How To Lose Brain Cells (Aoife)

Humphrey started walking down from Ravenclaw Tower, his mind on the sunshine that had been streaming through his window when he awoke. Yes, it was still fairly cold, but he'd dressed warmly in a nice sweater and had his coat ready for when he stepped outside. He'd also made sure to bring a scarf, gloves, and hat because today he wanted to go flying. After securing permission to use a school broom, he started bouncing down the steps after selecting a nice cleansweep from the cupboard. When he passed a window he stared outside, excited; but, he lost his footing when a gobstone crossed his path and he started bumping and bouncing his way down the stairs, making a painful ouch or oomph sound on each step. Finally he came to a stop at the end of the flight, landing on his head, and found his hand came away sticky with a little bit of blood when he touched it to where he'd impacted. "Well that was smart. And they say I'm a Ravenclaw! I could write a book on how to lose brain cells, I swear." he mumbled to himself.

The boy tried to get up, but found he was too dizzy to stand and sat back down, propping himself up against the wall. If he couldn't stand up without getting dizzy and nauseated, Humphrey knew that it wasn't good. It was quite possible he had a small concussion from that impact, and he tried to breathe calmly while he waited for the dizziness to pass. "Where's somebody to help when you need it? These corridors are usually busy on most days." he said into the air, knowing nobody was there. But then again, this was a saturday morning, he realized; so, he might be alone for a while while kids slept in.

More recently, Aoife had taken to sleeping in until late on weekends. But there were still random days, like this one, when she woke up at half six and couldn't get back to sleep. She usually ended up reading or doing homework in the common room before going down to get breakfast fairly early, and today was no exception. While she did normally sleep in, most of the time she was up early enough for breakfast. Whereas, most of the students in her year just didn't turn up to the most important meal of the day. So she usually ate alone. But that didn't matter - what mattered was getting food. And nothing was going to stop her. Today, after getting about halfway through her potions essay, she headed down the stairs to the great hall, feeling really, really hungry. Nothing would make her happier right now than a huge pile of pancakes with bacon. Hogwarts food was amazing, she didn't know how she could cope six weeks without it during the summer holidays.

As she got closer to the hall, she sped up, and by the time she reached the stairs, she was practically running, the image of those pancakes in her head spurring her on. Only, at the bottom of one flight, there was a difficult obstacle, delaying the consumption of the pile of pancakes. A boy, probably first or second year, bleeding and talking to himself. Aoife used to talk to herself a lot, but she had realised that it wasn't normal for most people. So she imagined this boy was concussed or something. The horrible side of her, for one second, thought about her leaving him and coming back once she'd got food, but she pushed that thought away. So she had to help. Help. How? Could he stand up? Had he broken anything? Was she strong enough to carry him? "Uh... can you stand up?" The best plan here seemed to be to somehow help him to the hospital wing, where LoLo or one of his less cool assistants could help this boy. "I'm Aoife, by the way," she added, beaming.

Sitting down, the young Ravenclaw tried not to panic. Eventually somebody was bound to come along, and if he was lucky they might stop and offer help. If not, his head would eventually clear enough for him to find the hospital wing, right? Humphrey tried to reassure himself that he would get out of this sticky situation, no pun intended as he remembered the blood his hand had come away with after touching his head, and be alright after. Next time, he would definitely remember to keep his eyes on where he was walking and not what was waiting for him once he got there.

Even though he was still dizzy and his head was spinning, Humphrey was able to make out the sound of footsteps approaching. When something looked like a hazy red blur but sounded like a girl asked if he was okay to stand up he nodded, immediately regretting the decision as his head pounded more. "Y-yeah, I can stand. Just need help navigating...and not falling over." he admitted. He was only barely able to make out the girls name, but thought he had it right and decided to thank her. "Thank you for stopping Aoife, I'm Humphrey Williams. I hate to ask this but...c-could you help me to the hospital wing." he said in a rush, hoping that he wouldn't have to stumble around in his own right now. Humphrey had a feeling if he tried he would have to crawl and guess which direction, because standing by himself was not going to end well.