Hide PV Aaron Jones Finished

|| Interacting with @Aaron Jones ||

Whether Aaron was just insisting he was all right in a show of masculine bravado or whether he was simply actually all right, Aly couldn't exactly tell, but she let the issue go without pushing it. Maybe she did that because she wasn't one to argue - stubborn, sure, but fights were not in her blood - or maybe she did it because of the way he grinned at her. She couldn't help but grin back, at least a little.

Plus, her attention was quickly captivated by a different conjunction of words that fell gracefully from Aaron's lips like sand through the hourglass. Not the bit about his brother being a snorer - though Aly hadn't known Aaron even had a brother, and the envy that crashed over her was so powerful her heart skipped a beat, for Aly had always wanted a sibling or someone with whom she could have played as a child, rather than living her lonely existence in a big empty home that felt more like just a house. But coming to Hogwarts and making all of these friends here had curbed her desire for a sibling somewhat - only somewhat! - and Aly soon easily focused in on what was truly important about Aaron's words: record a video.

"Record... a video?" she parroted back, turning the words over in her mind. Clearly, this was some sort of Muggle or Hufflepuff thing, and she knew so of Aaron's Muggle knowledge that she was inclined to believe it tended towards the former. Recording, like writing down? But what was a video? Aly had never heard the term before. Perhaps it was some sort of Muggle-only book, of which the Wizarding World had no equivalent. "What is a video? And how... how is that proof that your brother snores?"

Aaron's exclamation of excitement when Aly mentioned the letter he had sent her as a thank-you for her Valentine's Day gift broke her from her Muggle-obsessed stupor; she would have to wait just a moment to find out what a video was. Perhaps it was like one of those fellytone things she'd heard about. The Hufflepuff seemed so happy to have received her letter, and the blood rushed to Aly's pumping heart, which seized happily on its own in her chest. She so loved making others smile, and Aaron's grin was one of the best she'd ever seen. Plus, when it was accompanied by such a felicitous offer to join him in taking to the skies for a bit of flying fun… well, she wouldn’t turn that down with anyone, least of all Aaron himself.

“Tomorrow would- oh, Sunday would- oh!” Aly kept trying to agree to Aaron’s suggested time frames, but Aaron kept doubling back on his own proposals, and finally Aly realised it was probably best to shut her mouth and let him run his course. Finally, the Hufflepuff explained his doubt towards all the upcoming days - he hadn’t yet finished the big Potions project that had been assigned the previous week. Aly burst out in a fit of giggles as they stepped into the frigid outdoor air of a winter Scotland. “We’ve had three whole days to do it yet!” she teased, poking his arm playfully. “Why, I’ve had mine done since yesterday. Just because it’s not due til Tuesday afternoon doesn’t mean you can procrastinate it, you know.”

Still, a Potions project was indeed a decent excuse to put off this meeting of the broomsticks, and Aly mentally mulled over what her schedule next weekend would look like. “That Saturday would work! March… fifth, is it?” she asked as they finally approached the proper greenhouse for class. “I don’t think I’ve anything that day… oh, after you.”

That last bit was about the greenhouse door; Aly had pulled it open and swept her arm in front of her in a grandiose gesture, indicating that Aaron could go inside first. Hopefully they would be able to sneak in without being noticed.

[this specific use of Professor Irons was approved by the writer]

"You know how some of your pictures move?" Aaron asked - he had explained this very thing to a friend before and thought this was a good comparison. "Well, muggles have a way of doing the same sort of thing, but different. Our cameras can capture photographs that are completely still, and videos which are basically a really long photograph with moving parts. So taking a video of something means capturing a moment in time and being able to watch that moment over-and-over again, but it's not limited to just a few seconds. We can make hour-long videos, and we have movies and stuff," Aaron could feel himself getting off topic in his excitement. He thought about the ability to show Aly films which would surely amaze her, but he reined in his thoughts. "But anyway, I recorded a video of my brother, meaning when he woke up the next morning, he could watch a video that showed him snoring." Maybe he could explain it in better detail another time.

The conversation of when they could go flying turned into Aly giggling at him. Aaron couldn't help but smile as he rolled his eyes in response to her admonition. "Three days isn't enough time- Hey! That hurt," Aaron whined, rubbing his arm where she had poked him. It had not hurt, but he was going to put on a show like it had. "You really want me to need a plaster, don't you?" he accused, sending a playful glare. "It'll get done! Eventually..." the Hufflepuff said, avoiding her eye with a grin on his lips. He was neglecting to mention that he had not even started on it yet, which is why he expected it to take a big portion of the weekend. He didn't want to give her a heart attack.

"March fifth, then," Aaron agreed, only noticing they were at the greenhouse when Aly pulled open the door. Oh, right. They still had to face their professor. No matter, Aaron had become pretty good at thinking on his feet. "Follow my lead," he said quietly as he stepped into the greenhouse. The idea of sneaking in was thrown out the window once they were actually inside - the class had been quiet and Professor Irons was teaching and facing the doorway as they walked inside.

Aaron immediately launched into an explanation - a story of how there was a really good reason for being late, that the whole thing was his fault and Aly stopping to help him had been such an act of kindness that if any punishment was to be doled it, it should be given to him and him alone. Whether Professor Irons believed him or not, the man was not one to dole out punishment very easily anyway. He accepted Aaron's story and told the two of them to take their seats, then resumed teaching. As he made his way to an empty spot with some of the other Hufflepuffs, Aaron managed to catch Aly's eye and offered a knowing grin.

@Aly Salinger

|| Interacting with @Aaron Jones ||

The petite Ravenclaw could've listened to her Hufflepuff friend talk about "videos" forever. What a strange word, that - vid-ee-ohs, that diphthong vowel at the end strangely prominent in Aaron's Welsh accent. Aly's brain flashed back to the portraits of Salinger family ancestors on the corridor walls back home at the Salinger family house - great-grandparents, great-great-grandparents, great-great-great grandparents, and so on and so forth - when Aaron mentioned moving portraits.

As a young child, the curly-haired girl had always liked sitting in the corridor outside her room and conversing with a few of the portraits that were hanging there. Great-Great-Grandmother Sylvia Salinger always had the best advice, Great-Great-Great-Grandfather Wallace Salinger told the funniest jokes, and too-many-greats-to-count-grandmother Patience Salinger's portrait had the exact same wild curls as Aly herself, so whenever the thirteen-year-old Ravenclaw needed help with hair care, that was who she went to. (Even if hair remedies from the 1700s were a bit out-of-date by now.)

Imagining a photo moving, but just repeating the same moment in time over and over instead of having its own little sentience, gave her the chills. On the one hand, that would be absolutely amazing for remembering things - perhaps even better than a Memory Potion! But on the other hand, to trap a remembrance forever, doom it to repeat itself over and over and over and over and over... well, luckily, Aly wasn't in a "video" so she still had her own free will, but goodness, the thought of that was more than a bit terrifying.

Luckily, there was no time to dive down the philosophical rabbit hole of the ethics of videography as she pulled open the door to the greenhouse; Aaron entered first, proving once again that perhaps he had quite a few more ounces of bravery than Aly herself. "Follow my lead," he whispered to her, and if she weren't quite so nervous about being late, perhaps Aly would have muttered something back about how she'd been following his lead this whole time, so why would she have stopped now? But she was nervous - petrified, in fact, and so she was surprised that her legs moved beneath her to carry her into the greenhouse behind Aaron.

Of course they just had to enter in the middle of Professor Irons' presentation. Aly flushed bright red as all eyes in the class turned to her and Aaron, sneaking in late - What must they think?! - and the embarrassed blush drowned out every single freckle on her spattered cheeks as she ducked behind her friend to hide herself from everyone's stares, sticking her forgotten half-eaten apple in her satchel as she did so. But she had forgotten the company she had been keeping, and almost immediately, Aaron launched into a practiced speech that was so convincing Aly herself would've forgiven him if she were the professor. As lies slipped from his lips as gracefully as sand through the hourglass, the spidery Hufflepuff spinning a persuasive web of how he had been completely at fault and Aly had stopped to be his saving grace in a moment of characteristic kindness and he should be the one punished for being late and, and, and. The longer Aaron talked, the less Aly hid behind him out of fear of being punished, and, eventually, the professor simply bade that they take their seats and continued on with the lesson.

"Yes, Professor," Aly mumbled apologetically, darting towards the empty seats. "Very sorry, Professor. Won't happen again."

Aaron began to make his way toward a group of other Hufflepuffs, turning around to catch her eye as he did so, and smiling. Relief washed over her - a common feeling around the dark-haired badger, she noticed - as she took a seat a few to his left, nearer to a group of her Ravenclaw peers. Aly felt herself smiling, too.

Really, whatever would I do without that boy?

Though she wouldn't be able to thank him until after the class - and, even then, she had other classes to rush to after this, and so likely her own friends would drag her off before she would get to talk to him, if she knew her mates at all - Aly knew that she had to express her gratitude to Aaron somehow. She'd been raised right on a strict pureblood diet of manners, after all, and it was the proper thing to do. That was why she was doing it, obviously. Because she was thankful and it was right.

No other reason.

As subtly as possible, Aly reached into her satchel and sneakily tore off a small corner of a scrap piece of parchment she'd thrown haphazardly in there on her way out of the dormitory that morning. Quill and ink came out of the bag with ease, and Aly carefully balanced the pot on one leg, dipped the quill in, and on the other leg, wrote in dark ink on the torn piece of scrap parchment.

You really didn't have to do that, take all the blame and such! Thank you so much. If you get in trouble after class, I'm telling Professor Irons the truth, come hippogriffs or high water.

March fifth, right? How does one p.m. sound? Should give us enough time to finish any homework we're assigned over the next week during the morning!

From there, she patiently waited til the ink was dry, listening to Professor Irons' lecture; the note was then folded and slipped to the person next to her. Aly caught their eye and nodded down to Aaron, mouthing his name and pointing subtly so as to indicate that the note should be passed to him.

The people between Aly and Aaron were like a note-passing team - the small folded piece of torn scrap parchment passed from hand to hand, under the table, palming it like a stolen coin in a pickpocket's fingers until, finally, somebody dropped it into Aaron's lap.

Aly sat back, smiling and faintly proud of herself, to listen to the professor continue on.

What an eventful morning, she thought, but it all turned out all right in the end.