Hannah's New Apartment (OPEN)

[ernie]

Ernie swept into the house, grin in place, sincere if not slightly ostentatious. As apartments went it wasn't much, not by a long shot, but it was homey and warm and there was a bottle of firewhiskey on the table, something that made his grin sharpen in what could almost be described as a feral manner. When he thought about it, though, it made sense, especially since, as Hannah enveloped him in a tight hug that he quickly returned, he thought he could smell traces of it on her breath.

He let go of her after a few seconds, stepping back to survey the place with a whistle. But instead of remarking on the décor, he cut straight to the chase: "Don't knock yourself out with that. Justin and I tried to see how much we could take and it was surprisingly less than we thought." He made a small face, crossing his arms. "Badger Cave, aye? Well, Hannah, you've been very busy!" he said, punctuating that statement with a small laugh. "Why, next thing you'll tell me is that you've married Neville Longbottom and have two kids."

He chuckled again, but his attention quickly drifted to the two other girls - fellow Hufflepuffs he hadn't noticed immediately but that he realized he'd seen multiple times. After all, Susan was one of Hannah's closest friends, as she was his and Justin was his. Ernie would give his life to protect Justin, no hesitation, as he had proved when he had tried to shield him from Potter's snake back in second year, when he'd thought the Gryffindor boy had been trying to make the snake attack him for being a muggleborn. He had been wrong, of course, and in pure Ernie-style he'd issued a public apology (nothing less would do), but he had taken the action all the same.

"Enjoying the hospitality?" he asked the two jovially.

[hannahabbott]

Hannah turned bright red. Ernie never had any problems teasing her about the crush she had on Neville since they were fourteen, why he felt it was mandatory to tease her about it she didn’t know.

“Very funny,” said Hannah rolling her eyes.

She went to walk back over to the group when she tripped on Susan’s trunk but caught herself before falling over.

“Have you seen or talked to Justin? I don’t want to owl him given the situation,”

If Ernie didn’t know where Justin was or had heard from him she’d be rather worried. She had grown rather fond of the Ernie and Justin over the years; one wouldn’t be the same if the other died. She didn’t care if she had to hunt Justin down herself, she rather not deal with Ernie being miserable.

[Susan Bones]

Susan eyes scanned Ernie carefully to make sure it was really him. She had seen him with Hannah and Justin before but hadn’t really talked. She kept waiting for Justin to come walking in behind him but he didn’t. She raised an eyebrow surprised that they weren’t together.

“Why in Merlin’s name wouldn’t we be? Hannah just opens the door right up for us and leaves Firewhisky on the table for us to drink,” said Susan teasing Hannah but yet being polite at the same time.

She had learned that from years of living with her aunt. Be polite and friendly she’d tell her. Of course Hannah knew that her teasing with her way of being friendly and playful. She knew she didn’t sound rude at all, she was just her.

“I better move that before Hannah kills herself on it. That is if I can lift it,”

She couldn’t believe how heavy her trunk was. She wished there was a spell to make things lighter. She didn’t want to levitate due to the fact that something might end up getting deformed by the spell. She lost her grip on the trunk and dropped it on her foot with a loud bang.

“Bloody hell, why is that damn thing so fucking heavy!”

Susan hopped over to the closest chair she could find using it for support. She couldn’t believe she dropped that on her foot. She hoped that she didn’t break it because Hannah wasn’t very good at healing spells. She refused to let herself cry though she wanted to so badly.

“Don’t look at me like that Hannah! Swearing is proven to help with pain tolerance. I can’t help it if I can’t use levitation spells on it, I don’t want to deform anything inside,”

[ernie]

Ernie laughed at Hannah's beat-red face, blue eyes dancing with amusement. He had thought it rather funny when he said it, though Hannah's crush on the most awkward kid in their year was certainly something to marvel over. Ernie himself had lamented to Justin that Merlin's beard, he just didn't understand women and their feelings sometimes but the dark-hair boy had just rolled his eyes and hit him over the back of the head before saying that Hannah had always been odd that way.

"But," Justin had continued cheerfully, "I will happily hex his balls off if he hurts her, no question." Justin and Hannah were friends too, after all, and Ernie had echoed the sentiment, adding something in about fire and Antarctica and how instead of there he'd let Neville's left hand rot in the desert after he cut it off with a jagged piece of glass and sent it there via owl but.
Well.

Stifling another chuckle as Hannah toppled over, Ernie quirked an eyebrow. "So clumsy! I thought you were working on that." He had, of course, jerked forward instantly to catch her if need be, but he withdrew when he saw that she was all right. His face darkened slightly when she asked him about Justin, though, shoulders hunching over. "He didn't come back this year. It was too dangerous for him to come. It's calmed down a little, sure, but I haven't heard much. He's safe, though; that's all that matters."

He shrugged then, as if that made it all better. It didn't, but he was doing a good job of pretending.
"Need any help, Susan?" he asked, for a distraction.

[hannahabbott]

Hannah rubbed her arms nervously. She hadn’t meant to upset anyone. She knew Ernie would never admit it bothered him but she admitted it full on. She had learned that hiding it only made things worse, look what happened to her father and her, when her father didn’t show he missed her mum she a left turn when she should have made a right.

She just couldn’t find the words to explain how she felt. Finding words at times like these was so difficult so she ended up tearing up but not because she wanted to, stupid female emotions. She knew Ernie meant well but she couldn’t help if she was a woman with hormones at that moment. Poor Bella was going to have one heck of a day, she thought.

[Susan Bones]

“Can you?” asked Susan

She would have gone over to hug Hannah but she would have had to hop over there on one foot. She sighed leaning back on the chair trying to feel her foot to see if anything was broken. She didn’t really think that it wasn’t but she knew she had to figure out where it hurt. She regretted doing that after the sharp stabbing started to hurt even more.

“Anyone good at fixing broken bones?”

[ernie]

"Uh, no, not really," Ernie said, casting a worried look at Hannah before ambling over to join Susan, frowning lightly at the trunk and wondering why on Earth she hadn't just levitated it - the levitation charm didn't alter anything inside the trunk, it couldn't, but rather the gravity and the trunk itself. It was something they had learned their first year, and he was a little miffed that she had forgotten that already.

He cast the levitation charm on the trunk, muttering the words wingardium leviosa and watching as it rises and drifts across the room, settling where he directs it with a content creak of the wood and metal. Satisfied, Ernie turned to the other Hufflepuff.

"Can't say I am," he said, rolling his shoulders exaggeratedly. "But maybe you should see Madame Pomfrey. After all, remember the last time someone without medical training tried to fix a broken bone?" He made a face as he thought of Potter and their startlingly inept Defence Against the Dark Arts in second year, though it seemed they had a rather nasty curse on that particular position so perhaps he shouldn't have been surprised. Actually, he wasn't.

[Susan Bones]

“Like they will let us into Hogwarts right now with Snape as headmaster,”

Susan remembered that Hannah had done a muggle first aid course a few years ago. She could just use that until she could get over to St. Mungo’s later. She could try a healing potion too, she wasn’t bad at potions just hated the professor.

"I could try a potion for now, at least for the pain,”