Of Age! (Ariel and Aoife/Lyra if Evelyn wants to join)

The stairs to the girl's dormitories were charmed. Hunter had figured that out years ago when he'd tried to go up them to ask his sister something and found himself on his ass at the bottom. They turned into a giant slide when any guy tried to climb them. Which was both a pain in the ass and also completely hilarious, because if Hunter heard a girl coming down the stairs as he was passing, all he had to do was touch his foot to the first step, and the whole staircase turned into a slide, allowing him to watch his unsuspecting victim land ungracefully at the bottom. Sometimes he lucked out and got his sister, which was doubly funny. But today, Hunter wasn't trying to prank whoever might be coming down them - it was actually far too early for anyone to be coming down them. No, that morning, Hunter needed to get up them!

Luckily, he already knew how. He'd only had multiple years to figure it out, after all. And it wasn't convenient to be limited by a staircase if he wanted to see Ariel, or Aoife or his sister. Not that he'd necessarily want to see Lyra, but still. So, giving himself a bit of space, Hunter prepared himself and then took off up the stairs. As it turned out, he was just quick enough to reach the window ledge about a quarter of the way up before they transformed and returned him to the bottom. Though, it wasn't the largest window-ledge, and it was a bit tricky squeezing himself off of it with enough momentum to reach the next one. But he always managed, even if it took him a few tries. But this time, he was particularly determined, so it only took him one, and before long he was standing outside the door to the girl's dormitory. Brilliant!

Grinning brightly, Hunter pushed the door open loudly, letting himself in. "You can't all really still be sleeping!" he exclaimed loudly, looking around at Ariel, Aoife and Lyra, who were all still sound asleep. Well, they probably wouldn't be asleep now that he'd burst obnoxiously into their dorm. He grabbed a pillow from a nearby unoccupied bed and chucked it at Lyra, just in case. "It's my birthday, and you're all still asleep!" he announced again, still grinning because he might as well because it was his birthday! "And not just any birthday!" he added. "I am seventeen today, ladies! Do you know what that means?!" Were they even awake? Were they listening to him? Did it matter? "It means," he continued, crossing the room to plop heavily down on Ariel's mattress. "That I am of age. It means that I can buy firewhiskey! And get my apparition license! And do magic outside of Hogwarts!" They clearly didn't understand. This was a big deal. Sleeping was not allowed right now.

The best colors in the world were dazzling around Ariel as she made it into a room that looked strangely much like the Great Hall. She sat down by one of the tables, the one who looked the most homey, the red one. It was so nice. Laughter and sounds of happiness were all around her. Looking at the table in front of her, she suddenly felt as if they were a bit empty. As if on cue, food appeared everywhere! And it wasn't just any food. It was all food. Everything from sushi (yuck!) to creme brulee. Oh wow! Ariel must've gone to heaven! What was the occasion?! Had Hogwarts discovered the long lost recipe of Helga Hufflepuff?! That would be epic! And then this would be the food for all days onwards! Brilliant! A voice shouted out, and Ariel recognized it as Hunter's! As if this day could get any better! But he was loud. Too loud. She really didn't like that. Not amongst all the laughing and happiness. She turned around to try to pin down his location, but she couldn't see him. Why couldn't she see him?!

"Shush, Hunter!" she called, trying to reach for him instead, but her flailing in all the merriment didn't do much to find him. He talked again, but nothing registered in her mind. He was distracting her from the food. Why would he do that? He knew how much food meant to her! This was ridiculous! The colors started to dwindle, and she started feeling something of a frenzy when Hunter said another thing. This sentence registered in her mind. Not just any birthday? What does that mean? A few more words registered, like seventeen, and then something weighed down her feet. Wait? How was that possible?! She was sitting... No she wasn't. She was lying. Horizontally. In her own bed. Awoken from the best dream in the world, by her best friend. Her eyes flying she shot up in bed and glared at her friend. "HUNTER YOU SHIT," she shouted and buried her face in her pillow. She groaned annoyed when his last sentence registered in her mind. "Like that ever stopped you," she mumbled icily.

Ariel took a deep breath, and opened her eyes. Sleep started seeping out of her body and finally, everything Hunter had said from the moment he walked into the room registered completely in her mind. She shot up again with a big grin on her face. "AAH! HAPPY BIRTHDAY HUNTER!" she shouted from the top of her lungs, throwing her arms around his neck and hugging him tightly. "My boy's all grown up!" she said, faking a sad tone. She broke from the hug and then faked an embarrassed face. "Though, you know, this is the girls' dormitory," she said and looked down at her tee. She then ruffled his hair and pushed the covers off her, revealing awesome Snoopy slackers. "Good I'm always prepared for late slash early visitors!" she said mockingly.

Lyra had been quite enjoying one of the few good dreams she’d had recently. She wasn’t entirely sure what was happening, but it involved her and Lyn and Jack and their parents and even Hunter at the breakfast table, and there were chickens casually wandering around the kitchen, Aidan Turner and all the rest of them. Her good dreams were always pretty similar, at home, with Jack still there and everything still perfectly intact, her and Lyn watching PLL, feeding the pigs, making scrambled eggs, those sort of things. And then she woke up, and she realised that it had been a dream, and she instantly felt sad, and her whole day was negatively affected by a dream that was meant to have been a good one. Only, today, she didn’t just gradually fade out of her dream, she heard a loud opening of a door, and loud yelling, and she was awake. Who the hell was making that noise? Usually she was the first one awake, and it didn’t sound like Aoife or Ariel.

She rolled over to look towards the door, only to see one of her least favourite people. So she rolled back over, and listened to Ariel deal with the shit that was her brother. But apparently since it was the moron’s birthday, he had the right to burst in ridiculously early in the morning and rudely awake her from her beauty sleep. Realising there was no way she was going to get back to sleep now, she sat up and glanced at the happy couple exchanging happiness. “Happy birthday, can you leave now?” But how he’d got here in the first place, she didn’t understand. “Isn’t there a slide to stop you getting up here? Have you found a spell? Or have you just kept it from me for years that you’re actually a girl?” she asked, trying to sound sort of joking. At least she was making an effort. She wasn’t entirely sure what type of mood she was in. It could probably be described as cheerful, with an undertone of moody and bitchy and tired. But that felt acceptable, since she’d literally just woken up.

“Oh, I got you a present somewhere… one second.” She leaned sideways to rustle through her bedside cabinet in search of the gift. It wasn’t anything good, she wasn’t a good gift giver and she didn’t really like Hunter enough to bother much anyway, so it was just a few bits and bobs she’d got free from Honeydukes and some socks with sweet, innocent pigs on them. She figured it could be a good, subtle way to convey to Hunter that he needed to cut back on the bacon, because pigs like Toby had to die for it, so it really wasn’t worth it. Lyra was never going to give up on the campaign, even if Lyn had, or if it had no chance of succeeding. She found the box after a moment and aimed it roughly at his head. But she wasn’t a great thrower, so it probably wouldn’t hurt him.

Hunter snorted in amusement and watched on as a still sleeping Ariel shushed him, making sure to keep out of reach of her awkwardly flailing limbs. But after a few moments, she started to come to, and eventually sat up in a panic, obviously completely confused. He met her eyes with an amused look, and burst into laughter when she finally shouted at him. "Morning to you, too," he replied through his laughter as she fell back to her pillow. Her next statement had some truth to it, and he grinned broadly. "You have a point. Actually, my life will probably become incredibly dull now if I'm not careful. I'll have to stoop to more serious, adult illegal things to keep things exciting!" Because life was nothing if you always played by the rules. It just got a bit more complicated now, because there were less rules to follow, so breaking them would involve a bit more creativity. "Anyway, I think that - "

As he was rambling, Ariel was apparently still in the process of waking up. So when she shot up twice as fast as the first time and slammed into him, Hunter's last sentence was completely cut off. "Yeah, about time you figured it out," he answered happily, his arms slipping around her waist, as she practically blew out his eardrum by shouting so loud. "Yes, all grown up," he repeated as she pulled away. "So really, you should feel pretty damn special that I'm spending my first day as an adult with you insignificant children," he pointed out with a mock-serious face. But he grinned as Ariel's facial expression changed. "Did you really expect that to deter me?" he asked innocently. "And Snoopy? Really?" he joked. "I thought you'd be into something a little more badass than that. Batman, maybe, or Lord of the Rings? Though I'll bet you five sickles that Aoife's are either sheep or Doctor Who."

Whether it was his obnoxiously loud entrance or Ariel's obnoxiously loud greeting, Hunter wasn't sure, but something finally woke Lyra up."Thank you, and I could, but I won't," he replied cheerily, grinning at his sister. "And there is," he confirmed. "Yet, here I am." He grinned even more broadly at her next statement. "You never know - though I'd be a sorry excuse for a girl - you know, a bit flat-chested and all. I'd probably be made fun of by all the other girls, never get a boyfriend, and grow up to be a sad, lonely cat lady." And cats were terrible. So that would probably suck. As a box went flying across the room, Hunter reached out and snatched it before it knocked all of Ariel's things off of her bedside table. "You need better aim," he told his sister, instantly tearing into whatever was inside. "But thanks!" he exclaimed, already popping open a box of fizzing whizbees and completely ignoring the socks, which he would probably never wear.

Aoife's dreams mainly consisted of sheep. This one in particular also involved a TARDIS. Luckily, she woke up right before she was about to be killed by a dalek. Unluckily, it was Hunter's shouting she woke up to, not a very nice sound. Because of this, she decided it wasn't time to get up just yet. But then he mentioned that it was his birthday, and she swore under her breath. She'd completely forgotten to get him anything. Maybe he didn't deserve anything, though, if all he was going to do was stand there and shout at them that it was his birthday. Ariel and Lyra greeted him in those contrasting Ariel and Lyra sort of ways. Aoife made up her mind to just stay where she was, pretending to be asleep. She could make him a present or something later. And he wouldn't know she'd forgotten.

Only, her plan couldn't work, because with all the noise they were making between them, it would be impossible for her to not wake up. So oh well. She wouldn't need to lie or anything, just act like she'd known the importance of this day for weeks now. "You owe Ariel five sickles," she muttered, sitting up to reveal plain blue pyjamas. "If I knew where I could buy sheep or Doctor Who pyjamas for a reasonable price, I'd be a much happier person." But in all fairness, Hunter knew her pretty well. She hardly even talked about Doctor Who anymore, since the only time she could watch the show was during the holidays. And while sheep pyjamas were totally her style, they were hard to come by. Unfortunately.

"You don't need a boyfriend or the support of your peers to be a cool girl," she decided. "But cats aren't good. I'm going to be an old crazy sheep lady instead." She would never retire from her charity work, or give up on raising sheep cruelty awareness. "But anyway, happy birthday," Aoife added. "On one hand, you're old and gross, on the other you're almost out of the hell that is being a teenager." She, meanwhile, would have to wait almost a year before she was Hunter's age, and theoretically an adult. It really was quite unfair.