Open Made By Me

[Estella Fuentes]

Estella had to admit that she had quite a good break from Hogwarts. It had given her a lot of time to do things she enjoyed, and with her parents running around trying to get her sister organised for her first year, Estella was given the opportunity to discover something new. The girl had heard about flower crowns from her friend Rosemarie, but they seemed especially difficult to make. She wondered how on earth someone could intertwine flowers in such an intricate way and have it look pretty and sit perfectly on top of someone's head without them looking stupid. She had finally done it however, and had brought with her back to Hogwarts a couple of designs she had done. She hadn't mastered the art perfectly, but she thought it was definitely some good progress for the Conglomerated Arts Club. She knew just whose opinion to get first.

The teen made her way down to the Great Lawn in search of her friend. She hadn't found him at the Ravenclaw House Table, nor at the library or the student lounge, and so she thought surely she could find him somewhere outside. When she saw him in the distance, she practically ran towards him, waving the flower crowns around as she did so. "Sawyer!" she exclaimed, coming to a halt when she had made it to him. "I made a couple of flower crowns. Do you like them?" She held them out to him, showing him a pink and purple one, followed by an orange and green one. She picked the flowers from the garden at her home and wanted to know what Sawyer thought of them first before showing anyone else.

 

[Sawyer Carnahan]

Sawyer knew he had a tendency to get moody whenever the school year started up again. It was easier now, having Theia and Felix both at school, but he still took awhile to adjust being away from home. He always thought better when he had some space, so he'd gone out to the lawn to get some air and maybe avoid being hunted down by Felix with a bunch of questions about where the best bathrooms were or something.

He was a little surprised to be found by a different Hufflepuff instead, feeling a little excited lurch in his gut when Essie made her way over to him, clearly enthused about something. "Oh hey, uhyeah, those are cool," he said, ducking his head a little to try and get a solid look at the flower crowns Estella had as she shuffled them in her hands. "Are those real flowers?"

 

[Estella Fuentes]

Estella couldn't help but smile when Sawyer seemed to like her flower crowns. It meant a lot to her and this really helped boost her ego a little bit. She couldn't wait until she was able to show everyone them, and it made her eager to make more. "Yeah, they're real flowers. I steal them from my step-mother's garden. I mean it's not really stealing though because I live there too, but that's where I get them from, and I'm sure she doesn't mind." She continued to observe her flower crowns, admiring how pretty they looked. "What did you get up to during your break?" she asked, wondering if he did anything as interesting as make flower crowns.

 

[Sawyer Carnahan]

Sawyer huffed a laugh at Essie's explanation about the flowers, nodding sagely. "Maybe reappropriated's a better word?" He offered with an amused smile. "Are you gonna wear them or are they more the looking out sort of deal?" He asked, privately thinking Estella would looking pretty cute with one on. "Mostly just getting my little brother sorted for Hogwarts. He started this year," Sawyer said, scrubbing a hand through his hair. "I swear, I've never seen a kid that excited about getting a frog, aye."

 

[Estella Fuentes]

Estella smiled at Sawyer as he came up with a better word for what she had done with the flowers. She knew he was smart, and it definitely made her whole explanation a lot shorter. As he asked whether or not she would wear them, she shrugged. "Oh well, they're cute, but I guess they're better to wear when it's the right occasion. Also, neither of these match any of my outfits, and definitely not my Hogwarts robes. I would need to make a yellow and black one to match my tie, but there's no such thing as black flowers unless they're dead. And I can't make just a yellow one because that would be boring." the Hufflepuff explained, preferring not to add them to her outfits until she became better at it. After all, it would probably be the first thing people would notice, she was sure.

As Sawyer said his brother started Hogwarts this year, Estella beamed. "Oh, so did my sister! She was sorted into Gryffindor though, thank god." She took a sigh of relief, not knowing how she'd cope with her annoying sister being in the same house as her. "A frog? That's weird. I don't understand why anyone would want a frog as a pet. Isn't that dangerous for them or something? I thought their skin was like super sensitive." Estella wasn't sure if she was right, but owning a frog was definitely very weird to her.

 

[Sawyer Carnahan]

Sawyer nodded impassively as Essie went into detail about wearing the flower crowns. "I didn't realize how much pre-planning went into all this," he said with a half-smile, glancing back down at the flower crowns. "I think you could still pull it off," he added with a quick shrug, clearing his throat when his brain tried to catch up with might have been an attempt at flirting and tried to panic about it.

He was grateful for the change in subject when Essie mentioned her younger sister getting sorted as well, huffing in amusement at her apparently relief at not being in the same house. "Yeah, Felix ended up in Hufflepuff, which I guess I could see coming," he said, scratching his cheek. "Would have been funny if your sister was in Ravenclaw, we could have swapped." He snorted at Essie's confusion about the frog, nodding. "It's a long standing obsession, I wouldn't try to understand it. He's just been carrying it around in it's lil tank thing all week. It'll be a miracle if it doesn't end up in someone's cauldron," Sawyer said wanly. "I guess at least the frog doesn't try to peck your fingers off like our owl does," he added, flexing his hand instinctively at the memory of sharp beaks and talons.

 

[Estella Fuentes]

"Oh yes, a lot of thought needs to go into it. I don't want to come out of my dormitory looking tacky." Estella told Sawyer, hoping that he understood. She smiled as he said she could pull it off. "You really think so? I probably could, but I don't want to risk it." She shrugged. She liked the idea of making flower crowns however, and so wasn't too worried about it. She would hopefully eventually come up with one that matches her robes, and until then, there was so many more flower crowns to be made.

Estella chuckled slightly at the idea of her sister being sorted into Ravenclaw. "I definitely couldn't imagine her getting Ravenclaw. She's nowhere near as smart as you." Estella said, feeling as though Gryffindor was a good fit for her. She wasn't exactly sure where Evie would end up, but now that the sorted hat had sorted her, it really made a lot of sense. Estella didn't have many Gryffindor friends, but she knew they definitely were a bunch of loose canons. At the thought of his brother's frog being loose, Estella couldn't help but cringe. "There is no way that I would want to come across that ever. I really hope it doesn't get in my cauldron." Estella couldn't help but be worried now and was dreading her next potions class. "It may not peck at me, but I don't know, frogs are just sort of gross, don't you think?"

 

[Sawyer Carnahan]

Sawyer snorted when Estella mentioned not wanting to look dorky, faltering and sobering his expression he realized she was being serious about it. "Oh, right yeah, totally," he said, nodding a few times for good measure. Sawyer had never been very good at worrying about how he looked, half the time he ended up wearing Theia's clothes since they both favoured old hand-me-downs that were far too big for them, but whatever Essie did seemed to be working for her since he always thought she looked good. And apparently colour-coordinated flower crowns were serious business.

Sawyer sucked some air in through his teeth when Estella called him smart, clicking his tongue in disagreement. "If you saw my grades I don't think you'd be saying that," he said dryly, though there was no heat. He'd made peace with his solidly average grades a long time ago, especially when sizing up against his roommates like Beckett. It was fine. His talents lay elsewhere. "You however, are like top of the class," he added, pointing an accusing finger at Essie. Maybe he could ask her for some help on his homework later. That'd be a totally normal and cool thing to do, he could pull it off maybe with minimal palm sweating too. "I've been assured that Clive- that's the frog's name- is well contained. So your cauldrons are safe, thankfully," he said with a fond eye roll. "They do have the slime factor going for them," he said in agreement. He didn't get the frog appeal either, but after growing up around Thistle, Felix, and even his dad, it took a lot to gross Sawyer out. "Does that make you more of a what... Dog person? Cat? Puffskein?" Sawyer said, thinking for a moment. "Ah I bet you're secretly a dragon girl, aren't you," he said, grinning.

 

[Estella Fuentes]

Estella was glad that Sawyer seemed to understand what she meant about the flower crowns. Usually boys were a lot harder to convince, and she couldn't help but like him a little more because of this. "You definitely are smart, regardless of your grades. All I do is what I'm told, and that's what gets me the O's. We're here to impress the professors, not much else." she explained, believing that grades really did not reflect how smart someone was. It was all subjective in Estella's opinion, and the professors ultimately determined how good someone did.

As Sawyer spoke about the frog and reassured her that it was not going to jump into her cauldron, she couldn't help but take a sigh of relief. "Oh good, I was thinking I'd turn around and find him sitting next to me in the common room one day. You know how scary that would be?" She shuddered at the thought, not liking the idea of sharing a sofa with a slimy pest. She giggled as Sawyer tried to guess what sort of person she was, but then quickly turned down his idea of being a dragon girl. "No way!" she exclaimed. "My sister is a dragon girl. She is obsessed. They're such weird creatures, and dangerous too. I do like cats and dogs though. Pugs are just adorable. What about you? Do you have a favourite animal?"