Closed Slowly Blooming

[Daria Bright-Root]

Daria had known life at Hogwarts was going to be tough, but she hadn't been ready for just how tough it would be. She had never been great at making friends at the best of times, and moving to an entirely new country had only made things harder. It felt like all of her classmates had grouped up immediately and left her all alone, the shy girl, too awkward for any of them. She just drifted from class to class hiding behind her curtain of hair, wishing she were brave enough to speak up. There was only one way Daria really felt safe raising her voice, and it wasn't something she would ever feel safe doing in front of others. While she had brought her sketchbook out to the lake, being all alone gave her the courage to sing out. Tucking her hair behind her hair, she looked out over the lake as she let her beautiful voice rise, singing one of her mum's favourite old songs, one that encapsulated how she felt, all alone at school.

 

[Marnie Frogg]

Marnie picked her way across the lakeshore, stopped and cooing excitedly every few steps when she found a good candidate for her project before leaning down to scoop a rock to add to the steadily growing collection she had cradled in her shirt. She wasn't totally certain what she was going to do with all the stones she was picking up, but with such smooth, round surfaces she was sure she could find something; paint or maybe glue them to something, like a mosaic only.. rockier. She'd figure it out. For now, she was content with her haul, only pausing her gathering at the sound of music drifting over the quiet water nearby.

Enthralled, Marnie scuttled closer, recognizing Daria from class once the girl had brushed some of her out of her face enough for Marnie to pick out her features. As the song came to a close, Marnie burst into applause, unceremoniously dumping her impromptu rock collection to the ground at her feet with a clatter and she clapped. "Wow that was beautiful did you write- oh oops my rocks- did you write that all yourself or are you a songwriter I saw your notebook so I assumed maybe you're writing a song though I definitely sing when I'm doing stuff like painting or sewing sometimes though I'm not very good at remembering the words so it's more like a hum-along thing than sing-singing but you were sing-singing and it was really nice what was the song called does it have a name can you sing a song about me or maybe about rocks I got some cool rocks that would definitely be song worthy well I did but I dropped most of them now actually oh well nevermind," Marnie said, hurrying over to where Daria had sat and scooting herself closer, barely resisting the urge to peer at whatever Daria had in the book with her out of a sense of fellow artist's respect.