News from France

Selene stared out the window for a long moment, her eyes locked on the distant owls coming in for the night, the sun was setting and the temperature was plummeting as it got colder and colder. Pulling her jacket around her tighter, Selene flicked her blonde hair out of her face. She had just taken a shower, so it was frozen straight around her face in chunks, and looked rather stringy. She wasn't sure what had brought her to the owlery at this time of night, maybe it was because she was tired, or maybe she was just going insane,or maybe she just really liked the height of the tower, but she had felt the need to send a letter to her family in France. Selene looked up at the owls above her and then smiled slightly, moving away from the window to lean against the cold wall. Snow had blown into the room, and the torches were flickering along the walls quite a bit, making the sunlight the only real light as it slowly faded, the large sun sinking below the horizon.

She had sent a letter quite a long time ago, in fact she had been standing on top of the tower for nearly two hours, just staring into the distance, lost in her own thoughts. She didn't know what else to do. Her letter had been mostly gibberish in French. Telling about the first task, new friends she had made up, the news about Naomi, it was all there, and all rather confusing even to her as she had read it over. She could tell there would be a different message sent, between the lines to her family. It was obvious she missed France, missed speaking, and writing in French, missed the delicate ways, the people, even the layout of the land, she missed it, and everything about it, and now she was standing on top of a tower, cold, drafty, probably getting a cold from heaving her hair wet, and staring into the distance, for no reason at all.

Jaret had been suspended. Again.

It was only a week into term and Rafael was getting letters from Mynah asking him to write to the school. As far as Jaret’s school was concerned, Rafi was at a college somewhere down South instead of a magical school up North. The school owl brought bad news, good news and interesting news with her every time she returned to the grounds. After reading the letter a few times, Rafael realised that he was going to have to sort himself out. According to Mynah, Raina had had an altercation with one of the boys at her school. It had been a bit of roughhousing that had been quickly broken up by the teachers. Somehow though, the boy ended up with welts all over his body. The doctors had ruled out an allergic reaction and Mynah had suggested that perhaps Raina had done the same that Rafael had done that one year when he was younger. He’d picked bruises though. His bully hadn’t been able to walk.

Rafael needed to write to Mynah so he did. It was just a matter of getting it up to the school owl now. Rafael trudged through the thin snow on the ground and jogged up the steps of the Owlery, letter clasped firmly in hand. He’d enclosed a separate one for the school’s benefit as well as one for everyone. Mynah’s was a general one as always but it became personal to her towards the end unlike any other ones. He missed her; particularly now the end was approaching so quickly. He had mere months left. He could go home after that, pick up his job in the liquor store and do lifeguard work down on the coast during days – so magic did come in handy. Rafael needed to look after his family. Even if he wanted to be a part of the magical world...he didn’t have a choice.

Opening the door of the owlery, Rafael whistled and shouted up to the school owl, “Vi! Come down here girl!”

Selene jumped when suddenly a boy shouted up into the rafters, from the doorway, she nearly toppled over backwards, but was able to straighten herself up and put on a bemused look before she could look at him. At first she couldn't speak, her mind to shocked from the sudden interruption into her thoughts. Her eyes traveled over him for a moment before she cleared her throat to show him that she was there. "Ello..." She said softly, her eyes darting up into the rafters as an owl floated down to get the letters that were clutched in his hand."You.. startled me." She said in her thick French accent, her eyes locked on the boy. She was leaned up against the wall, and knew she probably looked strange, standing in the owlery, no letter, no owl even near her, her hair stringy and frozen in place, shivering with a jacket pulled tightly around her. Helped that she was the tri-wizard champion for her school and most people would expect to find her, standing alone in a drafty tower, but there it was.

"I 'ope I did not startle you.." She said softly, her eyes quickly tearing from his and looked back up into the rafters,as though looking for her owl, when in fact her owl was long gone. "You deed startled me zough.." She said with a small smile, before she turned away from him. She was not flirting, she was no having fun, she was simply waiting for a letter, waiting for a letter that might not come for days, she was waiting, frozen and waiting, like a statue. Maybe she would become a statue, standing there, looking out over the grounds of Hogwarts, people would come up the stairs and see her, and tell the story of the little French girl who was the champion for her school, and had waited for eternity for a letter that never came. Though in reaity she knew the answer to her letter was on it's way, she just liked to make things more dramatic for herself. She glanced over her shoulder and smiled at the boy again before frowning and looking away quickly. "Selene Brun... Beauxbatons..." She said carefully, facing the window with her back to him.

The familiar hoot sounded from above and Rafael looked up, searching for the ebony owl. She sprang from the cubby-hole she was sat in and floated down like the majestic animal she was. Rafael smiled and pushed his glasses further up the bridge of his nose. He’d taken the contact lenses out for the night. He was tired and his eyes needed to rest. Rafael jumped at the sound of a voice. His eyes darted to the place he assumed the sound had come from and found a girl leaning up against the wall of the tower, a coat strewn over her shoulders, wet hair sitting upon that. Rafael frowned and shrugged his jacket off almost instantly, thinking nothing of the gesture, “Here,” He said, stepping forward and stretching out his arm, coat in hand. “You must be freezing. You’ll catch your death.”

When she spoke again so freely, Rafael blinked. His few encounters with fellow students had helped him out a lot with the way he carried himself in conversations. He wasn’t entirely sure what to say to this though. “I-I...” he broke off, at a loss, before picking up the sentence again, “I ap-pologise,” he stumbled over his words, “I d-did not m-mean to s-startle you.” Rafael hated times like this where he tripped over his words only to fall flat on his face. He loathed it. He wished he was at home with Mynah talking lazily about nothing. He wished he could chat with Nicolai about the West Ham match on Saturday. He wished he could sit in the park with Jaret, smoke and talk idly with each other. He wished he could read a story to Raina. All of those times he could speak without fault. Now he could barely throw his sentences together because he couldn’t guess what she was going to say.

“Rafael,” he answered, gathering some sense of composure. He could say his name well enough. “Rafael Armstrong. H-Hogwarts...Gryffindor,” he ended lamely. "H-how are you enjoying the tournament?" he asked politely.