It's Quidditch, you know, the sport?

[Deme Aurelious]

Deme had been finding himself in the Quidditch pitch more and more as of late. It was unusual because he was used to far quieter places, like the library, even if he didn't very much like the library. Being on the Ravenclaw team was an entirely new experience for the young Ravenclaw, mainly because he had never really been into sports, and being on the school team meant that he had to rely on his team mates and trust them more than he usually would, otherwise they'd never be successful in a game. For someone that wasn't exactly athletic, Deme was really excited for the game that would be happening soon enough, because he had been practising his flying and was way better at it than last year, which was basically a disaster. Atleast his new broom actually listened to him, and it wasn't a horrible old school broom. They were just too annoying for him to deal with. With a small sigh, Deme made his way along the pitch and stood in the middle of it with one hand on his hip and the other grasping his broom.

Since there was a game coming up, and the twelve year old had never actually participated in a game of Quidditch, Deme thought it would be wise to actually practise a little on his flying and control since both were lacking a little compared to his team mates. In all honesty, Deme had failed to actually get to know his team mates, they were all in his house, but he didn't really know them all by name, just a few, such as the Captain and the prefects that were on the team. Hopefully they would all be nice and wouldn't be too loud and irritating, he wasn't used to exceptionally nosey and annoying people yet. Conversing also wasn't a strong point that Deme possessed, but he was trying his best, especially when he was with Cleo, since she was probably more shy than he was, he always had to work just a little harder to actually get a conversation going. Mounting his broomstick, Deme flew into the sky and hover a few metres above the ground, and then started circling the pitch.​

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[Claire Aurelious]

Sun in her face, warmer weather in the air, an the smell of cut grass; all of these things were reasons why Claire had chosen to go outside. she loved the outdoors, and could rarely find herself cooped up. just last week she had spent a little time exploring the dungeons, and just being down there for so long had killed her. No sun, no breeze, no nothing. She couldn't say it was all bad though, she had made a friend while she was down there. it was nice to make friends, even if most of them were older than she was. Claire was by no means mature, so it almost didn't make sense that she was making friends with older people. Sammy was the exception, having the mind of a first year almost. He was silly and hyper like she was, which was nice. He was also super sweet, never mean, which made them perfect to be friends. For Claire, he was the first person, she hoped of many, that she had met like that.

Claire rubbed her arms, which were crossed across her chest. She was cold, even in the half-sleeved jacket. She wondered if her adjustment was going to continue for much longer. She in't want to catch a cold from it or be forced to say inside. She loved the outdoors; especially the quidditch pitch. Coincidentally, the quidditch pitch was exactly where she was. She had meandered her way there while thinking, without even realizing it. it was a nice place. Claire hadn't hear much about quidditch, in fact all she knew was that it was played on brooms. She knew nothing of the teams, or kinds of games they played; what she did know was that it sounded exciting. Almost like something she might like to play. as she looked to the sky she saw one lonely broom. one person sitting on it, circling it. He or she wasn't too high up, just far enough away for Claire to not be able to tell gender. She leaned against a wall of sorts, and watched. Fascinated by what he was doing.

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[Deme Aurelious]

It was chilly up in the air, but Deme liked it, it reminded him of Russia. It was always cold in Russia, and sometimes New Zealand was far too hot for him, but he managed to ignore the heat and continue to practise by himself. It was far more difficult than he thought it would be. He didn't have he Quaffle because he wasn't sure if he was allowed to have it, since this wasn't really a legitimate training session, since the whole Ravenclaw team was not here. So Deme decided to just practise his speed and mobility, since his flying lessons last year were quite bad, considering he lost it and started screaming at his broomstick. That hadn't happened for a long time though, in the holidays Deme had practised with his adoptive father, so he was acceptable, but he wanted to be better, since most of the other people on the other House teams had some experience in Quidditch, while his team had some first years and people that had never really played. It really put pressure on the whole team, Deme was quite worried, he wanted to win, he wanted Ravenclaw to win at Quidditch, there was no room for second place! All Deme knew was that he was going to work harder to beat all the other teams, because Ravenclaw deserved it.

Deme looked down at the ground, and felt butterflies fluttering through his stomach because he realised how high he was, it was quite shocking. It wasn't that Deme was scared of heights, it was one of the few things he was actually very comfortable with. Something caught his eye, or someone did anyway. 'Who's that?' Carefully, Deme lowered to the ground, just to the right of the girl and landed, holding his broom in his left hand. "Hello." He greeted quietly, moving his hair out of his eyes and examining the girl with mild confusion. He had no idea who she was, but she had to be a first year. Being a second year, Deme knew who was in his year, and it was obvious that this girl wasn't very old. "I'm Deme Aurelious, vhat's your name?" He inquired, his Russian accent prominant in his words. Sometimes it made him feel self-conscious, but he tried to ignore it and meet new people more regularly. Admittedly, Deme was at quite a distance of the girl, if it wasn't for the fact that she had quite long hair, he wouldn't be able to fully tell if she were a girl or not.
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[Claire Aurelious]

There was no way to tell how long Claire was standing there, watching the intricate flying of the boy or girl above her. She thought of what it could feel like to be as high up as he was going. She had only flown during lessons, and never to far from the ground. She constantly compared it to riding a horse; and they were similar. A person could ride both of them, they did competitions on them, and they could play games with various balls. Of course, Claire knew much more about horseback riding competitions; what she listed in her mid as the similarities were her limit of knowledge on quidditch. Claire didn't mind that she didn't know, she knew that with time, she would eventually learn what this was all about. She watched the boy lower to the ground, still a ways away from her. the gust of wind he produced in lowering was just faint enough to pick up the scent of the grass, and it made Claire think of the property she had back home.

Claire watched as the person seemed to tentatively make their way over to her. She noticed now that he was a boy. He had feminine features, long black hair she saw. She could obviously still question it, but she was sure that he was a boy. The moment that he spoke a greeting, she knew for sure. She heard a thick accent from some country she had probably never heard of. She giggled slightly at the way that he pronounced the word 'what's'. It was silly, she though. Claire closed the distance, standing only about two feet from him now."Howdy, i'm Claire!" She exclaimed with a smile, extending her hand to him. She looked him strait in the eyes when speaking. He had an interesting color of eyes. Brown. Claire's favorite color of eyes. "Are you a Quit-itch person?" she asked, a bit ignorantly.
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[Deme Aurelious]

Right now, Deme would have rathered to just stay up in the sky, even if it stille gave him butterflies. It was better than down on the ground, talking to someone he didn't really know. Deme wasn't exactly one for making friends, he more often than not in the library with Cleo, studying so he could actually pretend to be a Ravenclaw. It was really dumb, Deme didn't consider himself smart, or wise or remotely Ravenclaw, yet here he was, wearing the Ravenclaw colours. He'd he even manage to get into the house?! It was just something else that labelled him incorrectly, some people even thought that he was remotely intelligent because he was in Ravenclaw, whcih meant that he was possibly the dumbest Ravenclaw ever, in his eyes anyway. Deme held his broom carefully by his side and stood silently, looking at the girl for a little while longer, until she finally spoke.

The girls accent made Deme take a half step back. Never in his life had he ever heard that accent before, and he had heard a few of them. Coming from a family that adopted children for a lot of areas around the world, he knew a lot of accents, but this one was one he'd never heard. Another thing that shocked him was that the girl was so... excitable. Deme had never really met someone so happy, the happiest person he knew was Taylor, and she was more energetic than happy. The greeting she used was also peculiar. Why couldn't she just say hello? "Hello... Claire." Deme was now metally kicking himself. Why did he even think about starting a conversation?! He was bad at that sort of thing, talking was not a strong point for him, he should have just flown back to the castle, or pretended to not see her, that would have been okay! Especially since the girl asked weird questions. What was a Quit-itch person? Did she mean Quidditch? He was riding a broom. "Do you mean Quidditch?" He asked, tilting his head sligthly in confusion. "If so, then yes. I'm on the Ravenclaw team." He replied, looking at his broom for a brief moment, then looking back at the girl named Claire. He had a feeling that she didn't know Quidditch all that well, otherwise she'd have pronounced it correctly, even Deme managed that. "Vhy do you ask?"

 

[Claire Aurelious]

Another gust of win picked up strands of Claire's hair, and caused them to blow into her face. She drew back the hand that was meant to shake his, as he didn't seem to be that kind of person. Some people weren't. Some of them didn't like to be touched, or to touch others. Claire didn't understand why. She only shook hands because her father had told her it was the respectful thing to do. Claire was all about being respectful to other people. It was something that made the adults seem to like her, which was nice. Claire listened to his hello; he seemed to be confused. Could he not understand her accent? Claire didn't want to make that assumption, it would be rude to assume such a thing, wouldn't it?

"Yeah, that sport!" she exclaimed. Excited that he knew what she was talking about. Claire didn't really notice the way that he had attempted to correct what she was saying. She listened to his answer and question, all the while, the smile never leaving her face. "that's so excitin'!" she said with her accent thick in her voice. "I've jus' been wonderin' about it. What's it like? Is it hard? Have you ever been injured?" Near the end of the sentence, she wanted to take the last two questions back. She realized how uncomfortable he could be made by that. Claire had been made more aware, since coming to hogwarts, of teh way she seemed to run her mouth on. She just had so much to say and so little time to say it. "Sorry, I have a tendency to run my mouth like a horse runs a race." She said, rubbing the back of her neck.
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[Deme Aurelious]

Deme nodded slowly, so he was correct, Claire was talking about the sport, though he wasn't sure why she was so loud about it. Deme never was a very loud person, he could get excited, but he usually kept it under wraps so he wouldn't draw attention to him. This girl didn't seem to share that. Soon a bunch of questions were hurled his way, and Deme wasn't sure how to answer them all, but kept them locked in memory so he could answer them a little later when he had time to breathe. The girl was correct, she did talk a lot, and it was quite irritating in a way, it was more efficient to just speak your mind in a controlled way, rather than just go on about nothing and confuse whoever you're talking to, it just wasn't right. "Yes... you do seem to talk a bit." He commented, running his fingers through his hair and looking around, but then he decided to backtrack the conversation a bit and actually get around to answering the girl, if he didn't then he'd feel guilty later. "To answer your previous questions, I suppose it is hard to ride a broom. Balancing is the worst part, and the sudden wind changes, it's really easy to fall, especially when you're playing Quidditch, though I haven't played in a school game yet. One is coming up." He answered, then the Ravenclaw began to think about whether he'd actually hurt himself before, and he didn't think he had, he'd played Quidditch, but only a very child-like formation of it, so he'd never really been injured, and he'd never hurt himself whilst flying. "And I've never hurt myself, so that is fortunate." He added, forcing a weak smile.

A few minutes passed and Deme grew a little restless, he was originally out here to practise, but now he couldn't, so he decided that it was time to leave, but only after saying goodbye to the girl. "Anyway, I'll be off. Goodbye." He stated, beginning to leave the pitch. He was sure the girl wouldn't mind him leaving, it wasn't that he had better things to do, it was just that he could be doing something less foreign, like reading or something.
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[Claire Aurelious]

Claire wondered why the boy nodded so slowly, it wasn't like she was speaking in a different language. What Claire didn't know was, that to Deme, she almost was. Besides their accent differences, Claire had a way of speaking that only made sense to people from her area. It wasn't that her speaking was uneducated, it was that she was. Claire may not have been dumb, but she sure wasn't smart. Being home schooled by parents who only knew what they knew, made it difficult for Claire to learn the same amount of things as the other children her age. This may have been in a downside in some people's eyes, but Claire didn't mind the way she was. She was optimistic and viewed herself as one of a kind, irreplaceable.

Claire didn't seem too offended by his comment, but she was slightly taken aback. Her smile only faltered for a split second, and even then never turned into a frown or even a strait line. "Wow, that's gotta be amazin'! I mean, being in a team and being with people who are like a family to ya!" Claire knew about that a little, having been on equestrian teams before; those bonds were priceless and unbreakable. Claire nodded when he spoke about never being hurt. She was glad to hear. She had been hurt all too many times by the horses; but, what can you do. They were meant to be wild, and only allow humans to ride them. Claire then let her smile turn into a gentle one as he said he'd be off. "O-okay," She stated, trying to regain a piece of mind. "Have fun with your Quit - Quidditch." She pronounced it right for the first time, thanks to Deme.


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[Deme Aurelious]

Deme nodded. It was nice to be part of a group that would be working together for an extended period of time. Admittedly, though, the Ravenclaw team wasn't something Deme knew too well, he was new, but not the youngest member. First years were on the team and they were rather good, hopefully good enough to win the cup, but Deme had his doubts. The other teams were older and far more experiences with each other. The Ravenclaw captain seemed dedicated enough, and he knew most of everyone's names, but that wasn't the point, dedicated and knowledge of names did not win games, skill and teamwork did, and right now Deme wasn't exactly feeling the skill or the team work, but he was trying. "Vell, I don't really know my team as well as some people. Hopefully that'll change soon." He admitted, with a small shrug.

When Claire finally pronounced Quidditch correctly, Deme stopped, slumped a little bit, and sighed quietly to himself. He wasn't going to like this, but his conscience was getting the better of him. The Ravenclaw turned back to the Gryffindor, who could easily be seen as his polar opposite. "Would you like to... hang out?" It had to be the most awkward thing Deme had ever said in his life. Deme had only ever 'hung out' with Taylor, and that was practically by force. There was no way he could ever get himself out of hanging out with Taylor, it was impossible to do, he'd tried and failed. Now here he was, with the chance to get away from someone he knew he wouldn't understand, or bare to communicate with for an extended period of time, and now he just gave her an invitation to further his misery. Just brilliant. It wasn't that Claire was a particularly horrible person, he was sure she was a lovely person, but that didn't mean that he was confident that he'd be able to understand any sort of sentence that came from her mouth. Deme was good with accents, but only if he had heard something atleast similar to them, this accent was totally foreign to him.

 

[Claire Aurelious]

Claire decided that, when Deme once again spoke, she enjoyed his accent. it was different, and Claire was sure one who was out of the ordinary, and liked things that were out of the ordinary. She was still trying to pinpoint his accent and couldn't. she didn't have much knowledge of other countries, save for the fiction she had read in books. She had also heard it on some tv shows. Rocky and Bullwinkle, she thought. That thought, of course, made things more complicated. she could barely remember that show from when she was a child, watching it with her father. He had said it was from her grandfather's heritage, something from a long time ago. She still loved the show, and how there was a squirrel that flew. Claire had actually found out there was a breed of squirrel that flew. It was an amazing thought.

Claire was a bit sad to hear that he hadn't connected well with his teammates. When she was on the Equestrian team, she had made family like bonds with them. For Claire, when she was around people like her, it wasn't hard to do. She was friendly, kind, and willing to do anything to make someone happy. This of course, got her stepped on. However, Claire seemed blissfully unaware of that. She waited for him to leave before walking off to find someone new, but then he stopped. it was almost like magic that Deme turned around and offered to hang out with her. Claire's face lit up, much like a child's would on Christmas, and she said in a surprised tone, "Really, with me?" She asked. She closed a bit more distance between them, still standing a few feet away. "I'd really like to!" she then paused for a second. "Thanks, by the way." She commented, and then continued on, not making any comments as to what she had thanked him for. Claire had gotten a feeling like he didn't like her, which she couldn't understand why. She knew she was nice, adn she had been raised to treat everyone with respect. However, him asking her to hang out must meant that he didn't mind her, right? He'd be put on the friend's list forever, and whether Deme liked it or not, he was stuck.
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