Closed Fresh Spaces

[William Kaimarama]

The Student Lounge wasn't a place William had ever spent a lot of time, but that was something he wanted to change. He was a fourth year now, and he wasn't going to hide away skulking around in the dungeons or forest forever. Maddy just made friends by showing up at places, and William was going to do the same. Surely it couldn't be that hard, right? He had had a better time last year than the year before, for the most part, and hopefully things would start getting easier. William didn't know what it was about growing his hair out but he felt more confident than he had for a long time, and he didn't want to let that feeling go.

So, William had set up in the lounge to just... hang out and see what happened. He had brought a book from home, one of Mum's books about native birds, and he was skimming it as he relaxed back on his seat, enjoying the book even if most of the information was familiar. It reminded him comfortably of home, the same way sneaking around the forest with Maddy did, and William was contented to just relax in his seat, book in hand, and let his thoughts wander while he half paid attention to the words on the page.

 

[Vader Hume]

Vader liked being back at school, it was the new semester and he already had quite a bit on his plate. Vader had decided that with the loss of Nixon and Caro graduating at the end of the year, they needed one extra staffer and a new photographer to take Caro's place and have enough time to learn from her. So he’d printed off some posters and was putting them about the place. When he ended up in a place that needed one or had the space for one he put it. It wasn’t too stressful and apart from the nervousness at the first day back, the train ride and everything to do with that, his sleep was remaining steady. He could do this, no more caffeine after lunch, calm relaxation time before bed, lavender oil for his pillow, everything he’d found in his library searches in the muggle world that would enable him to sleep better. That would ensure that he didn’t fall into old patterns. The boy had started with Ravenclaw and Gryffindor, before heading all the way down to the slytherin common room, the arts room and then hufflepuff, the library and now finally the student lounge. The gryffindor walked into the student lounge and spotted there wasn’t that many people about, just William, that boy who’d made fun of his name but had seemed aside from that friendly enough. He put Vader a little on edge, but the boy had seemed nice. ”Hey William! What are you reading there?” Vader decided to say as he put up the poster, having noted that William was reading something. He had a few flyers in the bag he was carrying which also held his camera, but after a little wave he pinned up the poster and stood back a little to marvel at his work.​

 

[William Kaimarama]

William wound up absorbed in his book for a while, barely paying any attention to his surroundings. It reminded him of how badly he missed home, and the bush, and hiking with his mum and dad. He only realised he was being spoken to at the sound of his own name, looking up in surprise. William smiled when he saw who was talking to him, pleasantly surprised to see Vader. "Hey!" He said happily, opening the book a little wider for the other boy to see the pictures. "It's about native birds, it's one of my mum's books." He explained, glancing at the poster Vader had been putting up on the wall. "What's that about?"

 

[Vader Hume]

Vader looked at the book that the boy held out for him to see. He liked the look of that book, it seemed interesting, ”That’s cool!” Vader said in with a small smile, he think it would be interesting to be the person who captured those kinds of pictures but Vader hadn’t really done many bird shots. At the question, ”Oh, I run accio and we need more people,” Vader replied looking at it, ”You wouldn’t happen to be interested in photography or layout design?” Vader asked motioning to a little point in the poster which said as much. He knew that recruiting for accio would be quite hard which was why he was putting up so many posters. He just needed to be sure that the people really wanted to be and could do it. ”How was your break?” Vader asked looking at the poster and then glancing back around to William, he thought it would be good to widen his pool of friends. William seemed nice despite the jokes that he had made about Vader’s name. In the grand scheme of things it wasn’t the worst thing that had happened in relation to his name. ​

 

[William Kaimarama]

William had hoped Vader would appreciate the pictures in his book, and he was glad to find he had been correct. He left the book lying open, not really minding if he lost his page, and listened to Vader talk about the poster. "Oh!" William said in surprise, panicking a little at being asked. For a moment he considered it, but it would suck to actually go out of his way to apply, and then not be good enough to make it. "Oh, uh, thanks but nah, I only take pictures of birds and plants, and I've always been rubbish at art." He shrugged the subject off quickly, relieved that Vader had offered him something else to talk about. "Yeah, good actually, just went hiking a bunch with the whānau*, the usual." He smiled. "How about you?"

*Whānau - Family, commonly used interchangeably with English.

 

[Vader Hume]

Vader listened as William explained that he only really took pictures of birds and plants. The teen finished with the poster and walked over to where the other boy was sat and looked at the pictures within the book with keen interest. ”Oh, maybe you could show me them sometime? I’ve always been really bad at taking pictures of moving things, like quidditch players or birds,” Vader told him with a little smile, he had been working on his photography of quidditch players but he hadn’t had many occasions to take pictures of birds, there tended to be plenty of other things that he needed to deal with which meant photography that required a larger amount of time or patience weren’t things he could do. ”If you do ever change your mind about Accio, just let me know,” Vader told him. The boy nodded as he talked about his break and what he had done during it. ”Sounds nice. I didn’t really do much, spent time with Ava. Slept a whole bunch, and spent time with my sisters. My parents worked over the break so I was largely in charge of them, even though Padme’s old enough to not need me to watch over her,” Vader told him. He didn’t mind watching over his sisters, largely because he’d lazed around during much of the break, letting himself really rest for the first time since the Christmas break, but Padme was old enough in his opinion and as soon as Leia was with them at Hogwarts she would be too. ”I got a girlfriend,” Vader added, somewhat shyly and not meeting William’s gaze as he spoke but still specifically mentioning it. He knew it probably wasn’t something to bring up somewhat randomly but Vader did. ​