User Error PV O. O'Brian

She made a mental note to look up the most effective way to destroy a Mimbulus mimbletonia in the library later. Or, better yet, how to get rid of all cacti on Earth. Her curiosity had lured her into one of the greenhouses, where she'd wandered slowly between the rows – initially fascinated by all the strange plants, until one particularly ugly specimen had spat its slimy insides all over her.
Although "slime" hardly described what had hit her – it was more like a stinking hell-brew straight from the underworld.
Not that it really mattered what it was – the only thing that mattered now was getting it off. Fast.

Driven by a mixture of anger, disgust, and frustration, she shoved open the door to the girls’ bathroom and, barely two steps into the room, tore the stinking cloak from her body.
And that was pretty much the moment she realized she wasn’t alone – and that her attempt to remain as inconspicuous as possible had failed spectacularly.
Because while her cloak floated gently and peacefully to the floor, a much less peaceful “You useless, bloody thing! You have one job, just stay put!” rang out through the room a second later.

Then again, the girl opposite her seemed to be in a similarly precarious situation. True, she wasn’t covered head to toe in foul-smelling plant secretions, but she appeared to be battling a problem Olivia knew all too well.

The girl was standing a little further ahead in front of the mirror. In her hand, she held a large claw clip, presumably meant to get some part of her fiery red curls under control – with only moderate success.
The strands kept falling loose with every movement, glowing in the light like living flames, and they gave absolutely no indication that they intended to stay anywhere at all.
And even though Olivia knew she was in no position to mock anyone, she couldn’t stop a cheeky grin from tugging at her lips.
“You know,” she said, walking toward the sink with as much pride as she had left and turning on the water, “I think you’re breaking that thing’s spine.”
Once her hands were at least somewhat clean again, she turned toward the girl with the gorgeous, fire-red curls – her own dark ones now tamed by a half-secure clip – and gave her a challenging smile.
“Let me help you.”

The waft of stinksap hit her before her mind quite registered that she was no longer alone. And in usual form of the Universe wanting to see her suffer, naturally the intrusion had happened just as she'd lost her temper at the clip. She could feel her cheeks absolutely burn with embarrassment having been caught loosing her composure in such a way.

She could almost hear her mother and governess' scolding all the way from Wales, absolutely appalled that a Daughter of the Ancient House of Annywn would ever behave in such a way, much less be caught! Hair disheveled, arguing aloud with a hair clip, in a public lavatory of all places. Absolutely shameful behavior. After all, a girl of her status shouldn't be having this issue of grooming at all. Honestly, how hard was it to simply make one's self look put together before being seen?

Well, in Taliesin's opinion anyway, quite. It truly hadn't been for lack of trying. Nanny had been having her practice for weeks how to take care of her hair properly prior to going off to Hogwarts. It wasn't her fault there were a million steps. Just as well, her mother had been the one to insist on her learning the ridiculously difficult styles she normally preferred Nanny to do her hair in, without so much as a thought as to how to do something simpler. Honestly, on what planet was an eleven year old going to learn how to do all this after having someone else do it for her for her entire life?? She felt practically set up to fail when getting herself ready in the morning ought to be the simplest task she should encounter in the entire day!

Taliesin was pulled from her thoughts when the other girl finally spoke up and she wished desperately her face would stop burning from the embarrassment of the situation, "I am not." she started defensively, though the heat of it was more like the weak flame of a half burned-out tealight. The snake snuck a size glance at her audience, determining the other must've thought her an absolute idiot. The other's own dark curls were in far better shape, well kept and secured back in her own clip, "Its broken on its own. Stupid thing couldn't hold ivy, even if the bloody plant wrapped around the blasted thing itself..." she grumbled. Whether that comment actually made sense outside of Taliesin's own brain, really wasn't any of Taliesin's business as far as she was concerned.

However, other girl offered to help; and at this rate, she really wasn't in the position to refuse. It was either preserve her pride, which would require her to either struggle further and face the rest of the day looking like she'd never met a comb in her life, or swallow said pride and admit she needed the aid of someone who clearly knew better what they were doing. Defeatedly, she handed over the definitely fully functional claw clip.

@Taliesin Annwyn

The other girl hesitated for a moment before accepting Olivia's offer. Given her undignified appearance, Olivia didn’t blame her. Perhaps the hesitation had something to do with the shy blush that spread across her face – not that she had any reason to be embarrassed. Her red curls were beautiful, and unlike Olivia, she wasn’t wearing worn-out children’s clothes (which, by the way, now smelled awful), but rather elegant, well-tailored outfits that her mother would no doubt have called “quite decent.“ She probably just found Olivia repulsive.

Eventually, she relented and handed Olivia the hair clip – which was by no means broken, just sorely misunderstood.

“Luckily, your hair isn’t made of ivy,” Olivia joked as she parted the unruly strands in two and carefully wove them together. “That should make things a bit easier. If you wet it, it holds better,” she murmured, concentrating, her face twisting ever so slightly. Heaven, when did she become so smug?

With practiced hands, she fixed the strands in the clip and secured them at the top of her hair. She studied her work critically for a moment, then grabbed two bobby pins from her own hair to tame the last rebellious locks that refused to obey the clip’s grip.

“That’s the best way to do it,” she explained with a faint smile, even as a few strands of her own hair came loose. Well, at least her hair now matched the rest of her appearance: a complete disaster. Still, she couldn’t suppress a satisfied grin as she admired her work. “Not bad at all!” And of course – because Olivia was a cheeky, curious, and outspoken idiot – she asked before she could stop herself, “How do you usually do it? Sorry, but you don’t seem particularly experienced with these things.”

Yeah...Ivy would've been more tamable, she thought to herself as the other girl took her battle station in the fight against the red mass. Though unlike herself, the other girl looked hardly daunted by the task. Through the mirror, Taliesin watched her intently. Even if she couldn't see exactly what was going on behind her head, her full concentration was on her new stylist, "Wet it?" had Nanny ever wet her hair? Maybe, and she'd just never noticed. The mornings before she was tasked with the undertaking completing her morning routine solo were mostly spent mindlessly chatting Nanny Morgan's ear off, or the total opposite with her nose buried in a book.

The girl's face was scrunched a bit in focus as she twisted the Welsh girl's hair about before finally securing it with that treacherous clip at the top of her hair; though a moment later, the girl paused before retrieving pins from her own hair to really put her locks in their rightful place.

Taliesin examined herself for a moment when the girl seemed content with her work, carefully turning her head a bit and positively surprised that it actually stayed put this time. Her fingers reached back to tentatively feel the twisted configuration of her hair and the position of the pins and clip, mostly to hopefully memorize it so she could replicate it again. And best of her, it was finally out of her face! Which personally was Taliesin's only real goal whenever she was doing her hair.

"Thank you!" she grinned, finally turning around to face her savior of the day. With this disaster avoided, thus less focus on her own self consciousness, she actually took in the girl. If there was a fault Taliesin was just barely yet aware of, it was her own unrelenting self-focus; which was glaring her in the face as she took notice that the other's dark curls were now starting to fall out of their own configuration after she'd sacrificed her bobby pins to a vain snake throwing a temper tantrum.

She'd really need to work on that; awareness of others and all that. This was now the second time she'd been so caught up in her own fits, that when someone finally came along to rescue her from her her misery, it was their loss. A result of growing up with instant gratification, she figured, "My nanny would do it for me. She tried to teach me how to do before school started, but I'm not very good at it, and they take a bit of time to do it the way my mother likes." she explained sheepishly. She decided to forgo the admission that half the reason she didn't have the time to do them right was because she still wasn't very good at getting herself up in the morning. Nanny always woke her up. Even when they'd started practicing for her to wake herself and get herself ready, she was always late... in this moment she was realizing just how much she was use to other people doing things or fixing problems for her.

In the moment, she was also becoming increasingly aware of how badly it was starting to smell in the lavatory ever since the girl walked in, specifically mostly from the direction of the abandon school robes. Taliesin might've not been the most proper Pureblood, but she was well mannered enough to know how horrifically impolite it would've been to comment on the smell. Especially after this girl had just helped her. If the shoe had been on the other foot and it was Taliesin's clothes that wreaked, she would have been in a puddle of tears already.

"Oh, right!" speaking of proper manners, "I'm Taliesin Annwyn." she gave the other a small curtsy, "I really appreciate your helping me. But you really didn't have to ruin your hair for me... oh! A-and I apologize for my, um, outburst when you came in." if it sounded like she was nervously reading from a script, it wouldn't be totally wrong as she tried to quickly and carefully correct and adhere to how she was trained to behave.

The girl had barely said a word while working, keeping deliberately out of sight. But Olivia had noticed how she kept glancing at her in the mirror. Whether it was out of suspicion or simple curiosity was hard to tell – but she had definitely noticed.

Now the girl – Taliesin – stepped forward with a small curtsy and introduced herself. There was no trace left of her earlier outburst. Her voice was calm, her expression polite.

As Taliesin began to thank her – and apologise, to boot – Olivia waved it off. An apology felt unnecessary, considering her own entrance could easily have won a prize for Most Dramatic Performance of the Day. “Don’t worry about it,” she said, though she could tell Taliesin very much was worrying. Olivia softened her tone and gave her a warmer smile. “I’ve got plenty more hair clips up in the dormitory.”

She grinned. “And as for your emotional outburst – forgiven and forgotten. Though I think you may have caused lasting emotional damage to the clip.”

Knowing that any attempt at a curtsy on her part would result in something painfully awkward, Olivia opted for the more civilised alternative and held out her hand. “Olivia O’Brian,” she said. It still felt slightly ridiculous to introduce herself with her full name – especially to someone who was probably her own age. “Nice to meet you, Taliesin Annwyn.”

Then, with genuine curiosity, “You’ve got a nanny? That’s… actually quite cool.”

She leaned back to pick up her cloak from the floor, making a point of maintaining eye contact – her mother had at least managed to instil that much etiquette in her.

No sooner had she grabbed the thing than she pulled a face. It smelled as though someone had wrapped something in it that hadn’t been alive for quite some time.

With a mixture of disgust and resigned responsibility, she tossed the cloak into the sink. She’d have to scrub it back from the afterlife later.

It came as a small relief to know that, at the very least, Taliesin hadn't commandeered a finite resource in the form of hair pins as the other girl assured her she had plenty more in her dorm. She'd have felt worse otherwise. It was also a relief that the other seemed hardly even fazed about her outburst, waving it off with a small, teasing quip about the emotional damage of a hair clip; Taliesin smiled a bit at that one. Her hair saviour was was kinda funny.

Instead of returning her curtsy, the other -Olivia, she'd said- offered her a handshake. The pattern hadn't escaped her since coming to Hogwarts, that one could get a hint towards another student's background by how they introduced themselves. Most of the other Pureblood students or students from more prominent families she'd met, typically didn't think twice about bows or curtsies. The rest tended to lean towards handshakes or head nods. Not that she was surprised or put off about it, but it was always an interesting game to play with herself, to see how someone introduced themselves, "The pleasure is mine." she smiled.

"Nanny Morgan." she confirmed, "She's wonderful, but I'm definitely realizing I'm quite useless without her around." the snake chuckled awkwardly as Olivia moved to fetch her discarded robes. Her face alone with enough for Taliesin to know that she was very much aware how badly the thing stunk without Taliesin having to make a single comment.

The other tossed the mass of black fabric in the sink, much to Taliesin's perplexment, "What are you doing?"

@Taliesin Annwyn

Olivia was convinced that her mother would have killed someone in order to get someone to take care of her and Billy while she could work undisturbed.

“Don't say you're useless“ Olivia chided. “You're just inexperienced. Trust me, you'll learn it faster than you think.“

She turned the tap on again and resolutely returned to her cleaning project. “I was foolish enough to sneak into the greenhouse despite the ban. Well, the bloody stinking-cactus made it crystal clear that it was a pretty stupid idea. And if I don’t want to announce myself three miles in advance in the next few days, I’ll have to deal with this quickly“, she answered her question.

Olivia blushed slightly as she realised that not only she, but also the room probably stank like something that had been forgotten in the dark for far too long. In her mind, she thanked Taliesin for her patient silence – she’d probably had the courtesy to say nothing about it.
Although Olivia didn’t have an in-depth understanding of the political currents in the wizarding world, she knew there were families who called themselves pure-bloods because magic had been the rule in every generation, and they often possessed considerable wealth. By now, she was almost certain Taliesin came from one of those old magical families, which likely meant she’d been exposed to magic long before. Maybe she could help with this mess. Hopeful, Olivia glanced at her again. “Unless you happen to know a cleaning spell that could spare me all this trouble?“

By all accounts (i.e. basically her entire household aside from Nanny), Taliesin was useless, and a poor excuse of a Pureblood heir. She wasn't very poised or graceful, she didn't have a head for remembering which families she was suppose to be trying to impress and make friends with here, her whole heart was typically on her sleeve (aka she was a crybaby), among countless other deficiencies her mother and governess never failed to point out. All the same, it was a kind gesture on Olivia's part to offer some encouragement.

She watched curiously as the other started running the tap over her robes as she explained her predicament. Her story certainly accounted for the smell... why was she trying to break into the Greenhouse though? Taliesin loved Herbology class and learning about all the plants and what they were used for, but even she'd known since she would walk that one shouldn't simply venture into a magical greenhouse without a grownup. There were a lot of dangerous plants in there, after all. Maybe it was just one of those lessons that everyone had to learn in their own time...

Taliesin was pulled from her musings when she realized Olivia was asking for her assistance. Her cheeks burned a bit, "Me?" She wanted her help? Talk about taking a flying leap of faith. Then again... she had been working to try to get a head start with some of her spells. After nearly getting hit with a rogue Mimblewimble during a Common Room disagreement, she'd realized it was probably smart to get whatever she could under her belt as quickly as possible, "Y-yeah... I can do that."

She probably looked about as confident as she sounded, but how hard could it be really? She'd watched her nanny clean things up a million times before. Of course it stood to reason that she could do it. Clean a robe. Its baby stuff.

Taliesin turned the tap off before dredging the half soaked garment out of the sink to lay it out on the floor; she wasn't entirely sure if the whole thing could get clean if it was in a wet crumple in the sink, so it felt like the safer bet to just lay it out. Her eyes flickered a moment to Olivia, partially hoping the girl might've come to her senses to not risk ruining the robe further by letting her cast on it. Maybe it would be wiser to just give it to a House Elf.

All the same, her eyes looked back to the robe as she fished her wand out of her pocket, poising it at the ready as she mentally ran through the spell once more. It was simple, don't over think it, she reminded herself before tracing the movement through the air, "Scourgify."

In a moment, the smell and water vanished from the robes, leaving them practically good as new. Taliesin released a breath she hadn't realized she was holding for fear she might accidently set the thing on fire or something as she picked the robes off the ground, "I-is this okay?" she asked, offering them back to Olivia.

OOC: You are totally fine! No worries! Life happens!

@Taliesin Annwyn

After a brief hesitation, Taliesin pulled the robes out of the sink, and Olivia couldn’t help but secretly admire her for it. If they hadn’t been her own – and therefore her responsibility – she probably would’ve just left the crumpled bundle of fabric where it was.

When Olivia looked up, she was met with a pair of warm, hazel eyes that regarded her almost pleadingly. But in the very next moment, Taliesin gave her wand a sweeping motion – maybe a little S-shaped – and in no time the robes were not only spotless again, but carried an even more pleasant scent than before. Relief washed over Olivia.

“I-is this okay?“ her rescuer asked, far too modestly, as she handed the cloak back.
“That’s more than okay. Thank you, Taliesin – you really saved my day“, Olivia replied, and she meant every word.

Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that Taliesin must think her a complete idiot: the spell had worked for her on the first try, while Olivia hadn’t even heard of it. Not to mention that the very reason this had been necessary was anything but glorious. But she wasn’t about to back down without a fight. In her mind, she could already hear her mother’s unyielding voice: I did not raise a groveller. Estelle O’Brian would have written off the whole scene without hesitation – foolish choices, filthy robes, pitiful pleas. The thought made Olivia’s stomach twist, and that was exactly why she forced herself to hold her head high.

So she managed to pull a mischievous grin, even though she would’ve liked nothing more than to sink into the floor – especially because she was so grateful to Taliesin. “Now we’re even,“ she declared solemnly. “We both embarrassed ourselves and helped each other out. You made a hairclip cry, I offended your sense of smell.“

Her smile softened into something more genuine as she held out her hand to Taliesin once more. Talking made it easier to hide her own unease. “So how about a fresh start? Olivia O’Brian, from Bodmin, first year, Ravenclaw. And who are you, total stranger?“