Birds of a Feather

[Tate Darkhart]

Tate Darkhart was still in a state of 'awe', he was excited to be here. The young Ravenclaw had yet to find his place yet, whether it be inside the castle or outside, but he was determined to find it. Being in Ravenclaw was not his plan - in fact, he was quite horrified. Annalie had been in this exact house and he was trying to be nothing like her. For his parent's sake more than his own. He was not sure whether they could handle another wayward child. He was determined to make them proud of him and not horrified. He sighed to himself and continued looking through the halls. If he thought too much of Annalie and home, he was going to become homesick and that would just ruin this opportunity. The blonde looked at he aged walls with curiousity, allowing himself to just walk in whichever way his feet took him. He had no plans of attending any particular place, so his plan was to wander until he found something interesting. He doubted it would be too hard, this school was large and surely full of many interesting things.

Tate paused momentarily when he reached the library. Books were not his deal. He liked them, but he preferred to play and run around rather than sit and read. However, now that he was at a new school, he had promised his father that he would study more and read more since his mother had been concerned with his lack of reading. He liked reading, but not when his mother was watching. It made him feel self-conscious reading near people. The part-veela tottered further into the library, an found it rather abandoned. That was nice, no-one to see him! With his Ravenclaw robes flying behind him gently, the blonde rushed to pluck a book from the shelves - without actually checking it out - and fell into a chair, making himself comfortable.
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[Grace Collins]

Grace did not have her day today, she was freaking put in the lamest and smartest House of them all. Grace was not the brightest and hated books, the only books that she liked were used in the fireplace. The library was pretty big, but she could not like this place. A hufflepuff student walked by and Grace pushed her arrogantly to the other side, she could not really care if someone saw her. Grace was self centred and when she tried to be nice it failed miserably. The Hufflepuff girl was giving her a mean look, Grace only shot an even meaner look back. ''This place is crowded with a bunch of fools.'' Grace thought deeply. Grace wanted to be Slytherin and although she did not dislike Ravenclaw she did not want to be there. There was a Slytherin girl sitting in the far right corner and Grace wanted to set fire to the rain, well to her hair that is.

Grace had her shoulders straight and had a very vain expression in her eyes. ''I am the prettiest one here, so where are my friends and power?'' Grace muttered this to herself, it was almost silently. Grace her wand was carefully placed into her right sleeve, she did not know many spells, but she knew some dangerous ones. The Library was not as busy as she had liked, this would go out of hand quickly. Grace her eyes fell on a book it was a Potions book and when Grace wanted to take it, it disappeared. ''That was mine you...'' Grace wanted to say something very mean, but she could not. Getting expelled on her first day would be a world record. Grace did not like the awful colour on the Ravenclaw robes, she did not even like blue. Grace took a random book and let herself fall into a chair. Not really noticing the boy that sat in the chair next to her.

 

[Tate Darkhart]

Tate flipped through the pages of the book, and realised that it was a book on potions. He liked potions. His mother adored potions and often brewed them. Tate was not allowed to participate, but he was allowed to observe. Sometimes, he would pass her ingredients and help her count the amount of turns of the potion, and he would also help her keep time. He was never allowed to touch the cauldron, or help her pour the potion into jars. He was a little saddened by that and he slouched at the memory of feeling useless. He hoped he was not as worthless now. He was at school and learning new things and hopefully forging his own path, far away from those of Amiee and Annalie. He paused from reading the book and allowed it to rest in his lap for a moment. The library was still near-empty, but there was some noise. A few older students entering - speaking about their holidays. It must be nice to have that - the ability to converse with friends and memorable faces that were not related to you. He could do that with Tommy if he wished, though Tommy wanted very little to do with him. He felt very much the same. He cared for the boy, but not enough to leave his comfort zone to chase after a life that no-longer existed.

He jumped slightly when he saw someone at the table he was sitting at. The boy had jumped so suddenly that he dropped his book, and possibly paled more than he already was. He lent down and plucked the book from the floor, before placing it back on his lap. This was his chance to make a friend. She looked familiar - from sorting. He could remember that, the attention was nearly unbearable. He smiled gently and scooted his chair closer to the table. He made sure that his smile was as welcome as he could make it - admittedly he was slightly unpractised with conversing with kids his age that he did not know through another family member. But first tie for everything, right? This would be similar to his first day of soccer. He didn't know his team then and he made lots of friends. "Hello," he held his hand out across the table for her to shake. "My name is Tate Darkhart, it's good to meet you."
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[Grace Collins]

Grace was not really looking forward to making friends, friends made everything ten times harder. Grace disliked her old friends and she used them for her own personal gain, but she needed a friend to guide her and maybe act as her conscience. It would be fun to make a potion and let the thing explode, the possibilities that where in here reach were endless. Grace wanted power and might and she needed people to around her to support her on her quest of greatness. Sunken in thought on how she could achieve power, she found herself humming a familiar song. Not wanting to show any weakness she stopped humming and thinking and looked around. There was a Ravenclaw boy sitting next to her and he was reading a Potions book. ''Points for him.'' Grace thought, she liked Potions. The boy itself was nothing that Grace liked, but not wanting to make enemies she thought she could be nice for a while.

When the boy noticed her he literally jumped out of his chair and the book dropped to the ground, his face went pale. ''Pathetic.''Grace whispered under her breath, she knew he could not hear this, he was still too shocked. A normal person would have asked if the boy was all right, but Grace had no intention of doing so. ''Are there any normal persons at Hogwarts.. what is this?'' Grace giggled on her own thought, she knew she was mean, but she could not help herself. The boy said hello to her and Grace could not help to greet him back, Grace was already annoyed so this was going to be fun. ''Hello.'' Grace said this on the most fake nice tone she could master. The hand shaking thing was way too much for Grace, so she merely looked at it and focussed on something else. ''My name is Grace Collins, the same.'' Grace could not say it is nice to meet you too, she did not really want to meet him. A voice popped inside her head telling her that it was rude that she had not shaken his hand. ''I am sorry that I did not shake your hand, I never do that sort of stuff.'' Grace said almost awkwardly for the first time. Being nice was not something that came first in Grace her vocabulary. The one thing that she hoped for that this boy was not a typical lame Ravenclaw, that would bore her to death.

 

[Tate Darkhart]

Tate was relieved to be able to talk to someone. Conversing was so much more interesting than reading books. Tate thought books were quite average - but being a part of something was better. His smile grew more natural as he felt more comfortable with his situation. It was nice to talk to a fellow Ravenclaw. Though he did not think Ravenclaws to be any better than other houses, he would be in Ravenclaw for the rest of his school career. It would be wise to befriend people in his own house to he could see them during classes and such. He could be looking at a future friend right now. That'd be nice since he left all of his friends back home. He never regretted having his family live in the muggle world - but it would have been nice to have a friend come with him to school, rather than have to make all new friends and keep the magical side of his life a secret.

He was a little surprised to not receive a handshake. This was a school that accepted international students - and the girl did appear to have an accent. She had said precious little, but the accent was still noticeable, since Tate had never heard the accent before. He hand been born somewhere in Britain, but he was not raised there. His memories resided with the Darkhart's in New Zealand, and so his accent revealed as such. He allowed his hand to drop, presuming that she must follow a different social standard - even some of his own family members were like that. "Understood, my cousin's the same." His lack of knowledge of her origins was antagonising him. The more the girl spoke, the more curious the part-veela became. He lent slightly on the table and finally removed the book from his lap and sat it on the table as well. Now he was giving her his full attention - because why not? "You have an accent, where're you from?"
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[Grace Collins]

Grace yawned, she got bored quickly and this boy was becoming lamer by the second. Grace was not a big talker, she only wanted fame and fortune. The only thing that this boy was useful for was being a friend and someone that would always say yes, her own little puppy dog. Grace had brought a cat and her cat was relatively mean he scratched everyone expect for Grace. The cat his personality looked like the one Grace had. Grace was not into small talk and this conversation become too relaxed for her liking. ''Would you get expelled for burning some clothes in the Hogwarts Garden?'' Grace her room mate was so annoying she wanted to burn her clothes and make her suffer a bit. The burning thought went away quickly, since Grace could figure out that burning was not a good option.

Her accent could be well heard, she never wanted to change it. Although having an accent was a weakness in her eyes, there was no thought in her head of changing it. The boy knew more people that not shook his hand and he found that normal, did he ever have a friend or was he such a boy that had a pet-rock. Grace had not looked at this boy with her full attention, she was thinking about too much. The most things were way more important than this boy. When the boy asked a question Grace wanted to answer it truthfully, not like he could not notice her accent. ''I am from Sydney, Australia.'' Grace said on a neutral and expressionless tone. ''You?'' Grace could not care about the answer, she just tried to be nice.

 

[Tate Darkhart]

Tate was slightly surprised by her question. For a moment, he thought that it may have been a jab about his sister. But this girl was a first year - she would never have heard of Annalie and hopefully never will. Still, it was certainly a perplexing question. "I have no idea," he admitted. "It would probably get you in trouble at least - unless you somehow managed to make it look like an accident." Which wouldn't be all that impossible in later years as they learnt more dangerous spells. He continued. "All I know is that the school frowns heavily on fighting - especially magical fighting and consistent disobedience endangering students." He was rather matter-of-fact about the final part. He was quoting his father when he was explaining to him once why exactly Annalie had been expelled. Tate had suspected it was because of her terrible personality, and he was somewhat right. He gave Grace a meaningful look. "Is there a particular reason you ask?"

Tate felt like he had never left New Zealand, and he had not. He scarcely remember life in Britain, and he liked to keep it that way. Therefore, he knew very little of Australia - but he knew Sydney, it was a large part of Australia in terms of importance. When he was smaller he had thought it was the capitol, but his father correct him on this assumption. "Do you live near the harbour of Sydney?" Personally, Tate lived further inland and while he was capable of going near the harbour - especially when his family were holidaying in his cousin's home in the Ortago peninsula, it was rare to see the harbour. "I come from the more populated part of Dunedin - sort of near the Octagon, which is a basically a super busy part of Dunedin." He missed the Octagon. There was never a boring moment there - you were capable of doing and seeing so much. "Do you have family here? Or are you the first of your family?" He was curious as o whether she came from a magical family -it'd mean that they had more in common.
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[Grace Collins]

Grace did not know she had said the burning thought out loud, that was not the supposed to happen really. The boy was really weird, he honestly answered her thought that was about setting things to fire. Grace new ways to make it look like an accident, that was not too hard. This school was made out of a bunch of mental persons that either did not like to fight or wanted to assassin the whole school. Grace did not want to be expelled, but toying with people her would be fun. ''Not really, wanted to know how much you knew about the rules in here.'' Grace answered matter of factly, she could not care less about what the boy thought about her. Grace lied of course, she really wanted to burn her clothes or boil up some fake puke and stuff it into her bed. Grace knew she had an awful personality, but she liked it this way bring some spices in the lives of this mental hospital that called itself Hogwarts. Grace remembered the meaningful look that the boy had in his eyes when she said her burning thoughts, it seemed relevant somehow.

The boy came from New-Zealand which was not really interesting. ''Yes, I live near Port Jackson.'' Grace knew her voice sounded cold somehow, it always sounded that way. She did not even like this boy so why on earth was she still talking to this kid. ''I have a niece in Gryffindor.'' Grace said this in a tone of disgust. Gryffindor was an awful house and Grace was glad that the girl did not have the same last name as her. Collins sounded way better then Stoddard that sounded really awful and horrible. Her niece was ugly too and Grace disliked her on all points and traits. Grace her eyes went icy cold and the tone of her voice would freeze things when she spoke about her.

Her dad had warned her on the girl, she did not want to meet her again and hoped that she would let herself slip of a cliff. The cliffs were a good place to push her off.