Misty Meetings PV Nessie Swansea Closed

To say that Hogwarts had not lived up to Nessie’s dreams would be an understatement: she’d had grand visions of what boarding school would be like, and truthfully it was rather more mundane than she’d expected. Somehow, it was simultaneously both more structured and more chaotic than her life with Aunt Lulu had been, and the first few weeks of the school year had passed with far less of the excitement that Nessie had hoped for, and far more confusion.

The rigid class schedule was a drastic difference from her homeschooling up to this point, and Nessie still hadn’t acclimated to it, even after a few weeks of practice. By the time classes let out, Nessie couldn’t bear to stay inside a moment longer. She hastily packed away her books and quills and rushed to escape not just the classroom, but the whole castle – she was still in uniform and lugging her schoolbag as she made her way outside.

The fresh air was welcome, and Nessie relished the slight chill in the air that signified the changing of seasons. She paused only to reach up and undo her ponytail, so she could feel the wind in her hair, before carrying on away from the castle. Nessie didn’t have any particular destination in mind; she wanted to be free of the confining stone walls, and to let her mind wander freely, too. Her mind and feet synchronized – wandering aimlessly without any conscious control on Nessie’s part.

The sound of a sneeze a short distance away caught her by surprise, and Nessie snapped out of her reverie. She looked around for its source, only just now realizing that there must be someone nearby. With no immediate luck, Nessie began to move in the direction of the sound, peering curiously through the mist as she went. But to her confusion, all she found was a tree. Wait a minute … a tree with a person in it?!

“Hello? What are you up to, up there?” Nessie called out, intrigued. Then, she realized that the person was probably in the tree for a reason, and that she was likely distracting them, and she hesitated. But she couldn’t very well run away unnoticed now, could she? She'd just have to apologize! “Sorry if I’m … um, well, sorry if I’m in the way. I can …” a grin spread across Nessie’s face as epiphany struck, “I can leaf, if you’d like?”

Her expression turned sheepish and she let out a giggle.

Gemima wriggled into a comfortable position in the tree's branches. Luckily, the wood was mostly splinter-free. She straightened her uniform's skirt, and pulled a book from her bag. She'd just gotten it from the library yesterday, and she couldn't wait to read the next bit! The story was starting to get really good. She flipped open to where she had left off, and leaned back against the firm trunk.

"Hello?" called a voice from the ground. Gem jolted in surprise. Her book fell out of her hands.

"No..!" she whisper-yelled. She craned her neck to get a glimpse of where it had gone, but no luck. Instead, she caught sight of a girl looking up at her. She was small, or at least she was from this high up, so she was probably a first year too! Her hair was brown and just as messy, if not messier, than Gemima's from the wind. Her brown eyes blinked owlishly up at the tree. Gem realized that the girl couldn't see who was up here. She froze there in the branches, unsure of what to do. People always seemed to happen upon her when she was alone, didn't they?

"Sorry if I'm in the way..." said the girl. "I can leaf, if you'd like?" She giggled at her own joke, and Gem found herself laughing too. She could hear her mother's voice in her head-- Be polite! Go and say hello, darling.
And perhaps this girl was nice, too. It definitely couldn't hurt to have company, and she did decide that she'd be more open to new people at Hogwarts.
So, she scooched down a couple branches until she and the girl could see each other. She waved awkwardly, putting on what she hoped was a friendly smile. "Hello." she breathed.

@Nessie Swansea
301 words

There was a whirl of motion from above, and Nessie stepped back instinctively. She wasn’t surprised, not at first – it was the time of year for acorns to be falling from oaks – until she realized it wasn’t an acorn, but a book. At first, Nessie was confused, but then she heard good-natured laughter and felt a pang of guilt. It seemed unlikely that the book would’ve been thrown at her, so had it fallen because she’d disturbed its owner? Nessie scrambled to retrieve the book and brushed its cover free of debris, before turning her attention back to the girl in the tree.

When the girl waved, Nessie waved back with her free hand, grinning awkwardly as she did so. And then she lifted her other hand to show that the book was safe and sound. “I think you dropped this? It seems to have survived alright. I’m sorry if I startled you. Oh, and I’m Nessie, and … ” Nessie paused, as it occurred to her that there was a slight problem with returning the book: should she expect the girl to come down, or climb up to give back the book?

However, climbing while holding the book didn’t seem like a great idea, and while Nessie could’ve put it into her bookbag, she didn’t especially want to climb with the bag either. But she also didn’t want to just stand by and wait – after all, it was kind of her own fault that the girl had dropped the book in the first place, and she didn’t want to impose. Forgetting entirely that magic was an option, Nessie continued to stand there holding the book, and continued rambling to cover up the uselessness she felt.

“… y’know, this is a great tree, and it’s really nice out today. Do you … do you read in trees a lot? I’ve never thought to try it, but it seems like a good idea.”

The girl, Nessie, she said her name was, seemed to have picked up the book. Gemima gave a little sigh in relief. It was safe and sound! Miss Simmons would've probably had her head if anything happened to it. Or at least, that was the impression she had got the other day. The piercing look the librarian had given Gemima when she'd dared to hover by the Restricted Section had been louder than any reprimand. Maybe Nessie liked to read too?

"Thank you! Oh, I'm Gemima, by the way. It's nice to meet you." she said politely.
It was a bit of a strange scene; one girl on the ground, one in a tree. It might have come out of a story book, itself. Nessie's eyes flitted back and forth between Gem and the tree. The latter chuckled nervously and went down a few more branches. She gently reached out and took the book from Nessie’s arms and slipped it into her bag. She fastened the bag's latch, ensuring the book was safe and secure. She turned back to Nessie, an idea forming in her mind. It wouldn't hurt to have some company, especially on such a dreary day. Before she could rethink it, she was holding out her hand. "This is only the second time I've read in a tree, actually. But I love it. You can almost see the whole of Hogwarts from here!"
"Do you want to join me?" she asked, eyes bright and curious.

Oh.
That was a bit forwards, even for her. Gem coughed, and felt her face growing warm. She hoped she hadn't gone and made things awkward. "Uh, if you're not busy or anything, I mean."

“Nice to meet you too, Gemima,” Nessie replied, less out of politeness, and more because she genuinely meant it. It wasn’t every day that Nessie found a person in a tree, after all. Squirrels and birds and bowtruckles were not nearly so friendly, at least not at first. And they certainly didn’t talk – or at least, not in a way Nessie understood.

Fortunately, Nessie was spared any additional awkward indecision by Gemima’s quick thinking and efficient spell-casting. Nessie’s eyes widened as she watched the book safely return to its borrower and realized how obvious the solution to her conundrum had been.

Nessie’s face lit up with excitement when Gem explained her new reading habit. Nessie was quite fascinated – not simply by the idea itself, but also enthused by the way that Gemima spoke about it. “I’m not busy,” the Hufflepuff replied quickly. Unless she was supposed to be busy? Did she sound too desperate to get to know a possible new friend better if she had no plans of her own? Had she been doing something wrong by just exploring the outdoors and seeing where fate would lead her this time? It wasn’t that there wasn’t anything Nessie wanted to do; rather that the Hogwarts grounds had seemingly infinite possibilities, and today she hadn’t been able to choose only one.

“I’d like to join, if that’s alright … unless you were busy? I mean, of course you were busy reading, but um … yes. I’ll join,” she answered with a hesitant smile. She waved away the hand that Gem had offered, appreciative of the offer to help but unwilling to risk pulling her newest acquaintance out of the tree. “I think I can climb this, just gimme one second first,” Nessie explained, pulling open her bag and unceremoniously discarding various quills, parchments, inks, and a few books to the ground at the base of the tree, so her bag held only a couple of books and her wand. She could likely have made the climb with the initial weight, but she didn’t want to deal with its bulk swinging around if she didn’t have to. She closed back up her bag and adjusted its strap on her shoulder before assessing the tree and then hoisting herself up onto the lowest branch with some effort.

“How … how high are we going?” Nessie’s voice wavered ever so slightly as she asked. While she was not terrified of heights, she was not the most comfortable with them either; it was only now that she’d left the ground that she remembered the almost uneasy feeling that sometimes came with it. She wasn’t about to give up just yet, but she was beginning to second-guess herself.

Gemima watched in amusement as Nessie dumped basically half her bag's contents onto the ground. She cocked an eyebrow as the other girl slung her bag back around herself. She was certainly interesting, to say the least. Nessie waved away her outstretched hand, and Gem climbed up a bit more as her acquaintance heaved herself up just a little ways below her.

"Not too far," she answered. "Just high enough where you can see out, but people can't see you."
Gem finally came to a stop on a branch and sat down. "Kind of like the two way glass that muggles use." She looked down to see if Nessie had made it up all right.
"Have you heard how that works, by the way? It's pretty interesting."
Another habit of hers, save for tree literature, was reading up on random topics that caught her eye, both in wizarding books and on the muggle internet. She wasn't allowed her own phone yet, but she made do with the computer in her father's often vacant office.
Gem was about to rattle off some more facts about the subject, but she stopped herself short. Nessie was trying not to fall out of a tree right now, so she probably wouldn't appreciate someone talking her ear off. And besides, she thought nervously, she'd most likely find it boring.

She settled for a simpler question instead. "Uh, how are you liking Hogwarts so far?" Small talk was really quite difficult...

Nessie breathed a sigh of relief at Gem’s reassurance that they weren’t going too high. She was handling her nerves decently so far, gripping tightly to the tree as she climbed and making sure not to look directly down. Nessie trusted the tree and she trusted herself, so logically there was no reason for her to be afraid, right? And as long as she didn’t look down, her stomach wouldn’t start doing backflips, and she would continue to believe in the logic rather than giving into the unnerving anxiousness.

“Muggles have two-way glass?” she repeated, intrigued. Nessie’s life before Hogwarts had been very sheltered; she didn’t even know much about the magical world she’d been raised in, let alone the muggle world. “I’ve never even heard of it before, but I’d be interested to hear about it if you’d like to tell me.”

The conversation was a welcome distraction from the climbing; Nessie was continuing to make slow but steady progress and was more at ease now that she wasn’t thinking so much about what she was doing. Gem’s next question was difficult: it probably should’ve been simple, but it really wasn’t. “I don’t … I don’t know,” Nessie attempted, trying to figure out how much to say. Her thoughts on the matter were really quite personal, and she’d only just met Gem. Small talk certainly felt awkward; it was one of the many parts of Hogwarts that Nessie had not yet fully adapted to. But she would try her best to figure it out! “It’s very exciting, of course. But it’s also very different than home, and sometimes I feel homesick. How d’you like it here?”

Interacting-@Nessie Swansea
WC-374
Hex-#433687

─•••─

Gemima finally hoisted her legs over a suitable branch. She leaned back against the trunk once more as she waited for Nessie to catch up.
"I definitely love the classes here. They're much more interesting and fun than the classes I had back home," she said, looking up through the leaves. "I went to a muggle school before coming here, and they teach all the boring classes, like maths, writing, and science." Gemima fell silent for a moment, as she remembered her time before Hogwarts. It was so lonely, so mundane, save for her family and her time spent exploring the city. If only she had someone to share those adventures with...

She shook the thoughts away and cautiously continued. "Anyway, I much prefer it here. And, I'm excited to get to explore the castle more! It's amazing that we actually get to live here."
At least Nessie here seemed like she would make a good friend. Maybe she'd like to explore the castle too? Gemima smiled to herself. That would be lovely.
Making friends had turned out to be much easier than Gemima had first thought, but going through the motions of it all still felt awkward and unfamiliar.

The young girl sighed, and decided to change the subject. Well, she knew how to talk about interesting things she'd learned! She cleared her throat and began.
"I meant one-way glass, actually. The way it works, is that when they make the glass, they apply a very small bit of reflective stuff. The glass only reflects about half the light that's shone on it."
"But the light is the real magic-maker. One side of the glass is fully lit, while the other is more dimly lit. Then, you can see through one side, but the people on the other side can't see you. Muggles use the glass for things like interrogating criminals. I saw them do that on TV once."

That was a lot, Gemima realized. She hoped that wasn't too much for Nessie to understand. Hopefully she found it as interesting as Gem did. She suddenly felt nervous.
Maybe I shouldn't have shared that--She probably thinks I'm a huge nerd or something.
Gemima wet her lips and shifted anxiously against the tree trunk.