Lindsay didn't know what an abyss was. If she had to guess... she probably wouldn't be able to. The same was true for half of all concepts related to advanced Transfiguration (mostly the abstract, impossible to picture sort that nobody would ever need to use in their entire life, even if they went into a field involving heavy use of Transfiguration). As she walked from one side of the school to the other she was agonizing over a Transfiguration assignment that she was fairly certain she was going to have to spend every free moment working on if she was to hand in anything that Professor McGonagall would even be willing to accept. Why had she allowed Professor Sprout to convince her that she needed a NEWT in Transfiguration? It was her worst subject. It had always been her worst subject. She worked hard and usually did well enough to seem like she knew what she was doing, but it was a constant struggle to keep her head above water (though less so now that she had narrowed down her course load to the essentials). She wished she'd taken her chances and had enrolled in Herbology instead, particularly now that she had this terrifying assignment looming over her head. 

She was a bit distracted by her very ordinary sort of plight, but not distracted enough to miss the sight of Nigel sitting atop a ledge on the bridge. She wasn't absorbed in her concerns over the assignment to the extent that she wasn't going to say hello – rather, she was looking for a nice excuse to set those concerns aside. On a good day, Nigel Wright seemed comparatively more sane than many of his Gryffindor cohorts, and she'd always appreciated that, even though it wasn't as true as she thought. She greeted him rather pleasantly with a simple “Hello, Nigel,” as she approached. 

She didn't expect him to suddenly throw himself onto the ground. Nigel was a bit anxious at times, but she didn't think he was so anxious that he felt the need to duck and cover when someone he knew said hello to him. A look of equal parts concern and perplexity clouded her features. Her hands shot up as if to help him, but she seemed to recall at the last second that she'd agreed on a no touching rule when it came to this particular specimen of Gryffindor, so she paused, holding her hands up in what looked like surrender. 

”Oh. It’s you. You nearly gave me a heart attack!”

“Oh, did I scare you?” she asked, the perplexity vanishing from her features and leaving behind a scrunched and sympathetic expression as she realized what had happened. “I'm sorry. I was only saying hello. Are you, um.. you're alright, aren't you?” she asked. It took a lot of self control not to reach out and touch him, just to steady him and be sure he was fine. It was an impulse, but an impulse she was able to control. Eventually she lowered her hands again and clenched them together in front of her. He looked too sad, even for someone who'd just been scared out of his wits to the point where he physically propelled himself off of a ledge. “I'm really sorry,” she apologized again, hoping she wasn't the cause of the aura of melancholy surrounding him. All she'd done was say hello! 


we don't realize our faith in the prize unless its been somehow elusive
how swiftly we choose it - the sacred simplicity of you at my side