Falling Stars Finished

@Henry Llewellyn

Gabriella sidled up to the boy sitting alone on the table. At last, she thought, someone I might be able to make friends with. Maybe...

She watched him for a moment, intoxicated by the pile of origami stars beside him, growing steadily. A few, she noticed, lay on the floor, so she bent down and picked one up. She held it very close to her eye, examining its intricacies, before carefully placing it down on the table next to the boy. Whether he hadn't seen her yet, or whether he was just ignoring her, Gabriella didn't know, but she decided that he wasn't going to respond to her without her actually saying something.

But what should I say? thought Gabriella. Despite her eagerness to make new friends, she had never really had any before, so her social skills weren't as developed as they could have been. However, if she had learned anything about socialising during her short time at Hogwarts, it was that you have to be the one to start a conversation.

"Uh-" she stuttered. "Uh, hi, I'm Gabriella." She tapped him on the shoulder. "Ravenclaw first-year. What's your name?" She picked up one of his stars. "Oh, and by the way - I love these stars. How long have you been spending on them?"

Henry was so distracted with the stars, he didn’t even notice the girl sit down next to him. He had completely lost himself in the feeling of the parchment between his fingers, the sound the strips made while he bent them. He loved the pinching that gave the stars a real star-like shape, the sense of control he felt refraining from squishing them into balls of senseless paper was rewarding. He also loved the little patter the made as they hit the table, though he didn’t seem to notice that some pattered longer than others. Henry was too focused on the task at hand to notice anything outside of it. That’s why he jumped slightly when he heard a voice beside him.

Barely catching her name, Henry grinned, the shock gone immediately. He loved meeting new people. “Hi, I’m Henry.” He introduced himself, offering a hand for her to shake. His dad always taught him it was polite to shake hands with someone when first meeting them. “I was wondering why you looked kinda familiar! I’m in Ravenclaw too, we’re in the same year.” Now that she mentioned her house, Henry did kind of recognize her. He wasn’t very familiar with all the Ravenclaw first years, but it was definitely a goal of his to get to know all his year-mates better. This was a good start.

“Thank you. Er, I dunno,” He glanced around for a clock. “Oh! Apparently, a half hour!” He laughed a little as he realized he had been sitting for so long. As he looked around, eyes swimming at the sudden shift of attention, he noticed several stars on the floor. He leaned down and picked them up, dropping them with the rest. He only had a couple strips of parchment left with him and he didn’t have all that much left back in his dorm either.

@Gabriella Haworth

Gabriella sat and listened as the over-excited boy chattered at her. She was glad that she had finally found someone who wasn't too shy. This way, she wouldn't need to initiate so many conversations - and she hated initiating conversations. Does that sound selfish? she asked herself. Not wanting to initiate convesations? Ever? I hope it wouldn't be considered selfish... but I kind of think it would be. She bent down and helped him scoop up as many little parchment stars as she could off the floor.. They're beautiful, she thought to herself, although they are a waste of parchment...

"How much more parchment do you even have?" asked Gabriella. "You do realise you need some for classes and studying, right?

She finished picking up all Henry's stars off the floor and sat down on the bench, delicately folding her legs over each other. She was shocked and slightly amused at herself - she had only just met this boy and already she was reminding him of classes and studying. The tower of unopened school books on his left indicated to her that he was hardly one for enjoying work. That's a whole lot of books right there, she thought. A whole lot of procrastination.

She wasn't too fond of procrastination - but the stars were pretty, so she didn't mind that much.

Henry didn’t mind being the bearer of the conversation. In fact, most of the time he didn’t realize when he was the only one talking. He just had so much to say, it all kind of came out at once. Besides, he had known a few friends back home who didn’t like to talk. They usually stayed pretty quiet. Despite the fact that he had initially intended on studying, he was glad that someone had come over to talk to him. His stars hadn’t meant to draw attention to him, but he was glad they did. This girl seemed nice and she was in his house, so he’d probably see her around a lot.

When she asked how much parchment he had left, he glanced at his pile sheepishly. “I’m, er, not sure. I think I have some left back in my dorm, but I don’t know how much,” he replied, looking back over at her. It was silly of him, to use up so much parchment making these stars, when he was a Ravenclaw and they, apparently, studied a lot. He wondered how many Ravenclaw’s got as easily distracted as he did. “I was studying, but I got bored and, well, I decided I’d make a few stars.” He glanced at the pile they had on the table. “A few turned into…this,” he added, gesturing at the pile.

“Anyway, now that you’re here, I guess I won’t be bored,” He turned on the bench to face toward her, straddling it by throwing one leg to the other side. “So, you’re a Ravenclaw too? I’m not really sure why I got sorted into Ravenclaw. I really don’t know that much about the wizarding world. I’m muggle-born, you see, so this is all new to me. If Ravenclaw’s the smart person house, why am I here?” He asked absently, not entirely realizing she couldn’t answer that for him. “Why are you in Ravenclaw? I mean, I assume you’re smart, but are there other reasons to be sorted into Ravenclaw?” Henry asked, mouth running away from him.

@Gabriella Haworth

"Uh-" stuttered Gabriella. One of Henry's stars had fallen to the ground, so she stooped down and picked it up. He sounded so desperate to know answers - how could she tell him she didn't know the answer either? She knew she wasn't smart, or at least definitely not one of the top students, but she had been sorted into the smart house too. And she was muggle-born, so what could she know... she could ask Joyce, she suggested to herself. But then she remembered that Joyce, too, was muggle-born. She had no wizarding friends.
"You see," began Gabriella, "I'm actually muggle-born too. I didn't know anything about - wizards, and stuff, before I came to this place."

She tried to think back to what little of her books she had read. She was sure she had read a passage of Hogwarts: A History that described the qualities of the different houses. If only she had taken notes...

"I was reading the other day," she said, attempting to fill up the time while she tried to remember what the book had said, "I was reading Hogwarts: A History, and I know there was a passage inside it that spoke about houses, let me just remember it...

Come on, Gabby, you can remember. You're meant to be in the smart house, after all.

"I think it said wit," she said, as the image of what the book had said assembled itself in her mind. "Yeah, it definitely said wit and wisdom... creativity and... originality?" Yeah, that was it."There we go, creativity! These stars are pretty creative. That must be why you're in Ravenclaw," she said, decidedly.

It had never really crossed Henry’s mind that she wouldn’t know, either. He had just kind of rambled his thoughts aloud. Henry hadn’t met very many people who told him whether they were muggle-born or not, so he didn’t know who was which and honestly didn’t know why it mattered. Other than who knew most about the wizarding world. So, when Gabriella started saying how she didn’t know anything, Henry immediately felt kind of bad. It wasn’t like he needed an answer, he had just been wondering a while and it just came out.

“Oh! I didn’t know, sorry. I’ve just, kind of been wondering about it since I got sorted and it kind of just…came out,” he admitted, sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck. Most of the time it wasn’t a big deal when he rambled like that, people tended to just ignore him. However, sometimes it could be a bit embarrassing.

Henry had done a bit of reading on the houses, but not much more than what they had done in class and, even then, it had gone in one ear and out the other. Focusing on reading was really difficult for him, so he often forgot what he had read. When Gabriella said she remembered reading about it, he lit up a bit. It was difficult for him to remember that kind of stuff. As she spoke, he listened rather intently. If he could remember things like she could, he would know so many things. He’d probably know a bunch of random facts.

“That kind of makes sense,” Henry agreed, nodding his head slowly. “You’re really good at remembering things, maybe that’s why you’re in Ravenclaw?” Henry suggested. “Oh, and you said you’re muggle-born, too? Where are you from? I’m from London, though I can never quite remember the neighborhood,” he changed topics rather quickly. “What’s your favorite subject? I think I like Charms. Flying is pretty fun, too. I wanna learn more about Quidditch, it sounds interesting,” he continued, not sure if he was really giving her enough space to respond.

@Gabriella Haworth

Gabriella waited patiently for Henry to finish asking his flurry of questions. Better to answer them all at once, she said to herself.

It was strange that Henry thought she was good at remembering things - it had never crossed her mind that that could be a skill. But the more she thought about it, she realised that her memory was actually very good. When she was younger, her parents would always joke about how she had a photographic memory, and could store images in her brain of almost anything she read...

He had finished asking questions now, so Gabriella decided to answer them one by one.

"Woah, that's a lot of questions," she laughed, hoping that it wouldn't come off as mean. "I'm from Portsmouth, so not too far from London I guess. Only about two hours away. I've been to London a few times, always on the train, because my mum doesn't want to pay the congestion charge!" She laughed, quietly. Why did you tell him that? Of all the things you could have told Henry, you chose to tell him that your mother doesn't like to pay the congestion charge. She changed the subject and went on quickly to answer Henry's second question. "Quidditch," she said, slightly confused for a moment. "Is that the sport where they fly around on broomsticks? I'm looking forward to trying that one too. I'm quite sporty, but that's not really a normal sport... I really like Charms, too. And Defence against the Dark Arts. That's just one of those lessons you don't want to have to use in real life..."

She shuddered as she remembered what she had read about Lord Voldemort and the Death Eaters. That had only been twenty years ago, in this very school. Who was to say it couldn't happen again?

Henry turned a light shade of pink at her comment about the questions. There was no control over his filter, so things just came out. Most times, he was unaware of how overwhelming he could be to people, but he tried when he was conscious of it. “Haha, sorry, I do that sometimes,” he responded, brushing his bangs out of his face nervously. It was a good thing she had such a good memory, though, or else she might not have remembered everything he said. She was rather adept at answering all his questions, though, so that was good. Maybe he had found someone who could keep up conversation with him.

“That sounds familiar. I’ve never been anywhere but London, a few times into the city, but we live in a suburb, really, but we go into the city sometimes.” He laughed along with her about the fee. His mum usually drove when they went into the city, so they never really had to worry about paying a charge. Even if the information didn’t seem relevant to Gabriella, it didn’t cross Henry’s mind that it might have been irrelevant. All information he spouted or heard was relevant to him. The ‘relevant’ filter on his thoughts was broken a long time ago. He nodded along at her answer to his question about class.

“Yeah, I’ve been to a few games, it looks fun,” he responded. “I didn’t really play in organized kinds of sports back home, but I did like football.” She was right, though, that Quidditch wasn’t a sport in the sense of exertion of the body. “I guess that’s true, they don’t need to run, since they’re on brooms. They do throw and hit balls, though. And there are goals, so I guess it’s still a sport at its core.” He rambled, thinking about the way they made points. The whole snitch thing was different, though, he didn’t know any sport where a snitch or something similar was involved. “Yeah, I’m glad we have Defence Against the Dark Arts, but I really do hope I never need those spells,” he agreed. Henry knew very little about the darker sides to magic but was glad they were being taught to protect themselves against it, just in case. It was like muggle physical defence classes, but with wands and spells instead of fists and kicks.

While he was thinking, Henry reached for a sandwich. Though he had already eaten a bit earlier, he was still hungry. His mum always said a growing boy is a bottomless pit when it comes to food. After a finishing a bite, Henry turned back to Gabriella. “I wonder where all this food comes from. I mean, we’ve learned that Transfiguration can appear and disappear something, but can it create food out of thin air? Does someone make it? Because it’s delicious.”

@Gabriella Haworth

Gabriella was happy that she had met Henry. Henry seemed to be just a nice guy, without any weird traits. Sure, he spoke a lot, but Gabriella needed that for her social skills. She had always longed to be a social animal, and now she finally had the opportunity to be one without people judging her for being 'weird'.

She listened to him talk about Quidditch; despite being muggle-born like her, he seemed to know a lot about the sport. She knew there was a little ball called a Snitch, which you had to catch, and a big red football that you tried to get in the goals, and two huge heavy balls that tried to knock you off your broom - rather unnecessary, in Gabriella's opinion.

As for Henry's food question, Gabriella didn't know how to reply. She tried to remember what it was she had read in Hogwarts: A History... "I think it's house-elves," she said, eventually. "You know what those are? Those tiny little creatures with huge ears. I know they work in the kitchens, that's for certain, although how they get the food onto the table, I don't know. Maybe they have some kind of charm they use... I heard house-elves have different magic from wizards. They don't use wands, either," she added as a side-note.

A slight frown crossed her face. She was sure she didn't remember reading this stuff, but she was definitely sure it was true. She just had no clue where she had got the information from. Maybe she had just picked it up by osmosis while listening to other people speak, maybe she had just sucked in the information she heard around her like a sponge.

I AM A SPONGE, she said loudly to herself inside her head, begging that it didn't come out out loud.