Seriously? PV Cassandra Hartwin Closed

Word Count: 437

Cassandra had almost not noticed the boxes as she wandered into the Great Hall early in the morning. In fact, it's very likely she would have never noticed the boxes if it wasn't for the fact that she had almost run straight into the Ravenclaw table close to where one of the boxes laid. She had been lost in thought thinking about class assignments and her schedule for the day that she had very much tuned out everything around her until she had just barely missed the table. It was probably kind of a miracle she hadn't run into anything else on her way to the Great Hall.

Quickly coming back to reality she looked at the box and realized what it was. She had vaguely remembered hearing that for Valentine's Day there would be boxes for people to put notes into.

Valentines Day, a day of love and inevitable stress, or at least that had always been her understanding of it all. Admittedly, she had never been the biggest fan of the holiday. Of course, most of her memories of the holiday had been in school when they would hand valentines out and she would always be the one person to never get any which wasn't exactly surprising but didn't particularly help. Her other memory was the one year one of her sisters had come home from school heartbroken because a boy had rejected her so that was probably mainly why she wasn't particularly a fan of the holiday.

Looking around at all the boxes she supposed that perhaps the anonymity and less direct contact might help there to be more notes. However, she figured there would still inevitably be people who received nothing and number of those people would feel down in the dumps because of it.

Sighing slightly she decided she would now actually find a place to sit for the morning and eventually found a seat across from a young girl who looked about her age with brown hair who appeared to be knitting something. Cassandra figured the girl was probably a first year like her, second year at the oldest and sat down quietly. Looking at what the girl was knitting she was curious as to what she was knitting and if perhaps if it was for Valentine's Day. She knew people occasionally would give handmade gifts so she was curious if that was the purpose or if she was simply knitting for fun. "Is that for a Valentine's gift," she asked quietly, hoping her voice was loud enough for the girl to hear as her curiosity got the better of her.

Knit and purl—it was an easy, simple rhythm. In many ways, she prefered cross stitch, but knitting gave her access to another technique and in some ways felt more portable. There was no risk of spools of thread running loose outside her bag. No, this is nice, substantial worsted yarn. And she was making decent progress on it—probably about three dozen rows by now.

Placing the scarf on the table and reaching for some pumpkin juice, she heard a question. "Is that for a Valentine's gift?" came a quiet voice across the table. And at that she nearly spit out the juice. "No," she said, shaking her head, "Definitely not."

It took a minute to swallow and clean her face with a napkin. When she regained her breath and some composure, she looked across at a young ginger girl, about her age. They must have passed in the common room at some point, but there were so many people in Ravenclaw. It was no matter really; she seemed harmless, if a bit shy. "It's just for me, or maybe I'll send it back home," she mused. In truth, she often started projects just to practice. And maybe even because it reminded her of life at home.

"It's all a bit silly, don't you think?" she said gesturing to the boxes and other decor. She fully expected blowback to this controversial opinion and that was okay. Some people needed validation. Maisie was determined to find something different.

@Cassandra Hartwin

Word Count: 276

She felt herself shrink back slightly as she watched the girl across from her wipe her face. Cassandra wasn't sure if she had scared the girl or had simply asked such a ridiculous question that that was why the girl had almost seemingly lost her pumpkin juice. Either way, she felt as though it probably wasn't a great start to a conversation and tapped her fingers nervously against her leg.

Once the girl was done she responded with her possible intentions for the knitted item to which Cassandra at this point believed it was probably the makings of a scarf. She nodded slightly in response, and looked down slightly at her lap, possibly to avoid eye contact but mostly because she wasn't quite sure to how to respond.

That's when the girl asked about how silly it all seemed to be and Cassandra's eyes raised back to watch as the girl gestured to the boxes and Valentine's decor around the Great Hall. "Oh um...," she started, gathering herself as she tried to think about how to respond. This sentiment had slightly caught her off-guard as she had never really met anyone who would have considered it to be silly or at the least admit to it. But, she supposed that perhaps the girl's initial reaction to her question made slightly more sense if she was also not particularly all for Valentine's Day and someone had thought she was making something for the event.

"I do think it's all kind of silly actually, it's... a lot," she continued, looking at the decorations that lined the Great Hall, "I quite look forward to this all being finished already."

"Oh um..."

She was quiet—the girl across the way. In fact, Maisie wasn't sure if she'd encountered a peer quite as quiet. They're been that one girl at Halloween who'd seemed extremely unsure so much so that she'd trailed off words, but this felt different. It was more like she didn't know how to begin rather than how to end.

Maisie ran a napkin across her place again for good measure. But eventually, the girl did speak: "I do think it's all kind of silly actually, it's... a lot. I quite look forward to this all being finished already."

Her eyebrows raised slightly, surprised. "Me too," she said with a nod. And for a second she put the needles down and stretched over the table to extend a hand. "I'm Maisie," she introduced herself, trying not to dirty her robes somewhat haphazardly, "Probably passed you in the common room at some point." It was embarrassing in some ways how many people in her own house she didn't know, but it was a big school.

And one more person who saw through the ridiculousness of all this was someone she'd want to add to her rolodex. "Just if someone's cool, I tell them. I don't need a day or a bunch of balloons and boxes to get me to tell them, you know?" she asked. There was of course too, what the girl had pointed out: the very plain fact that this was simply too much pink hoopla.

@Cassandra Hartwin

Word Count: 269

The girl across from her introduced herself and Cassandra took note of her name, hoping she would remember it. Slowly, she got up slightly and carefully took Maisie's hand in her own and shook it slightly. "I'm Cassandra, it's nice to make your acquaintance," she introduced herself slowly pulling her hand back and sitting back down.

Maisie was probably right that the two of them had very likely passed each other in the common room at one point or another but the amount of people who went to the school was crazy compared to what she had been used to. School size aside, the pure amount of people just in the Ravenclaw house alone was enough to make Cassandra dizzy.

Her focus snapped back to Maisie as she began to speak again and Cassandra nodded in agreement to what she said. She felt as though if you needed to write something and indirectly tell someone that you liked them, romantic or not, then maybe you didn't really like them. She supposed maybe things were different if a person's feelings towards another were romantic but she didn't really know why there had to be a whole day dedicated to it.

"Yes, I think there are better ways to express one's affections to another person. The boxes and indirect messages makes it less... sincere I think," she expressed her opinions, looking around the room again at all the bright pink decorations. As she looked at the pink roses she very quietly said, almost not thinking, "Besides... I think there are far prettier flowers that could be used to portray one's affections."

She was polite and quiet, the other girl, but she had ideas: "...makes it less... sincere I think."

"Exactly," Maisie replied eagerly to her new acquaintance, Cassandra. A smile came over her as she looked the girl in the eye. It was weird, even in this quiet voice, she'd somehow found an ally. "Why don't I know you?" she blurted out. The intention was not to be rude or anything, but rather just surprise. There were people she did know fairly well but who were thorns in her side like Saunders. To find a kindred spirit, that shouldn't have taken so long, even if their house was huge.

"Besides... I think there are far prettier flowers that could be used to portray one's affections."

"Ha," she let out a little laugh as she picked up her knitting needles again. "I think it's the pink. It's an overwhelming color," she mused, "There's got to be a spell for that, not that I wouldn't mind replacing them entirely." There were so many spells, she was learning as a duellist, but in many ways Maisie leaned on her muggle roots. Besides the problem here wasn't so much the flowers here as the idea. She took another swig of her pumpkin juice before continuing on this row.

@Cassandra Hartwin

Word Count: 277

Cassandra jumped slightly in her seat as Maisie suddenly asked why she didn't know her, a question she could very easily answer. Besides just the enormous amount of students who went to school here and were in their house, she hadn't exactly made a huge effort to interact with anyone. Sure she had met a few people at this point but they had all pretty much interacted with her first.

Before she could answer Maisie though, the young girl quickly switched back to the topic of the decorations. She certainly agreed that the pink, or at least the shade was a bit jarring and certainly wouldn't mind all the decorations being replaced. She personally thought that the Great Hall was quite beautiful by itself and didn't particularly need any extra decorations but what did she know.

"Yes, the pink is a bit jarring and I'm sure there has to be a spell to change the color. After all, there seems to pretty much be a spell for everything so having a spell that could change the color of something surely has to exist," she commented, thinking about what she had read in her textbooks. She knew what they had learned in classes was just the tip of the iceberg so she couldn't possibly imagine how many other spells existed out in the world.

"As for us not knowing each other... I don't really know that many people nor have I really interacted with many people so I don't think it's super surprising that we haven't met or interacted," she told Maisie, tapping her fingers on her legs once again as she watched the girl continue to knit.

Her eyes went slightly wide as Cassandra jumped. It had never been her intention to frighten the girl, but rather to just make conversation. But things settled back in place without too much effort.

"It's probably a Transfiguration of some kind. That would make sense, changing one color to another," she postured, "or maybe a Charm." Perhaps she was just biased towards Charms, which was certainly a class she prefered and excelled in. The exact theory of the disciplines seemed elusive at times.

As they talked, Maisie knew she must have seen the girl in the common room or class, but it was just odd when this girl's views were so refreshing. But apparently Cassandra kept to herself, which honestly wasn't that surprising for a Ravenclaw. Maisie suspected most of the house was introverted—or, if Mylo had their way, responsible.

"Right, well, I'm glad to meet you," Maisie said with a smile as she continued some garter stitch. She was feeling a bit fuller by now and she wanted to get to class soon if only to get out of this pink madness, but she was glad to meet Cassandra. If nothing else, the girl had proven that she was sane in a world convinced that love and kindness should only be honored once a year.

"What's your first class?" she asked, trying to make conversation.

@Cassandra Hartwin
Want to wrap this up soon? Sorry for the delay!