Scattergood MOO

The weather outside is vaguely sunny, though not particularly warm as it is late autumn in Silverdale. Paige Brennan has claimed one of the window seats in its entirety by stretching her legs out in front of her and piling books where her legs do not take up the space. This uninviting gesture is perhaps not intentional, though it is very effective: the girl has been seated at the window for quite a while now, engrossed in what looks to be a very dusty volume with a spinning couple dancing on the front of it. The common room is not terribly busy, as most of the students are outside enjoying what is left of the non-frozen weather for the year, which suits Paige completely.

Toby enters the common room from the hallway and makes his way toward one of the comfortable chairs near a window, not paying much attention to the girl sitting on the window seat. He drops a stack of books on the floor and flops into the chair with a great deal of noise. He lets loose an audible sigh as he gets comfortable and picks up a textbook which he begins to thumb through.

Startled from her until-now quiet reverie into the story of Rhea and Altair’s tragic romance, Paige drops her book into her lap to shoot a rather pointed glare in Toby’s direction. “Do you mind?” she tells him, her voice barely above a whisper (as if she is in the library and trying to keep her voice down), “Some of us are trying to enjoy a good book and you’re…” she trails off momentarily. “Uh, slamming your books around like you’re the only one here.” With a toss of her hair, she tries to return to her book but finds her eye drawn to his pile of textbooks. Paige blushes a little as she clears her throat. “You’re – er, you’re taking Muggle Studies, too? Are you any good in it?”

Toby shifts uncomfortably in his chair at the girl’s annoyance. “Oh, uh. Sorry.” He looks down at his pile of books. “Yeah, Muggle Studies. It’s not really too hard, I guess.” He looks back at the girl, his eyes a little squinted. “You know, I don’t think we’ve actually ever had a conversation before. Peggy, right?”

It takes everything within Paige’s soul not to scowl at him for calling her by the wrong name, and it is only with a slightly strained – but still quiet – voice that she answers, “Paige, actually.” She pulls her bookmark out of the cushion and shoves it into the book she had earlier been so engrossed in. “I’m having a hard time with it. I don’t understand how muggles do it. I suppose I’m not supposed to understand everything this year, though.” A pause. “You’re Toby, right? Your grandmum works in the pub, right?”

So many people have mentioned to Toby that they know his grandmother that it doesn’t phase him in the least anymore. “Yeah, that’s my Grandma Darling. She says she’s going to retire some day.” He smiles weakly. He likes that the whole town of Silverdale knows and loves his grandmother but he does wish he had more in common with people now and then. “My mom is a Muggle. She seems to get by okay.”

“How?” is all that Paige can seem to think of to ask. “I – um – I mean, obviously magic isn’t necessary for everything, but how do they manage to get places quickly at all without floo? What about work? Surely everything must take longer if they have to do it by hand!” Paige blushes as her voice escalates ever so slightly and she glances around self-consciously. “All my family are wizards so I suppose I just don’t know how anyone could live like that, really.” She pauses. “Though I guess they don’t have much choice. Poor things.”

“It’s not so bad. I spent the summer with my other grandparents- the Muggle ones. I kind of had to.” Toby frowns a bit. “I didn’t really want to, but I got used to it. My mom made me go.” He sets his book down in his lap and leans forward toward Paige. “They do all sorts of things to make up for magic. Like machines, and cars, and electricity.” His eyes glow a little at the thought of electricity.

“What’s electricity?” Clearly the Muggle Studies class hasn’t progressed quite that far yet. Paige, who has been essentially holed up in the window seat for a good portion of the afternoon, swings her legs out to hang down toward the floor, smoothing her skirt as she does so. She sets aside the book, leaving it atop the pile of novels at the end of the seat where her feet had been, now apparently set aside completely.

“What’s electricity?” Toby never really thought about that. What is electricity? “Oh! It’s… uh… it’s. Kind of like magic, but without the magic. It makes lights turn on and machines run.” Toby nods as though that explains everything. Then he pauses, takes a deep breath, and continues. “Actually, I don’t know what it is. But it makes things happen.”

“Oh.” Paige’s face falls a little bit at this, but she shrugs it off quickly. “So, what was it like, living with muggles? What do they do for fun? I imagine they can’t play snaps or wizard’s chess or anything like that. Do they have a wireless? I love the wireless. The Six Seraphs are just terrific.” Paige hums a little bit very quietly one of the group’s more recent hits and almost seems to get distracted from her own barrage of questions.

“Muggles are people, too.” Toby says flatly. “And most of them don’t know thing about magic so they don’t know what they’re missing. Like those uncontacted tribes in the rainforest. They run around naked and just don’t know any better.” He tosses the book from his lap down on to the pile on the floor with a thunk. “What other electives are you taking?”

The mere mention of nakedness causes Paige to blush against her own will, though Toby’s gentle reprimand about muggles does contribute to the pink cheeks. She wisely chooses to let the interrogation about muggles cease for the time being. “Primrose and I chose Care of Magical Creatures together, and I’m also taking Magical Music. I’m not sure if I like the music class, though. Professor Katsaros is a little… scary.”

“I’m taking magical creatures, too! I’m usually toward the back, though. I try to stay out of the way. It’s sort of a dull class. Do I really need to be educated on how to feed an owl? It’s not rocket science. I mean you give them food, they eat it. What more is there?” Toby rambles, growing more energetic toward the end. “But Transfiguration, now that’s useful! Make things something they’re not. I will bet you that I can turn your book there into an omelet!”

“I suppose the professor has to start somewhere. Feeding owls is probably important information for… uh… muggle-borns?” Paige shrugs at her own answer and then shakes her head. “I’m always near the front. I, uh… I don’t have to wear my glasses that way,” the girl admits somewhat uneasily. “Rocket… nevermind.” A pause. “Why… would you want to turn my book into an omelet? That doesn’t seem very useful. Then if someone ate it, my book would be gone. The librarian would not be very happy. I bet I could turn yours into a… hmmm… a chess bishop! Shall I try?”

“Omelets taste well!( Why else would I want an omelet? Though now that I think about it, you might not really want to try to turn something into food. What if you do it really poorly and it doesn’t transfigure all the way on the inside? Then you have eaten part of a book.” Toby smiles. “But, uh. No. I don’t like chess. I’m really bad at it.”

“Good. They taste good,” Paige corrects automatically. “I don’t think a book would taste very good, so it’s probably best not to transfigure something into food. At least, not a book.” At Toby’s comment regarding chess, Paige shrugs yet again. She is apparently a shrugging kind of girl. “I’m not overly fond of it myself, but my older sisters like to play, so they often convince me to play with them. It just seemed like something a little… safer than an omelet, if you understand.” The girl then seems to come to a realization suddenly. “Oh – oh, I’m sorry. I’m keeping you from studying, aren’t I? I really didn’t mean to do that – I’m so sorry. I can go, if you like.” She seems to have forgotten that it was he who was the noisy one at the start.

Toby looks blankly at Paige for a moment. “Maybe the omelet would be really good at tasting,” he says completely flatly, ignoring the rest of Paige’s speech. He blinks a few times at her and continues. “You’re one of those girls that reads the dictionary, aren’t you?”

“No!” Paige protests, perhaps a little too eagerly. “I just… have to do vocabulary exercises at home. It’s important to be able to express oneself as clearly as possible.” She clears her throat a little bit. “It reduces the opportunities for misunderstanding,” she continues, or more like recites. Her cheeks are bordering on red now and she looks hard at her shoes. “Anyway, at least if my essays come back with corrections, they’re for content instead of form. It’s something to be proud of, I think.” She takes a deep breath. “You really shouldn’t let me keep you from studying, though.” She stands abruptly and starts to haphazardly pile books into her arms. “It would be bad if I kept you from finishing your work.”

Toby has never been much for perfect grammar. He knows it’s important to some people, but it doesn’t bother him much. “Uh… okay. Vocabulary exercises? Really? That’s a little weird. But don’t let me keep you from leaving me alone, by all means. I hear that Waller is having a Scrabble tournament tonight. Maybe you could enter.”

“You don’t have to be mean,” Paige responds with a near pout. “Besides, we’re not allowed in the other halls. You ought to know that by now.” She continues trying to gather her books and finds it a bit of a difficult proposition. “Besides, if my sisters thought I was playing a word game, they would want to play, too, and that would ruin it.” Paige finds herself forced to be somewhat silent as the stack of books gets more precarious, and it dawns on her just a bit too late that she probably has too many books to carry at once. This realization comes just in time for her to lose her balance and topple onto the floor, books falling all around her and landing on top of her. “Ow…” she whines quietly, rubbing her back and making no moves to get up just as yet.

Toby winces as Paige falls to the floor and then stands up abruptly. A group of boys at the other side of the room stand and gawk. “Are you okay?” He offers a hand to her. “You know you’re supposed to hit the books, not them hit you.” He giggles at his own joke. He’s so funny.

Paige reaches up to take Toby’s hand as he gives her a hand up, only to find herself standing a bit closer than expected. An unexpected blush creeps into her face and she looks up at him tentatively before she shakes herself and kneels down to pick up a few of the scattered books. “Thank you,” she tells him quietly, pointedly making no comment at his joke as she attempts to pick the books up and check that they’re alright. “I suppose I should take some of these back to the library. I may have taken out more than I should have.” She starts stacking up the volumes on the window seat again slowly. “Do you think you could help me? I’ve finished all of them but Rhea and Altair. That’s the red one with the bookmark in it over there.”

As Paige stands close to Toby he smiles awkwardly, also blushing a bit, though he would never admit it. “Uh, yeah. Don’t mention it,” he says as he releases her hand a little slower than he probably should have. “I can help, sure. I’ll carry these over here.” He points to the books on the window seat as he walks toward them and begins to pile them into his arms. “Rhea and Altair sounds like one of those love stories. You’re not a fan of those, are you?”

“So what if I am? They’re good stories. At least as good as those action adventure ones that Lanie is always reading. At least these are about real people, not strange super-people who never seem to die no matter what happens to them.” Paige reaches for the volume and hugs it to her chest tightly. “Besides, this one is just so tragic so far.” The books have all now been gathered together and Paige stands up, a much more reasonable stack of books in her arms this time. “The librarian will be glad to see some of these back, at least,” she comments off-hand as she starts toward the door.

Toby follows her, weighted down by his stack of books. He lags behind a bit and takes a few quick steps to catch up. “Hey, wait for me. These are heavy!”

Filed under: 1950, Miscellaneous