Lost in the hall pv Rose Moon Finished

Rose crashed right into another girl. Books flew everywhere, their pages flapping as they landed awkwardly on the floor of the small hall. Rose stumbled backward, finding her footing. In the small hall, why in the world wasn't she looking where she was going? She put her hands over her mouth. The books were sprawled all over the floor, along with another student. Rose immediately jumped into apologetics, saying in her soft, kind, American-accented voice, "Oh, I'm so sorry! Are- are you okay? That's totally my fault, I wasn't watching where I was going..." Ah, Rose- always one to blame everything on herself. She would apologize for things that she wasn't even present for sometimes. But she was definitely present for this and held it as her fault.

Blushing darker than her hair, Rose crouched down to help the girl pick up some of her books, holding five or six of them in a pile and leaning the pile against her chest. She would then stand up, which gave her her first good look at the girl. She had chestnut brown hair and soft eyes and seemed bashful and shy, in Rose's first impression. She was shorter than Rose and looked a little younger, so maybe she was a first-year? "Are you lost? Can I help you?" she offered. She had brought this trouble upon this girl, after all. And she had nothing else to do anyway.

The girl was fairly quiet, not speaking a lot. That was okay- Rose had used to be like that and she had plenty of friends who were exactly like that. Still holding half of her books to her chest, Rose listened to the girl as she stammered out her intended destination. The library? If she was looking for the library, she had picked the wrong place to look. "Oh. The library is... kinda on the other side of the school," she said gently and with an amused smile, reminiscing about the days she would be on the other side of the school from where she was trying to go. Those were the good ol' days, when she was so fascinated by everything in the castle it would snag her attention often, which would lead to her getting lost which led to her scolding herself about being incompetent. So Rose did understand how flustered the girl must be feeling at that moment. "I'm not good at giving directions, especially not in a place as big as this, so I can take you there if you'd like," she continued, her soft attention on the first year. "Come on," she said, gesturing toward the exit of the small hall, making sure to keep pace with the smaller girl. "I've gotten lost plenty of times before, especially in my first year. Hogwarts is a huge place," she reassured her.

The girl's bags seemed really heavy, but as she was already carrying some of the young, brown-haired girl's books, Rose didn't want to take more of the weight off of the girl and drop the stuff she would be carrying, causing another absolute catastrophe with books flying everywhere that was her fault... again. So she didn't offer to take more of the books. The girl still hadn't spoken any more, and Rose wondered worriedly if she was intimidating her or scaring her. She was a second year, to be fair. Rose had been super intimidated by any other year when she was a first year. Wow, she really was thinking back on her first year- that hadn't happened with any of the other first years she had met lately. But maybe that was just because none of them had been quite as quiet or lost as this girl was. "Which year are you in?" she asked. She didn't want to ask if she was in her first year, because then she might embarrass her more than she already was.

Rose always seemed to introduce herself at the wrong times, but this time, when silence overtook the conversation, Rose broke it by attempting to put a name with the face of the girl. "I'm Rose, by the way. What's your name?" she asked.

The girl was able to tell Rose about which year she was in- First. Which Rose was not surprised at, seeing as she wasn’t even close to the right spot. Hogwarts had practically been a maze the first couple of months Rose had attended Hogwarts, which had been only about a year ago. She remembered the frustration at getting lost and had been relieved to hear she wasn’t the only one. She was grateful to any professors who would give their students a break when they were late to class, knowing you could get turned around in this place all too easily. She also immediately had a bias against the teachers who weren’t as forgiving and understanding as some others. Granted, Rose also thought horribly of herself when she suddenly realized she had no idea where she had ended up, but those professors should have understood. The school’s changing floor plan was much too confusing for fresh new minds arriving at the castle. The girl must have been super thankful that Rose had offered to help- Rose would be, after all. But she didn’t pride herself or anything. She was just glad she was in the right place at the right time so she could help the unfortunate wanderer.

“Oh… thank you. I think it’s kind of plain, but thanks anyway,” she said in regards to the compliment on her name. “Paige is such an elegant name. Like it would belong to a duchess or a queen. Do you know where you got your name from?” This one was a more open-ended question, which Rose hoped wouldn’t scare her too much.

“Do you come from a wizarding family?” Rose was curious.

"That's a really cool meaning for your name. I'm just named after a flower." A flower that had been super important to the relationship of her parents. She carried her father's hair and personality, and he had even named her too. Every day she was determined to live up to him. It was almost as if he was counting on her, which she took great pride in.

Names were such strange things. You were given them before you had a chance to live up to them, before you had much chance to do anything with your life, really. Before your personality developed or you understood who you are. Yes, Rose's name was plain. But she also took great pride in it because of her late father. It described her almost perfectly and she wouldn't exchange it for any other name.

Rose's face lit up at her comment about being a muggle-born. "That's so cool! What do your parents do?" She seemed eager to hear about muggles and the jobs they had. "I bet you guys were shocked to receive your letter, huh?"

Rose nodded at her question. "I do. My mom is a witch. My dad was a muggle, but he passed away when I was young so I never really heard too much about muggles and how they live and stuff from him."