Back At Last

[Ailith Bisognin]

Although Durmstrang wasn't the most upbeat place you could attend Ailith was happy to be back inside the castle after spending an entire summer at home. A summer she had spent alone. Her mother had finally give into the fact that Ailith was very well able to function without having someone to watch over her when she wasn't home and this had been the first summer she had let Ailith spend home alone. Well, her mom was there at times, but it would be late in the evening and she would almost immediately go to bed when she came home, so there wasn't a lot of time she could spent with her daughter. Not that this was something new, Ailith's mother had always been very busy with her job and therefor the girl had grown up with a few different nannies, all of whom she despised. Ailith always tried to be as friendly as possible to everyone she meets, but to her nannies she was a living hell. She hated them. She had always understood that they were hired to take care of her because her mother was too busy to do that, but she hated the fact that they would treat her like she they were family, like they were here mother.

The young girl was placed upon a low windowsill and gazed outside. Asides from a few students who were making their ways inside the grounds around the school looked empty and Ailith liked the look of it. The sky outside started to get more cloudy and darker and it seemed like it could start raining any second now. The student lounge which she found herself in was slowly getting more visited and Ailith was happy that she had found a comfortable spot to sit, a bit to the side of the room, where she could just observe people and listen to what they were saying. Who knows, maybe that could even cure her boredom a bit.

 

[Maximilian Faber]

The break had been particularly difficult for the seventeen year old guy, so it was with some difficulty that he had returned to school for his final year. With a sigh as he made his way through the doors of the castle, Maximilian glanced around the place, glad to have a place to call home for the next few months but sad that this would be the final time that he could call this place home. He had given the place the same look when he’d arrived with his trunk just the day before. After June, he would officially be on his own. Now that his great aunt was considered too sick to care for Maximilian and his younger brother, Dieter, the two had moved into the much smaller home of their older squib brother. Max had argued that he was legally an adult and should be able to care for his brother on his own, but no one had even entertained the thought. He hated his brother’s home even more than his great aunt’s dilapidated home. It was cramped and Max was, once again, forced to share a room with his little brother. After so much time living apart, the brothers had been forced to learn how to interact with each other once more. It was still very much a work in progress.

Snapping photos on his wizarding camera as he went, Maximilian wanted to capture everything. He’d just spent hours outside, capturing pictures of the grounds and the castle from different angles. The Durmstrang boy could have remained there for hours and would have had it not been for the clouds that threatened rain. He didn’t want to chance his camera getting wet. Of course, he had placed every anti-moisture charm he knew on the camera, but why risk things? So, he had moved inside, still snapping photos. This was the place where he’d had the most stability, a place that he would look back on with general fondness. Standing in the doorway of one of the student lounges, Max was pleased that it was busy but not crowded and Max was able to get a good shot of the room. With a smile of satisfaction, Max made his way into the room to take a bit of a break. He glanced through a window, noting that the wind was starting to pick up. There were a few students on the grounds, their speed increasing as they raced to beat the rain. Finding a seat fairly close to the window, Max turned his camera on so he could look at the pictures he had taken. Seeing the flag fly on the top of the castle kept the smile on the boy’s face as his thumb hit the button to see the next picture.

 

[Ailith Bisognin]

The sky was getting darker as more clouds packed together and soon the first raindrops started falling down. It looked like it was going to rain pretty bad and Ailith just hoped there wouldn't be any thunder or lightening. It felt stupid to say as a sixteen your old girl and she didn't exactly know the reason why, but those things really frightened her. The girl turned back towards the room to notice that a few more people had come into the room and found a spot. The windowsill she was sat at was the perfect place to just look around the room and observe others, whilst not really being noticed by others.

As a young man walked into the room he stopped for a few seconds and seemed to take a picture with what seemed like a wizarding camera. Once taken the shot he happily stepped further into the room and found a seat rather close to the window Ailith was sat at. The fact that he seemed so upbeat made the girl curious about him, because happy smiles like the one he had on his face weren't often spotted at Durmstrang. The boy seemed to be looking at the pictures he had taken and for what Ailith could see of it, they were pictures of the castle and its grounds. Her curiosity started to take over and the girl slowly got up from the windowsill, slowly walked over to the boy and stopped once she stood almost in front of him. "Erm, hi." She started, slightly smiling at the boy and motioned to the seat next to him "Mind if I sit here?" There was always the possibility that he'd say no, but he seemed like a friendly guy, unlike most of the students there so Ailith figured she'd just ask and see what happens.

 

[Maximilian Faber]

Over the years, Max had learned a lot about life and magic. One of the better things he'd learned, at least in his opinion, had been the ability to know when someone was coming up to him. When he'd been a first year, he'd been teased incessantly because his dad was in Azkaban and a Scitorari member. A couple of years later had brought some more teasing because of his brother's accident. That some people could jest at death both sickened and infuriated the German boy. It was all about watching shadows. As a photographer, Max had to pay attention to it to make sure it worked for him in a photo. In general life, he used it to avoid unwanted conversations. At least Durmstrang had been good for something. As a shadow shortened, Max realized that someone was moving towards him. He kept fiddling through his photos, not looking up at all until he was addressed. When he was, he placed his camera down on his lap, his grip tightening on it as he looked up, green eyes taking her in.

Spending time looking at the shadows meant that Maximilian spent less time actually looking at people. It bothered him more than he let on that he was about to graduate from the school and still had not found many friends. He had a small group that he'd hung out with a few times, but they were all old friends and had included him for reasons he'd never figured out. Max had never truly fit in with them though. As he entered his last year, he wondered if he would ever have that feeling. The face looking down at him expectantly was friendlier than most in the castle, if her smile was genuine that is. With a shrug, Max responded. "Uh, yea. Sure." His eyes returned to his camera and the pictures he had taken. These next few were of the lake. It would be frozen over soon enough and he'd have to get pictures of that. Sparing the girl another glance, Max thought for a moment. "Hey, you're on the Quidditch team, right?" he asked, his voice deep and accented but friendly.

 

[Ailith Bisognin]

The boy shrugged and Ailith smiled at him, sitting herself down next to him. Ailith's eyes fell on the camera once again as the boy simply got back to looking at the pictures. It seemed to be pictures of the lake and Ailith had to admit they were beautiful. If the boy made them he had to be pretty good at that. She loved the lake, she loved just sitting at the side and watching the water move. Also there weren't often a lot of people around there which made it a great place to go if you wanted to go out sometimes without being disturbed by others.

The sudden sound of a voice woke her up out of her thoughts and Ailith quickly looked away from the camera. She shrugged as the boy spoke about Quidditch. She loved the sport, it was one of the things she enjoyed doing most and she basically knew everything there was to know about it. "I used to be on the team, but I didn't make it this year." She shortly sighed. Ailith had been on the Quidditch team as a Chaser in her third, fourth and fifth year. This year however she didn't make the team. For some reason she had been incredibly out of shape on the day of the try outs and even though they know what she was capable of, there were other students who just did better than her try outs and it would be unfair to not give them a place. She had been disappointed, but figured that she just had to get back into shape, keep practicing and try out again next year. It would be her last year at Durmstrang and she knew she'd be busy but she wouldn't give up her shot of being on the team again. "I hope I'm not rude for looking at your camera over your shoulder, but those pictures are great! I guess you took them?" Ailith looked back at the boy and his camera and smiled, hoping he wouldn't mind that she looked at them.

 

[Maximilian Faber]

Max was surprised to learn that the girl was not on the team this year. He didn’t play quidditch, but he had always assumed that once you made the team, you were on it forever. That was how it seemed to him anyway. The teenager found himself strangely pleased by the fact that they actually took people on based on skill and not based on some less objective reasoning. He didn’t really feel bad for the girl since he didn’t know her, but he could imagine what it must feel like to make something year after year and then be told that you weren’t good enough. “Oh” was his only reply though. Max had been ready to ask the girl if he could photograph her one day flying around in her uniform, but he knew better than to ask now. It’d be rather difficult anyway since she wasn’t going to have a uniform this year.

When she began speaking again and started off with ‘I hope I’m not rude,’ Max braced himself for all manner of response. He’d often found that people who started sentences with those words were in fact about to be extremely rude. For the first time ever, he didn’t hear rudeness in the next words. As the compliment caught up to him, a shy grin grew on the boy’s face. “Thank you” he stated quietly. No one had ever made a big deal about his pictures. His brothers found it annoying that he traveled around with a camera nearly everywhere he went. “I’ve decided that since I’m leaving here this year that I’d like to remember the places that I liked” he added as he tilted the camera so that she could have easier access to see. Max didn’t mind that she was looking at his photos. It was nice to meet someone who was interested in something that he was. “Do you like the lake too?” he asked. It was usually pretty empty there since it was almost always way too cold to go for a dip of any kind. It was pretty to look at though and sometimes it froze over enough that the daredevils tried skating on it.