A Sweet Getaway

Ashwin took a seat after a table after ordering what he deemed a rather Muggle ice cream. However, his taste buds had betrayed him, and here he was, sitting with a nice mint chocolate chip cone. It was a privledge he could allow himself right now, seeing as his mother was steadily getting better, and she didn't appear so frail anymore.

He was reluctant to leave her, of course, but she insisted that he shop on his own. After all, she had said, you're only a first year once. He grimaced as he thought of his newfound freedom. If his mother was letting him off that easy, then maybe she wasn't healing right at all. But then again, he had such dreary thoughts. He really ought to get rid of those before school started. He took a couple bites of his ice cream before sighing.

Surely eating this would be better within the company of some peers. Ashwin looked around before shaking his head. No, they all appeared to be busy talking to others they met. He wouldn't bother them if he could help it.

Liz sighed, shaking her head at all the crowded tables. It always had to be at the ice cream parlor, didn't it? She had met Kyra here. She had seen Lachlan for the first time here. And she was probably going to meet someone else here today. She shook her head, sighing, before making her way carefully through the tables, searching for the least used one.

Within moments, she had tripped and hit the ground, barely salvaging her ice cream by holding it bit beyond her bag. Luckily, she hadn't been caring her bag that day, or all of it's contents would have spilled out. Still lying down, she turned her head to see a pushed-out chair and a boy in the chair next to it--he must have pushed it out just before she walked by. (OOC:Permission to past-tense GM Ash)

She blushed and stood, brushing herself off. "Er...hi," she said awkwardly, holding out a hand for him to shake. "Liz McCutney. Sorry for bothering you."

Ash looked up from his ice cream and turned to see a girl around his age. Maybe she was a year older though? Ah, he could never tell. He inwardly laughed as he caught her fall within the corner of his eye. He had accidentally kicked out that chair and he hadn't bothered to put it back.

At least it got him to meet someone. He held his ice cream with his left, shaking her outstretched hand with his right. "Ashwin Turner, I just go by Ash," he remarked smoothly, smiling at her. He hoped he wasn't too...what was the word? Non-friendly? He inwardly shrugged.

Truthfully, he had never gotten along with any of the kids when he was growing up and heading out to school because he had magic and they didn't. He hoped he wouldn't feel like an outcast here as well. "Sorry about...well the chair. Didn't mean to trip you or anything. And don't worry, it's not a bother. As you can see, well, there's no one to bother here with me anyway."

She heard him chuckling lightly at her and resisted the urge to glare. From the look of him, he was a first year and probably didn't know any better. Then again, she reasoned, age wasn't an excuse for rudeness. She sighed and mentally waved the thoughts away, outwardly smiling. "Nice to meet you, Ash," she agree. "If I'm not bothering you, mind if I take a seat? Everywhere else is crowded."

"It's alright," she assured him. "It happens all the time. My luck is not the best..." her smile turned a bit more sincere at his last comment. "You sound lonely. Need a friend?" she teased, slipping into the seat she had previously tripped over and taking a lick of her ice cream.

Ashwin laughed full out this time, wondering if he did indeed sound like the lonely boy most had perceived him as. "I guess I am a bit lonely," he admitted, shrugging to himself. "Normally it hadn't bothered me because well, I could do magic, and the other Muggle children couldn't."

He nodded to himself as he listened to her ask to sit, before dropping down in the seat without waiting for an answer. "Yes, help yourself to my table. The more the merrier I say."

He took a few more bites out of his ice cream before he continued. "And you trip over things all the time? For some reason, I really don't see that. Then again, that's just me. Anyway, what year are you in? You don't seem older, so I would have to guess at least third year or below."

Liz felt a small wave of accomplishment as he laughed--not at her this time, but at her joke. Considering how awkwardly anti-social Ash seemed, she deemed this a huge accomplishment and decided that she had finished her good deed of the day. "Nothing wrong with admitting that," she shrugged. "We are a lot different from muggles. Pureblood, then?" She naturally assumed from the fact that he didn't seem too comfortable or familiar with muggles.

She laughed a little as he responded after she sat. "You should practice what you preach," she mused. "You weren't exactly 'the more the merrier' before I came along, were you?"

Took another large lick of her ice cream and watched as he bit out of his. Somehow, she had never liked biting into ice cream--it made the taste over that much faster. "It's not always tripping. I've been tripped, startled, pushed, warned and quite a few other things." She nodded at his analysis. "Well, you're observant. Second year Ravenclaw--are you going to be a first year? Maybe we'll be in the same house."

"Halfblood actually," he remarked. "My mother's a pureblood, and my father..." Ash trailed off, screaming rather rude words in his head before he grinned slightly. "Never met him, but he's a bum anyway and I'd rather not have him in my life. All I know is that he was Muggle, so. Here I am."

Ashwin eyed the girl sitting next to him slightly. If she hadn't said she was a Ravenclaw before, he would have guessed it now. She was very perceptive about her surroundings, something that he really needed to work on. "I guess so," he finally said, shrugging. "Truthfully, I just expected to eat my ice cream and go. I really hadn't anticipated meeting anyone."

"As a second year?" He asked, surprised. Warned, pushed, tripped..? What kind of things went on in this magical school for witches and wizards? He wasn't sure he really wanted to find out. "Right, right. I'm one of the new kids. I've been looking into Ravenclaw for a house. It seems like the one that would fit me best."

Her eyebrows rose. Well, that explained why he was uncomfortable about muggles at the least. "Not all muggles are bad, though," she pointed out. "I know quite a few who aren't bad. You shouldn't judge them all just by one person." She was sure that this was a positively strange subject for a first conversation, but then, she wasn't exactly normal. No wizard or witch was.

She watched as he took her in carefully and felt the sudden need to stare at her feet or something of the sort; she compromise with herself by looking at her ice cream, which wasn't melting yet. Thank Wizard God for freezing charms. "Sorry 'bout that," she apologized again. "But everywhere else was taken, so I probably would've sat with you, anyway."

She smiled at the apprehensiveness in his voice. "Not all at Hogwarts," she assured him. "Just a quarter. The rest is at home, where my brother--worse luck than me, if you can believe it--is accurate-prone and tends to take me down with him." She nodded at his assessment of his own house. "Well, if you think you're a Raven, you probably are one. I could show you around if you want."

Ashwin nodded slowly. So maybe all Muggles weren't bums and ditched their kids before they were, or even after they were born. Ash knew he was probably being a little stereotypical about Muggles, but...he supposed Liz the Ravenclaw was right. And he definitely wouldn't think about grouping Muggleborns in with it. After all, they were magical too.

Ash bite into his ice cream a few more times, savoring the way it stayed cold even though it appeared it should be melting down into his hand. Must be magic. "No need to apologize," he finally said. "I appreciate the company, especially if I'm going into Hogwarts not knowing what I need to expect."

He listened with intrigue as she offered to show him around. Hogwarts did she mean? Or the Ravenclaw house, granted he got in? "I'd like that," he said, smiling slightly. "That way, I'll only get lost half of the time I'm there."

Liz watched as he frowned at his ice cream. He looked deep in thought, which cemented in her mind that he would be in Ravenclaw; he had the same quiet, thoughtful charm that Rowena had apparently held so dear. She idly licked her ice cream again, deep it thought herself, but on a different subject than he; what exactly was going through his head? she pondered. She couldn't tell.

She was dragged out of the contemplation, however, when he spoke, and her cheeks barely flushed. Did he think she was staring at him? Probably. "Well, glad to know I'm not a burden," she agreed conversationally. "I tend to meet a lot of people here. And don't worry, Hogwarts is easy to get used to. It's like a home away from home."

She laughed lightly at his joke. "You might get lost a little more than that," she admitted. "You get used to it, yes, but it's a very complicated place; trick stairs and doors pretending to be walls and walls pretending to be doors and all sorts of strange things." She beamed. "It's loads of fun to figure out, though, if you're up for a challenge."

A home away from a home? Ash's brows came together as he thought about that. No, he didn't want to treat Hogwarts as a home. His home was with his mother, who was currently, according to her, 'on the mend.' However, Ash knew more than she thought he knew. It was serious, and he couldn't do a thing to stop it.

He glared at the table slightly before resuming the mask of politeness he had adopted from his childhood. "This place seems really busy. I guess it's easy to meet a lot of people in here." He took some more bites out of his ice cream, surprised when he didn't get the brain freeze he was used to when he ate Muggle food that was cold. Another magical trick he supposed.

"I'll end up finding some type of hidden passageway and never finding my way out," he murmured, shaking his head with a grin. "That would be just my luck, but I never back down from a challenge. Especially one from a giant magical castle. That would be very cowardly."

Liz watched his expression change, working to judge what he was thinking. It was like an experiment--an experiment on humans, she decided. Even if it wasn't the heartless type of experiment that some scientists did like dissecting frogs, it was an experiment nonetheless, and she was sure that it would end when they left. She scrutinized him carefully--she had to make the best of her experiment now.

Normally, she probably wouldn't have noticed him glaring at the table, but now she was in super-observant mode, so it was obvious to her that when he was acting polite, there was a slight trace of disgust in his voice, impossible to hear unless you were looking for it. She adopted the same voice, if only to tease him. "It is. After all, ice cream is universally loved--if you don't like it, you obviously don't get out enough."

She laughed. "Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt," she assured him. "If there weren't any challenges, what would we do with life? You should find a fellow first year and go exploring when you get there. I'll chaperon or something."

Ash's thoughts turned to his mother again after he finished listening to Liz. Was she still at the Leaky Cauldron, waiting for him like she said she would? Take your time, she had said. Make some friends, she had said. Well, bah. How could he very well make any friends when he was worrying about her?

He snuck a glance over at the girl sitting next to him again. Could she be considered his friend? He surely hoped so, otherwise he'd feel pretty stupid. He blinked when she said something about ice cream. "Right," he murmured, grinning slightly. "I guess I don't love it enough because I don't have it as often as I probably should. I'll have to buy ice cream a lot more."

"Life would surely be boring without challenges," he proclaimed, nodding to affirm his point. "I'll do a lot of exploring, but probably by myself. Easiest way to find things, but also the easiest way to get lost. However, I am willing to risk it. But I'll be smart about it. I want to get into Ravenclaw, after all."

She watched his expression carefully, and it went from thoughtful to serious to concerned. Unconcsiously, she mimicked him, frowning when he frowned, letting her eyes knit together when his did. When she realized that she was imitating his expressions, however, she immediately blushed and looked away. Hopefully, he hadn't seen her acting completely stupid.

She noticed him glancing at her from the corner of his eye and shot him a strange, cheesy grin in reply. "You don't have ice cream enough?" she asked in mock horror. Well, it was OK to act silly sometimes. "That's terrible! I'll have to give you some next time I see you. Don't worry, we'll cure you of this non-ice cream habit!"

"Is that really true, though?" she reasoned in reply. "In a group, not only can you split up to find things faster, but you might also get lost a bit easier if one person's going one way and another person goes the other." She half-smiled at his last sentence. "Spoken like a true Raven, if I say so myself. Just don't explore so much you forget class."