2 Students and 88 Keys PV Ashlyn Winters Closed

Ashlyn looked out of one of the large windows in her dorm, only to find that it was a bright, sunny day, and that there were many groups of people outside. 'Ah yes, all things just had to go back to normal', she thought to herself, sighing. Of course, not much had changed since everyone left the school, eager to see their family and show them all the new living attachments they'd gotten which they called "friends". Not much, but just enough to give Ashlyn the bit of excitement that she needed.

While most people had gone home for the break, Ashlyn wasn't given the option to leave. Of course, she had sent an owl to her father beforehand, explaining the matter, but he had replied with very few words, which one could shorten further by simply saying "No." Though she was quite comfortable going out in the cold weather to find Tarou thinking of himself as a king and letting out small "meows" as he slipped in the snow, she would've at least liked more than a note on Christmas day.

'Well, it's too late now', she thought before standing up to leave the dorm. As she made her way through the halls of the large school, she made sure to keep her head down, as usual. It was much harder to avoid people today, as most of them that were still inside were in groups, but still, it was manageable. She'd decided, after a lot of thinking, that the only empty place would be the rehearsal room, and so, that's where she went. There had been a fair amount of whispers and giggles from other students, but perhaps the fact that she preferred being alone to being crowded by useless people was amusing to them.

As she arrived at the rehearsal room, she had barely started to open the door when she heard noises coming from inside. She cautiously peeked in to see the figure of someone playing the piano; a boy, she presumed. She listened to the tune, which she found somewhat sad, for hours it seemed. As the boy ended his song, Ashlyn attempted to leave before being pushed through the door and hearing a bit of stifled laughter as the culprit ran down the hallway. As she felt someone staring at her while she sat lifelessly on the cold floor, she mentally cussed out the girl who'd pushed her in just about every language she knew. 'jiche nyeon', she thought before being interrupted.

Messing up a time or two, Simon didn't let that slow him down and he kept up with his playing. He didn't get the opportunity to play as often at Hogwarts as he had back home and so when he had the chance he relished the moment, knowing not to take it for granted.

Back home, there might have been a night or two when his Aunt Maggie came down the stairs at 4 in the morning, thanking him kindly for the serenade but also wondering why it had to be at such a late hour. He'd always smile and either play softer or find another quieter activity so that she could get back to sleep, most likely having work later that day.

It wasn't until the song was at the end that the sound of the large wooden doors creaking caught his attention and he glanced over his shoulder just in time to see a girl tumble in. Had she tripped? He wasn't sure but he quickly got up from the piano bench and came over to her side, kneeling down.

"You alright?" he asked her softly. While some of the students here at Hogwarts already had their ambitions in life - to be a quidditch player, a dancer, to work with magical creatures - Simon didn't know what life would hold for him after Hogwarts but he did know that he wanted it to involve helping people.

He held out his hand to offer her help up but waited to make sure. He remembered the time his friend Oliver back in London fell and broke a leg and if it was something as awful as that, he didn't want her to move until she was ready. He hoped that a trip to the Hospital Wing hadn't been in order - he hadn't been there yet, but he knew it was on the Third Floor.

@Simon Kincaid

"I- yeah, I'm alright... just stupid people being stupid people", Ashlyn said and took the boy's hand. She stood up, deciding to look up at him as she did so. She would usually just keep her head down in order to prevent embarrassing herself, but she wanted to know what kind of person could play the piano so beautifully.

"I'm Ashlyn by the way... though I'm better known as 'the friendless loser that stalks people in the halls'." It was a simple thing to add in, but she felt like it could perhaps start a conversation. Whoever this was seemed nice enough, so why not? She let out a small laugh after saying it; small, but still there. She couldn't help but think that this was going quite well.

"And your name is?", she asked and motioned towards the boy, indicating that she wanted to stay and talk for a while. At this point, she was feeling quite confident in her ability to have a conversation with this boy. After all, it's not like she was planning on leaving any time soon. If she were to go back into that hallway, she'd end up dead for sure, and she certainly did not want that.

He noticed that she seemed embarassed at first but was glad that seemed to subside as she lifted her head to look at him. "Simon Kincaid...better known as the most amazing student that Hogwarts has ever seen," he paused, "although...I'm not sure how official that title is," he smiled. It was one he he had made up on the spot just now.

"And I think you now need to be better known as Ashlyn, Simon's friend who likes to make a striking entrance," he smiled, liking that spin on it. It took away the friendless part, the loser part, and gave a positive spin to her stumbling into the room moments ago.

"What uh, what brings you in here?" he asked, not really exactly sure if she even planned to come in there in the first place. Maybe she did though. He encountered many on his trips to the Rehearsal Room and usually others didn't mind if someone was playing or in there, they'd make themselves comfortable in some other space and practice their trait - whether music or dancing. Still there was the occasional student that was too shy to do so in front of others. Simon wasn't sure if that's the category to place his new friend in or not. It was too soon to assume.

Ashlyn let out a small laugh at the new "title" that Simon had given her. "Friend, huh?", she said, her thick Australian accent appearing seemingly out of nowhere. "To be honest, I don't really know why I decided to come here. Perhaps, in the back of my mind, I hoped to run into someone who would satisfy my boredom." At those words, she couldn't help but smile a bit.

A genuine smile this time, though she wasn't sure if he had seen it. She looked back at him, studying his features. He was a bit taller than her, with brown hair that swept to the side. It was a bit messy, almost as if he had woken up and forgotten to brush through it. "You don't come from a high-class family, do you?" It was a bit random, but it was something that popped up as soon as she met him. She had assumed he wasn't, given that he had talked to her, but she still decided to ask.

Finally getting bored of standing up, she let out a long sigh as she moved to sit on the piano bench. Of course, being her accident prone self, she made a mistake. As she went to sit down, her foot slipped, and she couldn't help but think of how foolish she must have looked while waiting for the faceplant to arrive. 'Again? Really?', she thought to herself.

The accent was one that wasn’t very prevalent there at Hogwarts or even back in London but he recognized it due to television and movies. The crocodile hunter and all.

“Careful now. Careful,” he said to her, leaning down to help her sit down. He gave a smile, a kind one, not one of teasing. Once she was safely situated he felt he could devote thought to her question.

He was a little curious as to why she asked it. She already assumed he was from lower class and there must have been a reason for it. Were his clothes not kept up? Did his bag not look new? Or was it that he wasn’t behaving like some stuck up snobby pureblood?

Not really sure why she was asking and not wanting to assume her intentions he figured he would answer honestly. “No, not of high class but not low either. I come from the South Kensington area of London.” Upper middle class.

“It’s just my aunt and I at home. She has a small inheritance but works hard so we got by with a bit of comfort to spare.”

Simon didn’t feel self conscious about the question either. If he did give off some sort of notion of being poor whether it be appearance or demeanor, it wasn’t something he planned on changing. He wasn’t ashamed of who he was.

"Interesting", Ashlyn said, slowly sitting down. "I could say the same for myself I suppose... Not of high class, but not of low class either." She had assumed he wasn't some stuck up rich kid, but at least now she had some closure.

She looked over to the piano, where he had played so gracefully only 10 minutes ago, and rested her chin on one hand, studying the small designs that had been carefully engraved in the cover. "It's a rather lovely instrument, don't you think?"

As she fed into the conversation, her thoughts seemed to settle more on the song that he was playing earlier. It had seemed so familiar, yet at the same time, it had been so distant in her memory. The rhythmic flow of the notes kept repeating in her head, over and over again.

Eventually, she couldn't take it anymore; the feeling of such familiarity, and still, she couldn't quite place her finger on it. She had heard that song somewhere, perhaps in her father's study or in the room she had shared with her sister. She couldn't have heard it anywhere else.

On that thought, she decided to ask about the song, which she had pondered on throughout the entire conversation. "Um... I-if you don't m-mind me asking, what was the song you were playing earlier?"

Simon laughed because she asked about the song choice. He was probably going to sound a bit like a loser with his answer but he didn't mind. He was rather proud of who he was. "Oh, that's a piece called Redemption. Sometimes I play the piano for church before mass, as the congregation is still gathering in. It's one of my favorites to play during that time. I'm also part of the children's choir."

He didn't mind being proud of his faith but that wasn't something strong within Hogwarts. There wasn't some Saturday morning Bible study or Sunday morning mass. He just had to hae his own personal relationship with the Lord at the moment until the Summer months when things could go back to normal.

"I don't think it's just solely a church song though. I find it to be quite relaxing," he shrugged. "Sometimes late at night its a good song to play too while gathering your thoughts." And Simon had lots of those nights. He only slept about every 3-4 nights so he had a whole lot of time to fill that others just didn't normally have. To his aunt, it was weirdly peculiar but she had accepted it as his normal over the years and Simon had done the same.

@Simon Kincaid

"Ah, I see.... You come from a Christian family then?" , she said, well, more like asked. "My mother, she was very religious, but I can't say the same for the rest of my family. Religion isn't something you find very often in Melbourne", she stated. It wasn't a lie, religion truly wasn't common where she was from. Her mother had been very religious before she died, though, and so had her sister. Ashlyn and her, father, however, were never really into that type of thing.

They were never against it, of course, they just had a certain mindset that wouldn't allow them to conform to the thought of a higher being that created the world. "I've never really understood the concept of such a thing,", she started, "I just don't quite get why someone would want to succumb to a god when they don't even know if said god really exists."

"Not to be rude, of course, but do you mind explaining the whole basic concept of it?" She genuinely wanted to know more about it, not that she would ever conform to such beliefs, but it did interest her. She wanted to know how it worked, how her new friend, and all people of the sort, worked.