Late Nights, Stars Bright

[Norton Gillespie]

Norton had been discovering different aspects of magic ever since he had set foot in the school, there was actual spell casting, flying on a broomstick, the amazing and varied creatures and the volumes of history that he had never known anything about. It had been eye opening in the beginning to step into such a world that up until that point had not existed for him. It was odd to think that it had been something very real long before he’d been born and that for someone not knowing about it was odd. Norton wished almost daily that he could share this new world with his mum, a woman whom he knew was with him at every moment but who would’ve loved the magic he could create. It was upon returning to school, with his mini dragon named Venus, and his bought for school telescope, that he had been more reflective of the future. Magic was something he loved dearly, but so much prior to that had been about this enjoyment of the magic not about where it would take him.

Of all the things he loved about it, the study of the stars, astronomy had begun to stand out. It was where the worlds, the two worlds he knew had the most amount of crossover, and perhaps it was this element of it, that drew in Norton. He liked it possibly the most out of all his classes despite how much he loved casting magic. It was because of this that the hufflepuff was breaking the rules, ever so slightly, being out a little after curfew when night had finally fallen, so that he could get a glimpse of the stars. It wasn’t difficult to see them from the hufflepuff common room, but he still figured he’d have an easier view from a place so far up. The hufflepuff just hadn’t expected someone else to be there, ”What are you doing?” he asked quietly, in hushed tone. He knew he was breaking the rules but he hadn’t expected anyone else to be doing so.
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[Stella Wright]

Stella had looked forward to studying magic, to entering her dad's world as she'd entered mum's world of science long before. But while magic was fascinating and exciting and wonderful, Hogwarts had been a source of disappointment to her. She wanted to know more, she wanted to know how these marvellous things worked. She wanted, in short, to discover the science of magic, and this school, at least in first year, had not provided it. She held on to hope that as she advanced further there would be more of the knowledge she sought, but honestly she suspected there wouldn't. So this year she had resolved instead to do as much scientific study of magic on her own as she could manage, possibly with help from Veronica or Phoebe, who seemed to already be engaged in the same aim. She would make Mum proud, she would discover how these things worked whether or not any professors were prepared to teach her.

Astronomy had always been Stella's favourite subject, ever since she'd first come across it in primary school, long before she'd been allowed to study magic. Astronomy at Hogwarts, though, had been the bitterest disappointment of all. Even when the information presented had not been dubious or simply inaccurate, Professor Castor had displayed a shocking contempt for muggles and muggle science, which had quite sapped Stella's enjoyment of what should have been the best class she had. Now, with her newfound resolve, she was going to reclaim her passion and learn more of astronomy without recourse to the classes of this school. Now, this evening, with the sky clear and the stars bright, she had gone out to stargaze, to remind herself what she loved about astronomy. She'd come up here before curfew, and honestly it hadn't occurred to her that she was technically breaking the rules. Stella was utterly absorbed in what she could see through her telescope, gazing at the beautiful curve of the moon, the twinkling constellations that she knew so well. She was terribly startled when someone spoke from behind her. "Oh, hi! I'm stargazing, of course," she said amiably. She nodded towards the telescope in the stranger's hands. "Want to join me?"

 

[Norton Gillespie]

Norton was surprised that the girl was startled by him, he hadn’t expected that, though he hadn’t also expected anyone to be in this spot on this night. The boy hadn’t really run into that many people at the later hours, but perhaps he also hadn’t been out that much at this late hour. He wasn’t that much of a rule breaker, since he somewhat feared being kicked out of the school, this school was his everything he couldn’t lose it. Would spending time with this girl make him lose it? If he was caught, did that increase the risk of him ending up getting into trouble? He didn’t want to leave hogwarts! He almost turned on his heel and left her there, but he’d travelled all this way, he had his telescope with him, this girl was very obviously doing exactly what he had intended to do. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to share the space, if there were two of them, they could claim it was for school they were doing this, they didn’t have a note from any teacher, but a professor might take pity upon them. Just hopefully. He didn’t think it would happen.

”Yeah,” he admitted, ”I had kind of hoped no one would be here, I don’t want to end up getting into trouble, but I also want to stargaze,” Norton told her, knowing he was being perhaps unnecessarily honest with the girl about it. Despite all his worries, he took a seat next to her and began putting down his own telescope. It was a tricky task for him, he hadn’t quite learned how to do this smoothly. Norton had just only learned how best to open up the telescope recently, and was visibly remembering all the steps, ”I’m Norton, I’m in hufflepuff,” the boy introduced, somewhat distracted by what he was doing, but with a keenness in his tone. He looked at her with a brief smile, ”Honestly didn’t think I’d run into anyone here, Hufflepuff is too far to really get a good view, is that also why you come here?” the boy asked wondering if it was just bad luck that they’d both picked this spot for this night, or that actually Norton was the one interrupting the girl and the time she enjoyed when watching the stars, if so, then it was his fault, he was interrupting her. He was going to where she had chosen to spend her time.
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[Stella Wright]

Stella frowned at the boy. Getting into trouble? Why would they . . . "Oh no!" she exclaimed, laughing. "You know, I completely forgot we're not supposed to be up at night." Actually, that was a stupid rule. Why shouldn't students be allowed to stargaze outside of the time allocated for Astronomy lessons. Well, she supposed most people going out at night wouldn't do such harmless things as stargazing. Still, surely they couldn't get in trouble for wanting to learn? Stella glanced over and saw the boy was having trouble putting up his telescope. "Do you want a hand with that?" Stella's own telescope had been a present from her mum, from before she'd even needed one for school, and she was adept at organising and using it. She would genuinely be happy to help someone else learn, and she hoped her smile conveyed that.

"I'm Stella, I'm a Ravenclaw," she responded in kind, cheerfully. Why was it that she seemed to be meeting so many Hufflepuffs who were into Astronomy recently? Sure, two wasn't really that many, but she hadn't met any Ravenclaws who were so enthusiastic about this as to go stargazing when it wasn't demanded by classes. "Yeah, actually I didn't think I'd run into anyone either. Ravenclaw tower is in a pretty good position for this, but there are people there. Not that I mind company," she added hastily, "just, someone in my dorm would be bound to interrupt, or tell me to go to sleep." Or Zoe would start another argument about aliens, which was admittedly entertaining, but not the sort of frustration she felt like tonight.

 

[Norton Gillespie]

Norton looked at the girl as she offered him some help, he needed it clearly, ”Yeah, if you wouldn’t mind,” the boy said to her, since he didn’t really want to be bothering her any more than he was already, but he did need the help, the boy’s interest in the night sky had only just begun and he wasn’t particularly adept at any of the elements of it yet, it was just something he liked and enjoyed currently. He didn’t know how long this interest in it would last but it was one he was willing to continue with as much as he could. The boy got himself something to sit on and took his seat when the girl had helped him finish off getting his telescope ready. He looked through it and marvelled for a moment before realising that the girl, Stella had introduced herself.

”Nice to meet you Stella!” the boy said cheerfully, a smile upon his face, he nodded as she continued, saying that she hadn’t expected anyone to be here, much like he hadn’t expected anyone to be there too. But, maybe it was the time of day and the location meant that people would be. He couldn’t imagine why anyone would tell someone else in the dorm to go to bed. He couldn’t imagine why anyone would say that, ”That’s annoying, they shouldn't be annoying you like that. If it's in the dorm whats the problem?” he told her, agreeing that it would be, ”Do you do this sort of thing often?” Norton asked interested in her and the whole stargazing hobby.
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[Stella Wright]

Stella smiled reassuringly. "Of course I don't mind!" If she had minded, she wouldn't have offered, but it would sound rude to say that, so Stella refrained. "I'm always keen to help people to get into science," she said instead. Stella swung round to sit sideways on her chair so she could access the boy's telescope, and deftly finished setting it up. The more people took an interest in science, particularly astronomy, the better, in her opinion. This school desperately needed scientific common sense to be more widespread. She grinned as he got absorbed in looking through his telescope as soon as she had finished setting it up, and as he belatedly realised they'd been having a conversation. It was exactly the sort of thing she would do, and it endeared him to her immediately.

"Nice to meet you too, Norton!" She chuckled at his question. "In the dorms, people want to sleep at night," she said cheerfully. "Or don't Hufflepuffs have that problem?" She didn't intend to come off as sarcastic, but it did strike her as amusing that it didn't seem to have occurred to Norton that people might want to do things other than stargazing in the dorm. "I haven't come up here by myself before," she told him, "but I do stargaze a lot. Usually I do just set up my telescope in the dorm, actually, but I thought tonight I'd try up here instead."

 

[Norton Gillespie]

Norton couldn't help his expression as she said the word science, it wasn't a term often used at magical school. He hadn't thought about science in a while, but he guessed that astronomy must be pretty close to them. "Science," he repeated with a chuckle, "I was always so bad at science in muggle school," he told her, watching as she helped set it up for him, so he would know how to do it better next time. Since he wouldn't be able to just go find Stella each time he needed a little help putting up his telescope. He was certainly pleased for her company, he hadn't thought he'd want any, but Norton had always been a sociable person, so it was nice to have someone to speak to even if he forgot a little after she'd helped him out. It was natural, but he was glad to pick back up and talk with her, she seemed like a nice person, someone who Norton could see himself getting along with.

"They do, but they've never told me to go to sleep no matter how late it is," the boy told her, maybe it was just in his dorm they never did that, or maybe that hufflepuffs were too polite to say anything. Or maybe they had and he'd just always ignored it to the point of forgetting. He just shrugged, looked out at the night sky. He couldn't help but think it was the perfect place to star gaze, "It's nice up here," he commented, "The night sky is always so clear at Hogwarts, when there are no clouds of course," back home for Norton there had been plenty of stars, but never as many as here when the light pollution was so low. It was another nice change, and it was helping in build Norton's interest in stargazing too. "Do you like Ravenclaw?" Norton asked, having never really thought if others liked their houses. He took an interest in Slytherin because of Gilly but none of the others.
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[Stella Wright]

Stella was almost insulted at the way Norton laughed when she mentioned science, but she swiftly realised he hadn't meant it in the demeaning way that people like Lucinda did. "Astronomy is science, you know. They don't admit that here because this school has some stupid taboo against admitting that muggles can do things." This was a huge source of frustration for Stella, but she tried to keep the anger out of her tone. There was no reason to take it out on an innocent fellow student. "Pretty much all of what we did in Astronomy last year was muggle science." Taught badly and full of glaring inaccuracies, she thought but didn't add.

Stella nodded thoughtfully. "Hufflepuffs seem like nice people. Not that Ravenclaws aren't," she added hastily, because it was true and she didn't want to sound like she was complaining. Hufflepuff sounded a lot more relaxed than Ravenclaw, but Stella for one thrived on the academic atmosphere of questioning and debate found in her own house. "Yeah, it's really good for stargazing out here. At home there's so much light from the city." She smiled, looking up at the scattered stars without her telescope. "Yeah, I love Ravenclaw. It's the best thing about Hogwarts. What about you?"

 

[Norton Gillespie]

Norton nodded at what she said, it was science, ”Maybe they don’t understand it?” he offered. He had always thought, prior to hogwarts that magic was just the way muggles used to explain things not yet understood, perhaps it was the same with magic though to be fair, it was just easier to understand it as magic than as science. He wasn’t sure what he said made too much sense, but understanding how the two worlds reacted to each other was something he was interested in. At the very least he was really enjoying learning about astronomy, perhaps it was the slight separation between astronomy and muggle science that he liked, but she was right, astronomy featured muggle science heavily. ”Yeah, that’s true,” he wasn’t sure how many more classes would feature muggle things or when it would change to more magical things. Perhaps it was just to get a grounding and magical people still understood things more deeply than them.

As the conversation shifted to the houses he had to nod along. He hadn’t met many ravenclaws, which he had to think was a pity, but he was thoroughly enjoying his house and the people he knew from it. He liked people from all the houses really, even if he hadn’t met some of them, he would still know he liked them. He could admit that one of the advantages of the magical world and this place specifically was the lack of light pollution, ”We are a long way from street lights,” he commented, ”I don’t miss the light from the city, but I’ll admit it took me a while to get used to the lack of sounds,” he shrugged, he had gotten used to the silence of the dorm room, but it had been interesting to be without such sounds. ”I love hufflepuff a lot, but I don’t know if it’s the best thing. Houses are great, but there’s so much else and without houses I’d be able to see my twin more, I love quidditch more and the gardens are awesome,” he said. He could easily list off all the things he loved about this place but he wasn’t sure that she wanted to listen to such a list.
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