Stars in the Sky PV: Henry Llewellyn Closed

Another day of long classes had come and gone, and Henry was ready to not do his homework. He knew that he was going to have to do it eventually, but after listening to nonsense for the last few hours, he was ready for a break. Much of what was taught made no sense to him, as he was muggle-born and knew little of magic upon arriving at school. Still, the thought of finally being out of class and headed off to do whatever he wanted made his spirits lift as he pushed through the crowded hallway.

Perhaps it had been a bit of a mistake, but he had brought his catapult to class. He had built it a while ago with the help of his friend and was trying to find more ways to play around with it. There were only so many staircases he could catapult stones and buttons down before getting bored of the same old reaction. However, a thought had struck him the previous night, lying in his bed, wide awake.

He had a bunch of origami stars.

It was a skill he had learned from his slightly older brother, Daniel, and had utilized in some of his most bored moments at school. Unfortunately, it meant he was running short on parchment was going to need to find a way to get more, but it was sort of worth it. He had made a new friend while making the stars. Now, he just needed somewhere to test his idea.

Turning down an empty corridor, Henry headed toward his favorite lesser-known staircase. The castle was a maze of corridors and passageways that could easily get someone lost. In his first several months at the castle, Henry had found this to be the case for himself. Luckily, he had adapted rather quickly, learning the locations of a couple of secret passageways as well.

Finally reaching a good spot, Henry unceremoniously dropped his bag on the floor and fell to his knees next to it. Unaware of the bruises he likely acquired by doing this, Henry flung open his bag and pulled out his catapult. It was still in one piece. Setting this on the ground with a small clack, he dug out a small bag within his bag. It was only a few of the stars from his collection, but it was enough for his purposes. Rigging the catapult up and setting several stars in the cup, Henry let them fly, satisfied with the result and entirely unaware of the presence of another student.

@Nicholas McCowan
color code = #5A8697

Interacting with @Henry Llewellyn

Nicholas rounded the corner, his mind still going over his seeming inability to comprehend basic charms. With his jaw clenched far too tight and his eyes downcast, he was slightly taken aback by the sudden staircase in the hallway before him. This wasn't the way to the Gryffindor common room at all, was it?

What came to follow was even more surprising to the first year, the shape of another boy was atop the staircase, some sort of contraption to his side. Nicholas didn't have time to blink before said contraption fired, a series of paper stars catapulted through the air. The Gryffindor froze, entirely unsure how to process this new deluge of information.

The result was as to be expected, one of the projectiles knocked against his head, the rest having fluttered to the ground upon completing their arc. It took Nicholas a moment to process what had happened, obviously the paper hadn't hurt him, it wasn't as if it the stars were made of stone nor of steel. However, his mood was already darkened from the day, and the realisation that not only had he managed to get himself lost but that he'd just gotten hit in the head by a paper star of all things caused the boy to internally boil.

The glare that he shot up at the other boy was equally as upsetting as his earlier thoughts. Yet, deep in his heart, Nicholas knew that such a look was entirely unfair. Still, he was not operating on logic at that moment. It was a rare time indeed that he did operate on logic, and one of the bouts of cold rage that he was so predisposed to was beginning to boil under the surface.

"Oi!" He exclaimed, his eyesight looking from the red-headed boy to the paper start that had harmlessly bounced off of his head, and then bcak again.

The sight must have been comical, the tall Gryffindor unaware of where to aim his anger and shooting his head between the two sources as if a confused bird of some sort. Eventually, he settled on the other boy.

"Watch it, yeah?" He exclaimed again, but he could quickly feel his own anger turning from the external factors of the other lad and his stars to himself.

He'd managed to get himself lost and make a fool of himself in barely the span of a few moments. How could he be so stupid? Nicholas gritted his teeth, his jaw once more clenching as his eyes turned away from the boy and toward the ground.

"What even is that... some kind of slingshot?" He asked, after an uncomfortable moment of internal contemplation and beating himself up.

It was uncommon that Henry pull pranks that would effect random people the hadn’t met. Henry liked to know if someone wasn’t in the mood for something like this or if they were okay with it. Unfortunately, he didn’t have too many friends and was forced to attempt this trick on other people. Still, he was only testing the launch, and hadn’t intended to hit someone else. Grinning as the stars flew rather majestically through the air, his eyes landed at the end of their arc and the boy at the bottom of the stairs. A little surprised, Henry took a moment to fully process that there was someone there.

After the moment was over, however, he broke into a wide grin and tried to stifle a laugh. The other boy was clearly flustered over the sudden onslaught and Henry was trying very hard not to find his expression amusing. If he had to accidentally pull a prank on someone, this was the one to use. It was entirely harmless. Though he didn’t know the mood the other person would be in, it was easier to get out of someone’s bad graces when all he had flung at them were tiny stars.

Unfortunately, this boy had been in a foul mood.

Henry jumped slightly at the initial shout, surprised at the sudden decision by the other boy to finally say something. He watched the other look from the ground and back up at him a few times before saying something else.

“Sorry, didn’t know you were coming.” He apologized, finally getting up and trotting down the stairs. He needed to retrieve the stars if he wanted to launch again. He crouched down and began to collect them, rising again when he was pretty sure he had them all. At the other boy’s question, he turned back to look up the stairs and grinned.

“Sort of. It’s a catapult. Slingshots are built a little differently.” He responded, heading back up the stairs where he plopped back down beside the catapult. He was unaware of the inner turmoil the other boy was going through, but was hopeful that he wasn’t too mad about being hit with stars.

@Nicholas McCowan
color code = #5A8697

Interacting with @Henry Llewellyn

Nicholas's face was twisted into a half-scowl, the discomfort with the scenario still present in his mind, yet his anger was nowhere near as fierce as it had been when he was first struck with the stars. The inner turmoil that raged within him constantly continued to do so, a storm set off by entirely mundane circumstances. The anger the boy felt so regularly was not natural, not healthy, and his rational brain knew as such. However, he was hardly in the mood for listening to his logical inner voice.

Still, the fact that the other boy had apologised so quickly was doing more than its fair share in calming down the already upset Gryffindor. The frown that plastered his face continued to soften in its expression, the taught lines fading from his forehead and into a visage more appropriate for a boy who had just left class.

As the other boy descended the stairs, Nicholas moved to the side, making sure to avoid treading on any of the stars that had fallen to the ground. He may have been in a foul mood, but he wasn't so out of sorts to go out of his way to cause trouble for others. He was more than capable of causing issues through his needlessly-barbed words, after all.

The other boy collected the stars, and explained that, in fact, the machine he was using was not in fact a slingshot but rather a catapult. All of the terminology, and the very existence of the stars, seemed somewhat foreign to Nicholas. He was familiar with the concept of tools being crafted by students in order to play, but he'd always found it more practical to rely on magic. It was what he had been raised to do, after all, every single moment of his childhood had been coloured by some form of mystical convenience.

As such, curiosity overpowered his earlier anger, and he found himself more intrigued by the makeshift machine used to launch the stars than he was frustrated with the fact that they had struck him not a moment earlier.

"So, uh, did you make that?" Nicholas asked, his voice somewhat awkward in his delivery. He gestured with his hand toward what he now knew to be a catapult, "It looks difficult to put together... And the uh... stars as well, you made those?"

His tone was still somewhat embittered, but it wasn't by design, rather he found it difficult to speak in such a way that did not betray some level of annoyance. Regardless of the fact that his earlier dissatisfaction was fading with every passing moment.

Nicholas leant against the wall, his stance halfway between lazed relaxation and a more alert anticipation of another firing of the catapult. At least where he stood now, there was little chance of him ever being struck by the wayward projectiles.

Sure, he could have stormed off after he was hit, but he was more taken aback by curiosity with regard to the strange boy and his stranger launcher. Thus, he waited.

Henry was glad when he was able to collect all the stars. It wasn’t like he couldn’t easily make more; he just didn’t have enough parchment. After he’d first made a ton of stars, he had realized he was running short on parchment, which was necessary for homework. This meant that, anything he used the stars for had to involve them being easy to collect. It was a bit of a nuisance, since he couldn’t always wait around for pranks to be pulled and had no idea what the other person would do with the stars once the shock wore off. It made him feel a little better inside, then, when the other boy didn’t step on any of them.

Living at Hogwarts presented a new adventure with every person he ran into. K was a pureblood, having been raised with magic and a little new to a few muggle concepts, so Henry had sort of gotten used to purebloods being confused by him. Still, he was unaware how in the dark they often were. Not even knowing what a catapult was? That would certainly be a strange concept to Henry, if the boy were to say as much. As he settled himself by his catapult, dumping the stars haphazardly on the ground before him, he looked back down at the other boy, who had somewhat relaxed.

“Yup! Was sorta hard to do, since the materials aren’t exactly just lying around.” Well, that was a bit of a lie. The only reason Henry had found the materials necessary to make the catapult was because he found them in random places throughout the castle. At home, though, his family had the necessary materials on hand for the express purpose of needing them for other uses. Wizards didn’t exactly have use for rubber bands. “It’s not too hard, once you understand how it works,” he responded with a shrug. “Yep! The stars are easy, though, just a lot of folding.”

Shuffling the stars around before him for a bit, Henry felt just a bit awkward about the whole situation. The other boy seemed to have gotten over it, so he felt a little better about that, but that didn’t make it any less uncomfortable that he’d accidentally launched paper stars at someone. Usually, he was over the moon about pulling silly things like this, but even thought it was harmless, his mind always went back to the last time he pulled a prank on a stranger. That had not ended well.

“Oh! I’m Henry, by the way!” He offered, realizing he hadn’t introduced himself. It was rude not to, after all.

@Nicholas McCowan
color code = #5A8697

Interacting with @Henry Llewellyn

Nicholas nodded along as the other boy explained the catapult in slightly greater depth, detailing how he'd folded the stars out of paper and assembled the mechanism for the actual launching device out of various materials. He'd said that they weren't exactly lying around, and Nicholas didn't doubt it for a moment. Wizards, he knew, weren't exactly known for keeping materials around that could be used to assemble something through the use of ingenuity and dexterity. If there was magical solution, and the waving of one's wand could easily see a problem fixed, or fun created, then your average witch or wizard was almost certain to take that route out. At least, that was what his mother had always said. Usually accompanied by some reference to how back before she knew she was a witch, and during her summer holidays amongst the muggles, she'd needed to put proper elbow grease into all of her household chores. The more he thought about it, the more it seemed that the anecdotes were more excuses to try to teach her wayward sons lessons about hard-work.

Still, it was clear that there were more whimsical and enjoyable applications of muggle grit and ingenuity than simple housework. Sure, Nicholas had been frustrated at the fact that he'd been hit by the stars, but that was more out of the sour mood he'd been in for the entire day, not so much the actual catapult itself. Instead, he found that the odd contraption was slowly winning him, at least as far as it was winning his attention. It wasn't particularly exciting, true, but it was different.

As the redhead boy shuffled the stars, Nicholas found that he was actually quite intrigued to see them actually in flight. Rather, he was intrigued to see the launch of the stars, he'd already born witness to them careening towards his head.

As Nicholas waited in what was beginning to feel a bit like anticipation, the other boy introduced himself. That settled it, Nicholas couldn't be mad, the boy hadn't meant to hit him and the offense was so minor it had hardly been worth getting worked up over in the first place. Besides, Henry, as he now knew he was called, seemed to be going out of his way to be friendly, as if to make up for the perceived slight.

Nicholas shot the boy a toothy grin, "Nick." The name was still somewhat unfamiliar, but he'd found himself growing more and more used to it during his time at school. His family had always defaulted to more unusual nicknames for their children, so he'd never really thought of himself as a Nick until his classmates had begun to use it more often.

"Good meeting you, Henry," He added somewhat sheepishly, not entirely sure if he should throw in an apology for snapping.

He decided against it, after all, his reaction may have been overblown, but it was still within the reasonable realm of responses. After all, he had been hit by paper stars.

"You don't mind if I see them properly launch do you?" He asked, and felt almost silly for doing so. It was clear by his posture, and his gradually decreasing in height slouch against the hallway wall that he had little intention of moving from his spot.

"From an angle where I'm not likely to get hit I mean."

It had been rather difficult to find all the materials he needed, but there were enough muggle-borns at Hogwarts that Henry had managed just fine. The first year barely knew any spell, and even if he had, he wasn’t sure he’d use those over making things himself. There was something extremely gratifying about getting a contraption to work with lots of thought involved. Simple recalling a spell didn’t seem nearly as fun. Of course, his thoughts on this could potentially change, but pranks and jokes were just more fun when a lot of work paid off to a big result. Besides, when he went home for the summers and holidays, he couldn’t well use spells to continue his pranks anyway, so it was better to continue using muggle means, even while at Hogwarts.

Often, Henry forgot how little some of the others at Hogwarts knew about muggle things. It was confusing to him, that wizard parents sheltered their children from an entire other human culture different from their own. Muggles didn’t have much of a choice, since there was the whole secrecy thing with wizards. Still, wizards avoided having their children even so much as know muggle history or go to regular primary schools. They needed to not talk of magic, that was true, but what was wrong with mingling? Henry did enjoy, however, occasionally explaining something that seemed so obvious and simple to him. It was interesting to figure out what words to use.

Pulling a prank on a stranger wasn’t bad in the books of many jokesters, but Henry knew that some people were rather particular about being messed with. He always wanted to be considerate about everyone’s feelings and made sure he knew whether people were in the mood for something or not. He liked knowing when people were generally alright with his jokes and if they were in a special mood that created an exception. When he tricked strangers, it wasn’t guaranteed that they were alright with being messed with, even if it was harmless. He was glad, though, when he got a smile and a name.

Grinning back, Henry nodded. “Nice to meet you, too.” It was almost a final moment of relief, learning Nick was the other boy’s name. Making introductions was kind of like a final say in how the other boy was feeling in regards to Henry’s star launch.

“Of course not! You can come near me, if you’d like,” Henry offered, loading the stars back into the catapult. He was always glad to give a demonstration when asked. This staircase wasn’t very crowded, as evidenced by the two of them being alone this entire time. They would probably be fine launching again without hitting anyone this time.

@Nicholas McCowan
color code = #5A8697

Interacting with @Henry Llewellyn

Nicholas's response to Henry's invitation was simple and wordless, his smile widened, genuine and toothy, a relative rarity for the boy. He was almost so serious, so dour, and without good reason. He was eleven years old after all, did it not make more sense for him to get up to mischief and play more than it did for him to spend so long huddled in the library trying desperately to top classes he stood no chance of acing. Launching catapults in some sort of muggle contraption was almost certainly a more enjoyable prospect, and Nicholas found himself acting his age, and not merely in his propensity toward tantrums, for once.

He removed himself from his slouch and quickly vaulted up the stairs, taking them two at a time in some spots. It seemed that his early sour mood had entirely faded, the social interaction, no matter how brief it had been thus far had replaced his earlier frustration with schoolwork. He was almost buzzing as he came to the top of the stairs, and found himself standing somewhat behind the red-headed boy, intent to see how the contraption would fair from the actual vantage point to which one was supposed to observe such launches.

"I'm really not well versed in anything muggle related, to tell you the truth, can't say I've seen anything like this before," He explained, as if feeling the need to explain his earlier outburst in some form of roundabout way, decidedly not directly addressing the core point of contention, instead opting for what was almost certainly some kind of awkward way of avoidance.

"Oh, that's not to say I don't like muggles or anything!" He hastily added, "I've got muggle family after all, I'm just, uh, not super familiar with much from the muggle world. Never really came up at family dinner, you know?" Why he felt the need to go on such a rant was relatively beyond him, but Nicholas was a decidedly awkward boy, and attempting to nip a problem in the bud before it even arose socially was certainly not out of character, regardless of how forced the words may have seemed. "Just not familiar with anything that doesn't require a swish and flick of a wand to work..." He chuckled awkwardly.

His posture reflected his lack of confidence, whereas earlier it had been stand-offish, he now found himself guarded in other ways. A sheepish grin covered his face, cheeks slightly pink and hands swaying in ways he didn't know how to control. Not for the first time, Nicholas had found himself struggling to appropriately put himself forward. Naturally, that meant that for the thousandth time, he found himself frustrated and internally beating himself up for such a failure.

Henry’s expression echoed Nick’s as he grinned. It was always nice to make new friends, even if it didn’t always start out the greatest. This had happened with another boy, though the initial meeting was still being smoothed out of their friendship. Still, Nick seemed a little less uptight than Henry’s other…acquaintance, so it seemed this interaction was going to be a bit more relaxed. As Nick came up the stairs to join him, Henry sat down behind his catapult. It barely managed to fit in his bag which meant he carried his books when he took it with him. This was fine, though, since it was always fun fiddling around with the contraption.

“Yeah? My siblings and I make these all the time. This is the first one I’ve built here. It was really difficult finding all the materials.” It had been quite the journey finding all the pieces. At first, it hadn’t been his intention to build a catapult, but he had taken inventory and realized he had a few pieces necessary. Soon, he had scoured the halls looking for whatever else he would need. It took a while, but he was able to complete it.

Nick’s next comments made Henry laugh a little. Most people had reacted this way when they’d said something that may have come off as offensive, but it really didn’t bother him. Since he hadn’t grown up aware of the occasional disdain toward muggleborns, it had been a trip learning about it. Though he now had a better understanding of extreme pure-blood ideals, it was still easy to take comments like Nick’s. He hadn’t been offensive anyway, at least Henry didn’t think so. “That makes sense. Catapults aren’t exactly a common dinner topic,” Henry laughed, thinking about how, at his house, they were. “And I’m not very familiar with anything that does,” Henry responded, giving Nick a bit of a sideways grin. It was true. Having grown up in a muggle household with no idea that magic was real, all the magical things had really uprooted his understanding of the world.

Turning back to his catapult, Henry didn’t really notice Nick’s discomfort. He fiddled with the catapult for a bit before turning to look back at Nick. “I made most of it from sticks off the grounds and kind of tied them all into place with whatever I could find,” Henry pointed to all the joints, tied together with various ribbons and elastics. “Getting the arm to rotate was pretty easy, I just propped the arm on this stick to give it a pivot point.” At this, he indicated the spot on the arm where it rotated on the base. “This rubber band pulls tight when I push the arm down,” he did this as he spoke, “and the arm locks in place here.” He pointed to a small bit sticking off the arm that had wedged itself behind a piece on the base. “This here is moveable, so when I press here,” he pressed a piece attached to the side of the base, “the arm releases.” The arm did as he said it would, though he hadn’t filled it back with the stars, so it launched empty.

@Nicholas McCowan
color code = #5A8697