Introduction to the Jungle

[Frankie Tillington]

This Hogwarts place was enormous, Frankie found herself thinking for about the fifth or sixth time today. She hadn't expected it to be tiny, or anything, but... New Zealand was a tiny place. She hadn't realised the country would need such a large space to house all their magical kids... but then, she hadn't realised there would be so many kids from other countries attending this school as well. Herself included, of course. Frankie had been strolling up and down corridors all afternoon, poking her head into a myriad of rooms and conversing with a few random other students on the way as she checked out the place she would be living in for the majority of the next seven years. It seemed alright, so far. But she was definitely going to have to make a lot of her own fun, that was for sure.

Wandering into the latest room that had caught her interest, Frankie cast an eye around the scattered couches, people and coffee tables. It seemed to be some sort of lounge, or common room, and she quickly cast her mind back to remember which floor she was on. Fourth. Right. Filing the location away in her mind, Frankie stuck her hands in her pockets and began pacing around the room, eyes roaming over the walls and miscellaneous objects placed haphazardly here and there. Somehow there was already paper strewn across the floor under one table, despite how early it was in the semester. Curious as to what the scribblings might be about (after all, it was so early in the semester), Frankie crouched down to begin fishing them out, soon noticing that there were more half-pushed under the couch nearby. She managed to pull a couple out, but there were still a few sheets stuck further back where she couldn't reach. Curiousity properly enflamed now, Frankie stood up and tried to push the couch out of the way, but unfortunately it was too heavy for her to gain any traction. Not to be deterred, she looked up to find the nearest person and called out to them. "Hey! Yes, you - hi!" She offered a grin. "Come and help me move this couch. Shouldn't take long - please," she added as an afterthought.

 

[Nixon Mercury]

Nixon was used to an organized mess when his parents were consumed with their work. Papers, ladled with impromptu scribbling strewn about the house in piles upon piles leaving little room for living was neither good nor bad, and simply something the boy was accustomed to. Although it was surprising to Nixon more than anything that day when he walked past the room he now recognized as the student lounge to discover the familiar sight of someone with paper around them, reaching under a sofa. It was the last sight he expected to see away from home and at Hogwarts of all places so early on in the year. But his curiosity was piqued so he paused, watching on until the girl gave up. When she eventually looked over to him and asked for assistance he could not do anything else but comply, accepting her offer with a smile as he walked closer. "Sure!" Nixon said, stopping when he reached the girl. His immediate instinct was to lean on the back of the sofa, using his legs to push against the floor and create momentum although he instead thought it would be easier to use his hands which he soon placed on the sofa before looking to the girl and saying "On the count of three, we can both push." hoping she would be the person to count. He wondered what on earth she was looking for but was curious to find out.
​

 

[Frankie Tillington]

Frankie was pleased that the boy came over to help her with no argument, and grinned at him. "Awesome, thanks dude." She waited only long enough to see him take up position against the couch, before leaping straight into carrying out his suggestion. "Okay, one, two, three," she said, pushing on three. With two people now exerting their force against the couch it moved much more easily, and as soon as Frankie saw that she could reach the wayward paper she abandoned pushing and swooped down to pull them from the ground. With all the pieces now in front of her, Frankie's eyes roved over the one sitting on top, uncaring if it was the beginning, middle or end of whatever was written here. However... "Damn," she groaned, flipping through a couple of sheets before thrusting the pile under the nose of her accomplice. "I can't read any of this; can you read this?" Each sheet was covered in scrawling, fancy, linked-together writing, and she wasn't holding her hopes up that it was readable to anyone - it could have been a different language for all the sense it made to her. "I'm Frankie, by the way," she added once she had successfully pushed the paper into the boy's hands.

 

[Nixon Mercury]

Nixon waited for the girl to count to three before pushing the sofa. Thankfully it moved easily with two of them pushing and the girl was quickly able to dive and grab the piece of paper she was looking for. Nixon watched as the girl looked the papers over, then felt his eyes widen as she seemed to give up and shoved the papers towards him. He took the papers from her and gave them a once over, pursing his lips in thought. The writing was linked together like his mother's writing and he could understand that it was interpreting the other symbols scribbled along the lines, but he could not understand the symbols at all. It definitely looked like another language but he couldn't figure out what language it was. When the girl introduced herself as Frankie, Nixon nodded before moving his eyes back to her. "My name's Nixon." He said in return. "These papers are of someone interpreting these symbols here, I don't know what the symbols are, though." Nixon said, feeling curious yet disheartened that the papers weren't as easy to figure out as he wanted. However an idea soon crossed his mind that he had no qualms about suggesting to Frankie. "Wait, why don't we ask around and figure out what the symbols mean? Then we can know what all the papers say!" He exclaimed, waiting to see what she would respond. ​

 

[Frankie Tillington]

Frankie watched the boy looking over the papers, anticipation of what they might say shining in her eyes. From what she had seen of the writing, whoever had done it had been pretty into whatever they writing about - and then they'd just left it here. There was a story behind it, Frankie knew, and with nothing else particularly important to do at the moment, why not try and unravel that story? She grinned as the boy introduced himself, slightly amused despite herself. "Hey, Nixon, like the president. That's a pretty bold choice for a name." It was kind of funny to find such a reference from home, deliberate or not, all the way down at the bottom of the world. She quickly turned her attention to Nixon's explanation of the papers, however, coming closer to peer once again at their contents - though this time they were upside-down. The symbols were no easier to decipher than the first time her eyes had slid over them, of course, and the sudden burst of inspiration she was hoping for didn't come. Nixon, however, was on the right track, and Frankie looked up at him with a grin. "That," she punctuated with a finger-gun point, "is a great idea. Come on." Brushing past him, she unashamedly began tugging Nixon along with her as she headed straight for the first person in sight.

 

[Nixon Mercury]

Frankie seemed to like his name and this caused Nixon to smile wider, although any reaction he had was short lived as the girl pointed a finger gun at him and explained his idea was great before tugging him along, in the direction of the nearest person. He hoped the nearest person would be a helpful prefect or at least a friendly looking older student. Though instead Frankie lead him towards a person Nixon could only assume was a professor as they walked past the entrance to the student lounge. The Hufflepuff boy cleared his throat awkwardly, capturing the attention of the professor before shuffling the paper in his hands nervously. Though Nixon knew he had not done anything wrong, and searching for loose papers in a room every student was allowed to visit was far from rule breaking, he worried unnecessarily that the man would dismiss them for interrupting his day. The man instead however, greeted the pair with a smile and that at least cured some of Nixon's unease at speaking to an authority figure. "Um, hello, professor." He said. "My name is Nixon. My friend Frankie and I were looking at these pieces of paper someone left lying around, and we were wondering if you could tell us what these symbols are." He explained, blushing in embarrassment while holding the papers out for the professor to take. He then looked over to Frankie, wondering what was going to happen.
​

 

[Jon Phillips]

Jon's day had been peaceful in the sense it was uneventful. He had woken up, arrived to work as per his usual routine, and then eventually ended up strolling around the castle halls for no other reason than the sake of it to shake off a bout of cabin fever that hit him as a result of sitting in his office all day. It was a burden to feel bored in a castle that was supposed to interest children and he was glad the burden began to lighten only a few short minutes into his walk. He headed upstairs from the first floor corridor, through the second and third floors, eventually reaching the fourth floor where a pair of what seemed to be overly curious first years interrupted him. Jon greeted them with a toothy smile, hearing out the boy that spoke to him and accepting the papers that were handed over. Jon looked the papers up and down, immediately recognizing the symbols were runes. "These symbols you're asking about are runes." He said, turning one of the papers over to inspect the other side. Unfortunately Jon had not taken classes relating to runes during his time at school and could not help the students further than telling them what the symbols were. In an effort to help satiate their curiosity, he added. "If you want to know what the runes say, I would speak to Professor Kingsley, the head of Gryffindor house. She teaches Ancient runes and will be able to explain it better than I could." He looked between the pair before handing their papers back, waiting to see if they had other questions.​