Sleeping Beauty

Juliet groaned and let her trunk fall for the sixth time from where she was trying to store it in the compartment above her. She grumbled and kicked if for good measure. After about six tries of putting it up - two of which she hadn't moved her foot fast enough before it landed on top of said foot - she was more than fed up with the thing.

"Fine then," she muttered pushing it far away from her with her foot, "Stay there, what do I care?"

With that declaration made, she flopped heavily onto her seat, leaning her head back against the wall. She was tired of holding it up. In fact, she was just straight tired. Another string of nightmares - they came on and off for the girl, she never knew when her mind would decide to remind her of what she did not wish to remember - had kept her awake the last two nights. She hadn't even bothered going to sleep the night before, staying up with a book instead.

She let out a slight groan as some excited second years - still enjoying the wonder that a first year had, but not nearly as awed - ran by her compartment loudly, causing her head to throb even more.

Taking a deep breath, and muttering a quiet spell Mad had taught her to repel sounds at the compartment door, she slid down on the seat until her head was curled under the window.

If she just... rested for a bit, the she'd be able to make it the rest of the trip.

She just needed...

She was out almost before she had closed her eyes, and was completely oblivious as the train pulled away from the station.

Aria opened the door to the compartment, regarding the sole inhabitant quietly. The blonde had always had a soft spot for the girl. She had, after all, fielded some of Aria's more awkward questions.

Closing the door quietly, Aria sat across from the other girl, legs curled beneath her. Chin resting in one palm, the blonde gazed at the passing landscape.

The train bumped and chugged along, and for the longest time the girl on the seat was completely oblivious to it. She was getting her nights sleep, it seemed, upon the train.

Still, the pictures that had kept her awake the nights before sent her jolting awake. She blinked at the ceiling a few times before her brain figured out where she was. Turning her head slightly she started again to see...

"Aria?" she frowned slightly at the blonde. Hadn't she heard rumors that...? Wasn't she supposed to be...? "How long have you been sitting there? How long have I been asleep?"

Aria turned mismatched eyes from the window, offering the other girl a warm smile. "Awake, now?" J.J. had been tossing in her sleep for some time, now, though Aria had decided against waking her.

"I've been here since shortly after we pulled out of the station at King's Cross. You've been asleep for a couple of hours, I'd say." Her smile widened into a teasing smirk. "Why the surprise? You haven't been putting any stock in the strange rumors that have been going around about me, have you?"

The girl blinked slightly, rolling her shoulders and running a hand through her hair, "Yes, I think I'm as awake as I'm going to be."

Two hours? That was far longer than she had meant to sleep.

"Oh... well then, I'm sorry for being such an uninteresting train-mate. I bet my sleep mumbling was just facinating," she gave a little laugh, and shook herself one more time, joggging her groggy brain into awakness. She gave another awkward half laugh at being caught in her thought, "Not necessarily putting stalk in them, merely remembering the only explination I had."

"It's quite alright," Aria assured. "It gave me time to my thoughts and you must have needed the rest."

The blonde smiled, amused. "You only heard one rumor, then? I've heard several, myself. Everything from having been discovered to be the heir of obscure estate to having died. Absurd, isn't it? People don't just return from the dead, after all."

Juliet shrugged her shoulders slightly and laughed, "Me, need rest? How could you tell."

"No, I heard a whole slew of them," she said with a grin, "But until you showed up not dead, dying seemed to be the most consistent and sane one that ran past my ears."

Juliet sighed slightly and turned to look at the scenery, trying to gage how much she had missed just by the familiar sights.

"I suppose it absurd... though, sometimes when I'm at Hogwarts I feel like nothings more absurd than the next thing to come along. Every things just... crazy there at times. A good kind of crazy, but still... crazy, wouldn't you say?"