Budding Blooms PV Luna Choi Finished

Spring was coming, which meant it was time to say goodbye to winter. Letting out a sigh, Luna stopped looking at the sky and jumped off the tree. She didn't climb too high back then, it was safe to jump off. Why was she outside when everyone was still eating breakfast? Well then, please answer this question first. Why was the fresh air so attracted? Oh and, why couldn't she being outside when everyone was eating breakfast? Yes, it was not too hard to notice that this was a beautiful morning, even though being able to know how outside was from the Slytherin Common Room was kind of impossible. Instead of staying in the library or somewhere in Hogwarts, she wanted to go outside more.

Sitting there until class started didn't sound like a bad idea, but she didn't want to. Ray, her lovely cat, really loved flowers, and she wanted to do something for him. He was being a nice friend to her and made her less bored in some ways. It was not too hard to find flowers in spring, and she was pretty sure that there were some flowers on the grounds too. Actually, if you wanted to see beautiful flowers, just went to the Herbology class. That would be what she suggested but, bringing pets to the classes was breaking the rule. Sneaking in? No thank you, that was not something she would do.

If she picked up some flowers, he would probably be really sad... So knowing she just wanted to know where to see beautiful flowers and bring him there next time. So the question now was going to the right path or the left? ...Maybe left, she didn't want to go visit the Whomping Willow and face something "funny" there. Last time was tired enough,

Unlike what Luna expected, there was someone else here. She knew that she should check the Marauder's Map before coming, but she accidentally left the map in the girl's dorm. Luna was pretty sure, she wouldn't forget it next time... Or at least that was what she hoped. So, what was this girl doing? Twirling and singing, what a lively girl, although she looked like an... well, idiot right now. Let's get back to what she was actually going to do. The flowers here were alright. We had blue flowers but we didn't have blue roses. But maybe Ray would still accept these... not to mention, the girl looked kind of familiar. Had they met before? She was not sure...

As Mari twirled and embraced bliss further, she was suddenly struck with a feeling of unease, perhaps dread. She had an eerie feeling that she, once alone in her joy, was now being watched. She dropped the basket in surprise and looked, dazed, as the spinning world tried to right itself once more.

"H-hello?" She uttered feebly. Lately, Hogwarts had unearthed a series of miserable events that she wished she could forget about. Most of them related to Mari being...well, Mari, but occasionally a knife jabbed itself in there. Though most of the events had any direct relation to snakes, her stomach dropped as she eyed the green-clad girl. Someone had been watching her. That someone had been a snake.

She picked up the basket clumsily, dropping it once more before it returned to its proper position in her hand. It was during these antics that her mind reconciled just where she had seen the girl previously. The party. Mari could not forget the purple-hue of this girl; it was, after all, quite unusual, even for a witch. She could not say the same about herself; Mari was quite average. However, Mari did have quite an unusual presentation of herself at that dreaded party: deciding, for once, to be a rebel and attend a social event, Mari had scurried to the dungeons to await her fate, only to determine that no matter how badly she wanted Lucy's approval, three prefects was a terrifying presence for a girl who refused to toe the line. She had instead rushed out of the party, making herself appear to be a blubbering fool to all bystanders.

And now, here this girl was...Choi, was it? The prefects had all referred to each other by their last names while at the party, so Mari could not place the first name of the girl. All the same, she remembered quite a nasty person. Choi hadn't been kind to that Bezu girl that day. As much as Mari wanted to believe that Choi had been having a bad day when they had first met, her prejudices had gotten the better of her; Mari had no hope for this girl to express kindness, especially once she had caught Mari in a fairly embarrassing situation. There had been a reason that Mari had wanted to embrace Spring in the early hours.

Alas, though. As much as Mari's mum had gotten on her about how awful the Slytherin snakes were, she had also enforced that Mari must be kind to prefects. ("They can make or break your entire career at Hogwarts, you know!" She had expounded one morning, shortly before term.) As much as Mari wanted to yell and scream at the girl for interrupting her one moment of peace, one of the few moments that she had had all term, she resorted to pure resignation and instead decided on: "Come to enjoy Spring as well, have you?"

Her face reddened as she looked downward at the solitary bloom in her basket. This situation would be better if she had been dancing with many flowers, instead of just one. Quite honestly, Mari looked pathetic. She hoped that she at least looked pathetic enough that the girl would show her some mercy...

"...Hello." Luna didn't expect that the girl would realize she was here that fast. She meant, wasn't the girl still spinning around a few minutes back then? She had to be quite sensitive to realize that the Slytherin was here. Was there a reason? Or was the Hufflepuff like that from the start? Who knew, she wasn't interested in finding the answer to it either. She didn't know this girl and didn't have any reason to be against her.

Luna's lavender eyes followed the Hufflepuff's hand when she was doing some stuff with the basket. That might be a way to help her think clearly? Or help her feel less embarrassed, although the Slytherin doubted that there was something to make the girl felt that way unless she was a shy one of course.

"Well, not really." Her favorite season was winter, not spring. She liked the snowflakes, and she had never felt uncomfortable of the cold. Besides, people usually preferred to stay at home, finding where they were at was easier and, she could spend more times with her family. "But saying that spring is not great will be a lie. I can not deny the beauty of it and I will not."

Of course Luna noticed how the girl looked right now. Decided to make her voice a bit gentler, only a bit though, she said without showing any reaction on her face. "Continue whatever you are doing. I didn't come here to judge you. And Miss, if you take the flowers, I agree that you will be the person who owns them. But you might not know, they will die quicker than when you leave them in nature. It is only your choice." After saying those, Luna turned her gaze to the flowers and acted like she was ignoring the Hufflepuff, even though she was still listening to the girl.

Mari eyed the girl suspiciously. What was she doing here, of all places? She wondered to herself. It wasn't really that she doubted the girl, nor was she in a particularly isolated spot, it was just curious to her that Choi had happened upon Mari in this situation. Mari tended to be alone, rarely interacting with other students in the ways she watched her peers. She often felt unnoticed; yet, in a situation where it probably would have been better for her to remain unnoticed, she was found.

It was very unfortunate.

Much to her surprise, though, Choi seemed to not give a rat's behind about what Mari was doing, instead commenting that she could continue what she was doing. She furthermore said, "And Miss, if you take the flowers, I agree that you will be the person who owns them. But you might not know, they will die quicker than when you leave them in nature. It is only your choice."

Mari didn't quite know what to make of this statement, but she spoke as if she did: "I know they would look better if I left them here, and I don't particularly care who owns them, but I just really want to show them to my sisters. Lucy's eleven and will come to Hogwarts next year, and she's just so excited to see, and I just want to make her happy; Grace is six, and she just likes flowers. Well. She likes unicorns more, but I'd like to think flowers are a close second."

She always spoke a little too much. After months at Hogwarts, Mari still had not learned how to be succinct in her statements, especially when she was uncomfortable. Choi had stumbled upon her in one of her most vulnerable moments: unabashed bliss. Mari just wanted to keep her joy to herself.

But Choi had given her "permission," of sorts, to keep going, and Mari felt kind of obligated to do so. She resumed her skipping, self-conscious and awkwardly, and hummed, though it was quite quiet and obvious she didn't want the girl there, even if her eyes were supposedly averted. Mari couldn't help but sense the girls' presence, even if her back was towards Choi. Her heart sinking, she thought, The joy is gone...

With perfect timing to her diminishing emotions, she tripped and fell, basket splaying five feet from her. Mari's face reddened to resemble the tomato soup she had had for the lunch prior. She jolted upward and gathered her basket, brushing the dirt off of her robes as she ventured the five feet's distance and hoping that Choi hadn't noticed. Attempting to brush off the emotional damage of the fall as quickly as the physical damage, Mari immediately turned downward and picked another three flowers, adding them to her now-empty basket. Divert, divert; maybe she didn't see you, maybe you can convince her that was intentional, her brain told her. A small tear forming in her eye - this was not how she had envisioned this adventure ending up - she turned back toward Choi and murmured in a false-confident voice, "Sometimes you have to get closer to see which one's are best. But I was wondering - even if we've picked them, do we truly own the flowers? Aren't they still owned by the earth?"

She looked downward and tried to wipe the tear smoothly and with hopes that the girl had not noticed. It wasn't the best distraction from her stumble, but Mari hoped that the girl somehow had missed her accident or even believed her lie of its intention. She wasn't the greatest liar or the most confident individual, but maybe luck would, for once, be on her side.

"Take pictures," Right after the Hufflepuff talked about her sisters, Luna gave her these two words. With the fact that she had a little brother who loved nature, she could understand what the other girl meant. The pictures could move, so just taking pictures was enough, at least for her.

Picking up flowers weren't breaking any rules, so everything would only depend on the young badger's will. If she really just wanted to show her sisters the flowers, taking pictures would be the best suggestion. And if she just used that as an excuse to take the flowers... Oh well.

Seriously, what? Realizing that the Hufflepuff girl felt uncomfortable wasn't hard, not at all. She said that to make her feel comfortable, not like this. Looking away, Luna let out another sigh and decided to leave. After all, she just wanted to see the flowers, and... she didn't want to ruin the young badger's fun.

But before she could leave, the Slytherin heard what the girl said to her. She turned her gaze back on the Hufflepuff and answered. "Sadly, no. Although you pick them and bring them to your house or anywhere, they will be faded quickly. Ev-"

Crying.

That girl was crying, for sure. Although she was trying to hide it of course. Luna almost let out another sigh, thinking about how annoyed she felt right now. However, her voice became more gently although she didn't realize, "Even though you pick them, their souls and spirits still belong to the earth. At least, that's what I think." God, she didn't know why the girl was crying. But to be fair, even if she knew, she couldn't make her stop. She just didn't know how to make another person stopped crying...

As much as she wanted to answer Choi, Mari could not find the words. "Take pictures," she said, as if it were that easy. "Take pictures," as if everyone was fortunate enough to own such a device. "Take pictures," as if Mari had actually grown up in a normal, pureblooded household which did not have family members who cringed at the slightest mention of "Hogwarts" or "magic."

No. It wasn't that easy. She could tell the girl that, but the fact that she only said these words, after all the words that had spilled out of Mari's mouth, made her feel quite awkward. Not to mention the fact that she was a Slytherin, a group of people that Mari was inherently prejudiced against. So she had skipped, instead.

Until she fell, and she tried to save herself, and she just felt the tears coming and suddenly the girl was talking to her again and Mari couldn't just keep her mouth shut much longer. Panic-stricken, eyes welling more and more, her hair a mess from the tumble, she still managed to stare at the girl, taking in her words many seconds after she had spoken.

The girl was far wiser than she had expected. If she weren't a wizard, perhaps she'd be a poet or a philosopher or someone who researched minds. Mari didn't understand entirely what the Department of Mysteries was, but she had read a few snippets about them on Daily Prophets left behind. Nothing informative, of course. Only circumstantial. Choi was about as enigmatic as the department's workers, though perhaps not quite as elusive.

Of course, she hadn't meant to tell Choi this, much preferring to leave such wild thoughts inside. Like a balloon releasing air, however, it all came out, while a few solitary tears still trickled down her cheeks: "Have you considered working at the Department of Mysteries?"

No context. Just this. She hadn't planned to begin this conversation, after all; her mouth was in greater control than her mind on this topic. She fought to re-engage herself, but the only other topic that came to mind was that of the camera. It was a topic from a significant period of time before, but far less strange than talking about an acquaintance's career goals, so Mari murmured, "I...don't have one. A camera, that is."

This conversation was far more uncomfortable than she could have imagined. Time after time, Mari entered awkward interaction after awkward interaction, thinking that conversations could only get better, but they always felt worse. Sometimes she wished Lucy was already at Hogwarts so she could go back to being her shadow, not having to speak and letting the younger girl assert her dominance in the situation. But alas, Lucy was still months away from beginning her Hogwarts education. She was left to navigate how to be a proper twelve-year-old by herself.

Wiping her eyes, as the tears had slowed enough to do so, though the consistent welling in her eyes still allowed a few solitary tears to escape, Mari realized she did not know if Choi knew her name. Maybe, then, they could just pretend the conversation had started there, instead of all this mess, like a redo button. If only that existed in the wizarding world. She extended a hand and with a neutral expression befalling her face, said softly, "I don't know if you remember meeting me. I'm Mari."

Like a redo button, so you must stop crying. She didn't want to, of course; she wanted to just be left alone, in her feelings, forgetting the scene she had stumbled, quite literally, into. But it was too late. Whether or not the girl took her hand, afterwards, Mari would squeeze her eyes shut to evict any last teardrops, wipe her eyes once more, and hope Hogwarts possessed enough magic to let her redo dreams work.

Luna looked at the girl near her, wondered why she asked that. Did It just come from nowhere? Or did she say something related to that which led the Hufflepuff to this thought? The lavender hair tried to remember what she had just said. If she wasn't wrong, she suggested that girl take pictures of flowers instead of picking them up. And she gave the Hufflepuff the answer to the question... It seemed like the Hufflepuff asked her that because of her answer. To be fair, she didn't know how to answer this question. She was still not sure about which job to do in the future, after all, Luna was still an eleven-year-old kid. Even when she acted mature most of the time, there was still some stuff that she couldn't answer, like this one. From what she read about the "Unspeakable", the people who worked in the Ministry of Magic's Department of Mysteries, this was quite a mysterious job. She guessed that it was kind of dangerous as well, though it sounded like an interesting job.

Anyway, this was not time to think about future job and stuff like that. She still did not know which job to do so maybe she just had to do well in all the subjects at school. Getting all Os sounded a bit too much, so her target was just getting good grades. What mattered right now was, Luna focused on the Hufflepuff again, an answer for this girl. "It's none of your business..." She let out a sigh and mumbled, enough for the other girl to hear. There were a lot of answers she could give to the girl, but she decided to choose the meanest one. She was not going to give up at being mean yet.

Right, she forgot that whoever this girl was, might not have a camera. Luna almost suggested her to ask one of her friends but in the end, she didn't. Why? Because there was a question popped up on her head. Anyone could think of that solution even this girl she believed. And then it came to another question: But why didn't she ask? Maybe... because she didn't have any friends? Because she was shy so that she didn't want to? That would make a lot of sense.

The Slytherin prefect didn't have a camera either. Money and family was not the problem, the problem was she didn't have any reasons to have one. She didn't like taking pictures, and Ray didn't like to be in a photograph. Her little brother had a camera, though she didn't know this girl that much to let her borrow something from her brother. She might let her borrow if it was her camera, but it wasn't.

Luna stayed silent, looking at Mari dealt with the tears. But after a while, she couldn't keep being silent anymore. "Don't be a crybaby. You are already this old." She didn't find this annoying. Her fellow college, Nico Shymane, was a bit of a crybaby as well, and she had already spent a lot of times with her. However, they needed to be more mature as fast as they could. At least, that was her opinion.

She looked at Mari with the doubtful eyes. Now it all made sense. The reason why she thought the name sounded familiar, the reason why she thought she had met Mari before. But for some reason, Luna couldn't remember where. Or maybe she didn't want to remember about it? "Hm... Yeah, I don't. My name is Luna, Luna Choi." She should tell this girl her name first. Although the Hufflepuff didn't tell her the last name, as a polite person, Luna still did it.

Remember when she said she was going to stop crying? She didn't. Now, though, she was crying and angry. While some people could say that fire and water don't mix, Mari was making it work. Or, rather, Choi and gravity were making it work. Choi was, after all, the one who was being quite rude for no apparent reason, and gravity...well, that was the whole reason the tears had started in the first place. Amazing how wizards still can't conquer gravity and simple errors like falling.

Let's backtrack, though. It wasn't, after all, instantaneous that Mari experienced anger. Only a mere afterthought of annoyance occurred when Choi told Mari that it was "none of her business" as to whether or not she had considered a career in the Department of Mysteries. Although Mari had already had a questionable opinion in regards to the kindness of Choi, she had to admit that the question had been quite strange to begin with. Not many people answered a statement about "taking pictures" with career advice. Especially when that person was a mere twelve years of age. A typical Mari would completely internally chastised herself, in light of Choi's response, for the question in the first place, but just as she was about to give herself a lecture, she recalled their first interaction.

There had been a party, one that Mari chose to attend in a split second decision. When that decision turned into reality, Mari had realized that parties were for rebels and friends, not loners. She immediately regretted her decision. Unfortunately for her, the people she had decided to talk to were prefects. Angry prefects, out to get the party-goers in trouble, whether they had gone on a whim or in an idiotic move. The three were prefects (two verified; Mari could only assume the third had associations, at the very least) that seemed to be so angry that they turned on each other. Mari had not gotten in trouble, thankfully (though Lucy was quite disappointed, when she recounted the experience in an owl) but still felt a sense of unease whenever she remembered the interaction. Particularly, due to her hatred of Slytherins, she felt the unease most when she imagined the two Slytherin girls, arguing with that poor, innocent Gryffindor girl. Mum had told Mari that she owed the Gryffindor her life, and Mari had taken that exaggeration to heart. She trusted Bezu far more than she trusted Choi and the other, unnamed snake.

All this to say that this past history influenced the present. Without the metaphorical scars of that horrible, embarrassing party, Mari would have apologized quickly for asking Choi the question in the first place. Instead, she bristled at the "none of your business" comment and stared silently, fingering her arm as though she actually had scars to remember. Tears still ran down her cheeks. Lots of them.

Speaking of tears, it seemed that Choi didn't like them. Of course, seemed isn't much of a stretch, as Choi had, in fact, said, "Don't be a crybaby. You are this old." If Mari had any control over her tears, she would have cried more just to be annoying; luckily, the insult struck her in a way that crying more just happened, whether she wanted it to or not. Steady streams ran down her cheeks as she now visibly glared at the girl and muttered, "Why are you so mean...?"

She would have said more, but Choi had decided to give herself a proper introduction. Though the statement was the kindest thing she had said, the fact that this girl didn't even have the decency to remember her set Mari over the edge in a way that she had only seen a few times before. Was that why she had not gotten detention? Because the snake couldn't bother to remember her, even though they had had a conversation, albeit minor? In a normal state, Mari would have presumed that Choi had so many friends that a small Hufflepuff's nervous party interactions was unremarkable, but her mounting anger had lit a fire in her belly. Luna Choi was a witch all right. She charmed such an anger out of Mari that few had seen before.

"Yes, unlike some people, I have the decency to remember meeting others," she snarled, lips curling into a smile that resembled a possessed Jack O' Lantern. "But are you sure your name is Luna? Or have you forgotten that as well? Cause I seem to remember that it was actually..." She froze, trying to think of an insult that was more creative than "mean." After a brief pause, when nothing else went through her head that was better, she settled on: "Fartface."

Could be better, could be worse. Mari didn't care; she was too livid to feel self-conscious. It was quite an unusual circumstance, indeed.

Well, this girl was a hundred percent a cry baby, and Luna should have realized that before came to talk to her. And look, how amazing! She caused herself in trouble, like a pro. Mary didn't stop crying but cried even harder. Okay, that was kind of her fault too, but for Merlin's sake, she didn't like dealing with people who were crying. Not to mention, she was not good with encouraging people. Pretty sure that she would just make them cried harder and harder, and this girl was the proof.

It took quite a long time for Mary to stop thinking and say something to her, of course, she still hadn't stopped crying. That wasn't the thing that Luna thought that girl would say. She felt great, and guilty at the same time. Being mean had always been what she really wanted to do, though seeing the Hufflepuff girl crying like this made her feel kind of guilty. Maybe, she should apologize to her. She could try to be mean in the future, couldn't she?

But before Luna could say anything, Mary interrupted her with those awful words that came from her mouth. And finally, she called the Prefect, Fartface. She bowed her head down, and her hair blocked the Hufflepuff to see her expression. That wasn't really Luna's intention, but she didn't want that girl to see how she felt right now. It looked like she was crying but sadly, she wasn't. Although she was still young, people could rarely see the lavender hair had tears on her eyes. First of all, she was a tough girl. Second, she hated crying in front of others. She wasn't smiling either, to be fair, how could anyone smile in this situation? She basically didn't let out any emotion on her face, but her mocking eyes did show how she felt. How sad, she was even going to apologize but seemed like it wasn't needed, was it?

And suddenly, she remembered everything about Mari, about how they first met. The girl who was afraid of the Slytherin Prefect and didn't trust her. The girl that ran away after realizing that she almost broke the rule. That student was also the girl who reminded Luna about her mother. And that girl was near her right now. Seriously, she didn't want to think about her family that much, she was kind of an adult already, and an adult won't think about their mother, in a party. Not to mention, she regretted going to that party, which was also why she didn't like hearing people mentioning it. If she wasn't wrong, she hadn't done anything to Mary after that day, but the Hufflepuff still disliked her. How "unfortunately".

Anyway, she should answer this girl instead of being quiet, shouldn't she? "Why am I so mean? Well then, why are you such, a cry baby? I don't know if you are a first year or a second one, but, don't you think you should learn how to control your emotion?" Luna looked straight into Mari's eyes and then snickered, "Oh my apologize, that might sound easy to others, but with a girl like you, I guess it is impossible." Forget that she wanted to help the Hufflepuff. Just forget it, there was no way she would do that. She wouldn't be pissed off like this if Mari didn't insult her. But well, she did, so now she had to face what she had done.

"Not wrong. Unlike some people," Luna repeated what Mari just said, but with a mocking voice, "my memory is pretty good unless it's because that person is too fuzzy and too painful to remember." She started to walk closer to Mari. She didn't do it because she wanted to, something in her said that she should do it. Maybe, it was because somehow Luna knew to be closer to a person whom she was arguing would make them pretty uncomfortable. "In your case, I guess... both? Oh, and of course, I'm not really surprised to see that your memory is a mess."