Michael Grosvenor
August 26, 2012 3:46 PM
Bromantic Reunion (tag Laurie) by Michael Grosvenor
The Opening Feast was where term began for most people. Getting back to their room after was just a chance to fall asleep, stuffed full and trying to block out the thought of getting up for class the next day. But for Michael, getting back to the dorm was where term really began. He had always looked forward to getting out of the inevitable din that the feast brought with it – he was always much more comfortable one to one, or at least one to not very many others, in a calm, quiet environment. And now it was more important than ever. The dorm room had become his and Laurie's space, away from the snooping eyes of the rest of the Stratford family who didn't want their precious son mixing with “the likes of him.”Whilst they were in the Common Room, Michael maintained the cool, distant air he'd cultivated for treating Laurie in public, even though it nearly killed him. He hated the illusion to people that they'd fallen out, and that he could treat his friend like that, even though most of them probably knew or suspected that it had come from Laurie's side. Inside Michael was practically bursting with excitement at seeing his best friend again. He wasn't sure anyone in Teppenpaw would rat them out – Tepps were nice, after all – but there had to be a certain amount of caution. It wasn't worth the risk. And even without meaning to, someone could accidentally spill... Your brother, he's friends with Michael, isn't he? No, I'm sure he is – they're always together.
He left it a few minutes after Laurie had drifted off to the dorm before casually following, for all the world it looked like neither really cared. As soon as the door of their room closed, it was a different story.
“Dude!” Michael exclaimed, flinging one arm around Lauire and giving him a kind of hug (but in a matey, manly sort of a way). “It's good to see you. I've been dying to tell you about my summer. Naff all happened. Same old summer as always but I still was itching to get away from the stupid Feast and talk to you. How've you been? How was home?” he asked. The last question came out a little less exuberantly and little more anxiously than the others. Laurie was towing the line at school now, or at least appearing to be, so it wasn't like his family should have been on his back about keeping inappropriate company, but Michael still didn't feel like home was necessarily a great place for his friend to be.
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Michael Grosvenor
Bromantic Reunion (tag Laurie)
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Michael Grosvenor
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Laurie
August 29, 2012 2:35 AM
*high-fives!* by Laurie
Laurie couldn’t be happier to be back at school. He finally could see his friends again. Their secret friendship had to be the most exciting thing ever! Laurie felt like a spy when they sneaked around the school. He was sure no one suspected them. Laurie got out of the wagon and attended the feast where his little cousin, Bianca, was sorted into Aladren. Poor kid, really. He just waved at her excitedly and smiled in support of her before feeling sufficiently smug about Preston not getting the Prefect Badge. After all, his older cousin had made his life miserable at school it was only fair for him to feel inadequate once in a while.The Teppenpaw clapped when it was adequate to do so, ate his dinner in the most normal way he could before jumping out of his feet and going to the Teppenpaw common room. He greeted people there – obviously ignoring Michael – and after a while he yawned and went up to get ready for bed. The reality was that he wanted to talk to Michael before the other roommates decided it was time to head to bed. He was sure his friend would catch his drift. They were awesome like that.
The redhead paced for about a millisecond – not really, it was minutes – when Michael entered the room he stopped and grinned, “Dude!” he repeated after him and returned the manly bro-hug.
Laurie laughed at his friend’s eagerness. He definitely shared it. “Your summer sounds boring,” he said teasing. The now-fourth year stroked his chin in an attempt to appear interesting, “Well, my summer was epic. Dad sent me to Quidditch Camp and I was there for most of the summer. Thankfully. The few days I was with my parents weren’t that bad, though they interrogated me about school and friends.”
The redhead jumped to his bed, “It wasn’t horrible.” He smiled, “They don’t suspect anything!” The questions they had asked were routine questions, so they were free to continue with their amazing adventures without the interference of his family. “Preston will be too occupied with his examinations to pay attention to me and his little sister just started school, so he will be too preoccupied about her to care about me,” Laurie grinned mischievously. The Teppenpaw was really convinced that nothing major was going to happen. Thankfully, his cousin had other things to worry about than him. They were, hopefully, out of danger. For now. He hoped.
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Laurie
*high-fives!*
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Laurie
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5
Michael Grosvenor
August 30, 2012 4:14 PM
*low fives* by Michael Grosvenor
Michael couldn't help but be extra pleased to find Laurie waiting for him. Not just being in the room because Michael had known he would be. But he could have gone up, been brushing his teeth or reading a book, but he wasn't. He was, if such a thing was possible, actively waiting. Laurie really wanted to see him and catch up.“It wasn't bad,” Michael shrugged in response to Laurie's teasing, “No studying, different windows to stare out of. It's the kind of boring I could get used to. I don't need an essay a week to keep me amused. And we did the usual fun stuff like hike and go camping,” those things weren't exactly sitting around but they were the same things he did every summer, so it wouldn't really be breaking news to Laurie to hear about them.
“I'm glad they were alright to you,” Michael nodded, smiling although not looking inappropriately cheerful whilst Laurie talked about the awkward subject of his crazy family. His grin came back as they talked about Quidditch camp though.
“That sounds pretty cool – you'll have to show me some of the-” Michael cut himself off. Unless they were going to do Quidditch demonstrations in their dormroom – which, whilst it was generously sized with a big comfy bed for each boy in there, scarcely allowed flying room – then Laurie wasn't really going to be able to show him. He guessed it didn't matter. He'd been tempted to join pick up games a couple of times but he always remembered how he'd been picked last every time at his previous school and he couldn't quite bring himself to believe, however different things were at Sonora, that people wanted him to join them. Messing about with Laurie would have been okay though. “What's the deal with you being on the Quidditch team?” he asked, his musings having brought him thus far, “Like, with the whole Thou Shalt Not Speak to Non-Purebloods thing. Is there some special rule whereby you're allowed to talk to your team-mates?”
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Michael Grosvenor
*low fives*
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Michael Grosvenor
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Laurie
August 31, 2012 9:55 PM
*middle-fives* by Laurie
Laurie began unpacking some of the things he would need for tomorrow and like every year he would slowly unpack. The Teppenpaw wasn’t a fan of unpacking his things. He was too used to people at home doing it for him. “Yeah, it was. Being free for such a long time was awesome. I basically spent my summer flying around and receiving Quidditch instructions from professional players. I learned a lot,” he stopped doing what he was doing and looked at Michael. “I can’t wait for Quidditch to start to apply what I learned.”Laurie usually had a lot of energy, but the return to school signaled his energy levels going up a notch. He didn’t know why, but he usually didn’t sleep at all during the first day back. Maybe it was the excitement of the Opening Feast and seeing his friends, but Laurie was sure his roommates probably wanted to murder him the next morning. He usually moved a lot in bed and made some noise.
“You know, what they don’t know won’t hurt them,” he said referring to his family. It was a simple statement that held a lot of truth. They had been livid when they found out about his friends, but now that they were sure he had followed their rules they were happy. The only thing that mattered to his father was that he upheld the family name. As long as they were out of the loop they didn’t care. Preston had been the little snitch, but he would have a lot of things on his plate this year to even care about what he did.
He smiled and playfully punched Michael on the shoulder, “I am glad you had a good summer. Someday we will be able to do something by ourselves.” That would be a nice adventure and if Preston could now travel by himself, Laurie would be able to do it in the near future. “And we will have an epic time,” he grinned at his friend. “Don’t you think? You and I bound to conquer the world or something.” The redhead could already see the epicness of that summer.
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Laurie
*middle-fives*
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Laurie
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Michael Grosvenor
September 02, 2012 2:37 PM
*backwards fives* by Michael Grosvenor
“That'd be great,” Michael grinned. He wondered how ready to take on the world he would have been had he stayed at home. His parents had never over-protected him, something for which he was incredibly grateful. However, coming to Sonora had given him a sense of independence that he knew he never would have felt if he'd been home every night with his family. Not being so had its downsides, but the feeling like he and Laurie could trek off into the wild without it being a worry was a definite plus.“I've never been outside the States,” he confessed, “Have you? We could go to Australia – it's so far away, no one would know what we were up to. Or maybe somewhere wild where there's no civilisation and so no Purebloods,” Michael had a feeling the transfer kid had come from Australia, so it wasn't exactly a glowing endorsement for the place having a liberal, carefree attitude. That said, he wasn't sure Maxamillian's problem was being stuck up so much as just hating everybody. And he hadn't even been as bad to Michael as he'd expected when they had worked together in Potions. It just went to show that you couldn't always believe what people said about others. He, better than most, knew that. He shrugged the thought off. They would go somewhere where no one knew Laurie's family. Where Laurie would be free to do whatever he wanted and where everything would be new and exciting for both of them.
“Do they do apparation lessons here?” he asked. He'd never heard of any of the older years taking it, but then he barely got his head around his own schedule, never mind eagerly looking up the kind of scheduling he could look forward to in the future. “If not, maybe I'll have to work out how to get you onto an airplane,” he grinned.
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Michael Grosvenor
*backwards fives*
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Michael Grosvenor
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Laurie
September 05, 2012 9:39 PM
*side-fives* by Laurie
“I have relatives in Europe, so we usually spend some time with them once in a while,” he said while stroking his chin trying to think where he had left his school robes. He hadn’t found them in his trunk. This was weird, but that was what happened when he packed. Laurie wasn’t the most organized boy in the whole world. He had grabbed his clothes and thrown them into the trunk in a small clothing ball. It wasn’t the process to pack, at all. He couldn’t find anything! He grumbled to himself and smiled brightly when he found them in a little heap at the base of the thing. They were wrinkled but they would work for tomorrow.“HA! Found you!” he said victoriously. He refrained from doing a small victory dance. His green-eyes were filled with happiness and excitement about being back. Sonora was awesome now that he had his friends back.
He continued with this unpacking, but listening intently to Michael. His perked up when Michael said one of his awesome Muggle things. “What is an airplane?” the redhead asked filled with curiosity. The left what he was doing and sat on his bed Indian-style leaning his face on his palms. The Teppenpaw had always been curious about the Muggle world and Michael was a fantastic source for information. It was very different to read about it than to hear from someone that understood and lived it. “How does that work?” he had assumed it was a transportation device used by muggles. It seemed to be some epic Muggle Adventure and the redhead was always up for some awesome adventures.
For some reason Laurie thought they had had this conversation before, but for the love of everything that was holy he couldn’t remember the details of it, or maybe he was hallucinating and this was the first time. Who knew. The redhead had a little trouble remembering things instantly. “Can planes take you anywhere?” he asked skeptically.
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Laurie
*side-fives*
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Laurie
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Michael Grosvenor
September 09, 2012 11:10 AM
*chest bumps* by Michael Grosvenor
Michael was a little confused by Laurie's non-sequitur reply until he realised that his room-mate had been talking to an item in his trunk. The corners of Michael's mouth twitched. Normally unannounced topic-switches annoyed him, as they made it harder to follow the conversation – especially if he was relying on something like lip-reading, where context was an important prop. However, talking quietly with Laurie in the dorm room was a fairly easy situation, so he could forgive his roommate the mild confusion. Plus it was a very Laurie thing to so, and Michael couldn't begrudge him any of that.He was slightly baffled when Laurie asked about aeroplanes, as that had been the first conversation they had ever had. However, he guessed that was quite a while ago. If Laurie had mentioned something Wizardy in those conversations, there was a good chance Michael would have forgotten everything about it by now. In fact, when he thought about it, he couldn't call to mind anything in particular Laurie had said, which either gave credence to his theory or meant that he had been at his most loquacious during their first feast and poor Laurie hadn't got a word in edgeways. That, sadly, was equally possible. Talking was easier than listening, so going off on a ramble would have been a good tactic for coping with the feast and hiding his hearing impairment, as he had been attempting to do at the time. He was glad Laurie had some specific questions about planes, as that helped him know where to start, even if he didn't know all of the answers.
“A plane is big metal device that can fly and which Muggles use to go long distances,” he began. However accustomed he got to living in the wizarding world, sentences like that always sounded strange to him. “They can take you pretty much anywhere on Earth,” he nodded, “But if it's really far away, you might need to take more than one or stop to refuel, which means...” he added, realising that Lauire wouldn't get what that meant, “Well, it's kind of like riding a broom. Technically you could go any distance but you'd have to stop to eat, cos you'd run of out energy otherwise. It's kind of like that. Only the airplane isn't alive and it's not eating but it needs stuff to burn to be able to move,” he added, feeling like he wasn't really explaining well. “Does that make sense?” he asked, “You also need an airport to land, which is a special building with space for lots of planes and people who can give directions to the plane to tell it where it can land. So I guess planes can't really go to small places without airports – well you can get small planes and go there if you want, but that's expensive. Like, most planes a lot of people go together, so it has to go somewhere that lots of people want to go,” he wondered whether, at his point, he was confusing things, or at least causing Laurie to have more questions than he had answered thus far. “As for how it works beyond that... Well, it has a thing called an engine and the fuel makes the engine go.... But I don't really know. There's a thing called 'aerodynamics' which is to do with how it stays up... Again, it's kind of like a broom. If I asked you how a broom worked, you probably wouldn't know. You'd have a vague idea of maybe the branch of magic that's involved but most wizards don't learn it in that much detail – as far as you're concerned, it just works. It does what it needs to. Only a few people who are super interested or want to do it as a job bother to find out how it works.” He felt like a bit of a let down in not being able to give Laurie the full details. He had spent some of the summer reading up on various Muggle devices on the Internet so that he would be able to explain things better but it was all very technical and hadn't stayed in his head very long. He refrained from bemoaning the lack of Wikipedia out loud to Laurie, as that was bound to open a whole can of worms that he just couldn't deal with. An invisible network of rays and stuff that mean you could access things like books but that are just stored in thin air somewhere and there were infinite numbers of them, and you needed a special, complicated box to look at them... When you tried to explain Muggle stuff to someone who'd never heard of it, it did sound rather crazy. And, rather oddly, a lot like magic.
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Michael Grosvenor
*chest bumps*
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Michael Grosvenor
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Laurie
September 18, 2012 7:38 PM
No more fives, I think by Laurie
Laurie was intently listening to what Micheal said with his mouth wide open. Muggle things fascinated him, and he couldn’t really believe more wizards were fascinated by them. The creativity they put into their everyday lives without the help of magic was simply outstanding. The Muggle World was filled with such wonders, and the redhead really wanted to try them all. And who would be better to help him than Michael?The Teppenpaw was already imagining the countless of epic adventures they would encounter. He could hardly wait, but that was a long away ahead. He was still minor and couldn’t travel without parental permission and his parents were not going to let him travel with Michael. No, he had to plan ahead. Laurie wasn’t known for his long-term plans, but for this he was ready to make an exception.
He got up on his bed, “I want to ride one of those Muggle brooms!” His expression was filled with an unbound excitement that could hardly be contained. The fourth-year was always filled with energy and a positive aura around him that it was hard for him to not be happy all the time. The sole exception had been last year when he had to stay away from his friends.
“Just imagine what we’ll do! Riding the Muggle broom, meeting new people, exploring new territories!” he almost squealed. Almost. He jumped off the bed with a big grin on his face, “And then we can fly in real brooms!” the adventure was already clear in his head, but they would need to plan for it to the last small detail. A lot of things were in play, and Laurie didn’t want to do anything that would anger his family or his friends. He was in a rather difficult situation.
He swung an arm around Michael’s shoulder, “We will need to start saving for this.” They were going to need money for this. Laurie received an allowance and since he didn’t need money at school he had a good savings account. “I have some money saved and by the time we are bound to leave I think we will have enough for that,” he commented while stroking his chin like it was the most important matter in the entire universe.
“Are Muggle brooms expensive?” he asked. Michael was going to be super patient with him when it came to muggle things. It was hard to understand how things worked when he was used to having magic doing the difficult part of everything.
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Laurie
No more fives, I think
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Laurie
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Michael Grosvenor
September 22, 2012 1:41 PM
Is that enough secret handshaking overall? by Michael Grosvenor
Michael couldn't help but grin. Laurie's enthusiasm about the most every day things amused him but was also infectious. He couldn't help but be excited too. He had only been on a plane a handful of times, and there was so much of the world that he hadn't explored that there was plenty for him to be excited about too.“Erm...” he pondered, when Laurie asked whether it was expensive. The concept of 'expensive' was relative. They'd never overtly discussed it but he got the impression that money was not exactly an issue in Laurie's family and what might be expensive to him might not be to Laurie. “It varies quite a lot,” he said, which as well as being true neatly dodged the subject, “It can be sometimes.
“There's other things.... Like you need a special document to go on planes to different countries. It's mostly to check criminals and stuff aren't running away,” he explained. That was pretty much as far as he understood the point of passports even without simplifying it for Laurie's sake. “I'll try to find out whether it's possible for a wizard to get one. It must be somehow...” He had never really thought much about life beyond Sonora and, when he had, it had tended to be worrying. He was currently someone in the magical world by obligation, with occasional holidays back to the Muggle world. He didn't really choose but when he left Sonora he would have to. It seemed like a big scary decision that he was in no way ready for. The idea of having something positive to look forward to made him feel a whole lot better.
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Michael Grosvenor
Is that enough secret handshaking overall?
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Michael Grosvenor
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Laurie
September 27, 2012 9:08 PM
Just fiving *does complicated hand-shake best bro thingy* by Laurie
Money probably wasn’t going to be a problem in their future adventure. Laurie had never been a big spender and the basic or important things were purchased by his parents. So, his allowances were basically intact and waiting for him to be spent. “Right, right,” he answered. In all honesty, the redhead had no idea what was expensive or what wasn’t. He had never dealt with money before because he never had to. He just said what he needed or wanted, and he had it. His family had money, and he knew he was privileged because of it. He had never questioned that.At the mention of other things, the Teppenpaw listened carefully to what Michael was saying. A passport? That sounded dubious to the redhead. He knew there was magical documentation and all, but he had never thought he would ever need muggle documentation. That sounded like their plans had suddenly just gotten complicated in a second. “I think there must be something to be done about it. I have magical documentation and everything, but I don’t think Muggles will accept those,” he said while scratching his chin. The whole thing suddenly became more complicated and dangerous and the Teppenpaw couldn’t stop from grinning like a madperson. Stuff like this was what made things worth living.
“Or we could see about Apparaition lessons and all that!” he had just given them another option for travelling. Apparating couldn’t be that difficult. Having various options of travel was a good thing, “Though we would need to see about your magical documentation, because you will need it. However, I think it would be easier than me getting muggle passport.” What he was saying sounded so logical to him that it was almost impossible not feeling smart.
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Laurie
Just fiving *does complicated hand-shake best bro thingy*
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Laurie
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5