A Stroll with a View PV Closed

Ruka appreciated Cassie's tactfulness. While he didn't mind talking about his mother, he always found himself at a loss for words when people asked about her. What was he supposed to say when people awkwardly asked him whether she had died or just abandoned him when he knew that no matter what he said, people would just give him a pitiful look he didn't want?
Cassie wasn't intrusive or awkward; she was easy to talk to and genuine in everything she said.

It was good to have met someone like that.

"Can I hear one of those stories?" he asked curiously. He had already seen so many things around the castle - ghosts and laughing doors, rooms that changed location at will and stairs that led to nowhere - that he wondered what kind of stories could possibly be crazier than the reality. "I heard some students say there were dragons somewhere on school grounds, but I guess I would have seen fire beams by now, right?" He chuckled, but his face showed some disappointment; He loved animals, and to see a live dragon was possibly the coolest thing he could possibly imagine.

A flood of relief came over him when Cassie looked at him with appreciation and not disdain after he had mused about her name. The fragile beginnings of a friendship were so easy to break and he was glad that he hadn't misstepped with his words.
What she said next, about his father, made Ruka swell a little with pride, and he quickly nodded. "He is," he said with a smile, straightening his back as he sat up with his knees against his chest again. "He's magic to me." Ruka chuckled and finaly pulled out the daisy he'd been playing with for the past few minutes, gently twirling it between his fingers before expertly tucking it between two unruly strands of Cassie's hair. When I was really young," he explained, adjusting the flower in Cassie's hair with a smile. "Maybe five or six years old, He taught me how to make flower crowns, and I would sell them for little more than a penny. Whenever I sold all of them, we would take the money I earned, and he would buy me a cone of ice cream with it." He smiled at the memory, gazing across the smooth surface of the lake. "He always said 'Magic is the power to put a smile on people's faces'. Of course he didn't really know about actual magic, but I always thought it was a nice way of thinking about it. He used to pluck the flowers with me and told me to make magic with them. He said you can turn everything into magic if you work hard enough and never lose touch with your imagination. That's why he's magic to me." He smiled, a little embarrassed about how much he had been rambling about his dad.

It wasn't often these days that he got to talk about him, and now that te chance arrived he was barely able to stop anymore.
"Sorry," he said meekly, grinning back at Cassie again. "This must sound so boring to you. I'm guessing growing up with actual magic around you is far more exciting than flower crowns and ice cream cones!"

"Well, my cousin Odysseus told me, that in the Slytherin Common Room, there is a window into the lake and that one time he communicated with a Selkie through the window by tapping morse code on the window. I guess I won't find out, whether that is true. No way to get into the Slytherin Dungeon as a Hufflepuff.", Cassiopeia smiled and shrugged her shoulders. When Odysseus had first told her this story, she had stared at him in disbelief for several minutes and she still wasn't sure if she wanted to believe this story.
"No I don't think hey want to get into that kind of trouble that having a dragon on school grounds brings with it." Not that she really wanted to see one of the giant fire monsters. She had heard and read enough horror stories about those beasts destroying entire cities a long time ago and Cassiopeia wanted to live a little longer than just 11 short years.
She attentively listened to Ruka and another bright smile formed on her face when he started telling her about his life with his father. She was so focused on his story that she almost didn't realize that he had placed the small daisy in her hair. With a light blush on her cheeks she looked down on the ground for a moment before she raised her head again. She didn't want to interrupt him talking, so she waited until he had finished. "Thanks for the flower.", she whispered and softly touched the white flower that contrasted with her dark locks before she continued talking. "This is not boring at all, Ruka. Growing up with magic often makes you not appreciate it enough and sometimes we forget that love is the greatest kind of magic."

Ruka listened in awe at the story about the Slytherin Common Room. Thinking about his own Common Room, cozy and warm and nowhere near the lake, he could barely imagine it to be true.
"Selkies know morse code?" was the first thing he could think of saying, and he chuckled at the thought.
Sure, he didn't know much about magical creatures, but he's the read a bunch about them in his school books, and he couldn't think of a mention of any creatures knowing morse code. Still, there was probably never a way to know for sure!
"I'd love to know what goes on under the water surface, though," he mused, staring at the dark reflections on the water.
Shaking his head, he snapped out of his thoughts and looked back at Cassie with a curious expression. "Your cousin was sorted into Slytherin then?" he asked, tilting his head to the side in question. "I kind of thought family would all be sorted into the same house." He chuckled and sheepishly wiped a hand over his cheek. "I guess I don't really understand all the proceedings that well yet, but to be fair, I didn't know anything about either magic or schools before coming here." He laughed lightly and turned a bit to the side to let his gaze wander across the fields and over the forest. It was forbidden, he knew that much, and yet a part of him longed to explore it just the same.

He shook the thought and turned back to Cassie as they talked about his father and the beauty of mundane magic, and it made him feel less lonely in this strange world, to have someone he could talk to about these kinds of things. "I imagine it's great to grow up with magic though," he pointed out, smiling brightly. "I mean there are endless things to do with magic, right? I can't even imagine all the things you get to see and do!"

Cassiopeia tilted her head slightly and let out a small laugh. "Yeah, i guess that story is fake. I am not even sure that Odysseus knows Morse Code.", she chuckled and laid her head on the soft grass again, smiling at the mental image of her older cousin frantically tapping on a window with a selkie on the other side of it.
"Well, in many families there is some kind of tradition about the houses and most of my relatives have been sorted into Slytherin, but my uncle was a Hufflepuff as well, so I guess it will be fine.", she explained while taking in the sight of the clear blue sky above her. Not a very common sight in her hometown, so she intended on soaking up as much sun as possible."I've already sent them a letter, but they have not replied yet." Shrugging her shoulders she turned her body and propped herself up on one elbow and started playing with the green grass next to her, twirling the grass blades like would sometimes to with her hair strands. "I think you can pretty much find a magical solution to every problem and that is very handy. But sometimes it just takes the fun away. For example cooking without magic is actually a really nice thing to do. I love doing that."

Ruka laughed and nodded at Cassie's realization that her cousin's selkie story may not have been true, but it was an amusing image nonetheless. "What's your Common Room like?" he asked curiously, adjusting his position slightly.

He could slowly feel his robes getting damp from lying on the grass but he had no longing to get up and leave yet. Cassie was turning out to be someone he would love to be friends with, and he didn't want to interrupt their bonding just because he was feeling a little chilly. His bare feet were a little damp as well but he'd walked on colder grounds before so he didn't see a need to complain about that.

"Everyone makes it sound like Slytherins are evil," he pointed out carefully, watching Cassie play with the grass. The flower was still prettily stuck in her hair, and she looked completely at peace with the grounds around her. It was a nice view. "But your family doesn't sound evil. Why does the House have such a bad reputation?"
Ruka didn't think anything of reputations; he liked to form his own opinions, and he was curious to hear from Cassie what she knew about Slytherin house and those who were in it. He sighed quietly as he thought about his own dad and how he knew nothing about Ruka's life at Hogwarts thus far. "Do you think the school owls would find my dad if I wanted to send him a letter?" he asked, a trace of longing in his voice. "He has no address, I wouldn't know where to send the owl to, but... I'd love to let him know about my life here too."
He listened in interest as Cassie talked about cooking, and he found his stomach grumbling at the thought; getting three meals a day had made him hungrier than he had been on days with nothing but a slice of bread to munch on, as ironic as it was. "If you like cooking," he said curiously. "Do you also like Potions? It's very similar, no? You follow a recipe to create something, well, either magical or burnt, I guess!"

"Our common room is a round room with warm yellow walls. There are lots of plants everywhere and it is just generally really bright and it feels a lot like a home, if you know what I mean?", Cassiopeia explained and bit her lip, trying to think of the right words to describe the home-like atmosphere in the Hufflepuff Common Room. What is the Gryffindor Common Room like? I have never heard anyone describe it.", she asked Ruka and looked at it excitedly. She was always eager to learn about things she had no experience with yet.

Ruka's questions were the same she used to ask herself when she heard others talking about the so-called 'evil' house of Hogwarts. "I guess because there were a lot evil wizards and witches that were in Slytherin. Not that there weren't any from the other houses, but those were just some of the worst.", she paused for a second and scratched her head. "And for my family, they tried for a verly long time to keep their reputation as that ancient pureblood family, but recently I think that things may change.", she said, her voice trailing off as she looked down on her hands, that were still holding the thin grassblades. She thought of her grandmother and mother that often tried so hard to keep their connection with muggles a secret. So secret in fact, that Cassiopeia had learned about it from one of her many cousins and not from them.

She immediately snapped out of her thoughts when she heard that Ruka had asked her something about the school owls. "Did you have an adress when the Hogwarts of found you? If yes, then I don't think that there should be a problem for them to find your dad?", the girl with the curly hair said slowly, not wanting to spark false hope in the boy, but also wanting him to try and contact his father that seemed to mean so much to him.

Cassiopeia laughed out loud when Ruka mentioned burning the potions. Yes, she had done her fair share of that while cooking. "Yes! That is exactly why I am so excited for Potions!", she exclaimed and shot up, her glinting with barely contained excitement.

Ruka smiled at Cassie's description of the Hufflepuff Common Room, nodding when she asked if he knew what she meant when she said it felt like a home.

Of course, Ruka had never had a proper home with walls and ceilings, but he remembered the feeling of warmth and safety when sleeping next to a cozy fire, under a clear starry sky, and he imagined that was the feeling Cassie was trying to describe.
"The Gryffindor Common Room is not much different," he said thoughtfully. "But probably less bright. There's a massive fireplace and a lot of candles. But during the day, because it's so far up, we get a lot of natural light. Still, there's so much red and gold, it always looks a bit dark. Cozy, though." He smiled at the thought and lightly shrugged his shoulders to show that he didn't know what else to say about his Common Room. "There's no selkies swimming pasr our windows, so I guess it's not as exciting as the Slytherin's" He laughed brightly, then turned his head a bit to focus on Cassie telling him about Slytherins and her family.
Pureblooded, half-blooded, it was all such a strange concept to him, but in this world it seemed to matter a lot to some people.
"So..." he startes, a frown on his face as he thought about it. "Blood is really important to some people, right?" He bit his lip, trying to understand where the obsession with maintaining a bloodline could come from. It seemed like such an outdated concept to him. "If my mum was a witch, but my dad a... a Muggle... that makes me half-blooded, right?" He sighed heavily, closing his eyes for a moment as he let the information pass through him.

Not all Slytherins were evil, but a lot of them turned evil. A lot of them put much value in maintaining a blood line and probably thought themselves better than people with mixed blood, which could be a reason for why they turned evil in the first place.
To Ruka's knowledge, fanatism rarely made a good person out of you.

"I don't see any difference," he admitted, shuffling a little closed to Cassie. "You have magic, and so do I. So do the kids here who were born from non magic parents. So why does it make a difference how pure our blood is?" He was relieved to hear that Cassie's family seemed to slowly change their mind about the importance of blood, and he found himself wondering for a second, if they would disapprove of their pureblooded daughter bonding with a half-blood from the streets. He hoped they wouldn't.

As Cassie talked about the owls, something hopeful sparked inside him, and he thought back to the address on his own Hogwarts letter. "My letter said 'Under the stars of Mullingar, Ireland'," he said with a chuckle, nodding his head. There probably was no guarantee that his letter would arrive but maybe it was worth a try. "My dad would love to hear about Hogwarts. He'd love to hear from me. And if the owl finds him... He could send me a letter back, right?" He smiled hopefully, imagining how nice it would be to exchange letters with his dad, how many experiences he'd be able to share with him.
He sat up a bit, running a hand through coppery hair and feeling it damp under his fingertips. He quickly brushed off a few loose strands of grass before turning his attention back to Cassie. She looked so passionate and alive talking about cooking and potions, radiating an almost breathtaking energy.
"I never cooked," he admitted meekly, but he felt himself infected with excitement. "Maybe you could show me some simple recipes sometime, I'd love to learn. Maybe it'll make me better at Potions as well." He chuckled brightly, brushing his arms against Cassie's as he shuffled around and into a more comfortable position. "I'm really looking forward to Astronomy," he told her brightly. "I love the stars." He grinned and turned on his side again to face her. "I wonder if we have any classes together. I'll definitely keep an eye out for you from now on!"

Ruka’s description actually sounded very comfortable and cozy, even if Cassiopeia wasn’t really a fan of the colour combination red and gold, especially because red had always seemed like a rather aggressive and dark colour to her.
She watched as Ruka frowned and started asking about the obsession of wizard families with their purebloodedness. “It is kind of a status thing. The more pure wizard blood you have in you, the higher some other wizard family will see you. You know, they think if you come from a long line of wizards you are more magical. But there are squibs in old families too and there are also lots of magical children coming from muggle families.”, she tried to explain while not sounding too close-minded as he was probably not used to hearing about traditional views about the blood status in the wizarding world. “And yeah, you are a halfblood.”, she answered his question about his blood status. Cassiopeia shrugged and smiled at the green eyed boy next to her.
“Under the stars...”, she repeated with a small chuckle and winked at him jokingly. “That sounds like the address of somebody’s dreamy summer house.”
Cassiopeia brushed some of her dark locks behind her shoulder and looked at her fingertips that had gotten a little dirty from playing with the grass. “Yeah I think he could send a letter back with the owl. You could be like quill pals!”, she suggested with an excited voice and let out a small laugh.
She heard Ruka saying that he had never cooked before and she kind of felt bad for him as for her, cooking was a very relaxing activity that also served as a bonding activity with her family.
“I would love to do that someday. We just need to get into the kitchen and convince the house elves to let us cook something.”, she told him, eyes already glinting with adventurous excitement and thinking about a way to bribe the house elves into letting them use their kitchen supplies. Or they would have to get some kitchen supplies from somewhere else and start a fire on their own. Cassiopeia would have to think about that later.
The young girl sat up and crossed her legs, taking in the nice scenery of the dark forbidden forest and the equally dark lake in front of her. “I think Astronomy is very interesting as well. There are so many stars that maybe we have never heard of that are still out there.”, Cassiopeia whispered and thought about all the late evenings she had spent with her family, learning about just a small fraction of the many stars and constellations. “Do you have a favourite star?”, she asked Ruka, leaning forward with interest.
In response to his words about looking forward to seeing her in class, a small blush crept upon her cheeks and a bright smile formed on her lips. “I hope so too. I think being in class with you would be a lot of fun!”

Ruka bit his lip as he listened to Cassie explaining the blood status in the wizarding world. He couldn't really believe that people cared about this so much that they took pride in the coincidence of blood purity.
"It's such a strange concept," he said, frowning a little bit. Cassie didn't sound like she cared much for his own blood status, but to know that there were people out there who thought other people to be lower than themselves for whether their parents were magic or not... it was strange. "It's not like you can tell someone's blood status by looking at them. For all I knew when I first saw you, you could have come from a completely non magic family. If someone told me they were pureblooded I'd never know whether it's a lie or not. We're all just kids going to school at the end of it all."
He shrugged and looked away for a moment, hoping Cassie didn't disapprove of his opinion on the matter.

He laughed a little at the joke about his address and nodded his head in agreement. "It does," he said with a bright smile. "It kind of is, I guess. Do you like to go camping?" he asked curiously. Cassie seemed like she enjoyed having the grass under her fingers and the sky over her head. "It's something I miss. We've never had a place to stay, my dad and I. We slept under the stars, next to a fire." He smiled fondly at the memory before shaking his head quickly. "I mean, I love getting to sleep on a bed and eating off a table, but sometimes I just wish I could stay out here all night."
He grinned at the thought of exchanging letters with his dad, imagining the look on his face when an owl dropped some parchment in his hands. "I think I'll try," he said excitedly. Maybe he could check the owlery the next morning and try to send out one of the school owls to find his dad.

He got a little lost in his thoughts about what to put in his first letter to his father, but Cassie's words pulled him out of them, and he excitedly shuffled even closer to her.
By now he was close enough that their arms brushed against each other at every move but he couldn't help it; he'd always been gleeful and eager to see and find out about new things.
"I've never seen a House Elf!" he said, giddy with excitement. He'd read about them working the kitchens in Hogwarts a History, but he had yet to see one in the flesh. "You really think they'd let us sneak into the kitchens to cook something?"
It was such a freshly formed friendship, but Ruka could already tell that he and Cassie would manage to get themselves into all sorts of adventures together.
He beamed at her when she voiced her own love for the stars, and nodded along with her words.
"Canopus," he answered quickly, an answer he'd had at the ready for ages already, just in case anybody ever asked him the question. "Second brightest star in the night sky. A white giant." He grinned and looked at Cassie with curiosity. "Do you have a favourite one?"