Come out and Play (Chase & Anna)

[Chase Firebrand]

They couldn't go much farther than kissing, not in this cold, and Chase hadn't been here enough times to know if the greenhouse had back doors they could escape into. Still, he thoroughly enjoyed the next however many minutes, and by the time they'd wound down, his body was begging for more. As little as he'd been getting relief lately, this level of physical intimacy had been going farther every time. Chase's eyes were flickering crimson and scarlet flame as he opened them, putting just a bit of space between his body and Anna's, even if one arm remained around her waist. Even as his hand slipped from beneath her cloak.

[Annabelle Hennessy]

Anna's body was humming with excitement. Butterflies had formed in her stomach and they were demanding attention even as Chase slowed things and pulled back. She unconsciously licked her partly swollen lips. Her hand had at some point snaked through his hair and she slowly stroked the ends curling at the base of his neck. Her other hand was still blissfully warm inside his cloak and she didn't make any move to remove it. Instead she smiled as she met his eye, getting lost in the depths of his gaze.

[Chase Firebrand]

Chase couldn't help looking down at Anna, and the look in her eyes was like a cold splash of water. The heat in Chase's veins was made immediately uncomfortable and he looked away. There was something far different in Anna's eyes, something beyond a simple reaction to to the last heated minutes. Chase straightened, one hand catching Anna's beneath his cloak. He didn't push it away, but he didn't let it rest there, either. He held her hand for just a moment, hoping that was enough not to hurt her, and set her hand against her lap.

[Annabelle Hennessy]

Anna didn't notice the change in Chase since he looked away. She assumed he was just trying to keep control since they weren't in the best of places to continue their actions. She hadn't thought about it at the time, but now that her brain was functioning again the cold would definately put a damper on things if they'd done any more. She lowered her other hand, clasping her two together. "What are your plans for the holiday? I always go home to visit my family."

[Chase Firebrand]

If Chase had been expecting Anna to pull away in offense, he was to be surprised. He glanced back at her almost curiously. "I'll be going home as well," he said. Normally he would conveniently miss whatever mode of transportation was to take him back to his family, but he had decided sometime in the last month that, for once, he would heed his father's summons. He had done far too much thinking in those lonely, desperate weeks after Dru.

[Annabelle Hennessy]

"I hope my gram and gramps pick me up. If my parents meet me with the car, it takes a few hours to get home as opposed to a quick side apparition. Do your parents meet you there too?" She wondered if he might sit with her on the Hogwarts express. She didn't think she'd leave the train with him though. It wasn't that she was embarrassed to be seen with him at all, but she wouldn't want to hear all the nosy questions from whichever part of her family greeted her.

[Chase Firebrand]

"I don't know if they will," Chase said, turning his gaze out toward the back of the greenhouse. "They did when I was younger, but then I stopped going home." He gave a light roll of his shoulders that passed for a shrug. "I don't really care either way." It didn't matter at all who was there waiting for him. The end result would be the same. He'd end up home again, and summoned to his father's study the moment he was settled in.

[Annabelle Hennessy]

"How else would you get home?" She didn't think he could apparate yet, and didn't remember there being a floo network connection on the platform. Some of the most basic things for wizards were still a mystery to her. She wished that they had a 'magic 101' or a magikal home-ec' class to teach basic wizarding functions that seemed second nature to people growing up in wizarding homes, but were completely foreign to muggle born wizards. She had started to study up on the differences but hadn't found much outside of the basic household spell books.

[Chase Firebrand]

Chase looked back at Anna, one brow arched. "They'd send someone," he said, the answer so blatantly obvious to him that he couldn't begin to imagine why she'd felt the need to ask. His parents brought him to the Hogwarts Express at the beginning of term and picked him up again at the end, but for breaks, why would they interrupt their schedules to stand around waiting for him, especially when he never showed up?

[Annabelle Hennessy]

The concept of having someone to send after a child was completely foreign to Anna. The only house elves she'd seen had been during her stay at Hogwarts, and she couldn't imagine her parents having people around to do personal errands. Her eyes had widened at the concept, and how Chase acted as if it were a normal day to day occurrence. She shook her head with a light laugh. "I can't even imagine having people or house elves to do things for me."

[Chase Firebrand]

Chase arched an eyebrow at Anna. "So you don't eat from the kitchens when you're here?" he asked. "You do know that Hogwarts is full of house-elves, don't you?" He didn't mean his words as a question at all. Of course she had to know. He couldn't imagine anyone being stupid enough to think the food came out of thin air. It didn't even occur to him to list off any of the other things the house-elves did. Chase was so used to his clothes and surroundings staying clean that he didn't spare a thought for how they'd gotten that way.

[Annabelle Hennessy]

"Well yeah, but that's not what I meant. I meant personally. Like if I left a book in the library, I can't just have someone else fetch it for me, I have to go get it myself." She realized she'd just compared Chase to a book, as if he was an errant possession that needed to be claimed. But the principle was the same, so she didn't add on to the analogy. "I've just never been in a household that was big or powerful enough to have their own house-elves or employees."

[Chase Firebrand]

"I'm not lazy," Chase said. "If I wanted a damn book I'd go get it myself. A good house-elf does its job without being seen, like the ones here. You can only find them in the kitchens." He was bridling a bit at Anna's implications, and her disclaimer at the end did little to soothe him.

[Annabelle Hennessy]

Chase had taken Anna's words completely wrong and Anna felt like she was backpedaling out of a hole. "That's not what I meant, I was only using that as an example because I didn't know what else to use. I never meant to say that having house elves was a bad thing, I'm just not used to it outside of school." She didn't have a clue what all a house elf did. All she knew was that they were constantly busy cooking and cleaning and doing whatever was required of them. "I wish my parents had one so I wouldn't have to wash dishes."

[Chase Firebrand]

Chase blinked at even the idea of washing dishes, but chose not to say anything. He'd only be exposing his ignorance about this. Really, though, Anna was mixed blood. It stood to reason that, as odd as it was, there wouldn't be a family elf. Chase didn't at all feel like trying to picture that. He had enough difficulty as it was with the Muggle things he already knew about. "I'm not offended, Anna," Chase assured her.