After the Library

Alli paused as if she was actually entertaining the idea for a moment before laughing. "Nope, it's definitely his fault. If he wasn't so bloody cute... And it's Aurora's, too!" she remembered her conversation with her fellow Slytherin about possibly having a crush on a Gryffindor. Aurora had said it was okay as long as he was worth looking at, which James definitely was.

"It's not worth flaunting if you like yours limbs where they are currently placed," she snickered. She'd seen the look on his face when he was telling her what his housemates had said about her; James was certainly the jealous type.

She raised her eyebrow at Tom. She thought he'd said something was depressing, but she didn't know to what he was referring. She nodded at his agreement to keep her secret. Little did Tom know that this meant she was probably going to use him a little bit to continue to guard her and James' secret.

Thomas grinned after hearing Alli's laughter. It wasn't a harsh laughter either this time, much softer and more... genuine? "You never know, there are times when you've been nicer and less aggressive. He just... Makes it show up more often." he said, trying to explain it. How did Aurora make things worse?" He asked curiously.

Thomas winced at the thought of his removal and/or changing in the position of his limbs. "Yeah... I'd like to keep my hand connected to my shoulder rather than up my... Nevermind." He said. He knew he shouldn't be talking like that but he almost did anyway. He half wished he could think of a way to cheer himself up, but it hardly mattered much.

It just clicked in his mind that Alli wouldn't tell him unless she had something to gain from it. "So... What do I have to do for the privilege of knowing this secret?" He asked.

"I've never heard it put like that. Aggressive sounds much less harsh than other things I've heard," Alli smiled. "Aurora didn't do much. Just made me start to think that it was okay to be intrigued by someone who wasn't a Slytherin."

She shrugged at his last question. She didn't really have anything to gain from this; not in the traditional sense, at least. "Same thing that you're already doing. Just be my friend. You're the only one who knows, so..." she shrugged again.

Thomas smiled slightly. "Agressive is probably not even the best way it could be put. Protective maybe. Just protective of others as well as protective of what is rightfully yours." He said, thinking on the times she had got him to do tasks for him. "Well then I'm thanking Aurora when I see her next, because that was likely the first giant step when you think about it. She made the hole in the wall and James slid through it." He said, quite happy with his analogy.

Thomas blinked at what she said. "He's definitely changed you. If it was the old you I'd be ordered to go clean out the Towers or something so you could have your privacy on a little secret date or something." He commented, before grinning. "Of course, being your friend is a task in itself, but I'm sure I'll manage." He said jokingly, sticking his tongue out at her.

Alli raised both of her eyebrows at Tom this time and held back her laughter. Something told her that Tom was just as innocent and naive as James was so he probably didn't even notice the double entendre that he had just come up with.

"Who says I won't still make you go clean out the Towers?" she mimicked his facial expression. "Being my friend is a privilege and that means you're going to have to work for it," she joked.

Thomas couldn't help the massive grin that came to his face at Alli's laugh, it was good to see the nicer side of her, it made him feel like he didn't have to hide behind any mask either. He seemed quite chagrined however, at the thought of cleaning the towers of people. "Come on! I'm no good with that and you probably know it! You could easily do it yourself anyway from the looks of things, seeing as you cleared here out pretty well." He said, gesturing to the empty Commons. "Shocked they're not back yet actually..." He thought aloud after.

Alli shrugged. She didn't know why people weren't back yet since it wasn't that long of a walk out to see that there was no Firewhiskey. "Maybe one of the older students snuck down to Hogsmeade to get some," she suggested. "Either that or they think a Gryffindor found it and stole it and now they're trying to hunt it down." The idea of some of the knuckle-draggers interrogating everyone they could about the "missing" Firewhiskey was a pretty amusing thought.

Thomas shrugged at the thought of a student sneaking to Hogsmeade. "Possible, but then, I doubt one person would bother getting it for such a big group." He said, he was sure there were at least ten people in the group, likely more. He laughed at the other option though. "And if Jamsey-Wamsey gets considered a suspect? What will you do then?" He asked, laughing. "Maybe they were just all caught or something, who knows. I suppose it's nothing much to care about either." He shrugged. "So..." He said, not quite able to think of another topic of conversation.

Alli shrugged again. She didn't really care if any of them got caught. Most of them would deserve it anyway. "James won't be considered a suspect. He's finishing his report for Potions in the library," she said. She frowned at how it sounded. "That's pretty pathetic, huh? Knowing exactly where he is and what he's doing..." She felt like a complete and total sap.

Thomas smiled and shook his head at her asking if that was pathetic. "Not at all Alli, just shows how much you care about how he's doing. If you felt like something bad had happened, you could always know where he was then too. It may make you a little less stone-cold, but I doubt you've really ever been like that." He grinned. "But yeah... At least it's nothing creepy or anything eh? Doesn't hurt anyone to know it either." He added, unsure of what else to say.

Tom was probably right, it did show how much she cared. "Well, caring isn't the only reason I know that he's there right now. I made him go there because he has to do well in that class if we want to keep getting away with the things that we do," she said. "And I threatened to never kiss him again if he got any T's in any subject," she snickered. She liked James and he wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer but she knew it would be hard for her to date him if he turned out to be a complete idiot.

"Hey, you're a reasonably intelligent, fairly decent looking guy. How come you're not dating anyone?" she asked as the question popped into her head.

Thomas chuckled at the comment on James not getting anywhere if he got any Ts. "Well that's a good incentive to make him work then, and you wouldn't bother if you didn't care, so you still care because you told him to go there so you'd know." He said, though he felt like he was speaking gibberish there. "He's likely working himself to death, I just hope he forgoes sleeping and eating, I've heard those are two of his favourite things to do." He said, remembering hearing it off someone... James' cousin he thought.

Thomas coughed and spluttered at Alli's question. "Me? Girlfriend?? You've lost your marbles Alli, I'm not going to be making any headway in that department any time soon. Trust me, I'm really not the kind of person anyone would be considering." He said, still laughing on the inside. Him? Girlfriend? Never. Well... At least very unlikely.

Alli couldn't help but laugh at Tom's reaction to her question. "I didn't say girlfriend," she pointed out. "I said anyone, so it could be a boy or a girl. And why not? I'm sure that there are plenty of heads turning in your direction." She was curious about why Tom seemed to think that he was undate-able. It was possible that he was just shy, but she was sure that there had to be more to it than that.

Thomas rolled his eyes at Alli's re-stating of it. "Either way I'm getting no-one, trust me. Not like there's anyone looking my way like that anyway, add the fact that I've been a total pain to a lot of people recently and you have someone you'd rather stay well away from, not to date." He said, still scoffing at the idea. Where on Earth did Alli get that idea from? And how did she not see how silly an idea it was. "Why have we changed the subject to this by the way?" He asked.

"Because you're adorable and you deserve to be happy," Alli said somewhat dismissively. "We're going to get you a girlfriend. Or boyfriend. Whichever you prefer," she grinned. Her mind was already hard at work thinking of people that she could possibly set Tom up with despite his insistence that nobody liked him like that. "Why are you so opposed to this? It can't hurt anything," she said.

Thomas rolled his eyes at Alli's simple dismissal. "I'm not adorable in the slightest, and who says I can't be happy by myself?" He asked, completely dreading what might happen. This could end up bad. Very bad very easy. He didn't know how they would, but he just had this feeling in his gut that it really wouldn't turn out good in any case. "I'm opposed because I'm pretty sure it'll turn out bad somehow, and then there's the fact I don't know why you're bothering, and then there's the fact that I don't like anyone that way." He said, spouting out as many reasons as he could.

Tom's protests fell on deaf ears. They essentially went in one of Alli's ears and out the other. Her mind was still occupied trying to think of the perfect person to set Tom up with. She found it hard to believe that Tom didn't like anyone like that. "No one? Not one single person in the entire school?" she asked in disbelief. "There has to be someone."

Thomas sighed as everything he said might as well have been said to a brick wall. "Who are you, a child of Aphrodite or something?" He muttered to himself sighing. He was thinking through everyone he'd ever met and could easily could draw a cross over them. No romantic thought of any kind. "Nope. Not one person I can think of in the whole school, at all." He said firmly, he was sure he had no romantic thought about anyone in the world.

Alli looked at Tom with a dead look of disbelief in her eyes. Why did he have to go and make this so difficult for her? "Thomas Celare you listen to me right now. We are going to get you a girlfriend and you are going to shut up and like it," she said, poking his shoulder. "Are you sure that there's no one at all who comes to mind?" she asked again, wanting to give him one last chance to choose his potential future girlfriend or boyfriend. It would make this whole thing much less painful.

Thomas just looked at her with disbelief of his own. "Someone? Really? Because I have absolutely no one in mind who it could possibly be. At all, I really don't." He said, starting to get irritated. "Why can't I just be left blissfully alone?" He asked in protest. "I mean, come on! It's not really that important for me to end up with someone is it?" He continued. "I really can not think of one person no matter what. Not a single girl or guy." He said, wishing Alli would just drop it. Could he not just be left happily single?

"Look, Tom, I know that you're madly in love with me but that's not really healthy for you, considering I'm taken now and you can't have me," Alli said with a mock air of extreme egoism. Whether he liked it or not, she was going to find someone for him to date, so she figured that he might as well just accept it.

A few people started to trickle back into the common room but she didn't pay them any attention since she was still trying to think of the perfect person to set Tom up with. "What about Jasmine Delaware?" she asked, suggesting one of her own friends first since it required the least amount of work on her part.

Thomas just shook his head and felt like banging his head against a wall with what she said next. "How does James stand you? You might possibly have the biggest ego to ever exist." He joked, while keeping a mock-glare on his face. He wasn't about to just let what Alli said get to him after all. "Also, if I were impossibly in love with you, I think I'd have said by now and I might have attempted to break you and James up, I haven't though." He said, before leaving that topic as a couple of people came back into the Common Room.

He shrugged at the name said at random to him. "No idea who she is, so I'm not sure at all what she's like." He said, unsure of what he could really say about someone he hadn't met.

Alli rolled her eyes. She should have known that Tom wouldn't know who she was talking about. This was going to be a long, difficult, tedious conversation. "She's one of my best friends, you'd like her," she said, thinking that Jasmine could be a real possibility. "What about that one crazy girl that's in Hufflepuff? What's her name again?" she asked, thinking that it started with M or N, somewhere around there in the alphabet.

Thomas blinked at her mention of another girl. "You mean Natalie? She's taken by a Gryffindor, so no hope there." He said, trying to not laugh at the thought of the bubbly, hyperactive Hufflepuff. "She'd make a good friend though, you might want to talk to her sometime, no doubt she'd make you laugh." He added, before shrugging at what she said about Jasmine. "Sounds like a great person to meet then, I'll have to ask you to introduce us sometime." He said, rolling his eyes. No doubt Alli would try something should they ever meet. "Any chance we could drop it now? I'd really be much happier left to my own devices." He said, he didn't see why Alli was being so damned persistent.

"Tom, I don't understand why you're being so resistant to this. What's wrong with having someone to go out with?" Alli asked. "It's not like you have to marry them or anything. We're only 13. You could just give it a go."

She tried to think of someone else who may be willing to go on a date with Tom. What about Aurora? I think she's dating someone but we could easily get rid of him," she said.