Familiarizing Oneself with the Unfamiliar Fin

Annabelle examined the various trophies. She wiped a finger off one of the shelves. Dust, she thought. I wouldn’t fancy doing detention in here. Then again, she didn’t fancy doing detention at all. She saw another girl staring at a plaque. Annabelle walked over next to her. It was a 2002 dueling champion. Interesting, sure, but not all that memorable. Annabelle shrugged to herself and walked back to the Quidditch cups. One of the older ones caught her eye.

Annabelle hadn’t had anything better to do. Classes hadn’t started yet. She stared uptakes the trophy.She was some old relative on my dad’s side, the pure blood side, I think. Quidditch and Gryffindor? My dad was a Hufflepuff and my great-uncle was a Slytherin. Houses all over the place.
Annabelle slowly reached up to grasp the trophy, not realizing what she was doing. She stopped herself, but glanced up with longing, Quidditch was something she had always wanted to do. But with her meager money, there wasn’t any way Annabelle could buy any broomstick, not even the worst ones out there. She’d give anything to try, though.
Annabelle reached up again and sighed. She couldn’t get caught doing this, and she was sure there were spells keeping trophies in place. So she resigned to just stare at the cup.

Sola had noticed another student nearby: a girl her age, likely. She couldn't quite see the house colors on her robes, but she, too, was nearby the Quidditch section. Sola mentally wondered if she was being noticed, and felt like she had to watch her movements or worry about something silly like that: her natural self-consciousness.

She was distracted by the Quidditch trophy, though. It was for the Slytherin team in 1982, 37 years ago. On the plaque, there were several names, but she only saw the first Beater: Nolan Trevers. Just seeing the name brought up images of newspapers, pictures of striped rags and mangy hair and serial numbers and murderous eyes.

Sola pursed her lips, glancing away. It wasn't like it should bother her anymore. She had never even met him. She glanced at the girl standing a few feet away. She saw the blue and bronze: Ravenclaw, then. She was touching one of the trophies, she realized.

"Um... I'm not sure you're supposed to do that," she said quietly. "I don't think..." she thought for a moment but realized Hogwarts had no current caretaker. "I don't think whoever cleans them likes fingerprints," she said, scratching the back of her neck.

Annabelle whipped her head around at the sudden sound of a voice. It was a Slytherin girl, her age, watching her. “I’m not sure you’re supposed to do that. I don’t think whoever cleans them likes fingerprints.”

Annabelle wiped dust off of the shelf. “I’m not sure anyone cleans them. By the looks of it, no one’s been here for a while.” Annabelle showed the girl the dust on her finger. There was a lot. ”Some poor kid might serve a detention cleaning this place.” Annabelle quickly realized that she might be that kid if the professors found out about this. She didn’t know any professors yet, so they were in no way inclined to believe she had integrity. Annabelle hadn’t meant to touch the trophy, but she was interested in Quidditch.
Annabelle turned to the girl. “What’s your name, anyway?” Oops. She hadn’t meant for the words to sound so rude, but they did anyway. “I mean- I, ugh. I’m Annabelle.” Dang it. This girl would definitely think she was rude and some other negative characteristics, but Annabelle didn’t mean to be rude. Just like she hadn’t meant to touch the trophy. Just like how no one ever really believed her.

It seemed she'd caught the other student off-guard. Maybe she thought Sola was going to tell the teachers, but she wouldn't. It wasn't a big deal anyway, and she wasn't the type to stir up trouble just for trouble's sake, so there was no reason to.

The girl asked her name, sort of off-handedly, but she quickly reworded her question. She was probably just as new to Hogwarts as Sola was. Probably trying to make friends or find her way around.

"I'm Sola," she answered. "Sola Haze." She glanced over at the trophies. The girl seemed to be looking at a Gryffindor cup. Likely some relatives of hers, but Sola didn't want to make assumptions. Sola didn't think she had any relatives who played Quidditch... no real relatives, anyway. She didn't want to think about it.

"I suppose you like Quidditch," she commented, feeling dumb. Of course, she did, because otherwise she was just looking at family achievements, and Sola doubted anyone did that but her.

Well, maybe others did it, too. She didn't really know. Come to think of it, she didn't really have any friends she could ask about it. Or any family. Her cousins didn't go to Hogwarts, so she was sort of by herself.

“Nice to meet you, Sola.”, Annabelle said. She ripped her eyes off of the Quidditch cup and turned towards her. What had Sola been doing again? Looking at the dueling champions. Hmm, kind of weird for a first year to be doing that. Well, it was also kind of strange for Annabelle to be looking at the Quidditch cup, so...

”Quidditch? Yes. I love the idea of flying, even if it seems a bit scary to go hurtling a ball at someone’s face while you’re whizzing around at a zillion miles an hour.” Annabelle shrugged. “I’d be a Chaser if I can get in. I don’t have a broomstick, though.”


Annabelle started up at all of the trophies. “How long do you suppose Hogwarts has been running? There sure are lots of these trophies, after all.” Annabelle sighed. “It’s nice being able to explore since classes haven’t started yet. Mine start soon, tomorrow or the day after.”

And now she was babbling. What was it with social situations? Was she babbling or being normal? Annabelle wasn’t often with others and she wasn’t sure of expectations while talking to people. It’d not like there were any books on how to not be awkward.

@Sola Haze

She looked a bit nervous, but Sola had been feeling that way this entire past few days. The entire castle made her nervous, as did social situations. But, then again, she'd always been anti-social. Being homeschooled didn't help that matter.

"Well, Hogwarts has been around for about 1030 years," she said, thinking back to the history books she'd read before starting school. There had been many of them. She wanted to know as much as she could before coming to Hogwarts. "But Quidditch has been around for 970 years, so..."

Her eyes wandered back to the trophies. "Do you have any relatives who play?" she asked, trying to make small talk. "Professionally, or maybe back in school?"

Honestly, she was actually curious about whether this girl had any relatives who knew her father at all, but she realized at that moment the girl she was speaking to might not even have any wizard relatives she knew about. Maybe she shouldn't have asked before she knew, but blood status wasn't just something you asked about for no reason. Plus, it wasn't anything she really cared too much about. Her father's entire family had been making fun of blood status for years.

@Annabelle Osborne

“Almost 1000 years? Woah. I guess that one trophy wasn’t old at all.”

The second question was a bit more tentative. Annabelle’s Pureblood dad had been expected to carry on a pure line, but nope! He married a muggle, Anna’s mom. And Anna’s mom had left a while back. Anna’s dad was disgraced and scorned for marrying a muggle. The two families cut themselves off from one another, and Anna had never met anyone on her dad’s side. But as a short answer... “As a matter of fact, yes. That trophy was for Maria Osborne, Gryffindor Quidditch captain in 1922. Osborne’s my last name, so she might be in my family tree from my dad’s side.”

As far as Anna knew, no one on her muggle side had ever been to Hogwarts. But if they were going to talk about status, Annabelle could do that. “How about you?” She asked Sola. “Quidditch? Dueling? I saw you looking over there earlier.”

Sola had been looking into the Quidditch section earlier, and dueling before that. Sola had been in there before Anna had arrived, so she could’ve seen a lot more. Anna had no idea.

Anna didn’t know how far her family stretched back- was Osborne a common last name? Maria Osborne could be someone else, not related to her, but she remembered a hazy memory. Her dad had told her “Maria never listened to me.” Maybe Maria had passed away? Anna was unsure.

Sola looked a bit sheepish when she mentioned the duelling trophies. She rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly. She was proud of her father's accomplishments, but she didn't want to look like she was bragging. Still, she didn't want to lie.

"Oh, I don't really have any direct relatives on the Quidditch team. My dad was into duelling, though. He, uh, actually won the duelling championship in his fifth year. He was pretty great." She glanced back at the duelling trophies, turning her back on the Quidditch trophies.

"He went on to become an Auror, so he duels people all the time. He also rides on a broomstick, too, but he never played Quidditch. Actually, no one on my dad's side played Quidditch, I don't think."

Her father was rubbish at quidditch, he'd told her. She'd never seen him on a broom, but she'd been told he was decent enough. He just couldn't fly competitively. He was too responsible to ever try flying that recklessly. But he was a good dueler. One of the best, she'd been told. If you wanted to catch someone, Auror Haze would get them for you. He knew all the spells to slow people down.

@Isabelle Osborne

@Sola Haze
"Yeah," Annabelle nodded. "Dueling champs? Cool. I wanted to sign up for that, but the applications were closed when I came. Actually, I'm more into dueling than I am Quidditch." She smiled as she followed Sola over to the dueling trophies. "Although, I did see you take a peek at that Slytherin team Quidditch trophy. Interested in joining the team?" (gotta thicken the plot here, mr. trevors)

Annabelle started to look around. "Maybe someone on my dad's side was into dueling. Maybe I'll find an Osborne here as well." She found someone named Percy Ozborne, but that was a slightly different last name. Ozborne was a very good duellist, it seemed: He'd ranked well in the champs in fourth year, sixth year, and won them in the second year."

Annabelle glanced at Sola. She was looking at one of the trophies. Anna came over. "Walter Haze- hey, that was in 2002! This guy I found, Percy Ozborne, got second in the 2002 champs." She pointed to a smaller, silver trophy that read,





"Cool," Annabelle mused. "Any thoughts?" she asked, glancing at her new acquaintance. Sola wasn't really in the 'friend' zone yet. Maybe soon?