Sunlight and Anachronism

[Lillian Sword]

Lillian hadn't had much free time since starting her new job. There was so much to learn, so much to organise; classes to teach for the first time, assignments to mark. It was all interesting to her, and thoroughly satisfying, and yet she was curious, too, about her new environment. The school was such a fascinating anacrhonism, a castle built by Victorians to mimic a true historical castle. And indeed, while there were certainly significant differences, it was remarkably similar to the Hogwarts she had known in her teens.

So one afternoon when she had no class to teach, Lillian decided to explore. She wandered the castle with her camera in hand, hoping to learn her way around, but more than content simply to observe. Architecture had long been one of her interests, along with photography, and this place offered ample opportunity for both. Thus, Lillian strolled around taking photos of interesting architectural details that appealed to her, largely ignoring any students in the corridors. She came to a courtyard, where she photographed some columns and their long afternoon shadows, then lingered in the sunshine for a time.

 

[Professor Kahurangi Josephs]

Kahurangi's efforts to get out of her office more this year had actually been succeeding, and in spending time other places around the castle she was beginning to realise how much she actually enjoyed the castle. For all its grandiosity, Hogwarts still felt strangely cosy to her, and it was nice to just walk around. She didn't have time for a proper visit to the gardens though, an intimidatingly large pile of marking atop her desk calling her name, but at least nipping out to the courtyard for a bit of fresh air was better than nothing.

As she entered the courtyard, Kahurangi spotted one of the new professors she had met briefly at the beginning of the semester, a little surprised to see the woman had a camera with her. Wondering whether it was a hobby, or she had already been roped into helping with the student newspaper, Kahurangi hesitated before approaching the woman, hoping she hadn't gotten the names of her new colleagues the wrong way around. "Lovely day." She said with a pleasant smile. "Lillian, right? I'm Kahurangi, upper levels Runes." She said, figuring the woman was probably too inundated with new names and faces to actually remember anyone individually yet. "Are you settling in alright?"

 

[Lillian Sword]

Lillian looked around abruptly when she heard footsteps on the cobblestones, but smiled when she recognised the intruder as one of her fellow professors. She hadn't been making much effort to get to know them; remembering all the students' names was challenging enough, and Lillian had never been the most social of people. Still, she really should make the effort to be friendly. After all, she was working with these people, and they would change far less frequently than the students, once she got to know their faces.

"Hello," she said amiably, glancing at the woman with some curiosity. "Yes, that's right; pleasure to meet you, Kahurangi." Lillian often found repeating people's names to be an effective mnemonic device, although with a name relatively unfamiliar to her such as this, that probably wouldn't be necessary. "I've just been trying to learn my way around the castle. It's somewhat labyrinthine, isn't it? Though I suppose it'll all make sense soon enough." Lillian was familiar with the concepts of moving staircases and the like, but obviously they moved to different places than those at Hogwarts Scotland; here was a whole new assemblage of passageways to learn.