COOPER RAY - RAVENCLAW - FIRST YEAR

"I... we're eleven. Of course we don't work for the Ministry, that would be... that's ridiculous!"

so... not normal. what the fuck was the... "Uhm... the Ministry is like er... the government. Like, you know, Wizarding Britain's government? He's pretty much straight up asking if we work for the government, which given the fact we're eleven years is a touch well, you know. Odd." ...ah. well... that cleared everything up... actually no it didn't. he still had questions. questions that he hoped irakma would answer.

"of course. my bad. i just dont know whether or not thats possible. i just dont trust the Ministry. dont hurt me please."

don't... hurt me? cooper narrowed his eyes and shifted in his seat. it was in that moment that he suddenly realized just how close merle had gotten to him. he didn't move away, but he did glance over at her a couple of times, trying not to show how uncertain he was about the situation. he was certainly not used to girls other than his sister being so close. normally he'd push her away with some sarcastic comment or some verbal abuse, but at the moment, he really wasn't interested in giving away any information about himself, and not to mention he wasn't entirely sure how he was supposed to respond to how close merle was to him.

so he shifted his focus back onto irakma, tuning back into the conversation. "...hard to trust anyone after my parents got imprisoned in Azkaban. so can we restart this meeting? Hi, my name's Irakma, and I'm unfortunately a pureblood. ive lived boarded up in my house with nothing but pictures of dead family members and my poor house-elf Grant to keep me company. what are your names?"

cooper looked back at merle, hoping she could shed some light on what the fuck azkaban was and why it was so unfortunate to be a pureblood. and also, if his parents were taken away, why hadn't the government taken him into social services and set him up with another family? it seemed every time this kid opened his mouth cooper had so many more questions. did the wizarding world not have social services? was the government evil? of course, they were probably corrupt, but that didn't mean they were evil. and why hadn't they taken care of a child under their care? and of course, he had to ask for their names. cooper already didn't want to share his name with merle... but he guessed there was no way around it.

"cooper." he said simply and then glanced at merle who was sitting right next to him.

@Merle Corbyn && @Irakma Fultran

Merle was... very confused at that point in time, and when she got confused, her fight or flight instinct kicked in, and that, in turn, always shifted much more towards the former than the later. She found herself frowning slightly at Irakma, "Why on earth would I hurt you? I'm eleven, in case you missed the memo!" it was said with a huff, though it was likely becoming quite clear to poor Cooper (whom she'd been inching towards by slow measures; better than devil you know after all), that the irritation was more of a front for very clear nervousness.

When the other boy finally took his seat, Merle found herself relaxing a bit, taking a deep breath in, and releasing it slowly; she could do this. She could remain calm and not cause a scene before they arrived at Hogwarts. She'd just... have to consume a lot of chocolate once the trolley came over, "I..." she found herself twitching at the mention of Azkaban and the idea that this boy's whole family was there; she half felt like this boy was making fun of her somehow; either he'd won the unfortunate soul lottery and was truly disturbed, or he was making up tall tales, and she didn't know which idea she liked more. The moment the boy mentioning living in a boarded up house, alone, she finally lost the plot, closed her eyes, looked up into the ceiling of her wagon and counted from twenty to zero very slowly in her mind, trying to not snap at him.

The boy was ridiculous, and she was by now very much convinced he was making fun of them, "I'm Merle," she said after she'd reopened her eyes, swiftly deciding to focus most of her attention back on Cooper. He didn't seem insane after all. She looked Cooper in the eye, rolled hers a bit, and then lifted her right hand's index finger and made a small, short circle near her temple in a way that only the blonde boy sitting by her could see. She hoped that this gesture would be enough to make the poor, likely confused boy by her side, to not listen to a word this other boy was saying.

Thankfully, the compartment door slid open, and likely saved Irakma from a piece of Merle's mind. She watched the tall, looming boy stage whisper something and she again rolled her eyes, albeit this time in a general sense, and much more playfully, "Quin," she said, "Don't feed the trolls, please, it's not nice. Also, I'm not the one coming in late, you looming spider, sit down before the train jerks and you fall on us; not all of us are big and we can be easily squished."

At least now there was much less weird concentrated in one compartment, though they had traded away quite a nice chunk of weird for chaotic energy. Merle wasn't entirely sure about the trade off, but at least she was happy to see her friend here with her, "Cooper, this is Quinlan, Quinlan, this is Cooper to my right here. The weird one's Irakma... whom I'm starting to think was in the middle of making fun of us over here, which is, by the way, not nice."

@Cooper Ray @Irakma Fultran @Quinlan Knight