The Second Meeting PV Cleo Cabello Finished

Ruby shrugged. “Yeah, I'd say there's a decent amount.”

“I didn't necessarily say that all colors are beautiful, just that I appreciate them all. There are so many stunning colors we've been given the ability to see, but it also amazes me that there's so many colors that we can't see that other animals can. For example, the mantis shrimp can see about ten times more colors than us! They have 16 light-receptive cones, compared to humans' 3. I just– I just think it's so cool to think about, that there's so much beauty that we should be thankful for, but also so much that we've never even seen before. I also think that it's strange to think that none of us even as humans see any color the same way, even if it's only slightly different. Sometimes I try and imagine how different it is, or how other people see things…” Ruby's eyes were alight with passion as she spoke, and she was smiling widely.

“I hope you can find Hogwarts to be a home to you, Cleo,” Ruby said sincerely. “And yeah, we can go to the library now. If I can't find my way, I can always read your map,” she added as an afterthought. She was still smiling as she started walking in the direction of the library, assuming Cleo would walk beside her.

Cleo scrambled to walk aside Ruby. She hadn’t really thought about it before but she thought that she was maybe more of a leader than a follower. Looking at Ruby now, Cleo thought that  the other girl was definitely leader. Perhaps it had been why they’d argued on their first encounter, but Cleo found that she didn’t mind Ruby’s way of taking charge now, found it comforting, almost. 
“I agree we are lucky to see colours, but I also think that you can’t miss something you’ve never had. If we’d never had the opportunity to see the world like this then we wouldn’t miss it. Colours are a part of our life now and they make the world more defined, it’s impossible to know what it would be like if nobody saw them.” Cleo said. She privately thought that although she agreed with Ruby, there were much more important things to be grateful for. Thinking that she might be getting the wrong impression of Ruby, she opened her mouth to say something but then decided her thoughts couldn’t hurt anyone if they were safely in her mind.

Cleo was also surprised at all the things Ruby knew about colours. She had thought that the girl might be smart with her faultless speech, but she hadn’t really realised the extent of Ruby’s intellect. 
“How do you know these things?” She asked. “We’re you on like an extracurricular science program in Beaconsfield?” Cleo recalled the name of the place a Ruby had mentioned as her part time home.

Ruby nodded. “I agree that you definitely can't miss something you've never had, but I just like to imagine what it's like – to stretch my brain a bit. I appreciate colors because I feel like it's important to appreciate the simple things in life and all the things we take for granted. Blind people, for example, can't have any of this, ever… it's really sad.”

“Appreciating all the small pleasures helps me to stay positive and grateful in spite of all the things I have and could otherwise take for granted. There are people in other countries who would consider themselves absolutely blessed to have some of the things that I do, I know. It frustrates me a bit, knowing that we all – people like me especially, but all of us – have these things in abundance and others don't, but I can't do anything about it. My parents would probably throw a fit if I started giving stuff away, despite the "righteousness" they claim to have. It's not like I have control over the family funds, either. My family has worked for generations and stockpiled their wealth to get where we are now, and none of them are going to let me just change that with a click of my fingers.” Ruby sighed. “The world can be a bit unfair sometimes, can't it, Cleo?”

Before long, they came to a staircase that they needed to get up. “Quick, before it moves!” she exclaimed, almost grabbing Cleo's arm without thinking, but stopping herself at the last second.

When she reached the top of the staircase, she answered Cleo's question. “I wasn't in an extra-curricular science program there, although people did try and get me to join things like that. No, I've just done some research in my own time and come across some interesting things.”

Cleo nodded. “That makes more sense... the world is never fair.” Cleo sighed. “I wonder what it would be like if it was. People would probably hate that too because who decides what’s fair. There would probably a group of people who would think of it as dystopian. It would be like one of those movies or books about rebellion.” She said. 

When Ruby exclaimed about the staircase Cleo laughed, running up the stairs and enjoying the brief push in her muscles from running up them so fast spontaneously. 

“Well done for that reseaarch then. I have to admit that before I had something driving me forwards to study magic I never did anything like that outside of school.” Cleo told her. She had had average grades in the muggle world but never properly worked for something before. These past few days she had found that she’d liked it. She liked reading magical textbooks out of class and was pleased when she could remember a fair bit of them.
“There’s something here I don’t get though. There's no music. One of my textbooks says that muggle contraptions freeze up around hogwarts, so what do people do? Do they use record players?” Cleo asked, completely changing the subject, but not entirely meaning to. Music had been quite a big part of her life. She had been proud to own an MP3 player that was probably dusting in her bedroom at that moment. It had givern her a steady beat to her running, part of the reason she was as fast as she was now.

“I don't think there really is a such thing as a fair world, real or not…” Ruby said after a short pause. “Even with pieces of "fairness" in the world, there are always people who will stubbornly believe that whatever the "fair" solution is is unfair in some way… fairness is a concept and a feeling more than an actual thing.”

Cleo's laugh as they ascended the staircase made Ruby smile and she kept walking in the direction of the library. She shrugged in response to the Gryffindor's comment. “Thanks, I suppose. I just love finding out any new information and gaining knowledge.” When Ruby was little, she had to find ways to occupy her time. She excelled in any school and was top of her class in several of them, and the pace of most of them was far too slow for her liking. There was nothing to work on there, as Ruby was always ahead of the majority of her classmates. With her parents absent for most of her life and lots of time on her hands, she had taken up many hobbies. One of these was the pursuit of information. Why stop at the level you're supposed to be at when you can continue and go above and beyond, for your own purposes and no one else's?

Cleo's next comment made Ruby frown slightly. “Yeah, Muggle electronics don't work here but that doesn't mean that there's nothing left. Many people sing or play instruments here, hence the practice rooms, and you could always go listen to some of them or join a music club. When you're outside of Hogwarts, you can listen to things on whatever device you want, but not here. Music and Muggle Music are offered to third years and above, if that's what you mean. Do you play an instrument or sing at all?”

“I don’t think there’s such a thing as a fair place in real life, I agree. But in fantasy worlds in books or films the people are made up by the maker as well. I think there are fantasy Utopian places, maybe not worlds, that get the idea of fairness quite well or can adapt to different peoples needs and wishes to make life fair.”

Cleo smiled at Ruby’s statement about love of learning.  It might have sounded strange, but Ruby reminded Cleo of her mother in some ways. Although, luckily, there were many ways in which Ruby was completely different, because who wants a friend exactly like their mother? 

“So do all magical children go to non magical schools before attending hogwarts?” Cleo asked. It seemed unlikely they did because of how different they were from the people in her class back home, but maybe they’d all felt like the odd one out. 

“That’s a  shame.” Cleo sighed. She couldn’t believe that many people here probably didn’t know many music artists. She liked listening to musical instruments and played the piano herself, but it just wasn’t the same.

“I play the piano,” Cleo told Ruby. “Also I was given a small solo in the school play all the year  were required  to performing during primary school but I doubt my singing was all that good. It wasn’t the actual singing I enjoyed so much though. I felt as part of a team - supported and working towards the same goal, it wasn’t probably my favourite time in that school. How many primary schools have you been to, it sounds like a lot? Do you play any instruments?”

“We’ve been waking for a while now.” Cleo wondered aloud. “Really, if you don’t know you’re way you can just say...” Cleo trailed off, thinking of Ruby’s love of learning and decided that it was likely the girl did know where they were going.

Ruby nodded. “I suppose that could happen... utopias are a bit boring though, don't you think? It would be nice and all if it could actually be possible in real life, but the world would be boring for so many people and nothing really exciting would occur.”

Ruby shook her head in response to Cleo's question. “Some do, but many are homeschooled. It's dangerous to have little kids who know lots about the wizarding world try and mingle with Muggles and not many would be able to keep their mouths shut about it or keep their powers under control. Also, many pureblood families don't want their kids to be involved with Muggle kids.”

“It is, but music is still very important to wizards, just as much as it is to Muggles. Many of us listen to magical music using the Wizarding Wireless Network, or the WWN. Bands perform as well, and there's merchandise and many fans. I guess it's just how we listen to it that's a bit different. It's cool that you play the piano and have sung – I'd definitely recommend joining a club for it.”

“I've been to… uh… two or three…” Ruby said vaguely, and didn't elaborate on it. She moved on to the next thing quite quickly. “Yeah, I know where I'm going, we're almost there, don't worry.”

Cleo smiled. “I disagree, I don’t think I’d get bored of a Utopia. People generally don’t get fed up of being happy, and in a utopia I think there’d be plenty of things to do so you wouldn’t get bored.  I guess people react to problems, fear, and other things in different ways. Personally I wouldn’t ask for things like that but you have to face them in real life sometimes.

Cleo sighed. “I don’t really get that thing. What’s so bad about non magical people. They aren’t that different at all. Is it like discrimination for different races? It’s not their fault they can’t use magic.” Cleo said convincingly. She thought how she’d said they. Had she really cut herself off from normal society so quickly? The truth was that she was surrounded by people she felt she could relate to every day. It made her happy, even though she was mostly an introvert, to be in the big classrooms every day, finding out more about something she liked. 

She grinned. “Maybe I will join a club, you could too..?” Cleo left the question hovering, Ruby hadn’t said if she played an instrument or not. “How do you access this wizarding channel then? Do you have to have a magical radio?” 

Cleo wisely, or so she thought, didn’t question Ruby’s reply about her previous schools. She thought it was likely the girl had a clear memory of the past but just didn’t want to share.

“Oh, I know where we are.” Cleo exclaimed, as they came out into a familiar corridor, unable to help herself.

Ruby shrugged. “What would there be? There wouldn't be any challenges and nothing bad would happen, and no one would fight with you – there would be no people to compete with or mess around with. Everything would be a lot more uniform and boring and there wouldn't or couldn't really be many disagreements. Everyone would have money and there would be no struggles, nothing bad. In some ways, I could see why that would be nice, but I... I'm not sure how to express what I'm thinking about it. There's so many things that could be wrong, and how would you keep everyone happy? Humans' flaws can't just disappear. We wouldn't be human and it wouldn't be very interesting.”

She also noticed that Cleo said "they". It was true, Cleo wasn't one of them even if she had grown up with them. She couldn't say "we", that would be incorrect. It was more of the fact that Cleo had said that and the way that she had said it that Ruby picked up on. She couldn't explain why it caught her attention even though it was true, but it did. “They are very different in some ways, if you think about it. We're all humans though,” she said with a shrug. “It's not like most Muggles know how we feel about them.” Sometimes, Ruby wondered how none of them had noticed or figured it out. There were some things that weren't so easy to cover up, and so it was a good thing that most Muggles weren't very observant or didn't believe in magic no matter what they saw. Ruby still wasn't sure about how she felt about Muggles, Muggle-borns, and half-bloods yet, but she was polite enough to not call someone a Mudblood. In some ways, she did consider pure-bloods to be a bit superior, but she wasn't going to say that out loud, especially not to Cleo.

Moving on to music... “I'm starting to join some clubs. I'm going to join one that a good friend of mine is running – she invited me because she saw me drawing once. It's called The Arts and Orchestral Society, and I can tell her about you and put in a good word if you'd like. I'm not sure if you know her – she's a Slytherin first year called Elena Jones. Yeah, the WWN is accessed through a radio of sorts. The program's a news broadcast.”

Ruby was glad that Cleo hadn't questioned her more on the topic of schools. Of course Ruby knew and hadn't forgotten how many schools she'd been to. She just didn't want to elaborate any more on it or explain herself. Ruby smiled when Cleo figured out where they were. “Yep, we're almost there.”

“It’s definitely not possible, but in a hypothetical place maybe. There may be tiny flaws, even in an imagined world, but I think the idea is that people are happy. You could still have competitions and things, but you wouldn’t feel anger towards the other people. You may want to win and you can try but even if you don’t, you’d laugh it off and it wouldn’t bother you.  Utopias are impossible and for everyone to be happy you’d have to have similar types of people, which might not work because sometimes opposites attract. However, I believe that you don’t need problems or worries to be happy. You’re right that human flaws would probably ruin it, but in an imaginary world, as we are talking of a hypothetical case, the maker creates and moulds everything, it’s up to them. Utopias might not make a good story, but I think somebody should try making somewhere with realistic human kind of people with human nature that is like paradise.” Cleo said. She was glad to be having more of an in depth conversation with Ruby, it gave her a little more insight on how the girl saw the world.

Cleo thought about Ruby’s next statement, ‘They are very different in some ways’. She felt stupid for assuming that Ruby would share her veiws on non magical people. 
“We really aren’t that different.” Cleo said, now she wasn’t now sure she was completely witch or muggle. She kind of liked the idea she was both. “Some wizards may think that power give you superiority but it really doesn’t. What’s power without a brain to use it? What’s a clever mind worth when it’s  only used for the owners benefits?” 

Ruby’s other comment scratched at her mind. “How do we feel about people with less power than us? I can’t understand, are you talking about your thoughts or talking about the magical community from an objective point of view? You have to include yourself somewhere. You may be socially skilled but I don’t think it’s fair to put every magical person under one opinion.” Cleo frowned, annoyed that she’d let a little of her temper slip. 

Cleo didn’t mention Ruby’s offer on the club. It was nice of the girl, she thought, but she didn’t want to risk being surrounded by people who had stronger, more horrible veiws that’s were like Ruby’s at that moment. Cleo thought that the other girl was very hard to figure out, her views were intricate and a little contrary, and there were layers to peel off before Ruby was utterly herself.