An accent? PV Closed

"No......No.....Nope.... Nah... Ugh!" Little balls of paper littered the private dorm room of one EmmaLee LeDames. Her white cat, Minx, lay lazily upon her bed, watching the little beige balls sailing over her head and onto the floor before one finally bonked her on top of the head with a crumply poof noise.

"Rowr!" The animal protested, running a paw over the top of her head and glaring at her owner. EmmaLee turned around in her chair and looked at her pet and the carnage of the last 30 minutes or so across her floor and, apparently, bed. The girl sighed.

"I'm sorry, Minx. Why don't we go for a walk?" EmmaLee said, standing up and moving to the other side of the room to get her winter cloak, her Hufflepuff scarf, and a bright yellow hat to keep her hair over her ears. Minx stood up and leapt lightly off the bed to follow her girl out of the room.

~~~

Not that EmmaLee would normally choose to go outside on a snowy day like this, but the castle was far too loud and crowded with other people who didn't want to be outside for her to think. So outside she went, with her fluffy white friend prancing along behind.

The pale girl cringed as she pushed open the door to the cold air and stepped outside while Minx leapt to freedom. Minx was a quite warm ball of hair who rather enjoyed hoping through the snow and stalking anything that might mistake her for a snowy bush instead of a fierce predator. EmmaLee meandered to a tree that she normally sat under to write to her friends, but she was too anxious to sit. Instead, she paced in front of it, to and fro, while Minx stalked dead leaves and twigs around the base, fluffing the up and into the air to chase and catch them.

After a while of playing, Minx plopped down under the tree and stretched out to rest, calmly watching at her owner continued to pace back and forth. Catching EmmaLee's eyes and she flopped into the snow, EmmaLee stopped for a moment to look at Minx with a raised eyebrow. The cat looked from EmmaLee, to the door of the courtyard, and back again expectantly.

"I'm not ready to go back in yet." She said to the animal, turning to pace once more. "You can go if you want." The cat looked at the door and made an expectant mew as she sat up and curled her tail around herself, waiting. "Yeah. I know I need to go back inside and write 'im. I feel like 'e always ends up writing me first, but I can't think of anything to say. It's not like anything interesting 'as 'appened other than my duel." The cat flicked her tail a little and looked towards the door. "You can't not write someone for two months and just say '"ello, sorry it took so long for me to say absolutely nothing.""

As she was ranting, she heard the crunch of snow as someone approached her and turned to see a younger Slytherin boy with brown hair approaching. As he got closer, he asked about her accent and for a moment, she blinked at him in confusion before fully moving her train of thought from her predicament to his question.

"Ah...I uh... I suppose I 'ave a French accent to you." She said, a little confused. She knew that she had a little bit of trouble pronouncing some English words correctly, and that she was slowly getting better the more she had to speak only English, but it hadn't really occurred to her to call her way of speaking an "accent". Although now that she thought about it, she supposed it was in the same way that her friends from New York had an accent different from those here in Hogwarts.

Setting: Courtyard
IC date : December 10th

Ernest hasn't really traveled that much in his life, pretty hard to go anywhere when your guardian will stand out everywhere. But when your guardian's job requires him to meet with every single person that is a part of the British banking system for wizards, you tend to hear a lot of accents.

He had heard Americans, Irishman, different African dialects, and even saw some sign language. He was well versed in what each accent sounded like. That's why he knew certainly that this girl's accent wasn't purely French.

“What else is it? It's slowed, almost subconsciously. Have you lived anywhere else where you could have picked up a mixed dialect?” Ernest stepped forward as he talked, content to get an answer before he paced anymore.

He had always wanted to study how languages mixed, but it didn't seem to be of any help or need when he was at home. But here he heard so many accents that maybe it could be entertaining if not helpful. He hadn't heard many dialects that weren't pure, pure French or pure American, nothing that had an influence for more than one thing. Most people who are going to trade in their money didn't seem to stay in different places long enough to be impacted that way.

Private Thread for @EmmaLee LeDames

EmmaLee thought for a moment. "Well, I grew up in France until I was eight, and then I moved to New York City for two year, and now I've attended 'Ogwarts and lived in Glasgow for three years. We go back to New York every summer though, so all of that could be the difference you are 'earing." She said thoughtfully.

She had never really thought a lot about her accent before. No one else had really tried to analyze it this deeply before. There were quite a few people at the summer camps who assumed that she was from Beauxbaton at first, but that was understandable. Further, she hadn't realized just how much traveling she did on a yearly basis. From Hogwarts, to Glasgow, to New York, sometimes to London and other places her parents took her along with them. She'd gotten so used to the movement that it had just become part of her routine.

Minx was only a short distance away, but now that her owner was clearly engaged in conversation, she hopped through the snow over to EmmaLee and walked a snowy moat around her girl's legs. The snow wasn't too deep, but enough to cover the children's shoes and reach the large cat's knees. Once a path was cleared, the cat took a seat next to her girl and looked curiously up at the boy speaking.

Setting: Courtyard
IC date : December 10th

Ernest wasn't widely traveled by any means, hell he hadn't even left the UK. But he knew accents, any new had time to have their effect on them. The girl had obviously been to North America, just by how slow her speech got, but he would have never guessed New York.

That didn't make sense, how her speech was affected but not changed really, given that New York is known to have so many different accents. He wondered how her voice would sound if she would have gone farther into that country, would it be more detectable?

“That's fascinating, have you noticed your accent changing?” He asked, curious if she was even aware of it. “You seem shocked that I asked about it.”

He wondered how it looked to her. Some random boy came and got demanding, asking for information about how she's sounding. Looking back it was quite strange. He hoped he didn't look like a fool.

“Sorry if I was a little too blunt, I just never met anyone who's accent wasn't a complete accent but one that was influenced through time like yours. Your accent is perfectly impacted in a way I hadn't heard before.” He wondered if his words sounded weird, but he figured it was too late now he'd already said them.

Private Thread for @EmmaLee LeDames

"Ah, well," EmmaLee started, slowly and thoughtfully. "it's just that no one 'as ever really asked about it before. Most students I've met outside of 'Ogwarts assume I am from Beauxbaton until I introduce myself and tell them that I go to 'Ogwarts. Then they are a bit surprised." She explained with a small giggle. "They don't ever really comment on it further than that."

She thought for a moment about his first question. Did she notice? Maybe she did. She had been taught English and Spanish from a very early age, but had not gotten a lot of practice other than with her mother and Tante Alura until she moved to America, where she got a significant amount of practice in both. At first, she had needed to speak both languages slowly in order to be understood and had gained some speed the longer she talked.

EmmaLee giggled as the memory of the muggle man who owned a Mexican corner store near her condo complex bubbled up in her mind. The first day she had popped in, he had laughed at her "Frenchy Spanish" and the white girl who spoke so well, but also didn't. She had said the wrong word for dog when asking if she could pet the one laying in the sun on the welcome mat. EmmaLee hadn't thought about him in a while. She hoped he was well.

"Sorry." She said, quelling the giggle. "I just remembered something, but I don't think I did notice it changing. I know that I am more understood in English now than when I first moved to America, so I supposed I simply assumed that I was getting better at it, not necessarily that my accent had changed to be more understood." She offered with a curious tip of her head.

"Speaking of meeting people, I'm EmmaLee LeDames." She said, holding out a hand for the boy to shake. "May I 'ave your name, o' curious one?"

Setting: Courtyard
IC date : December 10th

Ernest really didn't expect to get much out of this conversation when you really thought about it, if he had been approached like this he would have immediately shut down the conversation. But this girl was different, more open than he was. He wondered if it was more peaceful to be this open and honest, I like him who couldn't even talk to his brothers about half of what he was thinking.

“My name is Ernest, Ernest Baird.” He said he held out his hand for a handshake before feeling self-conscious about it. Was it strange, just turned for a handshake after having a full conversation? Thinking about it, yes. 100%. He figured to be even stranger dropping his hand so he just kept it there.

“I'm a first year, I figure you aren't? You seem more at ease here than half of the people I've seen that arrived in the boat with me.” He joked. Before he barged her into conversation, he even noted that she was almost blissful as she walked and talked to her cat, almost like she had done it a million times before. “Heck, even your feline seems more at ease than some of the students I passed today alone.”

Private Thread for @EmmaLee LeDames

EmmaLee shook the boy's hand with a wide smile. "It is very nice to meet you, Ernest." She said, brightly. "Are you related to Logan or Clark? Baird doesn't seem to be too common a name here." She said, tipping her head curiously. She really only knew Logan by name and face because she was an older Hufflepuff girl. Clark was also a Hufflepuff, but in her year and while she hadn't interacted with him much outside of classes, his reputation for chaos and trouble made her not very inclined to ever interact with him even in class if she could help it. She nodded at his assessment that she was older than himself.

"Your thoughts are correct. I am actually a second year 'Ufflepuff. While I think you get more comfortable at 'Ogwarts as you go on in years, I am starting to settle into the idea that I am never going to be in one place for too long. As we've already discussed, I've moved around a lot in my child'ood and even in the summers my family does a lot of traveling." She said with a small shrug. She giggled as Ernest brought up her cat's ease.

"Well, Minx would probably be comfortable anywhere as long as I am around. She is dreadfully clingy." As if to punctuate her point, the large cat leapt unto her shoulders and settled herself in a way where her front paws rested in top of EmmaLee head, peering out between her upper pigtails, and her lower paws rested on either side of her owner's neck. EmmaLee has subconsciously bent her knees a little when it was clear the cat was going to jump in order to take the new weight on her shoulders without falling over. She giggled again. "Minx goes anywhere she possibly can get away with it with me. I've 'ad 'er since I was six or seven. Do you 'ave any pets?"

As EmmaLee spoke, Minx peered down at the boy curiously with wide, blue eyes to match her owner's, swishing her long, fluffy tail back and forth across EmmaLee's back.