The Diary. Among Other Things PV: Stelle Mims

Sitting by one of the high windows, her legs tucked into her skirt and an open book on her lap, she watched absently as the afternoon light spilled onto the stone floor. The late autumn sun had a particularly melancholic quality. It wasn't the bright, carefree light of summer, but something gentler, like a polite farewell before leaving. She had spent the last half hour trying to read the same paragraph. Her attention had been wandering down paths far more interesting than any academic text. She was thinking about her diary. Since returning from vacation, she hadn't seen it. Had she left it at her grandparents' house? If so, she had to pray her grandmother didn't find it; she didn't want to get a Howler at breakfast. She'd die of embarrassment before going through that. That was a perfectly reasonable thought. At least for her. She continued searching every corner of her mind. She couldn't have forgotten it; she clearly remembered putting it at the bottom of her bag. But had she taken it out? She could be in their common room, but she'd already looked there several times.

That's when she heard a noise. A brief sound. The scraping of shoes against the floor. Stelle looked up. For a moment, she thought the room was playing one of its usual tricks on her. The figure that had just appeared seemed to have been painted by the same golden light that flooded the classroom. The hair, illuminated by the sun, had exactly the shade of dry leaves as they begin to turn to gold. She didn't remember ever having seen that student before. And yet there was something striking about her. Not necessarily her appearance, although that too. It was more the way she seemed to observe the world, as if she were constantly searching for something. So, driven by that nagging curiosity that always stirred within her whenever she saw something unusual, she climbed down from the window to follow her.

The girl seemed ready to leave when their eyes finally met. Stelle smiled immediately. It was a habit she'd inherited from her mother and grandmother: to smile before asking questions. Smile before passing judgment, because the world already contained enough stern expressions.

"Oh," she said softly, resting the book she was carrying on her chest. "I think I found you before you found me." She observed her with genuine curiosity. Stelle's eyes widened slightly at the sight of her diary in the girl's arms. Not from concern, but rather from surprise. For a few seconds, she gazed at the notebook like someone reunited with an old, stray pet that had decided to embark on an adventure of its own.

"So there you were," she murmured, addressing the diary before the student. Then she let out a small laugh. "I've been looking for it since yesterday." And it was true. She had checked half the common room, two classrooms, and a ridiculous number of places where she could never have left it. She had even considered the possibility that the castle had kept it, and Hogwarts had a history of that. She turned her attention back to the girl. She didn't seem like a dangerous person. In fact, she looked slightly exhausted. Like someone who had walked countless corridors. Like someone who had completed an unexpectedly complicated mission. Gratitude immediately spread across Stelle's face.

"Thank you for finding it," she said with genuine warmth. "Well... I think it's mine. Can I read the first page?" She tilted her head slightly. The golden light continued to stream through the windows, enveloping the room in that suspended tranquility that existed for only a few minutes each afternoon. And, for the first time all day, Stelle felt she had stopped thinking about a thousand different things at once. Now she only wanted to know who that girl was, why she had spent so much time looking for her, and what stories were hidden in those eyes that seemed accustomed to changing as much as the color of the sky.

Stelle remained motionless for a moment, as if time itself had gently folded back on itself to grant her a brief respite. Her fingers rested around the diary with an almost reverential delicacy, caressing the worn leather cover as the familiar weight of the notebook settled once more in her hands. It was curious how much one could miss such a small object. It wasn't simply bound paper; entire afternoons lived within its pages, thoughts written with the haste of someone afraid of forgetting an emotion before nightfall, small discoveries that seemed unimportant until time transformed them into memories. She let out a barely perceptible sigh, one of those born more of relief than weariness.

"Yes... it's mine." Her smile appeared slowly, warm and sincere, as she looked up at the girl. Gently, she opened the first page. Her name was written in that neat, round handwriting that had always amused her, because it contrasted so sharply with the chaos of thoughts hidden on the following pages. She closed the journal again and hugged it to her chest for barely a second, like someone greeting an old friend after a long separation. When Jay said her full name, Stelle inclined her head slightly.

"It's a pleasure, and... thank you for returning it." She extended her hand casually. Only then did she truly notice her. Not her uniform, nor the way she carried herself, but something much more subtle. Her appearance was changing. Not in a theatrical or flamboyant way, but as if the colors had decided to slowly slide across a still-damp canvas. For a moment, she thought the light of the setting sun was playing tricks on her. Then she realized it wasn't. Those eyes were remarkably like her own. She didn't feel fear, no, she felt a prickle charged with immense curiosity. Her eyes widened slightly as she contemplated the phenomenon with the same interest a child shows when watching the first snowfall of winter.

"Did you... do that?" The question slipped out before she could stop it. There was no accusation in her voice, only fascination.

"It's incredible..." She took just a step closer, careful not to invade Jay's personal space. The word came out slowly, almost savoring it. When Jay commented that it had been difficult to find her, Stelle let out an embarrassed giggle.

"I'm sorry..." She ran a hand through her hair and looked around the empty classroom. Golden light still streamed through the windows, turning the dust motes into tiny constellations suspended in the air. Everything seemed enveloped in that tranquility that only existed in rooms forgotten by the rest of the castle.

"You said you've been looking for me all afternoon. You searched the entire castle just to return this?" Her eyebrows arched in genuine surprise, because there was something profoundly kind about that gesture. She could have left it in lost and found or simply ignored it. But she had chosen to look for a stranger. That said a lot about a person. She remained silent for a few seconds before smiling again.

"It cracks me up to imagine you asking all over the castle, 'Where's this Stelle?'" Her gaze then drifted, almost involuntarily, down to Jay's dark hair. She fleetingly recalled that diary entry. The highlights, the dye, the straightening. It had been a fleeting thought during the holidays after an argument with her grandmother. Nothing serious, really, just a minor squabble over a mispronounced word in Russian—or had it been in Veela? She couldn't even remember. But she had been upset, quite upset, more emotional than usual, and to vent her frustration, she'd written down that she wanted to dye and straighten her hair (to look less like her grandmother). A tiny pang of embarrassment shot through her chest, and her cheeks flushed immediately. Had she read that? She didn't want to be left wondering, even though it might be an awkward question. Stelle smiled serenely before speaking again.

"Did you... by any chance read anything?" She said it so naturally it almost seemed like she was responding to a thought that had never been voiced. She glanced down at the journal and absentmindedly stroked the corner of the cover.

"I suppose we've all been curious at some point. I don't know if I could control my curiosity if I were you." She looked up again, and a small laugh lit up her face once more. Her eyes lingered again, filled with genuine curiosity, on Jay's ever-changing hair.

"What's it like being able to change your appearance whenever you want?"