RAWR., [open to my roomies]

[Seamus Finnigan]

"Psh!" Seamus took his arm off of Zach. The other one was blushing - he probably had made him feel uncomfortable. A lot of people were uncomfortable around him. He sometimes was a bit much ... not that knowing that could ever stop him. "You are big le meanie , you know that?" He said to Dean, walked back over to them when he really wanted to pounce on him. He maybe would have done that if they had been alone - he could always pretend to start a mock fight - but couldn't or wouldn't because they had an audience. Dean might feel uncomfortable, too. So instead he chose to pinch his cheeks. "And you know you love me." Seamus dropped onto his bed. Somehow lying on the school beds felt like coming home every time. Funny thing that. When he came home for the holidays he usually needed a couple of days to get used to the different feeling of the bed and the quietness in the room, but he didn't need that time here. When he came back to school he could go on like he hadn't been away at all.

"So, what did you do all summer? I mean, while I wasn't at yours. And you Zach? Did you go to another country or something?"

[Zacharias Smith]

When the graceful, and welcome, weight of Seamus' arm lifted from Zach's shoulders, he wanted to weep a little. He was far too high strung for this, and he was now desperately craving illicit substance of some sort to calm himself down, to stop the wild horse race that his heart had embarked on. He was sure that ganja would make it all go away. But it would only come back when he reemerged from his drug induced stupor. With a sigh, he rubbed the back of his neck, and tried not to stare at Seamus sprawled on his bed, in a way that Zach was sure was not meant to be seductive, but some how seemed so.

"This summer? Uh... Nothing much, really." Lame answer. "Yeah, I went to visit my cousins in England for a little bit, a couple of weeks. But that was it." Yeah, that had been interesting. Probably the best threek weeks of his life, really. But he wasn't about to throw that out there. Besides, he'd learned by now, that people really didn't want to know about his escapades.

"You? How was your summer?"

[Seamus Finnigan]

"Mine was quite good, though nothing special, really. Went home - I live near Cork in Ireland, by the way - and stayed there for most of my holidays, doing nothing but hanging around with or without a couple of old friends at first, then my mother got me a job for a couple of weeks. It was only two hours a day and I had to sort through some papers, bringing them back in order.
And I spent some time at Dean's, didn't I, Dean? Was pretty awesome, but Dean knows that already. His house isn't a graveyard - noise wise, I mean - like mine. There's always someone to talk to.
That, and his mother is a great cook!" Seamus told Zach and rolled onto his stomach, sighing happily. Even the sheets were prefect! They smelled like Diagon Prep.

[Dean Thomas]

Dean nodded an answer to Seamus' question, though the answer was probably far from needed. He kept talking, as usual. Dean couldn't, and didn't try, to get a word in. He let out a quiet snort when Seamus compared his house to a graveyard. True, it was quiet there, but not a graveyard. Dean had often told Seamus that he didn't know how lucky he was to live in a quiet house. Though, Seamus had no problem fitting in at Dean's house. Ironically, he probably fit in more than Dean did.

"Why don't we just spend most of the year getting you a really, really good tan." Dean suggested, "Then, I can ship you off to my house. They'll never know the difference, with or without the tan, and I'll just go stay at your house until you lose your mind and come crying back to your folks."

[Seamus Finnigan]

Seamus stuck out his tongue at Dean.
"You know I didn't mean that I didn't like living at my place. Yours is just a very welcome change." For more than just one reason. "Tell me you wouldn't go stir crazy when you come from a school like this and have two months of silence. I mean, my parents have to work after all and my other friends back home don't always have time for me, either. They lead their own lives, anyway. Makes me glad to be back." It was true. Every year Seamus felt more and more distant from those who he called his best friends once. Yes, they were still friends, but somehow neither they nor him could relate to each other as good as they had before Seamus went to Diagon Prep. Not that this was surprising - he led a different life, after all, and had different interests than them, given to where he lived. His old friends were still going to school at Cork, had a whole city, while his life was more secluded - but no less adventurous.
Also Seamus had the feeling that he overwhelmed them from time to time, because they weren't used to him and his very expressive nature anymore. He even stopped complementing on guys arses when he was around them.

[Zacharias Smith]

Zacharias, who had been listening quietly throughout the conversation, decided to enter a little bit of information about himself. After all, if he ever got around to seducing Seamus Finnigan, it would help if he knew him a bit better. And besides, it wasn't as if he wasn't going to spend the rest of the school year in the same room as him. Zach was still kicking himself with excitement on that one.

"Yeah, my house has gotten pretty quiet too, since my sister left, I mean. Although, my dad does crank up the Rolling Stones to a pretty deafening level every once in a while, the only sounds at my house come from the kitchen. And we don't talk much anyway, my parents are really big on introspectiveness." He wasn't too sure what it meant, but he was pretty sure it meant something about looking inward for peace. Buddhist stuff. Good idea, except when Zach wanted to talk and no one else did because they were contemplating inner peace.

Bollocks, if you asked him. But no one did, so it was all good.

[Dean Thomas]

"You two don't know how lucky you are," Dean spoke up, still being favorable of the quieter life style. "I was stuck with a horde of brothers and sisters in a not so big house. I learned to appreciate whatever quiet time I got, but since most of them are gone, I just realized that when I went back home for the summer, I almost lost my mind with ... happiness. I ran around the house, screaming -- uh, well, in the inside I did that; on the outside, I went to sleep." He assumed he was just boring like that. He did, however, miss everyone a few times. It was incredibly boring without them, which made him glad to be back at school.

"Anyway, they more than made sure they weren't far away, my brothers and sisters did. When they weren't calling, they were showing up unexpectedly." He shrugged, but then snorted quietly. "I actually think I was the only one who enjoyed the summer. My folks did some of the weirdest things; maybe they were suffering from child-noise withdrawal. My mother took to gardening and a obsession-slash-fascination with Lifetime movies: the ones with such cheesy music that I thought that maybe she was watching porn, once or twce. Evan, that's my stepfather, by the way," He informed Zach, since Seamus already knew. "He put together a three thousand piece puzzle and tried to fix things, that weren't broken, around the house."

[Francis Newton]

It normally wasn't like Newt to take such a long time getting to school, particularly since he'd managed to save enough to get his own wheels to save his parents from driving him. It was Belinda's fault really. She was just starting at DPA, and that meant packing all her junk as well as his into the back of his ute, to make the trip to school. Predictably, Belinda was incapable of carrying her own stuff up to her dorm, which made Newt the pack mule of choice. It made him wish Belinda wasn't such a little prima donna.

Still, now at least she was out of his hair and he could get himself moved in. He slung his duffle over his shoulder, picking up a box of other miscellaneous stuff and headed towards Mason Hall. Newt sighed, running his hands through his dreadlocks. He hoped his roommates this year would be a bit more understanding than they were last year. They didn't really appreciate Newt's practical jokes as much as he did.

Finally coming to the room, Dorm 53, Newt shoved the door open with his shoulder. He grinned at the three other boys in the room, hoping he didn't look intimidating.

"Hey guys" he greeted.

"This Dorm 53 or am I completely lost?"