Old Friend(Willow/Silver)

[Willow Wenlock]

Peaceful she thought to herself, that is how she always felt at Hogwarts. As she stared over the placid waters of the lake she remembered her first trip over the waters in the dark of night, huddled with other first years anticipating and fearing what came next. After Beauxbaton it seemed so much more honest and fulfilling.

Beauxbatons had been an experience Willow thought, but as the breeze blew gently across her face, and she heard the first stirrings of spring in the air, she knew that she would forever belong here. It was where her ancestors, her friends, and her heart resided, in the deep basins and high mountains of Scotland.

The land was a proverbial basin of life, species existing and migrating through here that did not exist anywhere else. She smiled as she watched a long arm reach across the mirrored surface of the water, sending disruptions in slow endless ripples across the water. The days at Hogwarts would inevitably grow busy with school work, tension rising from the race to succeed, but it's surroundings were so beautiful that you could take a moment to get lost in them.

She turned her head up to the sun, allowing the breeze to blow across her face, catching up strands of her silvery hair and creating a soft halo around her head. Her eyes closed as immersed herself in the memories, in the future, in what felt so right about being home.

[Silver Blackwood]

Silver paused at the edge of the treeline that crept up so close to the Black Lake in places, shifting his books from beneath one arm to the other. The light was playing tricks on him, he knew it, but that didn't stop the illusion from taking root in his overactive mind. Her innocence, her greatest prize/Showing in that rose-tinted bloom/The angel's blush. It was completely inappropriate, but he couldn't help himself. His fingers itched to open his notebook and write.

What of silver and gold? Iridescent strands float... dance...

He couldn't decide. it needed to go onto paper. Silver broke his gaze from the girl only long enough to glance down at his books, jostling his notebook from the others. Then his gaze rose again, taking in what he could while she didn't know he was there. It was times like this that he treasured his tendency to fade into the background. That is, until the remainder of his books slid loose, toppling over one another with a thud against the hard-packed ground. His eyes widened, and he froze in near-panic.

[Willow Wenlock]

As deep in her thoughts and dreams as she was, it took a moment for Willow to register the thud from behind her. She would have shrugged it off as yet another sound from the forest that she stood so close to, but it hadn't been the sound of an animal, more a dull thud. She was hesitant to turn her face from the warm basking glow of the suns rays on her face; France was not as generous with her rays as Scotland was. Still her quizzical mind wanted to fit the puzzle of the sound into the surrounding of her scenery.

Slowly she turned her head, catching sight of a boy standing in the tree line, with a pile of books scattered around him. Willow tilted her head for a moment, he hadn't been there mere seconds ago she thought to herself, or had he. She allowed a soft flush to fill her cheeks for a moment as she sought to place him. She'd been gone for a few years, but she'd known most students in the years surrounding her own before she left. Not recognizing him, she figured that he must have transferred in during her time in Beauxbaton.

Willow ran a hand through her hair trying to make the wavy strands lie down in a presentable fashion. "I couldn't help it," she said gesturing. "It's been such a long time since I'd seen the lake. I didn't remember how," she tried to find the right word. Tranquil didn't say everything, and peaceful the school was not, "harmonious it was here." She looked back over the lake for a minute, wondering exactly how long he had been there.

[Silver Blackwood]

Silver blinked, then blinked again rapidly, recalling himself the moment he realized she had to be talking to him. He glanced aside anyway, as though he might suddenly find someone standing there, someone smiling and waving at the sylph who had appeared to be looking at him. There was no one, and Silver's nerves fluttered as he moved to gather his books before she could see the titles. Numerology and Gramatica wasn't much better than Poems of Love and Arithmancy, which he'd had to send away for since the library didn't own a copy.

"I... I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt," he stammered, though it was questionable whether his voice would carry as far away as the girl was. Had she said something to him? Oh God, he couldn't remember. Was he supposed to be saying something back? He racked his brain as he crouched to scoop his books together, trying not to smash any pages in the process.

[Willow Wenlock]

Willow wondered at the stammering, had she said something to fluster she thought? He hadn't interrupted per say, he had just become part of the whole picture. The picture she'd been thinking to herself about all of the time and people Hogwarts had to offer. She wanted to offer to help him pick up his books, but he seemed a bit flighty she thought.

"You weren't interrupting anymore than anything else was. I promise." She threw out a beaming smile, "My name's Willow," for so long as a child she had grumbled about her parent's choice of the name Willow in conjunction with her last and middle name. She'd imagined being named something momentous, an ancient name carrying power and history like the women that had founded Hogwarts. Over the years though she had chosen to accept Willow, the grace and flexibility her name came with suited her well.

[Silver Blackwood]

"Um, Silver," Silver said absently. He debated opening his book bag to stuff Poems of Love and Arithmancy in, but it was full and it was more likely to overflow the entire thing than to hide his secrets. He hid it between his textbook and his journal, angling it as best he could toward himself. "Silver... Sylvester Blackwood," he corrected himself. "People just call me Silver." He pushed back to his feet and forced himself to glance up at the girl—Willow—and managed a smile of his own, though it was mostly hidden behind a curtain of long, dark hair.

[Willow Wenlock]

Ironic Willow thought to herself, her hand pushing at her own silver strands. "I like it, it's unique," she said with another smile. After all, it wasn't often even in the magical world to see someone with silver hair, and she did like it, it seemed to sit on him like a second skin she thought. Her head tilted as she looked a bit closer at him, wondering what his face looked like if his hair was shifted just a bit behind his ear.

She noticed how he was holding his books against his chest, and she wondered what he had in his hands, but chose not to ask, maybe if she could get him to relax a bit more she would. Instead she gestured out to the lake, "I was just getting reacquainted with the grounds, I just transferred back from Beauxbatons." She scrunched her nose up a bit, "I think I prefer it here. The library there has nothing on the one here."

[Silver Blackwood]

"You went to Beauxbatons?" Silver asked, trying to make himself keep eye contact, with dubious success. "I'd think they'd have an awesome library. If you read French," he added, then mentally winced at how it had probably sounded. How had Dare ended up with all the people skills? Silver shifted on his feet, part of him wanting to sit down and stare at the girl—Willow, he reminded himself again—between writing lines of poetry. The rest of him wanted to turn and find a spot deep in the forest to just think.

[Willow Wenlock]

The library was impressive there she supposed, but it had nothing on the library here. Willow shook her head sending her hair right back out of place. "I went as an exchange student, the opportunity was to much to pass up." She took a deep breath of the air her eyes shining as she thought about how excited she had been to go.

"It was amazing, but their libraries, like their students lack the...," she thought on the word for a moment trying to decide what they did lack. Something in social skills, something in the freedom and freshness of the air. "Creativity, they have facts upon facts, but the creativity of them is lacking." She shrugged, "part of having access to the facts is using them in a new and creative way right?" Her ancestor had looked at Arithmancy in a way no one else had, and that was how she had become famous.

[Silver Blackwood]

Silver blinked, but he nodded as well, and his posture eased a bit from the stiff nerves he'd had only moments ago. "Anyone can memorize things," he agreed. The rest was a given; memorization was only part of the process. As much as he liked having everything where he could see it, everything in its place, once it was there, he wanted to rearrange, to see if he could improve. He didn't think of himself as particularly creative, nothing like Dare, but he wasn't lacking anything in imagination.

[Willow Wenlock]

Exactly Willow thought, anyone could memorize things, but not everyone could put more to it than that. Though not many people, even Ravenclaw's understood that. In her mind were several quotes that she thought aptly described what she was thinking, but most people didn't like to be quoted at. She grinned to herself though, not able to help a small quote, it summed up the qualities of life and learning. "Like Harry Truman said It's what you learn after you know it all that counts." She brushed her fingers through her hair almost abashed as she blushed faintly, "if you can't tell I'm in Ravenclaw."

[Silver Blackwood]

Silver's eyes widened slightly, and his lips curved; his remaining nerves had just shifted to interest. "Exactly," he said. "The facts aren't half of what there is to learn, not even a fraction. I... I'm a Ravenclaw too," he went on, the stuttering due to excitement this time. "I don't get how people can do the minimum and say it's done." If all he could come up with for an assignment was the minimum, he went through things again or got another book. The minimum meant he was regurgitating facts, not that he understood. "Learning without thought is labor lost," he quoted.

[Willow Wenlock]

Willow couldn't help a small chuckle, "Confucius, that's a good one." She thought about exactly how much she knew about Confucius, and though she had heard quite a bit, his time period wasn't one she'd ever been interested in. "You can learn a lot about how much of an impact someone had on our society, when people turn their wisdom into anecdotes and jokes." It meant that their work had been important enough for not just people bright enough to use it, but also for people who normally would not.

[Silver Blackwood]

Confucius jokes. Silver mentally shook his head. There were some pretty bad ones he'd overheard. Several moved through his mind, none of which he'd repeat, and for a moment he was silent, pushing them back where he wasn't tempted to spout vulgar, if humorous, Confucian wisdom. "You can learn a lot about people when you see what they did to that wisdom," he pointed out. Confucius say man with one chopstick go hungry.

[Willow Wenlock]

She had to admit that was true, the warped humor of Confucian jokes was far from the quiet wisdom of the man from which they had originated. "True wisdom is held by those who seek it for it's intangible properties, not for the benefits that it creates in the now. Unfortunate that wisdom quickly becomes warped by those who do not understand the true beauty of the words." To often that had happened, "like Einstein's theories," they had been to quickly turned to weapons.