Lonely? Pfft.

[Ruby Fairleigh]

Ruby Fairleigh was trying to get some homework finished, but she'd run out of words, and the work had ceased to interest her at this moment. She had burrowed herself down one of the library corridors between the shelves to keep herself away from any other groups of students who might be inclined to talk. Talk here meaning, filling up all the space and making Ruby feel like she couldn't breathe.

She really wished now that her parents hadn't decided live so high up in the mountains by themselves. Being here had made Ruby realise that while she'd never struggle with being alone, she was definitely going to struggle with being around people. So many people. They were all through the corridors, sprawled across couches in the common room, scratching away their notes in the classrooms. And they had friends. Lots of them, talking to them, and laughing with them.

Ruby had never realised that having friends was actually something you were supposed to want. Typical to her nature, she'd stayed in her own head and just watched the other first years around her. She hadn't talked to anyone, or introduced herself to anyone. No one had talked to her. Not since that boy at the lake anyway, the one she'd almost tripped up. And that hadn't lasted long, because Ruby had left almost straight away. Why did I walk away? Okay, I know why, but still. I'm definitely going to be the odd one out if I have no friends. She didn't mind that of course, but this odd idea of having friends was now buzzing through her brain. It was a new thought, one she'd never had cause to contemplate before. I wonder how you make friends?

 

[Ashleigh Thorn]

Ashleigh Thorn was looking for a good book. She'd just finished a brilliant Muggle one named 'The Book Thief', and she wasn't sure that anything could top that yet. Perhaps it was the writing style that she'd liked so much, although she secretly felt that being a book thief was something she could relate to. She'd stolen things before, it was kind of hard to resist when your only other option was starving on the street. Ash glanced up at the high walls around her. It was unsettling to suddenly be hemmed in again, by rules and expectations and walls. But it was necessary. If she ever wanted to be truly independent, she had to learn everything she could to do with magic. Which meant being in all her classes every day. It's a good thing I actually like learning - I'd never be able to do this otherwise.

Wandering down between another set of stacks, Ash trailed her fingertips along the spines of the books. She always felt like she belonged in libraries, books had always been able to fill in her empty spaces and make her feel whole. They took her away from the world to a nicer place where she didn't have to be anyone, or keep up the act. She was just herself, without a name or a face. Just a conscious with an interest in stories. Ash peered a little further along the corridor towards the far end of the room, seeing a girl sitting down between the shelves. Ash walked closer, trying to see what the girl was doing, when suddenly she stopped short and gasped indignantly. "You! What are you doing here?!"

 

[Ruby Fairleigh]

Ruby heard an irritated voice over her head, and looked up to see a girl with dark hair standing over her and glaring. She'd never seen the girl before in her life and she hugged the book in her hands closer to her chest as some form of protection from the words that had cut straight through her solitude. She blinked at the girl as she tried to figure out some response, something that would stop this girl going any further, something that would just make her leave Ruby alone.

"I was doing homework, but you've kinda just interrupted me." She then stood the book back against her knees and pointedly looked at it, trying to give the girl the hint to leave. She didn't know how this girl thought she knew her, or what she'd done to provoke such a response from her, but she didn't want a confrontation.

 

[Ashleigh Thorn]

Ashleigh would have normally never done such a thing, and she was a bit shocked at herself for how loud she'd managed to sound. But she was still sore about what had happened during her sorting and she just couldn't believe that this girl had been sorted into Gryffindor when she'd been crying during the whole thing. Even now, the girl was looking nervous as she stared fixatedly at her book. Looking down at her Ash started to feel bad, and although she didn't particularly like this girl, she didn't want her to start crying again because of something she'd said. Ash glanced around, but couldn't see anybody paying attention to them, so she awkwardly sat down opposite the girl. "Sorry, that sounded really snappy. Er... it's just..." Ash stopped unsure of how to go on. She didn't want to tell this girl why she'd yelled at her, but how else was she going to explain it? Maybe she could use this Slytherin thing to her advantage, because surely wouldn't she be expected to be a mean person?

"You were crying during the sorting, so why are you in Gryffindor?" Ash couldn't believe how blunt that had sounded. Normally she probably wouldn't have even talked to anyone, but she couldn't back down from it now. She wished she had thought this through instead of just impulsively going along with her stupid first instincts. Hadn't that been a key thing she'd learnt last year, to think about everything and see every possibility before making a move? Her past self would be disgusted at how she'd handled this.

 

[Ruby Fairleigh]

The girl didn't go away, and Ruby was unsure how to stop this situation going any further. She wished she knew how people actually dealt with this sort of stuff. She felt trapped by the bookshelves around her and was seriously thinking about just getting up and removing herself from the situation, when the girl decided to sit down and kind of apologised to her. Ruby watched her uncertainly, thrown off by her conflicting attitude. She shut her book, preparing to take flight if she needed to. That wasn't something she wanted to do to someone, but she thought the girl looked a bit crazed and she'd never experienced that before. Sure, she'd been on the receiving end of the weird looks, but it was a little different seeing someone else. It kind of made Ruby realise why people had always reacted to her in the way they did. Which suddenly made her want to give this girl a chance.

And then the girl said something that first shocked then puzzled Ruby. Crying? I wasn't... Oh. She remembered how she'd fallen over and knocked one of her contacts around in her eye. It had watered something dreadful and she'd spent quite a lot of time trying to wrestle it back in place. She thought she'd gone unnoticed, but apparently not. "Um, I wasn't actually crying. I kind of fell over and one of my contacts slipped somehow, so my eye watered when I was putting it back." She wondered why this was a big deal, especially coming from someone she didn't even know. And what was all this stuff about Gryffindor? Ruby felt like she was watching this conversation from far away, like something she'd chanced upon in a dream. She would have almost believed that, if she didn't know that she would never dream about something as mundane as a library. "I'm Ruby, and excuse me, but you are...?"

 

[Ashleigh Thorn]

Ash couldn't believe what the girl was saying. What? She wears contacts? She fell over? How does that even happen? Ash searched the girl's face to see if she was lying, but she seemed to be serious. Ash could feel a hot flush creeping up the back of her neck and streaming across her cheeks. If this did turn out to be true, Ash had just made a gigantic fool of herself. She'd spent all this time away from others in order to stop something like this from happening, to stop others from judging her, and now she'd just gone and blown it. She stared down into her lap, unconsciously drawing her hair forwards over her face to hide it. She felt like all the books in the shelves above her had just toppled over and she could almost sense each heavy volume as it struck her. This was a disaster, and she couldn't understand why she had to shoot off her mouth at all. Ash twisted her hands, torn between whether staying or running would be the worse thing to do.

She was expecting some cutting or jeering remark from the girl, and was surprised when she just introduced herself instead. Ash still couldn't get over her name. She looks like a Molly, not a Ruby. She carefully drew her hair back from her face, slightly hesitating before answering, "I'm Ashleigh. I, uh..." She bit her lip, but she knew she had to apologise. And she owed Molly-Ruby some sort of explanation for her unprovoked attack. "I'm sorry for my mistake. I just... was having trouble understanding how that could've happened." Oh, she sounded so stupid. Maybe she should just leave before this situation could get any worse. She was pretty sure it could. She'd read enough books to know that it could always get worse.

 

[Ruby Fairleigh]

Ruby watched the girl, Ashleigh, quickly becoming more agitated and felt concerned. She didn't really know what was going on, but she recognised the look on the other girls' face as an expression that crossed her own mother's quite frequently. She was thankful she had some kind of experience with this kind of thing and before she knew it she had put her book down and had shuffled across the floor to sit next to Ashleigh. "Hey, look, it's okay. I'm not upset, it was a perfectly valid question." She just hoped the girl wouldn't ask her why she was in Gryffindor, because even Ruby had no idea. A whole family of Slytherins and then suddenly - here she was. She wondered how her family would treat her over the upcoming break, especially her grandfather, who would certainly not be impressed. It'll be interesting to see how he handles this latest drama in his 'perfect' family. Ruby suddenly realised her thoughts were wandering again, which they shouldn't be, especially not now.

She looked at Ashleigh, wary that she might suddenly switch moods again. Ruby knew how to console and make things better, but her mother had never been the type to scream and act in a violent sort of manner, and judging from the way Ashleigh had initiated the - conversation? Situation? Whichever this was, Ruby wasn't certain that the other girl would stay in this subdued, about-to-sob state that was familiar to deal with. It suddenly struck her how much Ashleigh reminded her of her mother right now. It made Ruby feel more connected to the girl, which made her want to help her even more. "If it helps, I didn't think I would be in Gryffindor either. It was a total shock, especially for my family." She laughed a bit, remembering the very first letter she'd received from them after she'd told them about her sorting. "After a whole family of Slytherins, they weren't very happy." Ruby hoped her attempts to help Ashleigh open up were working, she didn't like seeing anyone in distress like this. She placed her hand on the other girl's arm to comfort her.

 

[Ashleigh Thorn]

Ash watched apprehensively as the other girl moved so they were sitting side by side. She shifted to her left so as to create a gap between her and Molly-Ruby, unnerved by the girl's disregard for personal space. She looked slightly troubled, as if Ash's lapse of weakness affected her personally somehow. She was further frustrated when Molly-Ruby said that she wasn't upset by what Ash had said. As if I was worried about her, when really I can't believe I did this to myself. She felt ashamed of her instability, and decided that the only good thing about this situation was that she didn't look as catastrophic as she knew she was on the inside right now. If nothing else, she considered herself an expert at pretending everything was all right when really it was all sliding off a page like running ink. She tried to casually swipe at her eyes to check if they were threatening to leak, but thankfully that wasn't going to be a problem.

Molly-Ruby had stared talking again, and Ash was surprised to hear that the other girl's entire family had been in Slytherin. She couldn't help but compare herself to the girl, she was the Gryffindor that should have been in Slytherin, whereas Ash had wanted to be in that house and look where she'd ended up. It was a cruel joke that the greater forces were playing on her, that was for sure. The idea of family almost let her wander towards one of the locked areas in her mind, when Molly-Ruby did something that instantly caused Ash to tense. Her eyes flashed down at the hand on her arm and then up to meet the other girl's pale blue eyes, which seemed to pierce through Ash. She immediately shrugged the hand off and stood up all in one movement. She couldn't believe that this girl seemed to pity her, and that she felt that it was okay to treat Ash in this familiar way in doing so. "Yes, well, thank you for clearing that up for me. Goodbye." She left the girl in the aisle without another word and swiftly exited the library, reminding herself to never let anything like that happen ever again.