Open Be There Soon

[Padme Hume]

Padme was smiling to herself as she skipped down the corridor of the hufflepuff section of the school. The girl was so excited to be going back home, she missed her younger sister a lot when she was at school, but she knew that Leia would be joining them at the school very soon, she’d shown the same signs of magic as Vader and she had done, so there was little question in her mind. Padme was just a little bored that day, having studied more than enough for that day, and had decided to send a letter to her sister to pass the time, tell her about hogwarts, tell her about how amazing it was and that she would be very excited to see her soon. Padme had so thoroughly enjoyed her first and second semester and was excited to share more about all that had happened, even if she was due to see her sister again very very soon. She skipped up the steps growing tired half way up but continue with what she had started. She eventually reached the owlery and found herself a school owl to use. She had gotten a little snack for it from the kitchens and quickly fed it to it. She would spend a little time getting to know the creature before sending it off, after all that was what was right. That was what she had learned was the best method of getting an owl to like her.​

 

[Ilija Olaf]

One downside to being the youngest sibling, was that his older sisters often asked Ilija to do favours when they didn' want to do things themselves. Today, his sisters had asked him to post the letter they'd written back to their parents in Bulgaria, to find out what the arrangements were over the holidays and whether the siblings would be staying at the castle over the break. Before Ilija joined the school, Mhairi and Lina would often travel back home, but now the trio were at Hogwarts they rarely returned to their hometown. He spotted another girl in the owlery, but wandering over to a spare owl, he reached out to try and attach the letter. The bird kept pecking at his fingers, too much for the third year to actually reach round him to secure it properly. "Ouch!" he let out sharply, just as the bird nipped as his wrist. He peered across the room at the girl, who was making it look much more easy.

 

[Padme Hume]

Padme heard someone walk into the Owlery but opted to ignore it. They probably like her were just sending a letter and weren’t particularly interested in talking to someone who was at the owlery too, she could definitely understand that, so didn’t seek out the person. That was until she heard the person let out a sharp sound as if he’d been hurt. The girl decided to go see if they were okay, the owl she had been feeding, following her as she walked over to the boy who had been hurt, ”Are you okay?” the hufflepuff asked with a little nervous expression. The boy was older, not too much older, but probably around her brother’s age. He had clearly been struggling with the owl that he had were she hadn’t been struggling with hers in the slightest. ”Did it nip at you?” she referred to the owl which he was attempting to attach the letter to. Of course some owls were just better behaved than others, but Padme had always found the owls to be nicer if she made the effort to be nice to them and feed them a little something before asking them to go off and deliver a letter for her. ​

 

[Ilija Olaf]

Look away, look away Ilija told himself, his cheeks blushing as the girl started to head towards him. Upon hearing her question he became annoyed at himself for even letting out a noise, it hardly looked like he knew what he was doing around the girl and he only managed to show himself up. "Mmm?" he questioned, raising his eyebrows as he did his best to feign ignorance. It felt as though the bird did more than just nip at him, if he looked directly at his wound it was probably bleeding for all he knew, but he nodded in response with a shrug, trying to play off the pain. "I guess," he added, taking a quick glance to notice that his skin hadn't even broken at all. He was probably just being a baby about it again. Now that he had an audience, it made things even more difficult to try to attach the letter onto the creature, "I don't think he likes me," he admitted, wondering if he should just give up and try another.

 

[Padme Hume]

Padme approached him and looked towards his hand, it didn’t appear to be bleeding, so that was good but she could assume it probably still stung. She looked towards him and then the owl, with still a little bit of food which she had brought for the owl she would use she offered some to the creature and it seemed happy to munch on it, ”Sometimes they want food before they get used like payment,” the boy was older than her, seemed to be about her brother’s age so he might already know that, but Padme had learned it from someone else, so if like her he wasn’t from a magical background and therefore didn’t often actually use owls all that often, maybe he didn’t know. ”Sometimes the owls just nip regardless,” she conceded looking up at the boy away from the owl and meeting his gaze, letting a little smile grace her features. ”Maybe you just surprised this guy a bit?” Padme knew he couldn’t really be blamed for what had happened, but there might be some reasoning other than the owl didn’t like him. She knew that it probably didn’t matter to this boy if the owl didn’t like him, but she thought it would be good to assure him of it. ​

 

[Ilija Olaf]

At first, Ilija was nervous as he realised she was about to feed the owl. Had she not seen that he had almost lost his fingers? At her explanation however he relaxed, twigging on to how that must have been how she’d gotten her own to like her. “So sort of like Hufflepuffs” he joked hesitantly with a small smile, watching the younger girl calm his bird down. He hadn’t intended to surprise him, but Ilija also didn’t really understand animals, no matter how cute or helpful they were. The third year realised she was looking into his face, and meeting her gaze for only a second was enough to cause his cheeks is darken once more. These days it seemed to happen whenever somebody looked at him and it was getting increasingly frustrating. “Um, thank you,” he returned her smile, but quickly glanced back to the owl who now seemed content in their presence. Approaching slowly with his hand, the creature left it be for just long enough for the boy to attach the letter, and he was relieved he wasn’t going to have to return to his sisters as a failure. “What’s your name?” He braved. Ilija didn’t have many friends because he’d been too shy to try, but since they were the only two here he thought he may as well give it a shot.

 

[Padme Hume]

Padme smiled at the little joke which he gave, nodding a little in agreement. She was of course careful with the owl, since it had bitten the boy but she opted to just do it anyway. The owl seemed friendly enough that it might be open to it. The hufflepuff was pleased that she was getting some fairly good results with just slowly feeding the owl. It didn’t seem nearly as bad. It seemed to have calmed enough that the boy was able to attach his letter to it’s leg. He was still careful she could see that he was being very careful with the creature as he attached the letter. Padme could understand why, despite the fact that the creature had calmed somewhat, it had still nipped at him and it could happen again. At the question Padme gave a little smile, ”I’m Padme, what’s your name?” the hufflepuff spoke with a smile returning the question back to him. She knew that he wasn’t a first year like her, but she did also know he was a hufflepuff, though Padme didn’t know who he was really, she had seen him around the hufflepuff areas. Enough to know that he was likely from that house. ”You’re a hufflepuff right?” Padme added, just to confirm. ​

 

[Ilija Olaf]

Ilija still had his eyes on the Owl as he listened, too nervous to look directly at the girl beside him. At least if the attention was on something else he had a shot of actually having a conversation with someone he didn't share blood with. Upon hearing her name, he was pretty sure he recognised that forename from somewhere but he couldn't pin point it. "Ilija," he replied with a small smile on his face. It would have been ridiculous no doubt to anybody else, but for him it was a personal victory to even have made it this far. He nodded at her question, surprised she'd even seen him around since it wasn't as though he did anything to make himself stand out; in fact it was quite the opposite. "Are you, too?" he clarified, figuring she would have seen him more if they were in the same house. He wanted to ask her more questions, anything to keep the conversation going, but the third year didn't know what he could say without coming across as a creepy stranger, so he resorted to just making sure the creature beside them was content.

 

[Padme Hume]

Padme nodded as the boy introduced himself, Ilija, it was an odd name, she was sure it wasn’t from New Zealand, but given her name and the names of those in her family it wasn’t like she could ask about it. Though she did want to, she returned the small smile he seemed to give at the mention of his own name, ”Ilija, it’s a nice name,” she commented, hoping perhaps he would say more about it without her having to actually say anything specific to ask about it. Padme nodded when he asked if she was a hufflepuff too. She had at first been a little tentative about Hufflepuff, with her brother in Gryffindor and her one friend at the time in slytherin, but she had grown to really like and appreciate it. ”I am yeah, first year. What year are you in?” The hufflepuff asked. She could not that he was focusing perhaps a little more on the creature, certainly it seemed easier now that the creature was being a little kinder towards him. Not nipping as much, it had perhaps just been at the wrong moment that Ilija had attempted to reach for the owl. ​

 

[Ilija Olaf]

As Padme complimented his name, he couldn't help but wonder why he hadn't even thought of that. Her's was nice too, obviously, but he was too nervous to start a proper conversation let alone compliment her. She probably thought he quite self-absorbed and too presumptions to talk like any normal boy of his age. "Thank you," No one had really picked up on his name much either, at least not since Hogwarts. "Most people think it's spelt E-L-I-J-A-H, but my parents decided that wasn't going to confuse people enough, so it's really I-L-I-J-A." he explained, trying to calm his social anxiety. It was always more embarrassing when others spelt it wrong and the way everyone else in the world actually wrote it, and then he had to correct them. "My sister's name is Mhairi so, we both have it tricky," he added. He never knew why their parents had chosen unusual names, especially one that was from Scotland for one of his older sisters. "Padme is nice too," he added in quickly, not wanting to regret not mentioning it later. He was grateful she asked another question though and smiled as she mentioned her year, it felt like only yesterday he'd been a first year too. "I'm a third now." he replied simply, pausing for a moment to think what else he could find out about Padme, who he was quite surprised hadn't already left him in the owlery by himself yet, "Do you like Hogwarts so far?"

 

[Padme Hume]

Padme smiled as he thanked her before going on to explain how it was spelt, and she had to admit she had thought it would be spelt like that rather than how he had. She made a mental note of how he had spelt it, nodding a little to be sure she had gotten it. ”How do you spell her name?” Padme asked, it didn’t sound like a particularly tricky name but she wouldn’t want to have to guess how to spell it, she could assume that it likely wasn’t how she thought it would be spelt. At his compliment at her name she gave a little smile and shrugged, ”My parents really liked star wars,” Padme told him, she didn’t have any other way of describing her name and it had a fairly evident spelling, nothing to complicated but she felt it only right to give a little about her name where Ilija had said quite a bit more. When he said he was a third year, Padme couldn’t help but wonder if he perhaps knew her brother, ”Do you know Vader? He’s my brother, he’s a third year Gryffindor?” she decided to ask, she knew he didn’t always like being singled out in such a fashion but it would be fine. At the question she nodded, ”It’s pretty amazing, it’s corny to say but its just teeming with magic in the best way. How do you like third year? Did you take any electives?”​

 

[Ilija Olaf]

Ilija gave Padme a smile when she asked about his sister. Most people seemed to take facts at face value and it was refreshing, if not a little intimidating, to be asked about her. "It starts with a M rather than a V. M-H-A-I-R-I." he replied, thinking about how his sister probably didn't even know that most of the school pronounced her name wrong, given she couldn't ever hear them herself. Ilija chuckled when the girl spoke about her brother Vader though. The Hufflepuff had already made the connection in his head that this girl may have been related to his classmate, given their unusual but matching names, but aware of how it felt to be referred to as the younger sibling of another student, he'd opted to keep quiet about it until now. "Yeah I sort of know him," He wasn't exactly his friend, but they had met, and shared a few classes together. "I think that's awesome," he added quietly, wishing he'd been named after something as cool as Star Wars. He thought about his own classes, but there was only one that had been new this year for the third year. "I take Care of Magical Creatures now. It's probably one of my favourite classes, although I'm probably not very good at it," he said, with a nervous glance to the owl who hadn't taken kindly to him.

 

[Padme Hume]

Padme listened as Ilija explained how the name was spelt, nodding along lightly as he did so. That wasn’t really how she’d thought it would be spelt given how it was pronounced but she was happy she now knew, it would be good to have that in the back of her head if ever she came across someone who like this boy’s sister had a slightly difficult name. She wasn’t too surprised that he knew her brother, but was a little surprised that he found the names awesome. She was generally surprised by the nature of people at Hogwarts, people who seemed genuinely interested and liked the names of her and her siblings. Perhaps more so for her brother she knew the difficulties it had brought. She had experienced it far less. She didn’t really think it was worth lingering over too much so was pleased when the boy began answering her question about electives. Care of Magical creatures seemed interesting but she wasn’t too sure. ”I’m sure you’re probably perfect fine at it,” the girl responded following his brief glance to the owl. She seemed to suddenly remember that she had meant to send an owl to her sister and so made a quick one second motion to Ilija and then rushed back to the owl, she gave the owl the letter and let it go free before turning back towards Ilija, ”If my other sister doesn’t get the letter soon she’d have my head,” Padme joked with a little smile.​