Awaiting a Response PV Delphinia Averescu F

Delphinia was already at the window, watching as her classmate's owl flew back into it with a letter from her father attached to its leg.
She smiled and fed the owl another small piece of a cauldron cake. "Good boy, then," She muttered to it, smiling, "Bringing back the letter so quickly." Delphinia opened the seal on the envelope and grinned at seeing her father's name.
She read the letter joyfully, imagining the things her father would have been doing without her:
To my beautiful Delphinia,
Yes, your mother is doing fine, although she does miss you. We both do. And don't worry about the owl; we'll get you your own soon, and you won't have to borrow your classmates' owls any longer. How have your classes been doing? I know I always struggled in Potions during my time at Hogwarts, but excelled in Charms. What about you? And I'm glad that the Hufflepuffs are being friendly with you. I knew you would be fine, no matter what house you were sorted into. No matter what, you'll always be my brave little girl.
Your father,
Arthur Averescu.
She hugged the letter gently as a tear was brought to her eye. She immediately grabbed her bag of ink and her quill and began writing back to him.

He stepped into the rectangular archway that was the doorway into the Owlery. He knew he'd always find owls there, most of them sleeping up within the rafters. Some would swoop down to greet those that came in but being evening, they mostly all were waiting more for nightfall where they might take in an extra hunt. Sure, they were fed there at Hogwarts but what fun was it in eating from a bowl?

He entered quietly as the girl seemed busy with her writing and he didn't want to disturb her. She was a fellow Hufflepuff. He had seen her at the Hufflepuff Table during meal times and probably in the Common Room many times. She was a First Year student, but one he had yet to learn her name.

Stepping the opposite way from the desks that made up a workstation, he headed to where some mail seemed to be but one of the owls swooped down toward him making a loud screetching sound as it did so. "Dude, what the hell?!" he snapped at the bird and covered his head, trying to protect himself from it's most likely sharp talons. The owl just flew back up to the rafters and stared at him with it's beady owl eyes.

Simon realized he might have disturbed the girl's concentration or even startled her, and he glanced over that way. "...Sorry about that. I didn't realize we had murderous owls here." He tried to make light of the situation but giving her a small smile, hoping she wasn't upset with him.

She jumped when Simon had yelled out, but then turned around to see him. Uh oh, was she in trouble now. It was one of the second years that had probably seen at least one of the million times she had made a fool out of herself. She wanted to speak. She wanted to tell him, Oh, it's okay, I wasn't really that concentrated anyways. But she couldn't. Why? She didn't know. Here I am again, she thought, Acting like an idiot. At that moment the same owl which had startled Simon flew directly into Delphinia's stomach, knocking her backwards a bit towards the window and making her elbow hit her bag of ink and knock it over onto her letter. "Eh-!" She let out a cry when the owl hit her, but the owl immediately just flew away as if nothing had ever happened, as if Delphinia was nothing but another student it had flown past. She turned around to see her letter soaked in ink. "Damn it-!" She muttered, but immediately covered her mouth, eyes widened, as she knew father had told her those words were for adults. She turned back around to apologise and tell Simon he was just fine, but all that came out of her mouth was a tiny squeak.

"I hope he didn't ruin it too much," he said, seeing that all her ink had pretty much spilled out and the parchment was covered. He didn't know how much she had written on there; it could have been a word or a sentence, or she could have been nearly done with her correspondence. "If you haven't any more, I've got some paper you can use and some self inking quills," he offered and glanced out the window. What on earth was up with that owl?

"Wait," he paused, remembering something. It might be a bit of a stretch but maybe, just maybe it would work. "Hold your paper out," he said as he brought out his wand from his pocket. Nearly all the witches and wizards of Hogwarts carried their wands with them at all times. They were foolish not to. "Scourgify," he said, creating the correct wand movements and pointing his wand at the letter. It was his hopes that using the cleaning charm might undo the mess that the owl created and bring back her parchment to where it was just moments earlier.

Simon wasn't really sure how good his spells were. He even was pretty sure he read somewhere where dhampirs weren't all that adept to it as humans were. "...Any luck?" he asked hesitantly, a little afraid to look. Worst case scenario would be that it cleaned up ALL the ink, removing it from her parchment so she could use it again - but not leaving her words there to gather her train of thought.

She looked at her paper and allowed herself a grin; It had cleared up what she had written, even the stamp! She opened her mouth again and, this time, was able to let herself speak... Two words?A word and a half? Whatever people would consider, "Um, yeah!" She was pleasantly surprised, even the tiny sketch she had made of two stick people (presumably her and her father together) had been rid of the spilled ink. "Thank you." Her grin grew wider, but then she pursed her lips, still smiling, and though the girl was small for her age and reached only to about his chest, she hugged him, and spoke those same two words again: "Thank you." It was strange, though they were genuine before, they sounded entirely more genuine and grateful the second time around. She made a mental note to tell Father about him in her letter, and then stepped back, letting go of him. She held out her hand. "I'm, uh-" She held out the paper and pointed to the name that was hers, since she was visibly having trouble speaking to him. She was nervous he would think she was stupid or foolish, even though she hoped, with everything that she had, that that wasn't his first impression of her.

"Del-fin-E-ah?" he sounded it out and looked to her in verification that he might be correct. His eyes then glanced over the last name but he wasn't sure how to even approach that one. It would be something like "Aye-ver-es-cue," like French sounding, but he wasn't sure and just as she didn't want to look foolish around him, he didn't want to look foolish around her.

"I'm Simon. Simon Kincaid. Second Year. We're both 'puffs, I believe," he smiled to her kindly. It was nice to know that his spell had worked successfully. Honestly, he didn't do much magic outside of his schoolwork and therefore he hadn't put much of his knowledge to practical use until now.

He didn't read all of what she wrote, but he did see the greeting line which had stated 'Dearest Father.' "I'm glad your letter to your father could be saved. I don't know what got into that owl. Maybe he's getting stir crazy being in here all day long and awaiting dusk." Simon could sometimes relate to that, especially in his days back in London. Here at Hogwarts, there was such an early curfew that he often didn't even get to be out and about when the sun was down. It was understood - with all the craziness that sometimes went down in this school, but also very annoying for someone like him.

"You write him often?" Simon knew some of the First Year students could feel a little homesick.

Delphinia breathed a sigh of relief. Good, he didn't recognize the surname. She nodded when he attempted to pronounce her name, and again when he asked if she wrote her father often. "I've missed my father, and though I enjoy my time with the other Hufflepuffs, I've been very, very homesick." She sat upon the window, looking up and hesitating for a moment as if she were lost in thought. Should she tell him about her father? She debated in her mind. No; She decided she would wait until she trusted him a bit more. For now, all she would tell him was that her father was a wizard. "I miss my mother as well, but she wasn't exactly ecstatic about me leaving. My father, Arthur, is a wizard, and my mother, Gracelynn, is a muggle." She told him about how her father had homeschooled her, how they had a special bond because of all their shared interests, and about everything that had made their father-daughter relationship special. She ended her stories with; "And he was in Ravenclaw, so that's kinda what I expected myself to be sorted into." She smiled at Simon, feeling as if she were warming up to him. "So what was your life like? Y'know, pre-Hogwarts and all that."

"My pre-Hogwarts existence..." he said with a pause and laughed a little. Oh, how different life was now! He loved it, but man, was it different!

"Uh, let's see," he paused for a moment. She mentioned her blood status as far as the wizarding world went and a brief bit about what her relationship was like with her parents. Did she really want to know his entire pre-Hogwarts existence? Probably not. At least not in one sitting.

He'd go into slight more detail though, just because he felt comfortable talking. Simon was an outgoing and friendly sort of person and maybe if he talked more, she'd feel more at ease. She already seemed much more comfortable with him than when they first began to talk. "Well, I was born and raised in London. Back then it was just my mum and my Aunt Maggie...her sister. My mother was only 17 and had just graduated from Hogwarts. Gryffindor House. My aunt was fourteen and she was raising both her and me. She had a lot on her plate so very young but handled it in the most admirable way, so I've been told. She passed away when I was three...leaving me then in the care of my aunt who then was seventeen. Kind of stuck in a similar predicament of my mum, in a way, you know? Both taking on a big responsibility of raising a child at seventeen. Anyway, after that it was just me and Aunt Maggie. She never told me about the wizarding world because my mother didn't tell her much about it. I think she thought maybe it would make her jealous and she didn't want that. Poor Aunt Maggie didn't even realize it was most likely hereditary so she was quite surprised when I got my own letter."

"What do you think of Hufflepuff?" Some were disappointed by such decisions made by a talking hat.

She smiled wider at that. "Well, I like Hufflepuff..." She said slowly. She was hesitant to let him know what she had expected, she thought he would be offended. It wasn't like she didn't particularly care for House Hufflepuff; She just had expected to be in a different house, due to her father. Her and her father had shared many similarities, and her father was a Ravenclaw. Delphinia had been extremely confused when the Sorting Hat made its decision about her. But, she decided that he most likely wouldn't be offended, and she trusted him, anyways, so why not?
"But," She began, "My father was in Ravenclaw, and we share many similarities. He also had spoken of enemies he had made in this House. So this was the house I was least expecting." She paused for only a short amount of time. "That's not to say I don't enjoy this house, though. It's fun, for the most part. And at least I wasn't in Slytherin..." Yes, her father had told her the things that had happened 20 years ago, with Harry and Draco, and let's of course not forget Ron and Hermione. He had been there, after all, and though he was only acquaintances with all of them, he had seen what had happened with his own eyes. Every student that year had. But he didn't tell her his personal opinion; That not all Slytherins were wretched people. Because they weren't. But she didn't know that, and she though that it was the opinion of every Hogwarts student besides those stuck-up, horrid Slytherins that they were horrible. So she didn't know that she was going to come across as rude when she said that. "My pops said that those people become criminals and that they were something called Death Eaters when he was here."