August 7th, 1893 — Padmore Park

"Excuse me?"" Caroline called out forlornly from her rather precarious position in one of Padmore Park's trees. She was regretting her decisions again and, not for the first time, her inability to think her actions entirely the way through before she acted upon them. She had thought she had seen a nest, or something similar in the higher branches of the tree and had been up the tree and far above the ground before she could think it completely through, having temporarily forgotten that she did not do heights well (which as she was from a Quidditch family she was well aware did not make sense but she had no power over such things), and had only now discovered that whilst she had been perfectly fine climbing up the tree climbing down was a very different story.

"I don't suppose you could help me get down?"

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This ticker exists as an age reminder because Jen is terrible at keeping track of time...

The park was full of pretty things.

That's what Charley told herself to get all the way across Hogsmeade to its pastoral grounds. She had to walk through the rich part of town to get there. Didn't really matter how rich, anyone with more than two coins together would have bested her on most days, and the urchin always pulled her cap down further when she had to cross through their neighborhoods. Still, it paid off, just not in any sort of tangible way. The village faded away almost as soon as she stepped into the trees that guarded its borders with Hogsmeade, and pretty soon she was in another world entirely.

This one stretched on across a glistening lake toward a pretty, shining castle up on the hill beyond. The sight of it still took her breath away. For a moment, it didn't really matter that Charley was here on the outside and would never step foot back inside Hogwarts again.

For just a moment, she forgot all about silly problems like that and could just focus on pretty things.

"Excuse me? I don't suppose you could help me get down?"

At least until a voice knocked her clear of those silly thoughts. Charley's head swiveled until it couldn't, and then she turned her feet to help it a bit more. She craned her head back, staring up into the tree, until finally the urchin found the source of the voice. Clinging to the tree for dear life was another pretty thing in the park.

A pretty dumb thing to have climbed up all that way without knowing how to get down.

"What?" Charley stared up blankly at the child in the tree branches. She had to squint a little to make out the girl's features, her face nearly frozen in that narrow-eyed frown for a moment. It didn't go away when Charley was through looking at the girl, and for a moment she panicked at the thought of being stuck looking that way forever. She scrubbed at her face with fingers until it relaxed again, then turned back up to the treetop child. "Just climb down!"

The urchin held up her empty hands to emphasize. "I don't got a wand or nothing, whadja want me to do?"

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Caroline Weasley

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It seemed that her luck... had not improved. Caroline's arms tightened around the tree branch and she tried not to look as pathetic as she felt. She was lucky enough that she had been heard however it very much seemed that help was not exactly in hand. Her eyes shut she tried to breathe her way through it and the rising panic at being so high above ground. She tried to move her leg only to find that it would most defineately not support her... her arms hugged the tree tighter, if at all that was possible.

"I- I can't! My legs- my legs have turned to jelly!" She called down trying very much not to let a wail enter her voice. She knew she was going be stuck up at the tree and any minute she'd fall. If only brooms weren't banned! She thought disparingly. Brooms. They would've helped her, or at least helped others help her. "C-c-an you go find somebody who can help me!" She asked trying to push down her everrising panic.

  

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This ticker exists as an age reminder because Jen is terrible at keeping track of time...

Charley didn't hide her laugh at the child's fear, not that she wanted to anyway. That's the way anyone learned, they had to have their fear pulled right out into the open and made fun of for being a stupid fear. Heights? Charley climbed taller heights every day, what was so bad about a tree really?

"Should I get some peanut butter?" The urchin barked out another chuckle, coming closer to the tree's own bark. It wasn't her favorite way of climbing, she'd rather have the cracks and handholds in a brick wall instead. Calling back up to the girl, Charley asked pointedly, "Who's gonna come rushing for my sake? They're not like to believe me saying some pretty pretty princess got herself stuck up a tree."

She left out the dumb part for now, it seemed obvious enough to her anyway.

Charley groaned and threw up her arms, reaching with the aid of a short jump to the first branch. From there it took nothing at all to swing the rest of her body up and wrap her legs around the branch. She rolled over, climbed up and stood, holding the next branch to get a better look at the scared little girl higher up in the tree.

"See how I did that?" Charley didn't make the mistake of squinting this time, just letting the dimmer light in the foliage make the transition for her. Now she could see the girl plainly outlined against the higher branches, clinging on for dear life. "You don't need nobody's help, just do what I did in reverse."

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To say Caroline was less than impressed was putting it mildly... Rather she was beginning to wish that if the child was going to be oh so helpful that theyd just go away. Where was Wes when she ended him? Or one of her other siblings.... Or... Lou... Lou. She really wanted Lou. Lou always helped her get out of these sticky messes. It was one of the reasons she had missed her sister so much this past year.

She wanted to say she knew how to climb. That of course she did because there was no way to have gotten up said tree without knowing how to climb in the first place. Her problem was down.

Her limbs had turned weakened and the sight of the ground made her head spin. She clung on tighter. Tears beginning to form. She didnt care anymore....

"I cant!" She said as her lip quivvered now and the tears threatened to spill over.

  

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This ticker exists as an age reminder because Jen is terrible at keeping track of time...

For just one, brief moment, Charley actually thought the little girl might have some potential. She might have been a pretty dumb thing, but all the little girl had to do was button her lip and follow Charley's lead. It was easy. Then she transformed before the urchin's very eyes, becoming the dreaded damsel in distress, right on the verge of tears with that lower lip quivering.

Charley wanted to reach up and slap the little damsel silly. This is why girls got such a bad name! Always moaning and crying about things they couldn't do, instead of getting off her bum and actually doing them. Or trying, anyway, even if it was frightening.

Besides, fear was just more motivation to get it right the first time.

The urchin let out a long groan. Hadn't she already learned this lesson before? Charley was no hero, she didn't ride in on a dashing steed as a knight in shining armor. If she was going to help someone, they better be able to help her back. She looked up at the little girl above her, not feeling very confident about her chances at that. "Stay right there," she told the distressed little damsel, "I'm coming up."

It didn't take Charley long to clamber up the rest of the branches between them, and in short order she was sitting on the same level as the little girl. With one arm she wrapped herself around the trunk, and used the other to grab the damsel's upper arm. The street urchin was so far out of her comfort zone right now, and perhaps a little higher from the ground than even she liked.

Charley focused on the little damsel instead to keep herself balanced, staring intensely into those terrified eyes. "I got you."

Oh cripes, the little girl was going to cry anyway, wasn't she?

"Look, I know it's scary. You think I en't scared when I'm running across the tippy-tops of roofs?" Charley thrust her chin forward and looked straight out past the little girl. "I just keep looking at where I wanna go. You do that, and you won't fall. You en't gonna fall anyway, 'cause I got you, but you hafta climb down, 'kay?"

With that, Charley started pulling the little girl's arm toward herself, gently but firmly. She wasn't about to let this little damsel stay in distress, even if it was scary.

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Caroline panicked. Her heat beating rapidly in her chest. It wasn't safe. It wasn't safe. It wasn't safe. The beats tried to say over and over again repeating a mantra. Why wouldn't the other girl just go get a grownup? Louisa? or even their teacher? She obviously wasn't old enough to magic. She couldn't catch or save her if she fell. She screamed.

"Noooooo!!"

"I can't. I really can't! Can't you go find my sister. She'll know what to do. She has Red hair. Her name is Louisa Weasley. Almost all the Weasleys do. But I can't I can't I can't" She blubbered not even really hearing what the other girl had to say. Her panic overwhelming her more as the other girl seemed intent on trying to get her to come down by herself by pulling her down.

  

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This ticker exists as an age reminder because Jen is terrible at keeping track of time...

Charley nearly lost her cap in fright, startled by the little girl's screams. She released her charge, more glad to be rid of her grip than worried if the girl fell. After all, it was that niggling sort of worry that got her up the tree in the first place, the urchin had other places to be today. It wasn't her job to get the little girl down before she cracked her head.

"An' I'm s'posed ta find a girl with red hair in this town?" she wondered aloud, rolling her eyes at the little damsel's dumb request. Charley took hold of her cap and lifted it up, letting her ginger braids tumble down to swat against her freckled cheeks. It was an odd feeling lately, letting down her hair so someone else could see it, which made it easy for the exaggerated shock to grow on her face. The urchin turned it onto the Weasley girl to declare, "Oi, look! I found one already!"

Grinning to herself, Charley pressed her cap back firmly on her head, leaving the braids down for now. She could fix them when she got down, and besides that, Charley found it amusing to watch the little girl struggle. Fear was one thing, but this damsel's distress was seeming far more like something bigger than a little fear. "Y'know, I got a sister, but my big brother was the one who'd take me climbing."

Charley settled back onto the branch roughly opposite the damsel's, coming a bit lower than her feet when she sat on it. She let her own swing casually, keeping her grip with one hand on the branch beneath her. "Ambros was the best climber, he could shimmy up a tree afore you could say 'Ready or not, here I come!' Didn't matter if I found him, he wouldn't think I'd caught him 'till I could touch. You bet your knickers I figured out how to climb up after him."

She leaned back on the branch, enjoying the sway of the tree as it move under the breeze and her weight together. "He'd always go down first to catch me, no matter what we'd climb. 'Cept when we got up on a roof one time, and Ma come up hollering like a banshee. See, Ambros musta done summat to make her mad, 'cause she was plenty mad. He took one look at her and scooted right off the edge, leaving me high and dry up there on my own."

The urchin craned her neck out to look down, somberly judging the distance from their height. They were up even higher than she'd been on the roof in her story, but the little girl didn't exactly need to know that. "Ma screeched over to me to get down, then went off to wherever Ambros was. That left nobody to help me get down. I en't tell nobody else but I pissed my lady pants trying to get down all by myself. Not that I'm worried you'll say summat, who're you gonna tell all the way up here in a tree?"

Charley looked back up wearing the biggest grin she'd had all day. Or maybe she was just silently laughing at the little damsel's misfortune now. That would be a secret she was keeping to herself this time.

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Caroline closed her eyes and whimpered. Where was Lou? or her governess or even Wes when she wanted him. Why oh why did they pick this of all times to not be hyper vigilant in telling what she could and could not do, as opposed to say, that time they caught her trying to sneak more biscuits out of the kitchen or bread to entice more critters into the garden. She really didn't care about what the other girl was trying to say or do - it wasn't helpful at all!

She wanted a grown up - with a wand and she wanted one now! She wanted somebody to help her down from this tree and it wasn't as if this girl could help her as she fell (at the thought of falling Caroline's grip on her branch got tighter. The girl was saying.... something or other and Caroline deciced to keep her eyes tightly shut - especially as watching the other girl on her branch made her almost more afraid then even. It even helped somewat. If she couldn't see the heights, or the branches than she couldn't fall.

.... It was a shame that she couldn't climb down with her eyes closed.

  

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This ticker exists as an age reminder because Jen is terrible at keeping track of time...

It actually wasn't half bad up here, on top of the world of Hogsmeade. Or at least all that she could see from her perch in the tree, which was all of Hogsmeade that mattered. The urchin rather liked it up here, come to think of it, feeling all sorts of relaxed just teetering on a branch and chattering to a kind sort of listener. The kind who wouldn't interject and say she was wrong about a certain detail or that horses couldn't sprout wings, or nonsense like that.

The little damsel might've whimpered a bit, but otherwise she was a quiet, kind listener. Charley liked that about her, which was actually a surprise to discover. Who knew that the Weasley girl could make for a good companion to shoot the breeze with.

If only there was a breeze. The air was fairly still, and the only movement of the branches came from the urchin when she swung her legs to and fro. A breeze in the air, agreeable company in the tree, a girl could get used to a day like this. "Y'know, this'll be jes the sort o' quiet that'd tempt my little brother to poke his nose in."

Charley glanced across the tree trunk to the other girl, hoping to catch the sliver of interest yet. She was pretty sure that a tight grip and closed eyes weren't great indicators of interest, but then again the little damsel might simply be caught in rapt attention for her silvered words. All she had to do was keep talking, and that was easy enough.

"That'd be Horry, not Ambrose," she told Weasley to help keep her straight. It wasn't hard for Charley, who could see the two brothers in her mind's eye. Still, for story listeners, she'd learned that far too many didn't have much of an eye in their minds, if they had much in their minds at all. "He couldn't climb higher than a bedframe, but catching sight of me an' Ambrose up a tree'd have him bawling his little eyes out. Sometimes he could grab hold of a twig at the base and he'd shake like a leaf, tryna knock us down for all he's worth!"

The urchin pressed down on her branch, feeling it give and tense under her hands. Her feet swung and her body undulated to make the branch shake as it might under Horry's command. He only wished he could have reached so high. The thought made Charley laugh at the idea of it, a small seed of bitterness scattered throughout. All the talk of her brothers had her missing them greatly, and she was starting to feel bad for the little damsel again.

Not so much to stop wiggling and shaking the branches, or stop talking so much as to give the whimpering Weasley a chance to whine about finding help or a wand again. Charley wasn't about to do either. And still, for some reason, she wasn't about to just leave the other girl stranded here either. Which just meant she'd better hold on in the meantime, or just start climbing down after all.

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On second thought perhaps Caroline could climb down with her eyes closed? She felt the rough bark between her fingers and decided that it might be worth a try. The girls voice... was not comforting... and she had given up listening to her - especially since it seemed as that she was not going to be of any help.

Could she wiggle herself downwards by holding tightly onto the trunk of the tree? She thought about it and had only barely released her grip on the tree before gripping it again, tighter than ever. She'd just realised the glaring flaw in that plan. If she went down with her eyes shut she had no idea where to put her feet or her hands - and no idea what to grab or where to grab. If she had her eyes open the ground was impossibly far, a deep chasm beneath her feet that just wanted to eat her up. If she had her eyes closed whilst she could not see it it's mere presence surrounded her in a way that whilst was not worse reminded her of the depths below.

She shuffled her feet. Surely that couldn't be dangerous because she knew her arms could be strong enough to support her. Her foot however slid along the branch and she let out a sudden gasp as she imagined herself falling to the ground with such speed that she would surely die. Her eyes shot open and she shrieked.

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   Charley Goode

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This ticker exists as an age reminder because Jen is terrible at keeping track of time...

If there was a color for surprise, Charley would have been painted in full. After all the grousing and groaning, the little damsel was actually starting to move. Watching with interest, the urchin's own movements slowed to a halt. As the branch steadied beneath her, others rustled under the grip of the Weasley girl starting a slow, harmless shuffle along their length.

"Seems like someone's finally roused up, fresh from a nap are ya?" Charley quipped with her mouth shaped in amusement. The little damsel hadn't uttered a peep since she started telling stories, and now it looked like she was about to lose her audience. The urchin wasn't sour over the affair, but she would be a fool to pass up one last chance to tease the girl, "Not quite dusk yet, little owl, didja spot a tasty mouse down below?"

Even as the urchin giggled to herself, she kept a watchful eye on the Weasley girl. Partly just to see if she could make it, from her vantage point it seemed to Charley that the little damsel had her eyes almost shut. "Y'know, I find it a great help to keep my eyes wide when climbing a tree."

Still not a single sound reached the urchin, who frowned in response. Folding her arms, she perched on her branch, unrepentant in her attempts to goad a response. Having her earlier attempts at help rebuffed kept Charley from offering a hand this time, if the little damsel wanted to climb down at last she could do so on her own. Charley wasn't about to volunteer to get her head bitten off again.

That was the idea, anyway.

Her instincts acted faster than her grudge, it seemed. Charley reached out for the arm of the little damsel, whose foot had slipped off the branch, leaving her dangling by her arms alone. Only Charley found she had reached too far, and her own perch slipped away, leaving her hanging on to the only lifeline she had left.

One little damsel, whose grip on the branch above them could hardly be sturdy enough to hold both.

Charley let out a sound, formless in the throes of real danger. Now she really did wish for her wand, or that she wasn't so drawn to the plights of little girls. The urchin might have let go, if she was as kind and thoughtful as her heart tried to encourage. Or if it wasn't already assured that the Weasley girl would fall anyway, sending them both plummeting to the heartless ground below.

Her own heart hid behind her stomach, which flopped itself upside down as Charley felt a moment of weightlessness. A harbinger of the inevitable. All she could do was hope her reach for a saving branch was longer and faster than their fall.

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Caroline's arms, barely able to support herself stood no chance when Charley's weight was added to her own - and together they plummeted. The world was simply against her and if a Boggart had decided to insert itself into the situation it would have found itself unable to add anything further to add to her terror. She screamed as they plummeted downwards to a ground that was surely going to swallow her up, and spit her out in tiny bits and pieces strewn across the landscape.

It was going to hurt so much.

She knew she was going to hit the ground and then...

She......... wasn't sure what happened next.

She didn't know if she had blacked out or if her mind was simply unable to process the terror that was enveloping her - she couldn't remember if she had been looking at the tree, the sky, the ground, or even cursing the very unhelpful child who, had she just gone for help as she was supposed to instead of staying around for a chat, would not have made the situation that much worse by PULLING HER OUT OF THE TREE and getting her to fall to her doom.

All Caroline knew was that instead of hitting the ground as she so greatly feared giant bubbles seemed to form between her and the ground - popping as she hit them, reducing her speed and cushioning her fall and bouncing her along until she landed, quite softly onto the grass which is where she stayed gaping at the sky in shock and quite relishing the feeling of grass beneath her body, her breath quite literally knocked out of her and her mind still reeling unable to catch up with the events that had just transpired.

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   Charley Goode

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This ticker exists as an age reminder because Jen is terrible at keeping track of time...

Charley hated falling. She wasn't afraid of it, not really, not after all the practice she put in to not fall from great heights. She could climb up any building in Hogsmeade, and would swear the same for London too. The tree was barely a thought in her head, not with all the branches to catch on the way down. It was an easy gamble for her, there was no way the urchin could have ever fallen out the way the little damsel feared so much.

Charley just hadn't bet on grabbing for the little damsel as she fell.

With her limbs all tangled up in the Weasley girl, she couldn't reach out to grab the branches as they rushed by. And she didn't have a pair of wings this time to slow their rapid descent. Vicious thoughts raced through the urchin's head, then were gone again, ripped away like the twigs that reached callously at her clothes and scratched at her cheeks.

"Oi!"
"Bleedin'!"
"Cor!"

The urchin sang the hymn of her people each time they rebounded, her stomach flipping over more times than a trapeze artist. The world around her didn't stop moving when she did, and it took all of her concentration to unravel herself from the little damsel. Charley wasn't about to lay there, some dazed pigeon to be picked off by a dog, or worse, a copper.

"What's the big idea there?" Charley shouted, glaring down at the pretty, dumb girl on the ground. The world seemed to stabilize enough for her to brush off her clothes and move the hair out of her face. She winced when her hand touched the side of her cheek, and it came away with thin streaks of red. Her lips twisted into a fierce grimace, made all the worse when the urchin spied her cap sitting upturned on the grass a few feet away.

She stalked over to it, and mashed her parted friend back onto her head where it belonged. "All ya hadta do was climb down. Climb! It don't even take a witch, jes summat with workin' hands an' feet."

Charley kicked at the grass, since she couldn't kick a little girl when she was down. Not without really calling the dogs down upon herself. Fuming, and with fists shoved into her pockets, she chased down a fallen leaf on the ground, finding better victims for her anger than a demon-possessed girl from the trees. Not that hurting either of them would make the urchin feel any less rattled from that fall.

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