Dreaming on Top of the World PV Closed

@Henry Llewellyn
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Dang it.

Scarlett muttered a few profanities that were much worse that 'dang it' as she hurried down to the Quidditch Pitch, ignoring the cold, the wind, the air. It didn't affect her the way it might've for other people - first off, she had grown up in England, and England was a naturally colder place, being more in the north. Also, it rained a lot in England, so Scarlett had developed some sort of rain immunity, as well as a weather one in general. Many a day where the girl had forged out into the harsh English weather to retrieve something lost of left at someone else's place. Apparently, she would have to do it again even though she was at a magical boarding school.

Scarlett kept on walking through the wind to the Gryffindor Locker Room in nothing but a black t-shirt and jeans. She had left Sparta at the Common Room - her cat didn't have her own resistance and though Sparta had fur, Scarlett had experience. As she ambled down, Scarlett caught sight of a boy with ginger hair in the stands, acting rather like a maniac. What in the name of Merlin's baggy Y-shorts was the guy doing, leaning over the edge of the stands and waving his hands like he was some Muggle aeroplane? Perhaps she would find out.

Scarlett took a turn and instead, walked up the stands to where the boy was, tapping him on the shoulder. "Helloo? What are you - er - doing?"

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Against the wind and lost in his own thoughts, Henry hadn’t heard the approach of another person. The feeling of something tapping on his shoulder got his attention, though, and he turned around quickly to find a girl standing behind him. Fully coming back from his daydream, he smiled sheepishly, the blush creeping up his cheeks hidden by the red cause by the cold. “Oh, erm, just imagining what it would be like to, er, fly on the pitch,” he responded, shrugging his shoulders up to his ears against the cold.

“I’m Henry,” he introduced himself, offering a hand for her to shake. “What are you doing out here?” He asked, taking a good look at her. “And why aren’t you wearing a coat? My mum always taught me to wear a coat, especially in winter. Here, take one of mine,” he offered, slipping his arms out of the sleeves of his overcoat, offering it to her. The cold was pretty biting for Henry, though that was mostly because he was so thin. Despite having grown up in London, the cold was not something he had grown used to.

“Games must be pretty cold in this weather,” he commented. “I’ve been to games when it was cold out, but it must be so much worse when you’re flying and the wind is in your face. I guess that’s why the players have goggles,” he made this realization rather off-hand, his rambling just his thoughts played out aloud. This happened frequently with Henry, though, as his thoughts ran so fast, he usually didn’t have time to run them through a filter. Whether something was relevant or not, interesting or boring, Henry said it aloud. There was no stopping it.

@Scarlett Aden

@Henry Llewellyn
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The boy seemed to lower his head out from the clouds and back onto Earth, blushing as he realised that - yes - Scarlett had caught him right in the middle of his fantasy or whatever he was thinking about. She thought about huffing though decided not to. Anyway, daydreaming wasn't anything to be embarrassed about. It just might be a teensy bit dangerous when you were practically hanging off the Quidditch stands. And his answer seemed to be that of a Quidditch hopeful, which explained the location. "Ah," said Scarlett in response, raising an eyebrow not in a critical manner, but more of a...analytical way? She couldn't describe it but didn't exactly mean ill will.

She shook his outstretched hand. "Scarlett. I just came here to get something I forgot at the Gryffindor Locker Room." She shrugged before continuing. "And, er, thanks for the offer, but I'm doing alright."

"And, oh yeah, it sucks when that happens," she replied, squinting at the boy. Definitely a Quidditch fan then. "Do you play Quidditch?" she asked. "You seem to like it...quite a lot. Are you Muggleborn? I mean, it's fine if you are - I was just asking. Out of curiosity, you know? I'm fine with any blood status really...blood purism is practically non-existent here anyway..."

She trailed off, before snapping back to attention. "Anyway!" said Scarlett. "If you do play, what position are you? And if you don't, what position would you hope to play?"

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Henry did feel a little embarrassed about being caught leaning over the stands. It was normal for him to get lost in thought, but not in such an…odd position. Usually, his being lost in thought was while reading or building something, so it was new to be found doing something else. She did pull him out of his thoughts a lot faster than most people, though. It usually took a couple of attempts to get him out of his hyper focus.

“Oh! Are you a Quidditch player, then?” He asked, excited to maybe talk to someone officially about playing and what it was like. He wondered what position she was, what her favorite part about playing was, among other things. “You sure? I’m cold and I’m wearing several layers,” he responded, not entirely aware that everyone had a different level of tolerance for temperature. Henry’s was low for colder weather. That did mean, though, that hot weather felt super nice to him.

“Ah, no, it would be cool to play, though,” Henry responded, having thought about playing a lot. He found it interesting the way she responded to asking if he was a muggleborn. He was aware that there was some discrimination on the part of some people, but it didn’t strike him as odd when someone asked about blood status, since it often answered several questions about knowledge level of the wizarding world. “I am, yeah. And it’s fine. I’ve, er, had some run ins with it,” he admitted with a shrug. It was confusing to him, what had happened, but he had really kind of brushed it off.

“I think it would be cool to play keeper or seeker,” Henry responded. “I’m usually horrible at focusing, but when something’s interesting, I focus a whole lot better. I think, if I can have a single thing to focus on, or the entire game, I could be useful.” He added. “What position do you play?”

@Scarlett Aden

OOC: Started the thread before I joined the team, so I'm just gonna continue it that way.

@Henry Llewellyn
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and yeah, that's perfectly alright!

"Er - yes - I do play Quidditch and, yes, I'm very sure that I'll be fine without another extra layer - not to be rude or anything but I did grow up in England so..." Scarlett smiled at him, processing her inner shock at someone asking her quite enthusiastically about her position on the Quidditch team. She would've expected the boy to radiate that sort of eagerness around someone like the captain or the co-captain. Though in Scarlett's eyes, the co-captain would've be a better choice, at least for Gryffindor. It was totally nothing to do with a teensy little grudge she had with the captain.

Her eyes darted to the Locker Room and back for a moment, but decided that ditching the boy this quickly wasn't very...nice. Though she wondered when she had become someone to think about being nice or not, she shrugged it off. "Oh cool. And don't listen to anyone who says that sort of stuff, they're always wrong. But some students were just raised under a snobby, old-fashioned family and apparently they brought their views to Hogwarts, where those particular opinions definitely aren't tolerated." Scarlett's mind briefly drifted to her own family. She had never asked them if they believed in pure-blood supremacy. She didn't really want to know. Anyway, she had made a silent promise to herself not to think about her family at any time, so she kept it.

"I mean, it's true I guess. It depends on who you are really - personally, I'm the opposite of you. I mainly prefer to be focusing on tons of different things at once, though there's not right or wrong way. And I play Beater. I won my first game back in October actually!" She trailed off, grinning as she remembered. She had been knocked out halfway, but she still recalled waking up in the Hospital Wing and feeling the euphoria at her victory, even if it was shared by her rival.

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Henry was easily excited about anything, so asking about her position on the team regardless of what it was just seemed right. “Oh, okay,” he said, pulling his jacket back over his shoulders, starting to feel extra cold making its way through his other layers. Henry, too, was from England, but his skin-and-bones frame meant he got cold much easier than most other people. It was kind of novel to him, that someone would be fine without a jacket in weather this cold. Of course, everyone tolerated temperature differently, it was just bizarre that she was so fine with it.

Recalling his encounter with one such a person, Henry nodded along to what she said. He knew that she was right, that it wasn’t really tolerated, but a few students seemed to slip through the cracks. Still, being muggleborn, he had no idea what the big deal really was. He understood that the word people used was derogatory, but he had never been called a derogatory word. It was new territory, so he wasn’t sure how to react. “Yeah, it’s still new to me. I’ve never been in a position that’s considered as lesser to some people.” Henry told her. He was too focused on remembering the one boy to notice she might have been in the middle of something before she started talking to him.

Listening to her talk made Henry a little more excited. Since he had started at Hogwarts, Ravenclaw hadn’t really won that many games. Or any. “Yeah, I like the idea of seeker or keeper. I’m pretty good at finding lost things, so maybe I’d be good at finding the snitch.” He replied, thinking about all the things he found around the castle at Hogwarts as well. “That’s so cool! I might have been to that one, I can’t really remember them all anymore.” Henry had tried to attend as many games as he could. If it was against Ravenclaw, he most definitely had been. At the time he might have been a bit disappointed at a loss, but now he really didn’t mind.

@Scarlett Aden
color code = #5A8697

@Henry Llewellyn
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apologies for the late reply!

Scarlett nodded and gave a small quirk of her lips - a teensy smile even - towards the boy. Awkwardness and empathy weren't something she experienced on a daily basis but rejection even in the smallest of forms was always a bit, you know. Speaking of 'the boy' she really needed to learn his name. He knew hers, as she had said at the beginning of their meeting, but she wasn't aware of his. Scarlett suddenly noticed the two were both redheads.

"Oh hey, we both have red hair!" remarked Scarlett. "By the way, what's your name?"

And then they were having their talk about Muggles and Muggleborns. Scarlett didn't know of many blood-purists, but she knew they still existed and would gladly fight them any day. She was always ready to throw some hands for the cause of beating up the snobby people who thought they were better than everyone else. "They exist," said Scarlett with a shrug. "But there would be plenty of people to beat up the blood-purist, or yell at them, or report them - which is boring - or whatever. Hogwarts is in a new era!" With the last sentence, she threw her arms up dramatically and chortled as she swung them back.

And now onto Quidditch! Perfect. Her and Gris had been practicing quite a lot at their sessions, and Scarlett was confident that her backbeat could hit and do some hefty damage. She was practically bubbling with excitement for the next game. "Hm, sounds good!" said Scarlett. "You've got the build, you look pretty small and fast - I reckon you'd be a Seeker. And yeah, I kinda got knocked out in that game." She winced at that last part.

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It wasn’t often that Henry forgot to introduce himself to people, but it did happen. They had jumped into their conversation so quickly, he hadn’t really had time to think about introducing himself. Still, when she pointed out that they were both red-heads and then asked his name, it was a bit of a surprise. Henry was known to realize things randomly, but it was uncommon that he came across someone else who did. After a moment of shock, he laughed a little and nodded.

“True. I’m Henry,” He responded, glad to give his name to make up for forgetting to introduce himself earlier.

As they discussed the word, Henry wondered how many blood purists existed if he had run into one during his first year. She made it sound as if they were few and far between, yet he knew someone like that. Or, kind of like that. “Yeah, I think I met one a while back,” he responded with a shrug. The boy he had met had used the word and attempted to convince him it was alright to use. Others had joined in to contradict him, and then the encounter had ended. It had been chaotic. “I haven’t really met anyone else who’s like that, so that’s good, I guess.” Henry added. She was probably right and he had just come across a rare person.

Henry grinned as she commented on how he would be a good seeker. Hopefully that was true, because it sounded more and more fun the longer he thought about it. He did cringe a little, though, as she mentioned getting knocked out. “That’s always looks so painful,” he commented, thinking about times he had seen players getting knocked off brooms. The impact on the ground had to hurt. It was surprising that the height some of them fell from wasn’t enough to kill them. Unless there was someone watching from the sidelines with the specific job to cushion their fall. That would be nice.

@Scarlett Aden
color code = #5A8697