Closed Getting A Little Help

[Conan Elliott]

Conan had more or less gotten over the initial homesickness that came with staying at a brand new school. He was still having some thoughts about his Mama and siblings, of course, but he was now more excited about upcoming lessons. Quite out of character for him, he had even decided to go and find the Hogwarts library to see if he could do some advance reading to try and get a head start. This was, however, a quite a terrible idea as he had no idea where he was supposed to start. It was not like he had spent a lot of time in libraries before now, much preferring fiction books over anything factual and boring. He was stood down one of the aisles, arms folded across his chest and nose scrunched as he stared at the rows and rows of books in front of him. That's when he saw a familiar face, smiling as he turned towards the girl, unfolding his arms. "You come here often?" Then he paused, realizing that wasn't really what he wanted to ask. "That's not... what I meant. I mean, like, do you know your way around?"

 

[Georgia Astor]

Georgia had just finished reading about declining pagan magic and was left with an absolutely content feeling about the reading, she liked that feeling of a new knowledge. And she didn't really acknowledge who was next to her as she was going through the books trying to find something that could catch her interest. Until she heard a motion next to her and turned to the person to see Conan smiling at her, she awkwardly smiled back as it took her a moment to realize what was going on. "To both questions yes, I know my way around and I come here often" she finally easily answered as she understood what was going on. "Also, hey, how are you? Congrats on Gryffindor!"

 

[Conan Elliott]

Did he sound stupid, or just.... really really stupid? It was probably one of those options. After all, he had started out by asking a rather dumb question that he was pretty sure he had heard as some kind line to attract girls. Which was absolutely not what he was trying to do here. Though he did slightly relax his shoulders when she didn't call him out for being an idiot, a slight redness creeping onto his cheeks as he was congratulated on his house. "Oh, um, thank you," he hadn't expected that, but it was nice. "And well done to you as well for... Ravenclaw." He did have to actually check the colour of her robes there for a moment. Admittedly, he hadn't really been paying much attention to the sorting. "But I am good," he continued with a small nod, "I mean, kind of lost in a library. But grand. I was trying to find some helpful stuff to read before classes, but I have no idea where they actually... are. You doing better?"

 

[Georgia Astor]

Luckily for Conan, Georgia didn't exactly find anything he said dumb, she was just a little surprised as she was more in her own world than paying attention to other people and it was just a little unexpected to look up and see someone smiling at her. "Thanks," she excitedly smiled at him. She still felt proud of making it into Ravenclaw. "Well, I am indeed, yes. Need help? What do you want to know more about? History? Charms?" She easily offered as he said that he didn't really orientate in the school library and as she had been spending some time there, she got quite a hang of it.

 

[Conan Elliott]

He was quite thankful when she didn't point out his embarrassing question and instead just focused on the congratulations he had offered instead. That was good. He wasn't really in the mood to get embarrassed about stuff. And he still smiled when she started asking more specific questions about what he needed help with in the first place. "Oh, er, I don't really know," he admitted, blinking as he glanced around the aisle they were stood in, "I was just looking for... stuff. I don't know. Something that might help with whatever?" Maybe he should have thought more about what subject before he had bothered to come here in the first place.

 

[Georgia Astor]

Georgia just listened to Conan trying to decide what he wanted to know more about and when he couldn't, she just smiled and nodded. "It's alright. I think you could start with a history book as I think it's quite important to know about the school that you study at," she pulled out the history book, HNZ edition and offered it to him. "Or you have potions if I'm not mistaken... You could read about potion ingredients, little hacks in potions," she pulled out another book and offered it with other hand and smiled at him. She had read both of those books and thought that they could be useful.

 

[Conan Elliott]

Conan wanted to complain when she suggestion he try and start with some boring history books. But he did manage to hold back the complaints when he remembered he had sort of asked for her help in the first place. "Right, thanks," he offered a rather forced smile as he took the incredibly dull looking book from her, inspecting the front cover for just a moment. Honestly, he had been hoping for one of the more interesting subjects. And then she was offering another and once more Conan accepted it, smiling as he rested it on top of the other book so he could hold them both. "Are there like... any books with extra info on spells we're going to learn or something? Like, um, extra tips for practice and stuff like that?"

 

[Georgia Astor]

Georgia noticed the forced smile and right away, she felt like she had done something she wasn't supposed to. She didn't want to get him bored or uncomfortable, so she immediately got nervous. "Uhm, I-I... What about Achievements in Charming? It's for rewinding for OWLs but there are a lot of spells for our year too," she offered another book. She should have thought that he would want something more practical. She must have though about it. "I- did you know that wands with veela hair usually are inherited by the ancestor who was a veela? For example, Fleur Delacour had her grandmother's hair in her wand," she felt a little uncomfortable that she hadn't heard thought better about what to offer and in the moment of nervousness she offered a new fact. While inside she was face-palming herself as she understood that he probably couldn't care less about wands and veelas.

 

[Conan Elliott]

'Just be polite' he had to remind himself. He was the one who had bothered her and asked for help in the first place. The least he could do was try and be genuinely nice about things and accept the help she was giving him. "You're already reading books for OWLs?!" Weren't those exams just a little too far off into the future? Conan hadn't even started thinking about OWLs yet, there weren't for another four years. If Georgia was already reading books for them this early on, he was impressed. Or was he supposed to be reading those sorts of books as well and had missed some kind of memo? But the conversation did suddenly shift when she started talking about wands. "Oh, er, I guess that's interesting."

 

[Georgia Astor]

Georgia chuckled and immediately shook her head. "No, no, I just read the stuff for this year ahead, and it's in this book too," she easily explained herself, trying to make sense. She loved to know so she knew ahead. "I'm sorry," Georgia awkwardly smiled at him, trying to get more comfortable once again. "Uh, so, you ready for lessons or for the school altogether?"

 

[Conan Elliott]

"Oh. Right." Now he just felt a little silly for thinking that she was reading the stuff meant for OWLs. But maybe it wasn't too far-fetched to think that someone might just really care about their exams so early on. Ravenclaws were supposed to be really smart and care about their grades, if you happened to believe everything the sorting hat said, that was. "Sorry? For what?" Had she done something he was supposed to be angry about? "I'm looking forward to learning some proper magic. And duelling. But apparently we can't do that until next year, which sucks."

 

[Georgia Astor]

"You probably don't care about those facts and I keep throwing them in," Georgia explained why she was sorry. She found him quite cool, so she definitely didn't want to mess up and she was scared that she might. "I mean, I've heard that DADA professor is quite young, so I think you might be able to ask him if he can teach you some more advanced spells, if you want. Same with charms, I don't think that professors would be against it, I'm probably planning on doing that, so we can do that together if you want?" She offered him this time probably something useful. "Also, as I said, I have an older sister in school, so I've got a grip on some spells. If you want, I can teach you them?"

 

[Conan Elliott]

"No, I care," the lie was quick to come out of his mouth and he offered a small smile, "It's all very... interesting." He just didn't want to hurt her feelings or anything by saying she was being really boring or anything. But the idea she was posing was a rather good one and Conan scrunched his nose for a moment as he thought about it. "Maybe I should ask." If he pretended he was really smart the Professor might give him some extra lessons. But then Georgia herself offered to taken him some spells and his opinion of the girl quickly skyrocketed. "What kind of spells? Are they hard? Like, spells we learn in the later years and stuff. Imagine mastering stuff before even learning about them in class. That would be super cool."

 

[Georgia Astor]

Georgia just smiled at him softly. She still was sure that she needed to keep those facts to herself but all together, she was glad that it didn't bother him that much. "I think he would agree, he seems nice," she answered. She was definitely going to do that. "That is definitely cool. Not that we learn in the later years but definitely the ones that we learn later into this year. Not all of them but some, yeah. I am also trying to learn some more advanced spells for our year like Petrificus Totalus," she spoke about what she could teach him.

 

[Conan Elliott]

He hadn't really thought about how nice the Professors were. It was a hard thing to judge given they were adults and were usually being professional about things. Even strict Professors could be nice outside of the classroom, and the opposite was true as well. He had a teacher back when he was little who was lovely during school, but he had bumped into her once at the store with his Mama and she had been really grumpy. "Oh," his shoulder's deflated somewhat learning that it was not any advanced magic and just stuff they would be learning later that year anyway. "I mean, I guess that's still pretty cool and all." Though it would have been so much cooler learning magic they weren't set to try and learn about for some years in the future.