Animal House PV Opeila

@Maisie Gemmell
Note: A lot of Opeila's hair is white now due to her being a seer.

It took Opeila a couple of minutes to realize that, while she had been wandering around, lost in her thoughts, her feet had carried her down the route she used to take when she did her prefect patrols. The realization had her halt in the middle of the corridor, the loss of the role that she had taken so much pride in an uncomfortable tug inside her chest.
Her guardians had picked a quite effective punishment for her running away, owling her head of house, requesting that her role was taken away again, given that she was clearly not mature enough to oversee her peers.

And maybe they were right. Opeila had made a couple of impulsive choices and she was probably very lucky that they hadn't caused more harm. Gripping the strap of her bag, the Slytherin turned on the spot. What did she want to do? Why was she here?
Her cat had trotted ahead, walking around the next corner. Loras had grown considerably in the last couple of years, since she got him. He had been barely more than a kitten, less than a year old and now he was... almost six years old and had very much left the clumsy kitten phase. He had even learned to stop chasing wasps.

In general he was a lot calmer than he used to be now, but him stopping in his tracks, just as he was walking around the corner, still caught her attention. "Loras?" Slowly she walked toward her cat, her fingers already curling around her wand. The stillness of her cat was unsettling and Opeila had seen too many horrors at this school to not listen to her instincts.
Only when she caught up with the grey tabby, she heard the voice of a child and let go of her wand, annoyed at herself. Were the events of the last months really making her this paranoid?

Opeila crouched down next to Loras, smiling at the child, who was talking to a bunny that had gone about as still as Loras. The look that the little girl gave her cat was enough for Opeila to simply pick Loras up, hopefully eliminating the risk the younger student seemed to view him as. "Hi! Sorry, I hope Loras didn't frighten you. He's never hurt another pet, I promise." The same couldn't be said for a couple of wasps... but he had gotten payback for it.
"That is a sweet bunny, what's their name? I'm Opeila, by the way."

Keeping a sharp eye on the silvered cat, Maisie extended an arm as if to nudge Mischief gently into her grasp and into safety. She'd just about gotten a hold of him when she noticed an older girl with white hair step into her frame of vision and pick up the cat. Maisie let out an audible sigh of relief. Meanwhile, the girl introduced herself as Opeila with the cat cradled in her arms.

"Maisie," she returned the introduction as she scooped up her own pet and stood up. "And this is Mischief." She gave the rabbit a gentle stroke on his head, as if trying to reassure him that everything was all right. When he seemed to be calming down, she looked back up at the older girl and her cat—Loras, if she'd heard correctly. "I think Loras and Mischief might have frightened each other," she added. Maybe the rabbit leash her dad had suggested wasn't that bad an idea, but she still preferred letting the rabbit run free, even in the advent of run-ins like this.

"Which way are you going?" she asked, wondering if they were going the same direction. She had yet to encounter many older students, but there was no reason to believe that they were all that different from young students like herself. They were, well, mostly just taller, right? Otherwise, people were just people.

"We usually like to go this way around the corner before dinner," she explained with her hand pointed around the bend, "It's pretty quiet because of the study room and the windows are nice. One time I saw the broom racers practicing outside in a wicked storm." All this might have seemed like rambling, and perhaps it was. But it also neatly covered up a deeper question: "Do you want to walk with us?" Maisie could certainly imagine a situation where an older student would have better things to do, but there seemed to be no harm in asking.

And that's precisely what she did.

@Opeila Winters

@Maisie Gemmell
Note: A lot of Opeila's hair is white now due to her being a seer.

"Nice to meet you, Maisie." Opeila smiled at the younger girl. "And Mischief. " Loras was still eyeing the bunny in Maisie's arms skeptically and shifted in Opeila's arms a little, trying to lean over to the smaller animal.

"I think Loras and Mischief might have frightened each other"

"Oh, you should have seen this one when he was a kitten. Used to chase wasps and only stopped after her got stung a dozen times. He's quite tame nowadays.", she told her with a light chuckle and held Loras tighter. "He has never hurt someone else's pet."
... Only got into some fights with other cats every now and then.

"Which way are you going?"

"Um-" Opeila was scrambling for a destination, but came up with nothing. "I'm not really going anywhere specific to be honest. I was kind of in my zone and... ended up here.", she explained, running a hand through her hair, a little embarrassed. "Where were you headed?"

"We usually like to go this way around the corner before dinner. It's pretty quiet because of the study room and the windows are nice. One time I saw the broom racers practicing outside in a wicked storm."

"Yeah, I suppose it is." Opeila glanced to one of the windows, hit by an unexpected wave of appreciation. She had been like that a long time ago, noticing every detail, feeling enchanted by every bit of magic and beauty she found in the castle. Five years later... It was probably very human to get used to even the most spectacular places. There was always the first month back after the summer holidays, when the longer period of absence served as a reminder for what she loved about the school, but that wore off quickly, when normality set in.

"... In a storm?" Her eyes widened a bit. "They really do that? I always used to try to not get the racers killed during practice already...", she joked. Her year of being a racing captain had been one crazy year indeed. Looking back, she still wasn't sure why she had ever signed up for that job, being as bad a flyer as she was. Back in her third year it had been a way for her to take control of something, she supposed, at a time where she had felt very powerless.

"Do you want to walk with us?"

"Yeah, sure!"
It had been a while since Opeila talked to anyone below third year. As in... actually talked. Aamon, the kid she had tried to comfort when he had showed up in the hospital wing with a severed hand, hardly counted. It was way too easy to kind of get settled in a bubble of older students as she got older herself, since they were in more similar stages of life to her own, it would be great to chat to a younger student again.

Back in her second and third year, she had still made an effort to talk to the new students and try to make them feel as comfortable as possible with what was a huge transition for many of them. Like it had been for herself.
Pureblood drama, school dangers and classes had been a weight on her shoulders forever, but it seemed that since romance was added to the list, Opeila had gotten lost between all of it. Somehow, she realized with a pang of amusement, she had apparently still managed to be a typical teenager in some ways.

"You are new at Hogwarts, aren't you? How do you like it so far?"

The girl seemed pleasant enough, which was welcome. Maisie let out a soft laugh at the story about Loras and the wasps. Still, the reassurance that he'd never heard someone else's pet was helpful and caused Maisie sigh in relief. It seemed like in those few seconds, the situation had greatly de-escalated from a great terror to something more friendly for both humans and pets.

So, it seemed like a walk together might be a good idea after this initial scare, which is why she'd offered it. To her delight, the older girl and her cat had accepted. Maisie hadn't spent a lot of time with older students, whether prefect or not. The former seemed frightening at times, but as a whole older students likely had a lot of insight. And company was always a positive thing.

"They really do that? I always used to try to not get the racers killed during practice already..."

"Yeah, I mean, I think I saw the team," she said. They certainly had looked like a team, though she couldn't recall which one as she furrowed her brow. Maybe it had been random students, but there'd seemed to have been an order to the way they moved and flew.

Either way, Maisie focused on the latter half of what her companion had said. "You're a broom racer? Or were?" she asked curiously. Everyone who did a sport seemed so cool and effortless. It was no wonder someone like Opeila, who seemed to have the elegance in the way she handled her cat and awkward situations, would have graced the skies. But this too formed a new question she hesitated to ask as they turned the corner: why would she leave?

It was at the tip of her tongue when the Slytherin queried her opinion of Hogwarts so far. "Yeah, I'm new. First year," she answered, "I think I like it. It's so big though. I've gotten lost more than once." That was true even if it was slightly embarrassing. She was also enjoying her classes, and Mischief seemed to like his new home in Ravenclaw tower. But eventually she settled on: "I signed up for a bunch of sports." That is, all the sports. And perhaps more significantly, she signed up for all the sports to be cool—like you.

She looked up at Opeila with a smile as girls and pets wandered the corridors.

@Opeila Winters

@Maisie Gemmell
Note: A lot of Opeila's hair is white now due to her being a seer.

As she continued to talk to Maisie, Opeila's moment of melancholy finally passed completely and she found herself reminded of her own first year instead. She was a little surprised that she could barely even remember herself before... well, before Vlad really. Already a kid with troubles, but she hadn't known fear for her life back then. All the problems had been at home and Hogwarts had been that wonderful magical place that Maisie seemed to see.
That Opeila tried to see again as well now.

"That's entirely possible. Actually flying in a storm is probably good training for racing, given the weather is part of the obstacles." She shuddered a bit. "But that's still more dangerous, the racing obstacles are somewhat controlled at least."
The Slytherin chuckled at Maisie's question whether or not she was a racer. "Oh no. Back when the teams were first put together, I impulsively signed up to be captain. It was a pretty stupid decision, I'm not a good flyer at all. Duelling is my sport." And she had been feared. "But the team stuck with the name I gave it.", she added with a touch of pride.

The smile remained when Maisie told her about her first months at Hogwarts. "Oh, I did that too. Getting lost and signing up for sports- or well, the sport. When I was new at Hogwarts, there was only Quidditch as a sport and I immediately put down my name, despite being a terrible flyer. Looking back, it is good I never made it on the team, I would have probably hurt myself and the duelling club opened a year later. But you enjoy flying then?"