Poking Around for a Pet

[Zilnafa]

Zilnafa smiled. That was a nice place to have such a ceremony. Especially since that was where they had first met. It seemed serne in it's simplicity.

"So how is being a civil partnership different then from being married?"

[Michael Blackwood-Hardt]

Michael didn't answer immediately. He had to think about it for a few seconds. "It's...hard to tell you exactly what the difference is. We're partners instead of husbands, but we get all the legal benefits of a married couple. We wouldn't have been allowed to have the ceremony in a church even if we had wanted to. But it's more of a feeling than anything. That's the part that's hard to explain."

[Zilnafa]

Zilnafa tilted her head. It seemed a little to personal to delve deeper into what Micheal was trying to explain. She was already pining for a date (something she hadn't done since...ever) and she assumed that if she knew what Micheal was feeling she'd want that and then her quest for her parents would cease.

"So uh..." She was desperate for a topic change, feeling akward about asking such a deep question.

[Michael Blackwood-Hardt]

"So how long have you been at Hogwarts?" Michael asked, latching onto Zilly's silent request for a change of topic. Her accent gave her away, it didn't quite match up with the rest of the people from the area, so he thought it was safe to assume she wasn't from here originally. Besides, he had no idea how to explain the difference between marriage and a partnership to someone that had never experienced it.

[Zilnafa]

Zilnafa barely withheld a sigh of relief. Something that would distract her from the annoying psst find a man and settle down whispering somewhere near her heart.

"From Ethiopia." That was the closest country she could think of to where she used to live. The Wizarding community she'd came from literally was it's own country and it's name was never really told to her. Her orphange had been in Ethiopia so it seemed alright to say that. "Believe it or not, but it's pretty hot there."

[Michael Blackwood-Hardt]

"What do you think of all the cold here?" Michael asked with an easy smile. "It must be really different from Ethiopia." And not just in climate. He couldn't imagine that a place in Africa would be covered with grass and trees, even if at the moment the majority of the green here was brown. There was still enough green to count, though.

[Zilnafa]

Zilnafa scrunched her nose. "Well to be honest, it's kinda making me nuts. I totally love to go outside because it's so incredbly beautiful, especailly at Hogwarts with the Forest all white but my body hasn't adjusted so I can only spend maybe an hour outside even with a heat spell."

She felt Abla move on her shoulder. She glanced and got an unappeitizing veiw. Abla had turned around and was now swating at her braid.

"Do you like this weather?"

[Michael Blackwood-Hardt]

"Yes," Michael said, nodding. "There isn't much about outside I don't like. But in the winter, it's fun to watch Dare. He's from California, so he had never seen snow until last year. It was a lot of fun showing him it for the first time." They had wrestled in it and then gone inside to thaw. He always had so much fun with Dare. "He always comes home all bundled up and frozen."

[Zilnafa]

Zilnafa laughed. She could almost see Dare all bundled like a round ball with two hands waving around and two little stumps for feet. It seemed like what she would look like.

"It's nice to know I'm not the only snow foriegner here."

[Michael Blackwood-Hardt]

"Far from it," Michael said. "I'd say it's about half and half when it comes to natives and foreigners. It seems like every other person I meet is from somewhere other than England." There were so many different accents and nationalities represented at Hogwarts that it was dangerous to try to assume where someone was from.

[Zilnafa]

Oh. Yay. That meant that less people would laugh if she really wanted to spend time outside. But now she had an image in her head of a couple hundred multicolored balls rolling around the grounds of Hogwarts.

"I haven't heard much anyone speak." It was possible, she didn't like to talk to those peopl who teased her. It was common sense. "I hang out in the library way too much."

[Michael Blackwood-Hardt]

"You will," Michael said. "You haven't been here long. The more you're here the more people you'll meet and talk to." He didn't know what the school was like this year, though. "Have you met anyone at school to hang out with?" He thought that everyone should have at least one person to talk to.

[Zilnafa]

"Kinda." She didn't want to admit to Micheal that she may have blown it.

Jory was probably freaked out by her and probably trying to find away to shut her up. Maybe he thought he could placate her with his friendship even though he never even wanted to look her in the face. It didn't really matter.

"I might have convinced him that I'm a total nutjob."

[Michael Blackwood-Hardt]

"Well, I'm sure if you go talk to him again you can work something out," Michael said. He knew that most people gave second chances, especially when things were so easily misinterpreted anymore. "Never assume what someone else thinks of you." That never turned out well. He and Dare had had problems before because of assuming things like that.