Closed Lowe Expectations PV George Henry

Hugh scoffed a bit at the boy's humble approach to supporting his team. "I doubt that, considering what you've been showing me today." The part-giant mused on the topic of duels. He would love to have said he wasn't too bad on the draw and could fling a couple of fancy spells at his opponents. But he vividly remembered his own duel with Nico. "I think I still hold the record of the longest lasting duel here at Hogwarts... Nico and I were at it for hours. Well, it felt like it at least. Professor Jensen didn't look too impressed..."

There was realization in his eyes. He knew he was never meant to be one of the great wizards of his time. And when you know this, it has the funny side effect of opening doors for yourself. Sort of freeing to know you are not meant to be the next Harry Potter to take down the dark lord. Stuff like that. Which sadly did not help at school. No one ever said anything about the day-to-day struggles of having to do homework. Magic wasn't fun at all! It was tedious and took too much effort most of the time. Muggles did everything without ever holding a wand, so why was magic even needed? Did it serve a purpose? And if it did, why did they never learn about that? No, they were just all meant to come to school and learn all these neat tricks for... nothing really important.

Hugh's eyes blinked as his attention was drawn back whilst George tried getting him to orchestrate. "You like music?" He found himself saying without a reason. "Sorry, you don't need to answer that." He shot down his own question abruptly as he realised he fell into a hole of questions only to then ask an unimportant one. "But yeah, I'll try" He nodded as he held his wand up again and tried to sway it gently in the air. It felt ridiculous. As if he wasn't embarrassing himself enough in front of the others. The way his long arms seemed to take double the time to traverse through the air or how all his own movements somehow looked like going in slow-motion compared to some other students. Being as tall as he was, he often wondered if it was just his nature that slowed him down. Was he just too stupid? Was there a limit to what he could catch up to with the others?

Hugh looked around the room and sighed. Only George's voice broke through as soon as the boy started talking about his writing. The part-giant turned his head back to his classmate. "Why do you think I won't find it fun?" He growled under a frown. "Because I'm too... stupid?" The last word was only a whisper. There was anger, and then there was agreement. "But yeah, I like history and events and tales and such. History of Magic is the only subject I like, aside from flying I guess."

Positively chuffed, George let out a content little hum at Hugh's musing on duels. Did he really seem like he'd be a proper duelist? Charms were the most versatile variety of spells, and were an asset in any duelist's arsenal, or so he'd read. Perhaps he was cut out for it - although he wasn't sure he really wanted to take a beating for the sake of sport. That was more the realm of Jack. The boy's smile seemed to waver as he heard the name 'Nico,' though he couldn't exactly place why. His voice was quiet as he spoke, more thinking aloud. "I don't know if I've met Nico."

He watched Hugh as he withdrew back into his head, the smaller boy unaware of all the questions bouncing around in his head. He narrowed his eyes, waiting for Hugh to blurt something out - he must be formulating a thought, with how lo0ng he'd spent staring off into space instead of practicing. "Hugh...?" George said, raising an eyebrow - suddenly posed with a question. "Yeah, how'd you know?" Missing the connection between orchestrating and music, he continued on. "I play the piano. One of the other Gryffindor students taught me. Ivy, do you know her?" They'd be in the same year, George thought, and she was pretty hard to miss. Well, her attitude was hard to miss, at least.

George watched with bated breath as Hugh started practicing his orchestration, the smaller boy unconcerned with embarrassment as he lifted up his owned wand and mimed playing an invisible violin with it, moving along to the rhythm of the... orchestrator? What did they call the people who conducted orchestras? It was a bit slow, that rhythm - George noticed, and then scolded himself in his head. It seemed like a rude thing to think, even if it was true. Was it fine for a half giant to move slower? After all, if they moved the same speed, they'd probably cover twice the distance. Did the wand motion still work like that?

The young Hufflepuff looked around for the professor, his own head suddenly full up with questions that he didn't want to shout out while he was working with Hugh. Surprised by the growling of the half-giant, George arched his eyebrows, his face hardening into an expression of indignity. "I haven't said you were stupid once, so stop acting like I did!" he said. He had been careful not to anger the half-giant, but if he was just going to assume George thought he was stupid, he might as well get in a few choice words before he got stomped. But the conversation rolled on after that speed bump, and George was quite relaxed again - pleased to realize this was a half-giant of refined taste. "I didn't think anyone else liked History of Magic. All my friends find it boring," he said, explaining his earlier comment. "I've written a few articles about history and stuff, you should read them sometime. I have a bunch of old copies myself, and they keep them in the library for archival purposes too, if you want to read them."

Ever the little promoter of his own work. "Do you want to try casting the spell again? I think your pronunciation and wand movement are a little bit better now. Maybe you should do the movement a little closer to your chest so it's quicker - I don't really know if it'll work the same, but... worth a try?" He shrugs helplessly. "If it backfires, what's the worst that can happen? If you can duel for hours, you can take one little explosion."

"A girl I met in first year tried to teach me some basics on the piano at some point. But you can guess how that ended up going..." The part-giant compared his hand to George's for a second. It was funny how often he forgot he was this big compared to others of his age. With their one year age gap, George and him should not have been so different. "I don't think I know an Ivy. Likey know her face when I see it."

Hugh's eyes widened as his brows shot up in surprise. He did not expect the badger to snap back at him like that. It left him startled for a few moments until he would get a grip on himself again. His eyes kept staring at the Hufflepuff, wondering what he was thinking. "You're not like the other Hufflepuffs I've met." He remarked silently. "Hell, you could have been a lion if you asked me." The part-giant smirked with one eyebrow quirked.

"Give them to me, I'll read your articles. Though I'm not interested n any gossipy stuff if that's in there too. I heard you guys had a nasty one regarding the vampire kids that run around the school." Newspaper could be dangerous like that. They way they seemed to hunt for something new and exciting and then sometimes disregarded other's perspectives just for the newspaper's gain and attention. "But yeah, I like history. And professor Zahid seems very knowledgeable too."

Hugh smirked again and shrugged his shoulders. "Next thing you know, I'll blow up the entire castle." He would muse on the fact he could name at least one person that would think him capable of doing that. Though she was mad as a hatter. The way she went after Quinn at the ball. She was dangerous.

The smaller boy held up his hand to compare hands with the part-giant, pressing his palm to Hugh's. "You'd probably be quite good at it. You could play two notes at once," the Hufflepuff teased, smirking up at the Gryffindor. He'd have the benefit of range, at least. He'd read about someone having the "hands of a pianist", which meant that they could reach two very far apart keys with just one hand. Hugh had the hands of a pianist in that regard. If he stretched out his thumb and pinky he could probably cover the whole range of the keys. "Yeah, you'd know her face. It'd look like this." The boy wrinkled his nose and raised an eyebrow, looking at Hugh with an expression of great distaste - that disappeared as quickly as it had arrived. "She's always doing that."

George swelled with immeasurable pride as the half-giant shared his opinion that George could have been a lion. "Should have been one, if you ask me. But what do I know?" said the boy, suddenly inflated with a confidence that let him voice every one of the snide comments that he usually kept in his head. "The sorting hat is never wrong. I think it says so in its stupid song."

The little writer shook his head as Hugh mentioned the T. Ruth article. That was a hard-hitting piece. Unfortunately, hitting the public that hard with the journalistic equivalent of a blunt instrument tended to rile them up - even if parts of it were the T. Ruth. They expected the writer to sort out all the fact from the fiction for them - like little baby birds, hungry for the truth, not wiling to put up with a fib or two. Not quite equipped for reality, but that's why they were sent to school in the first place, he supposed. "I never wrote that. I wrote a front-pager about student unity after that whole debacle with the Americans," George said. He'd shown off his courage - now to show off his good character. And his mild xenophobia. "I'll get you a copy if you want, and we can go over some more of the spells, too, before next class. It's good to read ahead. That way you won't end up blowing the school to bits."

Hugh's hand twitched at the touch of George's hand. He realized how rare it happened for someone to sit this close to him. All of a sudden he was aware just how closed off from everyone else he was. Pressing back, the part-giant held out his significantly larger hand and offered George a genuine smile rather than his usual smirk for once. The badger's hand was so small, it would fit easily in his own. Hugh would push his own a bit forward just to see if the other boy held some strength behind it. Not that he was expecting anything massively surprising, but he did wonder.

Hugh's face broke into a large grin as George made a face to impersonate some girl he ought to know about. "There's quite a few around that would fit that description." He joked back as he withdrew his hand. "As for being in Gryffindor..." he sat up straight and sighed. "It's a house like the others I guess. Not much going on there it seems. We've got some hotshots here and there, a few folks like you that wished to be sorted somewhere else. Mostly Slytherin I believe." There seemed to be a large expectation coming from pureblood families that their children be sorted in the snake house. Hugh wasn't sure what that meant or how it evolved into this through history. But it was the pattern he saw in people joining his house. "Then again, I'm not a pureblood trying to uphold family expectations." Hugh's gaze shifted back towards the boy's face with a wiggle of his nose. "Are you?"

He smirked at George as he turned his face away to look outside the window. "That sounds nice." Shifting his attention to his hands trying to clean some dirt from under his nails. "It just makes me worry for who's next on their agenda, you know. People never have enough gossip to act on..."

George lifted his hand away from Hugh's examining his palm, fingers splayed out. Did he have small hands? Anyone would next to Hugh, but it was an odd feeling to be so completely dwarfed by another student of about the same age. Just one of the perks of being a giant. At least he could save money later, with not needing a giant-sized piano, or furniture, or clothes. The practical benefits of size were limited outside the realm of beating people up, which was a Muggle practice more than anything, and one which George refused to take part in.

The smaller boy couldn't help but laugh as Hugh mentioned that the description wasn't quite specific enough. "I guess there must be," he joked, fidgeting with his hands as he set them down again, content with their smallness after all. "We don't really have a lot of people who want other houses. Lots of Hufflepuff is just obsessed with being... Hufflepuffy," he laments, with a disgusted groan and a roll of his eyes. "They do crafts and take naps, you know. Things like that.

He shrugged. It wasn't nice to judge people for things like that, but if you couldn't judge grown almost-teenagers for napping, then you really couldn't judge anyone for anything. And a world without any judgement was hardly realistic. You needed some to know what was good and what was bad. George blinked when Hugh addressed him with a question, flustered as he was pulled out of his idle thought. "Uh- oh..." George paused, seeming to need to think about his response. "...No. I'm just muggleborn," he laments, suddenly reconsidering his thoughts on judging people.

George glanced to the giant's nails with poorly hidden distaste, digging in his pockets for some implement he could offer to help him deal with his dirty nails. The best he could find is a quill, which he tucked away - figuring that offering it would be too weird to be worth it. "Who's next on whose agenda? The Headliner's?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. "We don't have an agenda. Well - we have like... I mean, it's not really as much of a clique as people might think. We don't really need to make up gossip or anything. There's already quite a lot," he said with a nod. "I just like writing about what I see. I had the idea to write a book sometime to give to first years - a guide to Hogwarts, sort of. Is there anything you'd put into it? I'll credit you if I use it!"

"What's wrong with being a little Hufflepuffy?" Hugh smirked at the other boy. "So far you don't seem so bad." He chuckled as he pulled back his hand and examined it for a bit. "...and I regularly take naps..." His eyebrows rose up in something that would resemble a hint of shame. It was true he did enjoy his naps and was known to take them regularly. Homework was for smart folk, and he did not count himself among them. Besides, as today had proven, he didn't have a knack for magic anyway. He would need a miracle to get through the years here at Hogwarts.

"I used to think I was muggleborn." Hugh explained with a kind smile. "But I'm actually raised by my uncle, he's a squib." He shrugged and clicked his tongue. His uncle never really seemed to have minded being called that. The term meant nothing to him. In his eyes, the world of magic was just like any other one, corrupt and full of nasty people. "I met my real mother over last summer though, it's why I dropped out of school for a bit." He wasn't sure if this all would be of any particular interest to George. Nevertheless, it felt rather nice to be able to openly discuss it.

George talked off a guidebook for firsties. "I was a prefect you know, I can draw you a few spots they need to watch out for when they arrive. We had a girl fall into one of those nasty steps when I first came here. It's right on the road they always take the firsties to the common room for the first time." He scratched his head a little. "There's a few more of them, though these days I can just safely walk over them." He smirked and tapped his own long legs.

"I'm hardly even Hufflepuffy at all. Even a little puffy can seem like quite a lot in the wrong person," George assured Hugh. Hugh wasn't the wrong person in the slightest - he was a Gryffindor, so being a bit Hufflepuffy was par for the course, lest you come across as pompous. Acting like a regular person was only polite. Being so regular that it was your most prominent quality was a whole other affair. Not that most of the younger Hufflepuffs could be described as regular.

George thought it would be a transformation, like that of a butterfly, around fourth year - when they ceased to be childish and began to be bland. "I suppose I do work hard, occasionally. And I've been told I'm too honest. It's not that naps are the worst thing in the world. I imagine you do more to earn them, like being tired after... I don't know, lugging yourself around all day."

He glanced the boy over from head to toe, still awed by the size of this lad. It seemed tiring being so large, even if you had more muscle to back it up. It must feel like he's moving in slow motion, or like when your clothes are soaking wet and it suddenly feels like you weigh a million pounds. "A squib," George repeated, nodding sympathetically. A terrible condition to be under - at least the muggles didn't get to see what they were missing. "I live with my mum and dad, they're muggles. And my brother's a muggle, too, two years older than me."

George's brow lifted as Hugh mentioned meeting his real mother, nodding to him. He missed his family quite a bit today, but it tended to come and go. He rarely had the patience to sit and write a letter about it when there were so many pleasant distractions, like friendly half-giants or Charms textbooks.

And when the friendly half-giant spoke about being a prefect, the little hufflepuff's eyes lit up. "That would be excellent. I've had bruised knees from those far too often in the last year," he admits, with a bitter frown. "We'll be saving the poor children from wheelchairs. We'll have to do it later, though - you've got practice to do. And I've got to find those notes for you before I write anything else down..."