Houston, I have a (homework) problem PV Aly Salinger

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Aly Salinger had, as of late, really leaned into being "the Astronomy kid". Sure, she was top of the class, and sure, she'd pulled straight Outstandings on her O.W.L.s at the end of last year, but what with last spring's acceptance into the Astronomy internship program and her subsequent usage of the Astro tower as a safe space-slash-escape from the real world, it was beginning to become her identity by this point. After all, the Ravenclaw did not love shallowly. She had always cared very deeply for everything - her people, her interests, her cat. Especially her cat.

But Dauncey couldn't come to Astronomy class. You know what could come to Astronomy class? The bevy of space-themed accessories that Aly had begun to accumulate over the last six months. The star-shaped clip in her curly hair, the moon-and-star mismatched crystal earrings dangling from her lobes, the constellation bracelet that had lived its permanent place on her wrist since @Rebecca Lark had woven it for her sixteenth birthday present last May... just one look at her was enough to tell anyone nearby that she was the class's resident stargirl, the go-to for Astronomy answers. And even though everyone in the class was a N.E.W.T. student, even though they had all willingly chosen to continue with the subject after their O.W.L.s, the lesson populations still had enough duds who always came chasing after her post-class with questions that were perhaps just a little too fraudulent to ask the professor (like assignment answers, for instance). As such, Aly tended to pack up her things just a bit slower after Astronomy than her other classes, despite the late hour and her heavy-lidded eyes. Anything to linger just a moment more in the place she so loved, and away from the homework-hungry piranhas lurking just outside the door.

Though most of Aly's classmates had made a break for it immediately after the professor's dismissal, one face also seemed to have stuck around for reasons unknown. Shoving parchment scraps into his bag, gaze pointedly avoiding everything and everyone around him, he didn't look too hot - and Aly was pretty sure she knew why. Though she didn't know the kid too well (despite them being in the same House), Ravenclaw's resident Seeker knew all too well the shame of answering a question incorrectly during class, something that her classmate - Thomas, Aly was pretty sure that was his name - had just done this last period. That sort of thing made you feel like a right berk sometimes, especially when your whole House identity was supposed to revolve around brilliance. Aly could relate easily enough... though perhaps not in this particular class.

And so, approaching the cubicles where students stored their extra things during the lesson, Aly leaned against the cubby beside the muttering Thomas and flashed him her starriest smile. "Merlin, these N.E.W.T.-level classes are no joke," she groaned with a playful lilt, drawing on her own frustration with some of her other lessons to give her complaint weight. "Could be worse, though. We could have midnight Transfiguration - or, as I'd probably call it, naptime." Chuckling merrily at her own joke for a moment, Aly glanced to Thomas to see his reaction, and then tentatively ventured, "You're Thomas, right? Weird we've never actually met, seeing as how we're both Ravenclaws and all."

Astronomy was a subject Tom once greatly favored, particularly early on in his Hogwarts tenure. There was something to be said about the allure of the cosmos, of the comforting certainty of astrophysics paired with hours of observations. Charting the stars, keeping up with space weather events, measuring the movements of celestial bodies, it all felt far more tangible to his pragmatic mind strangely enough. Even if this science was not something he could reach out and touch, it was something he could see and undersand far more readily than many other subjects. Perhaps it was due to not being particularly exposed to the magical world prior to his first year, or perhaps it was his obsession with rules and neat boxes, but Thomas never liked the softness of it all. Not even Transfiguration fully sated this need for certainty and confirmation. Many so-called tenets he would be taught would directly conflict with the laws of the world or previous rules. Magic severely irked Thomas, in truth. His high achievements in early schooling reflected a sort of obsessive search for core principles, of understanding.

Nowadays, generally unenthused with everything Thomas found himself coasting on his early laboriousness. It was enough to scrape through with passing marks in many subjects; his sudden descent into aloofness did not result in any doors being slammed shut at the very least. However, every passing week or month that Thomas spent coasting meant that he was slipping further and further behind. His peers, the ones who had real aspirations for themselves, were leagues ahead of where the Ravenclaw was stagnating.

Despite this, something compelled him to continue on with Astronomy, elective as it might have been. Thomas didn't understand his own motives, though it was likely some lingering, subconscious attachment that fueled the decision. Grabbing ahold of his school bag and slinging it over his shoulder, he slowly turned to meet Aly's gaze. Some vague recognition dawned on his face—a relaxation of his brows—before his expression returned to dour. Tom let her talk without any interruption, as if waiting to see if she'd turn the conversation into a passing comment and walk off when he didn't reply.

However, at the end of the day he supposed he was asked a question. After a pause that was slightly longer than polite, the young man answered, "Thomas is right... And, it isn't that weird. I'm not one for conversations..." Tom ruminated a little, before adding, "You're pretty sharp though, with the Astronomy stuff." His scowl might have made the comment seem insincere, though this was far from the case.

"You don't have to, uh, wait up. Just tired," Tom offered, rubbing his eyes and stifling a yawn. "I'm packing up."

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The boy in front of Aly looked vaguely like he knew who she was before his expression soured as she spoke, and of course she couldn't help wondering if she'd said something wrong. Her voice faded slightly, tone wobbling from the indecisiveness, before pushing through with her statement about them both being Ravenclaws. Sure enough, he took a while to respond, and Aly hesitated for a moment on if she was wanted here - well, not wanted, because most people didn't really desire for a stranger to come up and start talking to them, but allowed. Being a bit of a charmer, she wasn't used to people not wanting her around.

But before Aly could head through the door - the same exit that all of her classmates had used, she noted, realising that they were now alone in the classroom as the last stragglers had made their exeunts and likely fled back to their dormitories due to the late hour - the boy spoke, confirming that his name was Thomas. Aly almost giggled at the joke that he "wasn't one for conversations"... before it struck her that it wasn't a joke at all, and that he was serious, and that she better keep a straight face or risk ending a conversation before it had even started. Though she had been the one who had remembered his name at first, it occurred to her that she had heard Thomas before, and something about him saying it sounded more familiar - the memory hit her like a lightning bolt, three years ago with Dee teasing her about boys in the Ravenclaw dormitories. She snapped her fingers, remembering. "Baines! Dee's told me about you. You used to be her co-captain - well, back when she was on duelling, right? I'm her best mate, Aly." She extended her hand for a shake, and if Thomas accepted it, would give him a hearty pump of the hand; if he rejected it, she would let it sit there in the air for a few moments before halfheartedly allowing it to droop back to her side.

"I'm a bit of an Astronomy anorak, yeah," she continued, lamely gesturing to the earrings and clip in her hair as if those were badges of honour rather than a crash of interests between her star phase and fashionista tendencies. "It's lots of extra studying, mostly. Trust me, there are some subjects I just can't wrap my mind around. The day I can leave Defence Against the Dark Arts behind for good is the day I'll be a happy girl." Determined to dazzle him at least into not looking vaguely pissed off by her, Aly offered Thomas another one of her most brilliant smiles. "And don't worry about it, I'm happy to wait! Just wanted to ask if you ever got the answer about that thing about stars and oxygen. I know that Professor Starwise, well, doesn't always explain things in... a lot of detail." She shifted her weight to the other foot, pulling her satchel higher up on her shoulder. It didn't suit Aly to brag about her academic prowess, and in fact made her quite uncomfortable, but talking stars was something she quite enjoyed nevertheless - and the boy had just seemed so embarrassed by his slight earlier. As a fellow Ravenclaw, she could understand the humiliation that came of being from the "smart House" and yet answering something incorrectly in the public forum of a lesson. "Plus, I don't like walking back to Ravenclaw Tower alone this late at night. Want to go together?"

The mention of Dealla and duelling earned Aly the smallest of micro-expressions—a twitch of the corner of Tom's mouth, some near-smile. He nodded to confirm his identity, "The very same." The Ravenclaw found himself strangely comforted by the notion that he existed enough in the minds of others to be mentioned when not in the room. It seemed that this line of conversation had managed to defuse his bad mood, and he even took her hand for a shake. His hold was loose, noncommittal, but the gesture was there nevertheless. "It's been a fair bit since I've been duelling, but yes." He remembered it all somewhat fondly, and had a hard time justifying why he had fallen out of the sport originally. Now, at least, he could point to his lack of practice as reason for not joining back up.

"It's lots of extra studying, mostly. Trust me, there are some subjects I just can't wrap my mind around. The day I can leave Defence Against the Dark Arts behind for good is the day I'll be a happy girl."

In spite of himself, Thomas was unable to stifle the nose-exhale of a laugh at the notion. Though the young man had been bound and determined to try and drive Aly off, she seemed perhaps equally determined to continue this conversation. He did not understand her motives, and part of him wanted to ask exactly what her angle was. For now, his curiosity would remain just that, and he answered with an anecdote of his own. "I remember once, my first year, I was working with a friend of mine for an assignment in that class. When Sylvie and I got our grades back, P and A respectively, it was a cataclysmic event for the both of us," he joked, his dry delivery betrayed by the smirk on his face. Tom shook his head with the recollection, it was such an odd thing to remember—caring. This also might have been one of the longest continuous string of words he had said in a long time, even beyond this conversation.

A dismissive wave of the hand was his answer regarding his classroom blunder. Tom admitted, "Honestly, I was asleep for the first half of the question." He even found himself feeling marginally shameful regarding this fact, which confused him. The Ravenclaw hadn't paid the opinions of others any mind in years. Perhaps it was the way Aly addressed his mistake—kind and helpful, but indirect—that disarmed his scowl in favor of a more embarrassed expression. He adjusted his bag on his shoulder, some means to keep his idle hands busy, and averted his gaze some.

"Plus, I don't like walking back to Ravenclaw Tower alone this late at night. Want to go together?"

This excuse, however, was one that Tom was more willing to accept than Aly offering charity. "... Sure." He supposed he could understand; the halls at night were dark and ominous enough. It wouldn't be that long a walk, if Thomas decided her presence were unbearable somewhere along the way. With a furrow of her brows, he regarded her warily, still trying to determine what sort of motivation she had for the benevolence.

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Mentioning Dee earned Aly the first actual expression she'd gotten from the boy in their whole entire five minutes of conversation - an actual twitch of his lips, almost as if something inside of him had wanted to smile, before the rest of him had tamped it back down. She took this as an excuse to double down on her friendliness, offering him a brilliant grin - not that she was friends with Dee because of the connections that the other girl offered, of course, but that certainly didn't hurt! He confirmed that he was indeed the Thomas Baines of whom she'd thought, and Aly filed away his face and name in her mental lexicon in case they ever ran into each other again. "No worries, I've never had a head for duelling either," she joked. "And Dee's on broom racing now. I'm more of a Quidditch lass, myself."

Mentioning DADA also seemed to get somewhat of a snort out of him, and Aly couldn't help but be proud of herself; seemed she could make friends with a brick wall, in spite of it all, as proved by the smirking wall in front of her. "I can only imagine. My first Acceptable in Potions was just about the stuff of nightmares - I didn't dare tell my mum." Watching him sling his back over his shoulder, she shrugged off the memory - it had been a horrible time back in third year, balancing puppy love with an overbearing mother and really coming into her own for the first time, but she'd gotten through it. Somehow, she'd gotten through it. Mostly with Dee's help, to be quite honest. "I'd never have gotten my grades up to Outstandings without sneaking peeks at Dee's notes for the rest of that year. Well - not during exams, of course! But while we were studying. Everyone's good at something, you know. And everyone has... well... the class they doze off in." Aly chuckled, her gaze drifting up to the stairs that led up to the observatory deck. The classroom had long since emptied, the rest of the students vanished... and the two of them both had their things... and she had been an Astronomy intern since the previous spring, meaning she just about had the run of the tower even when the professor wasn't around.

Sure, she was tired, but they had a few minutes before they had to leave, now, didn't they?

Without a second thought, Aly broke into a run, sprinting not towards the exit door but up the winding, spiraling, shining bronze staircase towards the roof. Halfway up, she paused just momentarily to lean over the railing and grin down at Thomas below. "Hey, come on up for a second before we go! I've got something I want to show you." Then she turned and continued to run up, hoping her famously contagious enthusiasm would catch on to even the grumpiest of her classmates before they would return to their ivory tower to turn in for the night.