape those up in random places?" Ava stood at the center of it all, giving directions and holding the tape and scissors, as she was too accident prone to be trusted atop a ladder. 

Just as they were finishing up, Louis entered the room, followed by Caspian and Rowan.

"Uh, guys? Saylor told me to come tell you to hurry up, the feast is nearly about to start," he said. 

"Just a minute," Naya responded. Rowan slipped through the team of people decorating and popped into his dormitory for a minute, and Louis stood at the doorway with his hands in his pockets, looking uncomfortable. Caspian, however, took the opportunity to talk to Ava. 

"Just so you know," he began, startling her, "this blonde is real," pointing to his hair. 

She scoffed, "You keep telling yourself that, bottle blonde." She crossed her arms and started to speak before she had to call out to one of the third years, "Hey, leave the windows alone! Don't you break that glass!" She started after them and left Caspian smiling to himself. 

"So you like her, huh?" Naya asked from atop the ladder, having heard the entire exchange. 

"What? Absolutely not, no way."

She blew her curly bangs out of her eyes before giving him a look. "Caspian, I can tell when you're lying. Here, catch," She tossed the roll of tape down at him and started descending the ladder. Just then there was a crash and a sound of glass breaking, which brought all the remaining Hufflepuffs still in their dorms out to see what had happened. 

There, on the floor, was the two other third years, covered in broken glass, and grinning sheepishly up at Ava. 

"Off to Madam Pomfrey, you two." She pointed to the door and the two went running out into the corridor while Naya joined Ava by the window. They both took out their wands and said in unison, "Reparo," causing all of the glass shards to fly back into place. 

"I guess we should recruit our friends to help next time, instead of some random third years," Naya giggled. 

"Probably," Ava cracked a smile in return. 

"Are we ready to go now?" Rowan asked, having returned at the sound of glass breaking. 

"Oh! We've got to hurry!" Louis, Caspian, Ava, Naya, and Rowan quickly made their way to the Great Hall and slid into their seats at the Hufflepuff table seconds before Professor McGonagall began speaking. 

"Happy Halloween, everyone. Please enjoy the feast, and as always, stay inside the castle after curfew, I don't care how tempting it may be to go to the Forbidden Forest on Halloween night, stay in! Enjoy!" She kept her speech short, yet effective, as none of the students would be wandering the grounds that night. 

"What were you doing?" Saylor hissed at the five of them. "I sent Louis and Caspian after you nearly twenty minutes ago!"

"Oh, one of the windows broke," Ava replied airily, while passing a dish of mashed potatoes to Louis on her left. After seeing Torryn's horrified expression, she added, "Don't worry, we fixed it! And there's only two people in the hospital wing, everything's fine." Saylor and Torryn exchanged a look of dread and promptly shoved food into their mouths. 

The rest of the meal passed with jokes between the group of friends and, of course, Ava spilling sauce on herself. 

"Aand this is why you need a dropcloth," Louis said, grinning at her. 

"Oh, shut up," she laughed. After they were all done eating, Ava left the Great Hall with Naya, Emory, and Louis, and nearly ran into a couple. "Sorry!" she exclaimed. 

"Oh, you're fine!" The girl said, her kind face stretching into a smile, causing her freckles to pop. The boy she was holding hands with had dark hair and a cheeky grin. 

"Hey, Lou, what's up?" he said, acknowledging his presence. 

"Nothing much. Oh, hey, Ava, this is my cousin James, and Alice," he dropped his voice to a fake whisper, "they're dating."

"Oh, really, I don't think she could tell," Emory laughed. "It's not like they're holding hands or anything." She and Naya high-fived before leaving Louis and Ava talking to James and Alice. 

"It's nice to meet you!" Alice exclaimed, dropping James' hand to shake Ava's. 

"Nice to meet you, too."

"Oh, you're American!" James noticed. "How long have you been here?"

"This is my first year," she explained. 

"I hope you like it here! Let me know if you need anything," Alice offered, smiling at the two of them as she and James left. 

Louis and Ava chuckled, watching them walk away, before starting back to their common room. 

"How many cousins do you have? It seems every place I go here, I run into one of them!"

"Yeah," he rubbed his arm, "We've got a pretty big family. My dad has five siblings, so there's a lot of us. You've met Dom, Roxy, and Lucy, they're in seventh year, then James is sixth year like us. Albus and Rose are a year younger than me, and then there's Hugo and Lily, in fourth year."

"Oh, I met Hugo earlier! He helped us put decorations up! Now that you say it, I see the resemblance just a bit." They continued to talk as they got back into the Hufflepuff common room, and joined their friends on the couches, starting a game of Exploding Snap.