At Long Last

[Victoire Fontaine]

The young Gryffindor had truly found her place within this massive castle that she now lived in. It had taken a small while to find, but the young girl had realised even within the first few steps within this room that she was just perfectly at home. While her last school had had a library it was nothing compared to this. It didn't have the books nor the silence that Victoire so craved in a library. Her last school, had computers in the library. it had all manner of things that just weren't suppose to be in a library. It was noisy instead of silent, people marked the pages of the books, the librarian didn't care about the state of the place. This was what she had wanted in a library but had only just gotten. While Victoire had gone to private school, it had been the lower levels and it just had been lacking in some areas more than most. Which for her was the one area of the school had really wanted to be a part of. Victoire realised that as she stood just in the entrance of the library that it might look a little odd. She had to admit that she wasn't so used to being just so impressed by libraries that had just stopped her. She just had to marvel at the room, the way the books just seemed piled so high at times they could touch the ceiling, which seemed a little impractical, but they were all of magical blood, so surely it would be simple to get the books. Victoire brushed the stray strand of her blonde hair from her eyes as she continued to gaze around the room. She had her hair tied up messily with her red ribbon, but instead of wearing her usual gryffindor t-shirt, she had worn her Charleroi football t-shirt which her nanny had given her when she had been packing for Australia. She had matched this with her wristband, which was dark blue in colour, and had the word Wallonia written on it, and of course the red knee high socks, and short denim shorts. All in all an outfit that looked pretty thrown together. Not much effort behind it really. Victoire wasn't so interested in being matching or fancy, she just wore clothes because she wanted to. In the library it wouldn't matter what she wore, because it was both the weekend and it was a library. No one cared.

The young girl began to walk through the various different shelves, wondering what kind of system was set up, and what order the different books came in. She wasn't sure what she wanted to read first, but a good starting point was just finding something that interest her. It turned out, Victoire found out as she made her way up and down the various shelves, that a lot of things interest her. She had so many questions about magic and such that she was sure that finding something in any of those books would help her answer even just a few questions. Perhaps even that while answering some questions, it just flagged up about twenty more which was not what she had assumed was the intention of such books. As a muggleborn, the girl felt she just had to learn double what everyone else knew. She had to be better others that inherited this sort of life. For one thing, having had a taste of magic and the life of a witch, the girl didn't want to return to dull muggle life. She knew that she really wouldn't be able to handle such disappointment from her parents. She had to stick to the magical world until graduation, which she knew meant she had to work twice as hard as others. Victoire with about four books cradled in her arms, made her way down another section of the library. Which had a table in the middle of. She was thankful for this, and without glancing as to who might be sat at the table put her books down. Before glancing at the shelf, reading a titled, and then realising she didn't actually understand. So, she did her best to translate it, into french saying the book title out loud until she figured out what it was saying. When she had figured it out, she moved on, doing the same with other book titles. While Victoire's french was good, she was not that good yet, the girl struggled. "What is with all these complicated titles"' she muttered to herself in French. It was clear she was in a more specialised section that her english wasn't quite up to par with. For a moment, she wondered if this library had a foreign language section that could translate certain, possibly magical words into french for her. "This is silly" she said, as she continued to look at the books, realising after a few more titles that she was in sport, and in the quidditch section. Well, she never would've guessed that. "English is so silly sometimes" She muttered again in french.
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[Scarlett Vittori]

Scarlet was quite fond of the library. And so, instead of having herself cooped up within her new dormitory, the young Hufflepuff had decided to head to the so-called haven for those like her whom wished to have peace. The library, after all, was quite the peaceful place and so it served right to those who are constantly trying to avoid trouble and noises present within the halls and corridors of the castle. Bringing herself to rise up the bed, the girl had managed to rummage through the rest of her luggage which she had found to not be unpacked yet. And after a few moments of constant looking at the numerous clothes she had brought, Scarlet had finally found one quite suited to her taste. Though, she was a shy girl, Scarlet loved fashion and dressing up so she might always looked decent in her own way and style. The redhead then stood in front of the mirror and being contented with her current look and reflection, she headed out of the door and headed straight towards the direction of the library which was nowhere far from where the Hufflepuff Common Room was located within the castle.

Soon enough, Scarlet found herself at the entrance to the library, her senses once again loving the comfort that the said place could provide. Books were everywhere and though she wasn't one to quickly understand concepts of some subject areas, she actually loved to read and being surrounded by books was just heavenly. This library was much, much, much more peaceful in comparison to the muggle library in her old school after all and she appreciated that very much. Scanning through various shelves, Scar tried to find a book that would suit her reading taste for the day. There were quite much to choose from and she wasn't very sure on what she would like to read for the day. Coming up on the History section of the library, she had finally chosen a book on Greek Mythology. She wondered if they would be taking it up in a wizarding school, but she hoped they would. It seemed much fun after all. Bringing her chosen book with her, she took a seat at a table which had only one other person seated. It was a blonde and she seemed nice so Scarlet didn't mind her at all. She barely talked to anyone after all. Though, she could have sworn that her ears suddenly perked up upon hearing someone speak French! And she was sure that it was not Armin nor Rivaille nor Jakobe. It was a female voice after all! And it was none other than the blonde seated with her. She was a French speaker! Scarlet could understand every word being uttered by the girl and it was quite loud enough for her to hear too. But, she was too shy to talk to the girl directly. "This is hard," she sighed and unconsciously had said it out loud too. The Hufflepuff didn't notice though, she thought she was only saying it in her mind but instead, words had already passed her lips. "How am I going to do this?" she muttered, thinking of a way to get the girl's attention without her getting all embarrassed before she could even form a coherent conversation and upon a few moments she instead tried to keep her attention on her book.

 

[Victoire Fontaine]

The girl, continued looking at the books, pulling one out every so often and flicking through the first pages of it, briefly glancing at the pictures that were sometimes in it, or the chapter titles, before more times than not placing it back on the shelf. The young girl was new to New Zealand, and she was having some issues, since a lot of words she just hadn't come across yet. Victoire was good at languages, she was bilingual, and knew a little bit of a third, and all of this was before the fact that she was now learning English almost as she went along. It was simple enough when it had been back at home, she had to learn it, but there wasn't the added issue where she couldn't actually understand if any of the words would even translate. There were some magical phrases that she'd heard and read and hadn't understood at all. Which wasn't great. She was sort of hoping that time would mean that things like that would eventually go away. She was sort of just at times a little glad to not be around others where she didn't have to worry about the fact that she had to think about everything she had to say about four times. To be sure that she was attempting to say was actually going to make sense in english, it did also matter that it made sense just in general. Which was why, she had suddenly realised that she should've brought her french-english dictionary. "Next time" Victoire muttered to herself, as she pulled off another book from the shelf, letting her eyes take in the cover as she sighed slightly. Opening it up glancing through it, and then putting it back in the place where it had been. Victoire glanced at the books at the table, making sure they were all still there and that she hadn't them taken from her by others who might've wanted the books.

Victoire, finally noticed a book that she was actually more than a little interested in, and so she reached out to grab it, it was slightly higher than she was, and she had to stand on the tips of her toes to be able to reach it, but the book wasn't moving, she had to get this book and find out if it was actually useful. Glancing at the table, she noticed there were some spare chairs. Walking over and taking one of them, she thought to make sure that the girl sitting there didn't mind. "Sorry, You don't mind if I take this" With out realising it, and registering it, Victoire ended up speaking french to the girl, and then didn't really wait until the girl had given a clear response before taking it, and using it to get slightly higher. At the height she was at, she had not probably seeing the issue and was then able to very easily get the book out. She jumped down from the chair, and brushed the stray strands from her face. Smiling as she quickly skimmed through the book and realised that this book would actually be interesting. Taking the chair she put it back at the table. "The book was caught against another. I didn't want it to fall on me" the girl told the girl who was sat at the table, once again, not even registering that she was talking in french, to some one, that for all she knew, spoke no french. "You'd think these wizards would make it easier to get books, so I didn't have to stand on a chair" She chuckled to herself, and then very quickly realised that she had been speaking french to this poor girl, who was probably also trying to work, and she was of no help what so ever. "I'm sorry, I didn't even realise I was speaking French." She apologised, giving the girl a small smile, her checks turning a light red colour. "I'm new to English, sometimes I just forget" She added, it was pretty clear that she wasn't a native english speaker. The girl who she was speaking to, was about her age, though not in Gryffindor from what Victoire remembered. Not that it really mattered.
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[Scarlett Vittori]

Scarlet tried to focus on the book she was reading. It was sure enough that mythology was a fun thing to read but that didn't change the fact that she was having trouble understanding stuff. Of course, since she had went to a normal muggle school before coming to Hogwarts they did not at all tackle anything about Greeks. That was pretty normal considering that they were only in primary school at the time. Now though, the Hufflepuff had been trying pretty hard to understand the concept of how gods had children, how could there be a half-human, half-animal and how they were born. The eleven-year-old really was trying to digest all that information yet sadly, everything was not going well for her as she still couldn't grasp the right concepts clearly. She sighed and hoped that she had at least asked her brothers these sort of things before she left for wizarding school.

The Hufflepuff was all too busy reading when suddenly the blonde girl asked if she could take one of the vacant chairs. Scarlet almost gaped at the said girl since she had spoken in French at her and the girl could only nod in response. That was new. Mostly people would see first if the other party spoke another language but this girl seemed like she would talk to anyone using French. Well, at least Scarlet knew that she wasn't alone in this seeming world that only a few knew how to speak French. Book forgotten, Scar merely watched the blonde girl with her actions as she got herself a book near the top shelf. The young girl smiled as the other had begun talking to her in French, Scarlet always seemed more comfortable with it though her English was quite good as well. The Hufflepuf's smile grew wider though as the girl confessed that she had not realized that she was speaking French. Of course, it was reasonable. Even she does it sometime. Scarlet merely shook her head. "It's fine. I end up doing it sometimes too," she said in French though quite embarrassed at the thought as all ears were on the blonde girl seated with her.

 

[Victoire Fontaine]

What took Victoire Fontaine by surprise was the fact that the girl whom she had been speaking to in French without realising had actually understood her. She smiled brightly at the girl, who looked to be about her age. Victoire was sure that she'd seen her at the sorting ceremony, so they had to be in the same year. But, they weren't in the same house. That much was for certain. They couldn't be, Victoire was sure she'd remember hearing other people speaking French around her. It wouldn't just be the sort of one off, a couple of words more than the average person could say. Victoire could tell by this girl's lack of any accent that she was actually french, or was at the very least bilingual. Victoire smiled brightly at her, "You speak French as well?" She asked in French. Seeing as they both spoke it, Victoire saw no harm in talking to her in French also. It was nice to finally get to speak a language she actually knew well. Victoire was picking up English fast, that much was certain but she still loved her old language. It was nice. it was something she'd grown up with. English had always before just been that language she did as part of class lesson. Like the few lessons of German that she'd had. Victoire was not too good at German. It had now become the weakest of her languages. She glanced at the books she had gathered, and decided it was maybe time to take a little break from all of that.

Perhaps it would be a good time to get to know some other first years that she didn't know all that well. She was so focused on her studies, the girl hadn't really even thought about making more friends. "Where are you from?" Victoire took a seat next to the girl, hoping that she didn't mind that Victoire was choosing to sit next to her, and interrupt her studies, her reading, but she was really happy to be able to speak something other than english. "Are you from France, or just from somewhere that also happens to speak french?" She asked it in this fashion because the young Gryffindor was from Belgium and not from France, so she was one of the people who spoke French but was not actually french. "I'm from Belgium." Victoire realised that while she wasn't entirely rambling, she was just happily going on and on, and not really leaving much space for the other girl to say anything, and more than that, in all her excitement about the fact they shared a common second language, she hadn't actually introduced herself. "I'm Victoire" Victoire smiled brightly, "First year Gryffindor" She said, as a manner of introducing herself, but Victoire knew that it was mostly a silly way of doing so, since it was really in her mind a simple way of organising kids so that they didn't have extremely large classes. "Sorry if I'm overwhelming you, I just miss speaking French"
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