A Perfect Day for Bananafish (Nikolai)

Winter was just beginning, and rather anticlimactically too. Mariah had heard that the UK was supposed to be cold (colder than California at any rate), but so far the weather hadn't dipped much below chilly. This was especially surprising given the harsh cold fronts France had been facing earlier in the year - Mariah had heard plenty of conversation about it over breakfast from those of her housemates who subscribed to the news - but although these strange weather patterns could be potentially concerning, Mariah decided to enjoy the nice days while they lasted. At least they gave her an excuse to be outside.

Mariah liked spending time on the grounds. Out of all the places on school property, the outdoors part felt the most like home. In fact, if she sat by the lake on a nice sunny day, lay back in the grass, and closed her eyes, she could almost pretend she was still in California, in the clearing where she used to practice spells.

Today was one such day. Although it was technically December, the sun was still warm against her face as she took a deep breath of the crisp Scottish air and wondered how Mr. Weber was doing back at home.

Home. By this point, she should have begun to think of Hogwarts as her home. That, or the flat in London where her parents lived. But for some reason, she could only ever think of Wrightwood as her true home, as if the entire year so far had just been a dream that would soon come to an end, a temporary vacation before returning to her old life. She knew she'd have to come to terms with it someday, but today was clearly not the day.

She let her eyes flutter closed as she concentrated on the quiet lapping of water nearby, the chirping of a couple birds overhead, and the distant sounds of students milling about the grounds closer to the castle. It was nice to get away from it all for a little while. Sometimes the stone walls of the castle seemed a little stifling, especially when packed with other students.

Mariah opened her eyes a crack as she heard soft footsteps hurrying through the grass nearby. She raised her head slightly to follow the boy with her eyes as he rushed by her, and noticed something fall out of his back pocket as he passed. He didn't seem to notice as he made his way to the pier and sat down. Mariah pushed herself up.

He was too far away to call out to him, so she simply rolled to her feet and went to investigate, finding a cell phone lying in the grass. She picked it up, using her sleeve to wipe off a few drops of dew from the screen. It was an older model. The screen was cracked, and the black plastic case was fairly beaten up. She looked up from her examination to watch the boy who'd dropped it pull out a notebook and write something down. He didn't seem to have realized he'd dropped his phone.

She couldn't help but speculate, feeling a bit like Sherlock Homes. Clearly it's not a priority to him, or he would have gotten a new one by now. And he would have noticed it was missing. I wonder what's so important out there by the lake? He seemed to be in a hurry.

Well, she figured even if it wasn't a priority, he'd still most likely want it back, so she followed his path down to the pier, phone in hand. She stopped a little ways behind him and cleared her throat quietly, careful not to startle him.

"Hey, um...sorry to disturb you, but I think you dropped this," she addressed him, holding out the phone for him to see.

The boy seemed almost suspicious at first as he checked his pocket, and Mariah tilted her head to one side, wondering what kind of person he must be to not trust his own eyes when he saw his phone in her hand. She waited patiently for him to stand and take it, placing it gently in his hand when he finally did. On first impression, he seemed a little odd, but Mariah figured all the most interesting people were.

She nodded, surprised that he remembered her name. They'd never met before that she was aware of, so she was impressed that he knew who she was at all. She wasn't used to that. Most people didn't pay that much attention to her. She wondered how he would have known...oh. The sorting.

She'd hoped people would have forgotten about that by now. But, she supposed since she hadn't done much of note since then, the sorting was all anyone would know about her. She wondered if that was good or bad. She hadn't come here seeking to be popular, but she didn't want to be seen as weird either. She wondered if people thought her sorting was bizarre, and if that affected how they saw her. No, she told herself, they probably don't think about you at all. At least she hoped not. No attention was worlds better than bad attention.

"Nikolai," she repeated. She liked it. It sounded Russian, but she didn't want to assume. "Don't worry, I'm the same way," she reassured him as he asked her to refrain from nicknames. Nik-names. Ha.

"My name's Mariah." Her mothers sometimes shortened it to Ri, but on the whole she preferred it when people used her full name. It showed that they at least remembered what it was. "Can I ask what you were doing?" She nodded toward the notebook that sat atop his bag. She didn't want to invade his privacy, but she was curious why he'd been in such a hurry to get to the pier.

"Nice to meet you, too," Mariah replied with a soft smile. Introductions were often hard for her, since they usually required talking about oneself and for some reason she always drew a blank when people asked her personal questions. Thankfully though, she had managed to draw the conversation away from small talk with her question.

Mariah waited patiently as Nikolai hesitated for a moment before retrieving his notebook and flipping through it. When he turned the notebook around to show her, she leaned in to look at it, interest piqued.

She didn't know what she'd been expecting, but it certainly wasn't this. Mr. Weber had never mentioned a Giant Squid - she supposed it had never had a reason to come up. Her eyes widened as she studied the boy's sketch, listening with rapt attention as he explained his theories and findings. She could see his eyes light up as he began to speak more rapidly, and she couldn't help smiling at his infectious excitement. At first glance the boy had seemed fairly reserved, but he was clearly passionate about this subject, and as he grew more animated, Mariah felt a spark of joy at having asked the right question. This was a million times better than small talk any day.

She paid close attention to everything Nikolai said, nodding to show she was listening. The Giant Squid seemed genuinely interesting, and Nikolai raised more than a few good questions about it, which Mariah filed away for later consideration. As he went on to mention merpeople and grindylows and Selkies, Mariah turned her wide-eyed gaze toward the water. She'd had no idea so many things lived in the depths of the lake. It was like a whole separate world. How deep did it go?

She was quiet until the boy stopped speaking, content to simply listen and absorb. He seemed a little sheepish as he broke out of his own reverie, as if just now remembering she was there. She shook her head emphatically at his question.

"No, that was really...wow. You've actually seen the Giant Squid?" She had so many questions now that he had introduced the topic. "It must be magical, right? Normal squids don't live in lakes, they live in the ocean, don't they? So...how deep is this lake anyway?" She stared in wonder at the water behind him, trying to wrap her mind around all this new information. "Oh, and the bubble-head charm! I've learned about that, maybe I could help you..." she trailed off, a blush creeping over her cheeks. She'd been caught up in his excitement and had forgotten herself. What was she thinking? This was his project, he probably didn't want her help. It was presumptuous of her to butt in like that, especially when they'd just met. "I mean, if you want, that is. I'm sure you don't need it."

She looked down, studying the cracks in the wood of the pier. She shouldn't have spoken. Now he probably thought she was self-centered.

When he turned the question back to her, she stumbled a little. She much preferred listening to others talk about their own interests. They seemed more fascinating than her own. And having the attention on her made her uncomfortable. She hesitated, searching for the right words, her blush deepening at the suggestion of sunbathing.

"Ah, no, I was...um...meditating, I guess. Or something like that. I mean, meditating sounds weird, it wasn't, like, spiritual or anything, I was just...thinking about stuff. And it's easier to do that out here where it's quiet." God, that sounded dumb. She wished she'd been doing something more productive or purposeful so she'd have something to say about it. Sunbathing in December, he'd said. He probably thought she was crazy.

Mariah nodded, wide-eyed, as Nikolai filled her in. She would have to spend more time by the lake from now on - she really wanted to see the Giant Squid for herself. As he continued on about the lake itself, her gaze turned the water, regarding it with deep consideration. What else was down there that she didn't know about? As he mentioned being able to see it from the Slytherin common room, she wondered, not for the first time, what all the other common rooms looked like. She'd only seen the Hufflepuff one, but she'd heard they were all different. She let herself imagine for a moment what the Slytherin room was like. Was there a big window that displayed the lake, like an aquarium?

She shook herself out of her musings, returning her gaze to the boy who was still talking. Hogwarts: A History? That sounded familiar. Maybe she had seen it in the library somewhere.

"Maybe I should read that," she commented as he trailed off. It would probably help a lot, considering she knew very little about the school itself. While Mr. Weber had answered all her questions, she knew there were probably some things she had never even thought to ask. She made a mental note to look for it when she went back to return all her other books.

Mariah brightened a bit as Nikolai responded to her offer with enthusiasm. She nodded her head with a smile. "Of course! I'm not really all that busy. Most days work for me," she admitted. She wasn't involved in any activities besides schoolwork, and personal hobbies like reading and writing, which she could always push aside for another time.

At the mention of Quidditch, Mariah looked down sheepishly. "I actually don't know much about Quidditch," she confided in him. "I wish I did though; it seems like it's all anybody talks about. I've never even flown on a broom before," she laughed a little at herself, because it still felt so weird saying that in everyday conversation. Flying on broomsticks. She really was a witch, wasn't she? She couldn't get the image out of her head of cackling hags flying through the sky. While she had accepted the reality of magic without much trouble, some wizarding traditions really were pretty ridiculous from a muggle perspective, and at times it almost felt as if this whole school were a hyper-realistic LARPing experience. She wished she knew more muggleborn students who could understand that.

As Nikolai seemed to take an interest in meditation, Mariah was grateful that he could find something to say about it. She was always worried that she would cause an awkward silence by mentioning something nobody cared about. She giggled a little as he rambled about beards.

"Well, I don't really know if I'm doing it right," she admitted. "But I like to focus on sensations. I concentrate on whatever I can feel or hear going on around me and try to keep myself in the present, instead of thinking about things that happened in the past or might happen in the future." She tried to explain it to the best of her ability, hoping it made sense.

"And, for what it's worth, I don't think I'd want my boyfriend to have a beard," she added, holding back her amusement.