Closed A Little Help Please PV Cassie Heather

[ @Scarlet Salvatore ]

English #26687E • French #72267E

Cassie liked to keep herself busy. Laziness was... boring. And if there was anything Cassie Heather McGregor-Martin hated, it was being bored. Funnily enough, though, today she had found herself being so, because she just... didn't have anything else to do. It sucked. So, with a wave in the direction of anyone who cared and a triumphant scooping up of her broomstick, wand, and broom racing helmet, she left the Beauxbatons carriage and made her way towards what she was fairly sure was just a small version of a Quidditch pitch. It really annoyed Cassie that Hogwarts didn't have a proper broomracing track she could train on, but she supposed that for now she'd have to do with a Quidditch pitch. Anyway, if she could be bothered, she could always attempt to levitate some obstacles for herself or something.

When she got there, though, Cassie realised she wasn't alone. This was also annoying, because she couldn't make any obstacles for herself - she didn't really have enough control over her magic to make sure anything she levitated didn't knock this other girl off her broom. As Cassie watched her, though, she decided that, at this rate, the girl was going to knock herself off. The third year winced when the airborne girl nearly crashed into a wall, only just managing to get out of the way in time.

With a thoughtful squint to the girl, Cassie jammed her helmet onto her head and her wand into the holster on her waist that her maternal grandparents had gotten her for her birthday, before swinging one leg over her broomstick. She rose into the air, moved her legs into the iron handles which had been fitted onto her broom as per the requirements of the Beauxbatons racing team, and leant forwards, speeding towards the other girl.

"You're doing it wrong. Oh, it's cold!" Carefully keeping one hand on her broom to keep her balance, Cassie used the other one to zip up her coat.

Scarlet steadied herself on the unfamiliar broom, "this is going to take some getting used to," she muttered to herself. She hadn't expected it to be this difficult, she already knew how to ride a broom, how could a new one be this difficult in comparison.

Scarlet looked down to the ground, after her last slip up she had found herself quite a bit higher above the ground than when she had started out, slowly this time, Scarlet navigated the broom towards the ground, pulling the handle up and bringing the broom to a stop when she was a couple of meters off the ground again. 'Much safer,' she thought, her racing heartbeat could finally start to get back to normal, she was much less worried about the consequences of anything going wrong whilst she was at these kind of heights.

As she readied herself for another attempt, where hopefully she would have the courage to pull off a proper turn and not bail out at the last second, she caught sight of someone stepping onto the grass in the distance. 'Is that a helmet?' Scarlet thought to herself whilst watching the girl put on what appeared to be some kind of historic looking head protection.

With pretty impressive speed and precision, the helmet-wearing girl was hovering in front of Scarlet in a matter of seconds. Not leaving any silent space for Scarlet to say anything first, the girl was quick to speak up, her blunt honesty making Scarlet laugh a little, "yeah, that didn't feel quite right," she joked in response. "You're not a Hogwarts student, are you?" she asked, picking up on the all too familiar hint of a French accent in her voice, her mind going straight to Val.

"It is kind of cold, as it normally is to be honest," she said, she knew the weather in France was a great deal better, and comparing it to the north of the England, where Hogwarts happened to be, made the difference even more noticeable.

"I'm Scarlet, trying and failing to get used to my new broom," she said, introducing herself to the girl, "so, I'm guessing you're pretty good on that broom of yours," she added, wondering if the girl was perhaps a quidditch player or something, the better broom riders were always a part of some kind of sport. She couldn't tell from the off whether the girl had any intention to help Scarlet out, she only hoped she did and wasn't there to just laugh at her attempts so far.

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I'm soooo sorry how late this, been super busy last month

@Lucia Fox

[ @Scarlet Salvatore ]

English #26687E • French #72267E

The girl laughed a little when Cassie spoke. Were they taught a different way of broom-riding at Hogwarts or something, and she thought Cassie was wrong? Cassie squinted at the girl, looking her up and down as the pair hovered in mid-air. She wasn't wearing a scrap of protection, even though it was evidently her first time on this broom (although she did appear to have some degree of control over it, at least), which confused the Beauxbatons student. Did Hogwarts not require their sportspeople to wear protection? What if they fell off? Broomracing (and Quidditch, admittedly) was a pretty dangerous sport. And sure, Cassie herself hadn't bothered with her leather pads today, because she knew she wouldn't be doing anything too life-threatening, but at least her helmet would stop her skull cracking open if she ended up falling off her broom. "Ah, no," Cassie agreed when the girl worked out that she wasn't a Hogwarts student. "Cassie Heather McGregor-Martin, proud student of Beauxbatons Academy of Magic. Two first names and a double-barrelled last name. Call me Cassie, it's faster to say." With this, Cassie nudged her broom closer to the girl's so that the points were almost touching on a 60° angle. She held her fist out. "Fistbump between sportswomen?"

When she introduced herself as Scarlett will use 2 't's until Cassie knows better, because that's how Cassie thinks it's spelled, Cassie paused for a moment, broom dipping a little lower before she yanked it back up again. "Thanks," she said in response to Scarlett's compliement, suddenly realising that the brunette looked... similar. With a squint, Cassie wondered where she'd seen her before. "I'm a broom racer, if that's what you're wondering." Cassie suddenly shot forwards a little and twisted her broom around so she was facing the Hogwarts girl and they could talk without having to turn their heads to see each other. "Why aren't you wearing a helmet?"

Scarlet noticed the girl's eyes move over her outfit, now that she was closer, Scarlet comparatively looked over the new arrival's outfit. What she was wearing was much closer to the kind of protective equipment worn by Quidditch players, Scarlet thought the girl's kit might be even more effective though. "What's that?" she asked, bringer one hand off her broom to point at what she could only describe as a sword that formed a part of the girl's ensemble.

Scarlet smiled when the girl announced that she was indeed a student of Beauxbatons, "nice to meet you Cassie," she said, "and yeah, I'll stick to that, sounds like it would be quite a mouthful." Scarlet happily accepted the invitation to fist bump from Cassie, meeting the girl's fist mid-air with her own.

"You know my mum went to Beauxbatons, and my cousin goes there now," while she was interested in asking if Cassie knew of Val, she was also aware of how he could sometimes be with people and thought it might not be best to associate her to him immediately. "he's a second year," she added, leaving out his name for the time being, "what year are you?" she asked, for all she could tell, Cassie could be in the same year as Scarlet, she looked roughly the same age.

Scarlet felt herself get a little excited when Cassie said she was a broom racer, she wanted to ask her what an actual race was like. Was it dangerous? Had she ever won a race? What was the worse injury she had seen? It's not like Scarlet was a broom racer herself, they didn't even offer the sport at Hogwarts, but if they did it was something she would probably jump at the chance to try. "That's so cool, how long have you been racing?" Scarlet asked, limiting herself to one question at a time.

"Well..." she began, realising that there wasn't a good answer that justified not wearing safety equipment, "I guess I was just super excited to try out my broom, and it's not like I was actually going to play Quidditch or race with anyone," she said, "besides, we don't even have to wear a helmet for flying classes." It was true though, she wasn't doing anything more dangerous than the kind of things they would over in a flying class, "is that the kind of thing you have to wear for broom racing?" she asked, Scarlet hadn't actually seen what kind of clothing broom racers wear, but she was pretty sure that most Quidditch players didn't even wear a helmet.

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@Lucia Fox

Sorry this is late

Cassie had to twist around a little on her broom to work out what the other girl was pointing at before she realised that she probably meant her wand holster. "You mean this?" she checked, tapping the holster. "It's my wand holster." To prove it, she carefully slid her wand out of its case. "When you think about it," the Beauxbatons girl explained, "Wands are pretty inconvenient. They're all pointy and delicate and annoying and if you try put them in your back pocket you'll snap them as soon as you sit down." Plus, Cassie had heard rumours of someone who'd had their butt blasted off by a wand in their back pocket, and she didn't want to risk that. "This keeps it out of the way." She put her wand away. "And without it I'd just forget my wand anyway. My grandparents got me it after they realised it sucked to carry round with me otherwise." That was probably a lot more explanation than required to answer the brunette's question, but she got it anyway.

The fact that Scarlett's mum attended Beauxbatons was something Cassie wasn't expecting. Surely you'd want your kids to go to the same school as you if there were only a few choices? Beauxbatons was clearly the superior school, so it was a bit silly that Scarlet went to Hogwarts instead. Well, some people were weird, Cassie figured. At least Scarlet's cousin had made the right choice in going to Beauxbatons too. "Third." Due to her height and the fact that, technically, if you were going by Hogwarts rules Cassie would actually be in Second Year, foreign students (and, okay, Beauxbatons students as well) tended to mix up her year group a lot. "Who's your cousin?"

Grinning at the other girl's excitement, Cassie waved a hand airily. "Pretty much ever since I started at Beauxbatons," she told her. "I did Quidditch for a bit last summer but, eh. Quidditch is fun, but broomracing's more exciting."

Why was Cassie not surprised that Hogwarts had no concept of safety? When she'd started broomriding, her parents had been ready to buy her a bike helmet, for goodness' sake! Then again, it wasn't like flying lessons were particularly dangerous. You never went too high off the ground and there was always a teacher there to slow your descent if you fell off. That wasn't true for races or training by yourself, though, which was why Cassie had gotten into the habit of wearing her helmet pretty much whenever she rode her broom. "Yeah," she nodded in response to Scarlet's question. "And there's leather pads as well - like the kind kids have for bikes, but more professional. Oh! Like shin guards for football, hockey, whatever. Not that people tend to play football 'round here."

Of course it was, Scarlet thought. "Ahhh okay, that makes sense," she said to Cassie, a wand holster made much more sense than a sword - more like a dagger given the size, if it had been anything like that. "That's really nice," she said admiring the look of the holster as the girl removed her wand from it's place, "I can't believe I haven't seen more people using them!" Scarlet made a mental note to look out for a holster of her own the next time she found herself shopping in Diagon Alley, or at least write the idea down somewhere so she'd remember to actually look for one.

Well she wasn't in Val's year, for all she knew they may have never crossed paths, "Valentin Everbone. But you might not have met him, being in different years and everything," she said, hoping that she was right and Cassie hadn't been one of the many students Val had said he had had one of his 'disagreements' with. "He's a chaser, pretty good to be honest." Scarlet added, whether that would be any use to Cassie or not, she didn't know how well different sports teams got on - they all used brooms so they have that in common.

"It really does seem to be the more fun of the two!" Scarlet said, "I love the idea of having a more natural track sort of thing, seems a lot more exciting than just a pitch to circle round in." Scarlet would love to give broom racing a go, of course she would have to get to grips with her broom first, but after that - she would love to try it out. "What's the toughest thing you've had to face during a race? Do loads of people get injured during races? - I heard that it's way more dangerous than Quidditch!"

"Wait? What are they?" she asked after Cassie named a few sports she hadn't heard of before, "are they French?" she asked - this being the first question to pop in her head. But surely if they were French she would at least recognise their names from her mother.

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@Lucia Fox

"Thanks," Cassie grinned. Sometimes it confused her as to why more people didn't use wand holsters too, but she figured that people were okay with sticking them in their hair of their back pockets or whatever. Cassie was worried she'd sit on it if she did the latter, and her wand always poked into and scratched the back of her head whenever she tried the former.

Cassie was pretty sure she didn't know a Valentin Everbone (cool name though). "Um." She felt like she'd heard the name before though, and it was Scarlett's next words that helped her figure out where. "Ohh." Cassie didn't really know him exactly, but she knew of Valentin from when they'd both been on the Quidditch team. "We were both on the Quidditch team, but we don't really talk much," she told the other girl.

Scarlett appeared to understand Cassie's love for Broomracing over Quidditch. "Exactly!" the Beauxbatons girl agreed. On the Quidditch pitch, matches were fairly exciting but you could often work out what the other team's strategy was. In Broomracing, everything was unexpected and challenging. "Sure, people get injured," Cassie shrugged. "Hence the protective gear. But, like, you can use spells and stuff" - which was the only thing Cassie didn't like about the sport - "so you can always just heal yourself if you know how." Then Cassie paused for a moment, trying to work out the answer to the girl's other question. The toughest thing she'd had to face... "Well. Not exactly the toughest, but I once didn't realise there was a tree in front of me until I was, like, two metres in front of it," she told Scarlett. "Didn't have time to swerve so I had to just duck and go through a gap in the branches." Cassie hugged her body to the broom so she was as flat as possible. "Like this." She straightened back up.

Oh. The Hogwarts girl didn't know what football and hockey were. "No. They're Muggle sports."