Silent Night, Starry Night PV Aston Beckett Finished

date: 13/11/23 time: After dark location: the Astronomy tower

mentions: Reducio @Emily Shephard

languages english: #1a4174 thoughts: italics

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Astronomy class was at night, unlike all the other classes at Hogwarts, which is not a fact Aston appreciates. Normally by the end of this class he can't think of anything but the desire to sleep, and he still has to answer the riddle to get into his common room. 'Ugh why the riddles, so impractical and hard, at least I haven't been locked out there too many times.' Aston thought, even though he does not appreciate the act of focusing on class at night, the stars really are beautiful, almost as pretty as the ones back home, not to mention reading books and studying here is always nice. Luckily today's class was one with some silent studying time, used to research the solar system. As everyone started moving around the Astronomy tower, researching in their most preferred ways, Aston decided to do the same, and went towards the book shelves. 'I remember there was a good one somewhere around here, I read it back home at the library.' Aston thought while he searched the shelves, but it seems luck is not on his side today, or rather, tonight. Because when he got to the shelf the book should be at, it was gone. Weird, normally that book is always there. Aston decided to keep looking around, still having hope of finding the book he likes. After some minutes he was able to find it, just not on the book shelves but instead in someone's hands. It was in the hands of a brown haired girl who is in house Hufflepuff, this fact presented Aston with a hard decision. Should he move on and try to find another book? To him this was the easiest option, though a bit unsatisfactory. Or should he approach the girl and ask to perhaps work together? It's a reasonable question that could even result in a new friend! Though approaching new people has always been hard for him. Eventually his desire to meet new people and to read the book he likes defeated the fear of embarrassing himself in front of people and approached the girl. "Hi my name is Aston, I know that book you're reading and I like it a lot. Do you mind if we could work together? I don't know many other good books on this topic so this would really make my life a lot easier." He said while wearing a smile, hands in pockets. Aston started thinking again while waiting for the girl's answer I think I'm looking less nervous, and hopefully she didn't think I was weird for standing there for ages.

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Meeting @Aston Beckett

Emily peeked up from over the top of her book when she registered that someone was addressing her. She looked up to be met with the kindly face of a Ravenclaw boy. She returned a gentle smile to him and nodded at his request. "Emily! A pleasure! And of course we can work together! I'll admit it all seems a little overwhelming, so I don't think a little teamwork will hurt at all...!"

She shuffled over in the cushions to allow him to sit next to her, that is if he would've liked to. "You say this is your favourite book? Well, why don't we share? I can see why you like it... A lot of the information here is really intriguing!"

She flicked through to a section on Saturn, her favourite planet. She couldn't really explain why it was her favourite planet other than the fact that the information was interesting. Then again she could say that about anything, let alone within the reaches of Astronomy.

"The information here I find particularly fun to read." Yep, Emily just called knowledge "fun." And she was proud of it. In fact, she was starting to get giddy over sharing her love for knowledge with this boy whom she had just met not five minutes ago.

_{Word Count: 238}

Stats: Stamina: 6|Evasion: 5|Strength: 6|Wisdom: 7|Arcane Power: 5|Accuracy: 6
Abilities: Non-Human Enthusiast

date: 13/11/23 time: After dark location: the Astronomy tower

mentions: Reducio @Emily Shephard

languages english: #1a4174 thoughts: italics

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"Emily! A pleasure! And of course we can work together! I'll admit it all seems a little overwhelming, so I don't think a little teamwork will hurt at all...!" Aston smiled at Emily's words and happily took up her offer of letting him sit next to her. "You say this is your favourite book? Well, why don't we share? I can see why you like it... A lot of the information here is really intriguing!" Emily said after Aston sat down next to her, he moved his head so he had a good look at the book, and replied with a grin"Well it's my favourite on this subject, I like quite a few muggle fantasy books more then this. And yeah it's really clear right? I just like the way it's written, I've read it before at the library my dad works at so it's nice to see it again." When he finished talking Emily flipped the pages to a section about Saturn. Ah Saturn, the ringed planet, I think it has the most moons out of all the planets in the solar system. Right when Aston was looking at the page, searching for confirmation that his memory was correct, Emily said "The information here I find particularly fun to read." while showing a clear appreciation for the book and its contents. Aston could help but feel immense joy at the fact that Emily also likes Astronomy, it's his second favourite after all, right after history of magic. "Saturn? Is it your favourite planet? My favourite is probably Neptune, though Venus is pretty cool too. Well not cool, it's quite hot in fact." Aston said, smiling at the joke he made. "Ha, Sorry that was a bad pun." Ending his sentence with a chuckle, he lifted his head up from the book and turned to Emily to wait for her answer.

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Working With @Aston Beckett

Emily was hooked as she listened to Aston talk. He had her curious as soon as he mentioned an affinity to muggle fantasy. Good lord, Emily could go a week talking about her favourite stories and inspirations for what she believes in today.

"Your father works at a library you say? No doubt you've had access to all the good books I'm sure!" The fact that Emily's father was a muggle businessman, practically at the top of the corporate food chain, yet she had much more respect and interest for her classmate's father. Maybe it was her bias that books bought her more happiness than the money left for her guardian to look after her, but Emily was nevertheless intrigued.

She was surprised but more so ecstatic that Aston didn't seem put off by her sudden tangent on Saturn - even she was willing to admit that it was a bizarre conversation starter but the fact that Aston followed up on it made her fuzzy. She continued to listen with full attention.

"My favourite is probably Neptune, though Venus is pretty cool too. Well not cool, it's quite hot in fact."

Emily giggled. She was practically the jester in the household back home so for someone to appreciate jokes and puns, no matter how cheesy they could be, it was refreshing to see. "That's one I could add to my repertoire of jokes," she complimented.

Her eyes then caught a blinking glimpse of a giant encyclopaedia at the end of one of the bookshelves. Oh, this night just keeps getting more interesting - encyclopaedias were her Achilles' heel in the world of books. She politely snuck past Aston and grabbed it, a small noise of effort to accompany her as she came and sat back down with the book across her lap. Excitement was painted evidently across her face.

"I wonder what kind of stuff is in here..." She opened up the table of contents and shared it with Aston, giving him full view of what was inside.

_{Word Count: 361}

Stats: Stamina: 6|Evasion: 5|Strength: 6|Wisdom: 7|Arcane Power: 5|Accuracy: 6
Abilities: Non-Human Enthusiast

date: 13/11/23 time: After dark location: the Astronomy tower

mentions: Reducio @Emily Shephard

languages english: #1a4174 thoughts: italics

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"That's one I could add to my repertoire of jokes," Emily said to Aston in response to his, in his opinion bad, joke. "Heh, thanks." It felt really nice, not just the compliment but the whole interaction with Emily. Despite astronomy being a subject that he has liked since he was a child, unlike history his parents never did have the same level of interest in it as him, so all he could do was just read books on the matter. By then Emily seemed to have found something even more interesting than the astronomy book they were reading. Following her gaze Aston saw a very large encyclopaedia, positioned at the end of a book shelf. Putting the other book down by the spot they were sitting at, Aston watched as Emily went to grab the comically large encyclopedia and bring it back, she was visibly excited. Makes sense, encyclopedias store so much information, it's like the most interesting of non-fiction books. "I wonder what kind of stuff is in here..." Emily said as she opened the table of contents, allowing Aston too see everything in it. "I mean if my previous experience with encyclopedias is anything to go by lots of things will be in here. We're still searching for solar system stuff or are we gonna opt for more interesting things? I wouldn't mind either, personally I like history, it's always interesting to me cause it's like a bunch of stories, except it's real which makes it even better!" Aston smiled in excitement as he said that, eagerly waiting for Emily to choose a topic. OOC note: sorry it took me a while, school has been a bit nuts lately, but it's all good now

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Pages and Pages with @Aston Beckett
Speech: #cfa120

How very typical of Emily to spread herself out among multiple books at once, eager to absorb all the information across each of them at the same time. In a sense it was a way to compare knowledge between them all, what facts were missing between them and layering them all together as one big collection of information on a topic. A bit like a jigsaw puzzle; putting all the different pieces together and then you get the full picture - practically how Emily would describe it when trying to explain why she tries to read too many transcripts at once.

She and Aston glanced over the tome together. By the looks of it, it seemed to cover just about everything in the entire seven-year curriculum for Astronomy. Had there been a copy of it in the library already, Emily would have checked it out in a heartbeat.

"Well I suppose there's no harm in having a flick through to see what catches our eye while we find some more material on the solar system," Emily kindly suggested. "We still have a bit of time to finish up for today's study session on the solar system so surely there's no harm in doing a bit of leisurely reading on the side."

Emily would be lying if she said she wasn't looking for an excuse to learn something new to keep her mind fed with new knowledge. At the same time however she could sense that same intrigue coming from her new friend.

"I like history, it's always interesting to me cause it's like a bunch of stories, except it's real which makes it even better!"

Now that sparked a reminder in Emily. "Actually, you've just reminded me... There's a ton of mythology surrounding the Solar System. There's bound to be a few stories named in here...!"

She flicked to the index and bingo! "Mythology of the Planets...!" If something like that interested her then there's bound to be hope that it would interest Aston as well, she thought.

_{Word Count: 364}

Stats: Stamina: 7|Evasion: 6|Strength: 6|Wisdom: 8|Arcane Power: 7|Accuracy: 6
Abilities: Non-Human Enthusiast|Cat's Grace

date: 13/11/23 time: After dark location: the Astronomy tower

mentions: Reducio @Emily Shephard

languages english: #1a4174 thoughts: italics

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Upon closer inspection of the large encyclopedia Aston realized that his initial assumption of the encyclopedia was quite wrong. Oh, so it's a Astronomy encyclopedia, wow this must cover the all the things they talk about in class, for all seven years. So exciting! After mentioning his liking for history Aston noticed a change in her facial expression, Did she think of something? "Actually, you've just reminded me... There's a ton of mythology surrounding the Solar System. There's bound to be a few stories named in here...!" That idea was certainly exciting for Aston, I never did read much about myths... He watched as Emily flipped though the pages, finding the index of the encyclopedia which told them the location of the info they desire. "Mythology of the Planets" Aston uttered at the same time as Emily, "I never did look into it much at home so this will be fun. I assume you know more about it?" You would think that with his interest in Astronomy and Story telling Aston would be more knowledgeable on this topic, but the truth is that he really isn't. Back in America his parents never own books on the subject and in London he always had lists of book he wanted to read from topics he already knows he likes. "Which planet do you think we should start with? I think Jupiter is the one named after the king of the gods, should we start with him? Which myth do you think is the most interesting?" Aston asked, this is turning out to be a very enjoyable study session!

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Stories and Space with @Aston Beckett
Speech: #cfa120

Emily flicked to the page she found from referring to the Index and opened up at the desired chapter, greeted with a whole paragraph of tiny text. It took her to bend her nose down closer to the page to read but with how much information that one page alone seemed to contain, Emily wasn't going to start complaining. The more information to entertain her growing mind, the better.

"I only know a few stories that correlate with the Solar System," she explained. "I know that Mercury was named after the winged messenger of the gods. Actually, most if not all the planets are named after Roman and Greek gods. Though I do remember reading a few children's stories on why we have day and night and stuff like that, though I guess most people are too familiar with that kind of thing."

At Aston's mention of Jupiter, Emily immediately responded with the usual optimism in her tone. "Jupiter's a good one! And you're right, it's named after the Roman god, "Jupiter," who also happened to be the king of the gods. Kind of fitting for the largest planet in the Solar System, isn't it?"

Emily chuckled at the prospect. At the same time there was a hint of shyness, a worry that she was being a little more showy-offy and less of the geeky charm she was trying to project. She never wanted to be condescending. No information she took in was ever taken for granted, merely for the enjoyment of learning something new. She hoped Aston to recognise that.

"I've always liked the story behind Venus. Named after the goddess of love and beauty. Venus is the brightest planet in the Solar System, almost as if it's meant to be a symbol of radiance. The planet is said to be brighter than both the sun and the moon, so I can guess why...!"

_{Word Count: 342}

Stats: Stamina: 7|Evasion: 6|Strength: 6|Wisdom: 8|Arcane Power: 7|Accuracy: 6
Abilities: Non-Human Enthusiast |Cat's Grace

date: 13/11/23 time: After dark location: the Astronomy tower

mentions: Reducio @Emily Shephard

languages english: #1a4174 thoughts: italics

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Aston watched as Emily found the chapter they were seeking, the words on the pages seems ridiculously small to him Is this what most encyclopaedias are like? The few encyclopaedias Aston has read he remembers to have larger fronts, maybe it's a stylistic choice? He saw Emily lean down to get a better look at the words and listened to her talk about her understanding of the myths. He did know that most of the planets were named after Greek and Roman gods, though that is about the limits of his understanding. "The winged messenger of the gods? That's cool! I wonder why they named mercury after him, I don't see much correlation." "Kind of fitting for the largest planet in the Solar System, isn't it?" Emily said with a joyful tone, suddenly remembering some facts he read a while ago Aston repiled "Yeah! I think Jupiter has 95 moons? With one called Ganymede that's even bigger then Mercury." The remembrance of Ganymede did gave Aston another topic of research in his own time, Wait is Ganymede also a person in the myths? I'll have to figure it out one day. While Aston was pondering the origins of Ganymede Emily mentioned Venus and the goddess the planet is named after. "Venus is really bright, I remember star gazing with my father once, it was very bright and beautiful. I see why it's named after the goddess of love and beauty, I do love the golden-ey white hue in the photos of it! Venus is the hottest planet in the solar system too! I think it's over four hundred degrees Celsius." The joy of sharing and leaning new knowledge was really getting to Aston, as proven by the smile he had while talking. Thinking about another interesting planet, Aston thought back to Jupiter and eventually found an answer. "I actually have a question, since Juipter is the kings of the gods is there a queen? Does she get a planet?"

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