Open Getting out of your comfort zone

[Aaliyah Mendes]

Aaliyah was not used to these kind of things. It was her first time going to a dance since the year had started as she wasn't much of a dancer. She didn't have a boyfriend and neither she was looking for one, she just decided to get out of her comfort zone and do something she usually wouldn't, Hogwarts was a new start, a chance for her to open up, to have more friends, to make mistakes, to regret them, to go wild, be a rebel, be whoever she wanted to be and that started tonight. On that dance. She walked to the punch fountain and served herself a cup of the delicious raspberry drink very carefully not to spill all over her white dress. She decided that she was not going to dwell on a dark corner, instead, she tossed the cup into the trash and headed towards the dance floor and started to dance. She wondered how much longer she could keep herself in this outgoing and extroverted state of mind.

 

[Lillith Montgomery]

Lillith was excited as always for the ball. Though she didn’t have a partner, that didn’t matter to her at all. She was there to enjoy the dancing part of the Valentine’s Dance rather than the “Valentines” part. Lillith wore a light pink coloured dress with ballet flats that she had brought from home during the break.

Lillith danced around the myriad of couples and lovers that were around the dance floor, making conversation with some of the people who came alone like her. As she twirled around, Lillith bumped into another girl. “Oof!” She bumbled around as Lillith caught her footing. “Woah!! Are you okay?” She asked the girl. “I’m so sorry!!”

 

[Aaliyah Mendes]

Aaliyah was damcing when suddenly she was hit by something, not something but someone, a girl that from the looks of it was twirling really fast. She was not expecting for this to happen, every time she tried to be more social awkward things like this happened and she didn't even knew the girl, she did but only from class, Aaliyah was panicking a bit until she noticed the other girl was probably waiting for an answer "Oh, yeah I'm fine" she finally said giving the other girl a week smile. "Are you ok? You are probably dizzy. You wanna take a seat?" she asked the other girl a bit concerned.

 

[Lillith Montgomery]

Lillith sighed in relief. “Yeah, i’m good.” Lillith said as she fixed her hair a bit. “Oh no that’s okay. I used to do ballet, so I spun around a lot.” She said, giggling. Lillith gave the girl a smile. “I’m Lillith! Do you want a cookie?” Lillith dug into her dress pocket to produce a bag of cookies, or.. should I say a bag of smooshed cookies.. “Oh no! It’s all broken!” She frowned, Lillith was saving some of them for later.

 

[Aaliyah Mendes]

Aaliyah heard the girl, ballet seemed difficult. The movies made it seem a hard thing to learn but she knew for a matter of fact that it was way harder than the movies showed, the best ballerinas practiced until their feet bleed, for the Ravenclaw girl ballet seemed more like torture than an actual thing that someone could enjoy, at least when you were a professional.
Aaliyah couldn't help but giggle a bit when she saw the cookies all smooshed "My mom says that "broken cakes taste the same", it means that even if a thing doesn't look pretty what matters is how it tastes" she said with an empathetic smile "Besides, there is a lot of food here" she said gesturing at the snacks tables.

 

[Lillith Montgomery]

Lillith knew that what the girl said was true, but it was still a shame that the cookies were crushed. Now she would have to eat them with a spoon. “Yeah, but im sure they’re not as good as my food.” Lillith mumbled under her breath. She approached the table and grabbed some chocolates. At least chocolates will stay the same. “What’s your name?” Lillith asked the girl.

 

[Aaliyah Mendes]

Aaliyah laughed at the other girl's comment. It was bold to assume that her own food was THAT good but the Ravenclaw girl appreciated the confidence, she wished she was that confident on herself.
She suddenly froze again, she had forgotten to present herself "Oh I'm Aalyiah, I'm so sorry" she said shaking her head and with an embarassed look on her face. She was a bit distracted and most of the times awkward in social situations but today of all days, the day she decided to try to be less nervous was the day she was messing all up.

 

[Lillith Montgomery]

“That’s omfkay.” Lillith said, her mouth full of sweet, sweet chocolate. “Hey, how abfout this. Mnext time..” Lillith swallowed the chocolate before talking again. “Next time, i’ll bake you something really good, and I’ll show you how good my food is!” Lillith said, all too confident that unless this girl has tried one of her mother’s desserts, this would be the best thing that she has ever tasted. “What’s you favourite dessert.. or snack?”

 

[Aaliyah Mendes]

Aaliyah gave her a shy smile, the peast thing she wanted was to make thiz girl do things for her. She wasn't the type of girl that liked to bother others with her stuff but Lilith seemed particularly determined "I love crepes. You can combine them with several things, ice cream, nutella, berries..." she said getting a but hungry "But I'll help you with that. I never really baked alone and I'm not really good at it but you just gotta tell me what I should do and I'll do it" she said so the girl wouldn't have all that troiboe alone.

 

[Lillith Montgomery]

Lillith smiled and cocked an eyebrow. “Huh, is making crepe considered baking?” She said and thought in silence for a while, maybe they could make a crepe cake, is it considered baking then? She didn’t know, but she knew she could make it. A plus side of being a patisserie’s daughter is that a good baker is only an owl or a phone call away. “That sounds great! Oh this is going to be so much fun!” Lillith said, clapping her hands like a child.

 

[Aaliyah Mendes]

Aaliyah never questioned herself if crepes were considered baking, since they had to make them and she always added something sweet to them that made it baking for her. She couldn't help but smile at girl's excitement, she did not knew that aomeone could be that excited to actually do something that took a lot of work. That was probably something she missed, her mom's pastries and cakes, something she was sure to get enough of during the break before she started her second year.
"Isn't the kitchen forbidden? Where are we going to cook?" she said as she had never been to the kitchens, she had no idea if it was forbidden or not but she guessed. A student in the muggle world can't just enter the cafeteria and start cooking their own meal, that would have serious repercussions.

 

[Lillith Montgomery]

Lillith lifted an eyebrow, "Forbidden? Where'd you get that idea?" If the kitchens were forbidden, Lillith would've received 12 detentions by now. "I've used it so many times! I even baked my cookies there!" Lillith said smiling, taking out her baggie of cookies again and waving it around a bit. "And the house elves there are so cute!" She exclaimed, remembering the time one of them made her cotton candy. Lillith couldn't believe that Aaliyah hadn't been to the kitchens yet. What had she been doing in hogwarts? actually studying?

 

[Aaliyah Mendes]

Aaliyah gave a shy smile, clearly this was different than the muggle world "Well, in my defense the kitchens in a muggle school are forbidden for students" she said revealing that she had attended muggle schools therefore she was muggleborn.
"House elves...is that the name of the tiny creatures that make our meals?" she asked to Lilith as she seemed to know a lot about the kitchens.

 

[Lillith Montgomery]

"Yeah, but it's a boarding school!" Surely all boarding schools allowed their students to use them? Lillith had only been to normal muggle schools and never tried to use the kitchens. I mean she had one at home, so why bothering? "Yup! The ones over there! dressed in white towels." The house elves were busy cleaning up some spilled punch and refilling them. "Aren't they lovely? One of them made me a huge ball of cotton candy once."

 

[Aaliyah Mendes]

Aaliyah wasn't sure how a boarding school could be different from a normal one except that you'd spend every day inside school grounds but she nodded her head to the girl as if agreeing with her.
She looked at the elves, she wasn't sure how she felt about them. She hoped they weren't being held there against their will, she did not know much about house elves but she guessed they shouldn't be very unhappy doing chores and stuff like that since they had the word "house" in their species name. "Wow, house elves know what cotton candy is?" she said with a laugh, she thought they didn't know how to cook such modern foods.

 

[Lillith Montgomery]

“Mhmm! Or at least the one who made it did.” She said, thinking of how great and big it was. “At least they update the food over here. Honestly I think wizards need a technology upgrade. Maybe phones and computers. I mean it’s so much faster than using an owl! “ Lillith didn’t hate owls, in fact she thought they were really cute, but they took too long to send messages! Especially if they have to go overseas to send a letter.

 

[Aaliyah Mendes]

"Yesss!!!" Aaliyah said, a bit louder that she was expecting. Things without technology were kind of a bore, she needed her video games and all her gadgets. She wanted to be able to just chill in her bed listening to music with her headphones on, muggle music, not whatever was playing right now, wizards dared to call that music."I wonder if someone could develop a spell that would make technology work here. That's probably the thing I miss the most, can't wait to go home and just be on my phone scrolling through social media and just play video games" she said to the other girl.

 

[Lillith Montgomery]

“Me too! I miss my phone!! And video games! Honestly, that’s the worst part of hogwarts.” Lillith had been an avid gamer before hogwarts and now that she was away from technology, she now really wanted to play some video games.”I don’t think it would be too hard to make something like that, I mean the muggles did it, without magic right?” It couldn’t be too hard to get dome muggle technology and putting spells over them or something.