Crash Course in Greetings PV Anastasia B Closed

Anastasia had been having a rather rough morning before she'd gotten a bloody lip. She'd overslept and missed breakfast, nearly been late to her first class of the day, and had her seat stolen. She'd stayed after class and spoken to her professor to make sure she wasn't counted tardy, which had meant she was running late to her next class. Just lovely. The girl had hardly been a prefect for a month and she was already risking messing that up. She could absolutely not have a tardy right now. Between that and her detention first week of school, her parents would be even angrier at her than they were if it was humanly possible for people to be that angry. 

She'd been so worried about being late and what her parents would say if she was, that when she'd rounded a corner, she'd slammed into another girl and been knocked to the ground. Bloody hell, why did that keep happening to her? She hadn't said anything to the other girl. She hadn't really wanted to, and even if she had, the girl wouldn't stop apologizing long enough for Anastasia to get a word in edgewise. Normally, she would have just snapped at the girl, but today, Anastasia just didn't have her normal firey spirit and cutting wit. She was so stressed and overextended that she rather wanted to curl up and cry or just sleep until she felt better. 

Examining her injuries as the other girl chattered, she was irritated to find that, in addition to her bleeding lip, her hands were skinned and her right elbow was rather sore from landing on it. Just lovely. Icing on top of a simply lovely day. 

When the girl finally stopped talking, the Gryffindor glanced up at her and sighed. She wasn't sure why, but she just wasn't in the mood to snap at this girl. She held the cloth she'd been given to her lip for a moment before speaking. "Honestly, please stop apologizing. I was just as much at fault as you and frankly, it's getting a bit irritating," she said, her voice missing its normal confidence. She bit her lip and then regretted it. She'd snapped at someone else for apologizing too much and that had hurt that girl's feelings. Hopefully, since her tone was far gentler at the moment, this girl would take it differently. 

"I'm Anastasia, like the Russian princess," she told the other girl. She smirked a bit when she mentioned the princess because that was not who she was named after and it quite annoyed her parents when people asked if she was. She was named after several older relatives, but Anastasia rather liked the princess better. "Just out of curiosity, why did your parents name you December?"

She was glad to hear the silence break as the girl spoke, as she was just relieved that she could stop chattering in her anxiety-ridden panic. Past her adrenaline, she was feeling her hands string from the small cuts on her palm, as well as her knee hurting as well. This wasn't her first time in the nurse's ward this past month and it wouldn't be the last. She had been known as quite a klutz, and she had overheard them always joking about her string of bad luck recently.

As soon as Anastasia told her to stop apologizing , she was glad to feel a little more relieved. "I-I understand. I a-am glad to see you're o-okay though," her voice was soft as her flush was still pale against her face, but not as bad as it normally was. She wasn't sure if it was just because she was glad that she was talking to her, although her guilt sat in her stomach. She definitely did not mean to interrupt this girl's day, although she didn't end up seeming like she was in quite a rush in this moment. She smiled slightly when the girl compared herself to a princess, glad to hear that she wasn't the only one with a name on the stranger side. "T-that's a beautiful n-name," she was still stuttering, her Scottish accent strong but she spoke slowly enough so she was still understandable. "A-are you a p-princess?" She couldn't imagine what kind of royalty a girl with such a strong voice came from, or if there was any royalty at Hogwarts.

She shifted so she could look at her hands, the new scars joining a few smaller old ones. All from previous accidents, her fault these last coming weeks. She couldn't help but be such a klutz and she cursed herself for it. "U-um.... D-december is uh.... my mother's favorite month. M-my father is.. Winter Faust. He's f-from a long line of wizards and... he doesn't like winter b-but December is h-his favorite word," her voice was faltering the more she talked, a soft and gentle lull. Although she was normally shy, she was the most she had spoken in the last few weeks, to anyone. Ironically, although this was such a stressful situation, this was the most at ease December had felt with conversation since her time coming to Hogwarts.

She even had enough energy to finally bring her eyes up from her lap, her blue eyes looking at the edge of Anastasia's robes. Red. Gryffindorshe noted in her head, feeling glad. She almost felt relieved that she had bumped into a girl from the house of red, rather than one from her own house. All she had experienced was teasing and manipulation with the people from her own house and she was finally glad to be having a more normal conversation. "W-where were you going t-t-today? Before I-I bumped into y-you..." her voice held curiosity, hoping she didn't interrupt something important.

Anastasia laughed a bit when the girl asked if she was a princess. She'd been mistaken for nobility at least three different times in the past few months, but she still found it rather amusing. Her parents would have been proud to hear it. Maybe not proud exactly, but mildly pleased. It would have been one of the only things she'd done in her time at Hogwarts that her parents approved of. She set her jaw as she resolved not to think about her parents right then. They were quite irritated with her, and she owed them a letter, so that was not a pleasant subject to dwell on.

"Not a princess," Anastasia said, smiling faintly. Despite the fact that Anastasia generally couldn't stand people who were overly shy, she didn't dislike this girl just yet. It was probably because of her generally tired mood, but she just didn't have the energy to start yet another feud. She could think of at least four people who wanted to punch her, just off the top of her head, but only two who she actually considered friends. Sure, she was generally fairly nice, but she needed more friends if she was going to keep making enemies at the rate she was going. Not that she wished to be friends with any of her enemies, she just figured maybe going around snapping at everyone she found vaguely irritating wasn't the best course of action. 

She listened to the other girl explain her name and nodded. She'd thought it was something along those lines. It wasn't like people went around naming their children after their least favorite month. Well, she could picture her parents doing something like that, but generally, she assumed most people didn't do that. 

"I was just heading to History of Magic. It's no great loss though, I already read the textbook, so I shouldn't be too affected by missing a bit of class. What about you?" Anastasia replied. dabbing at her lip again. The bleeding had slowed, but she couldn't the coppery taste of blood out of her mouth. Now that she was a bit more at ease with her surroundings, she took to examining the other girl. Her robes indicated that she was a Slytherin, although Anastasia would have guessed differently. The redhead seemed nice enough if quite a bit on the shy side. Depending on how the conversation went, maybe potential friend or project material. 

Her thoughts wandered, and she let them for just a moment. She was sick of thinking about her parents and what they would or wouldn't think about what she did at Hogwarts. Sure, she had done some things that were more foolish than not, but she'd also managed to get all O's on all of her homework and become a prefect in her first year! What parents wouldn't be proud? Other than hers, that was. She sighed and forced herself back to the present. 

December was... well.. glad. She was glad to see the girl laugh as well as to smile. It was almost a giant relief as she could just... well... almost feel at ease for another point of her week. "I-I'm... more than beyond relieved to well... hear you're not missing anything important," her voice was strong in pitch, with smaller stutters and stronger pronunciation as she smiled, looking at Anastasia. "I-I was well... on the run to my dorm between classes. And now I'm missing History of Magic as well. No big loss," her shrug was relaxed as she then smiled at the girl. "I-It's a big class. I wouldn't be surprised if we just... well.. missed each other." she was genuine before her eyes lit up, leaning over to her bag which lay on the pillow.

She searched through her bag, looking through her mountain of papers before finding a small pile, flipping through them before standing up and walking next to Anastasia. She stood, her knees still sore and bruised but she put the papers next to the girl, smiling broadly.

"H-History of Magic is actually my favorite lesson! It's all of my favorite stuff, I take notes for every reading!" her attitude had flipped, her excitement real as she pointed to the highlighted sections. "These things in yellow? All important," she pointed to a the smaller writing beneath each header. "Each of these are things that are the really important parts and well.... the doodles on the side are just... doodles," her voice got sheepish as the little doodles of historical scenes filled small parts of the margin, precise and small as her handwriting. "You can have these notes... I don't really need them..,"

"I-If you ever need help catching up, I'm usually well... on top of things. I keep to myself mostly because well... m-my house doesn't like me and.... w-w-well I don't uh.... k-know anyone," her voice faltered hard as it got quieter, her face more red as she did her best not to just... well... start sobbing again. If there was an award for 'well you almost didn't cry this week but look, you did it for the fifth day in the row', she would have about four of those.

Anastasia's dark eyes examined the other girl as she spoke. This girl seemed rather mild-mannered compared to the kind of person she was used to and she was nothing at all like Anastasia's parents. A surprising number of people had been like that. Before Hogwarts, she had only ever been exposed to people who acted and thought just as her parents did and just how her parents wanted her to think. She still wasn't exactly sure what she thought about her parents and their views, but she was beginning to realize that things definitely weren't as black and white as her parents made them out to be. 

Anastasia didn't like that idea a bit. She loathed uncertainty and preferred things to be clear and clean cut. People and ideas were either good or bad, end of story. That was how she had gone about things for as long as she could remember and it had worked. Until she had gotten to Hogwarts anyway. She bit her lip as she forced herself back to the present. Now wasn't the time to rethink her entire worldview.

She looked intently at the girl's papers as she pulled them out. It looked nothing like Anastasia's precise, colorless pages of notes. She couldn't imagine ever doodling on her notes. Her mother had taken care of Anastasia's education until she had been old enough for Hogwarts, which meant her mother graded and critiqued all of Anastasia's work including notes. "Your notes are quite lively," Anastasia said, smiling a bit. Back home, when something was called "lively", it normally wasn't positive, but Anastasia really did mean it as a compliment. She rather thought it would make her late night study sessions a bit more interesting if they weren't quite so pristine. 

She tensed a little at the offer of help before kicking herself a little. The girl didn't mean it as an insult or anything, she was just trying to be kind and Anastasia needed to work on accepting that."Maybe we could study together sometime. I'm fairly good about staying ahead of things, but I know that I work far better when I'm working with someone," Anastasia said, smiling brightly. "If you don't mind my asking, what makes you say your house doesn't like you?"