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Post by Madison Baxter on Jul 31, 2009 9:48:55 GMT -7
Flipping absently through the pages of the massive tome in front of her, Alexis scanned each of them in a rather rapid fashion. In the library solely to get away from socialization that was common - and expected - on a Friday afternoon, she was finding solace in the sounds of pages flipping and quills scratching. While no one was near her at that time, she was glad all the same that she wasn't completely alone in the area- when one was the only person in the library, it tended to make melancholy and loneliness set in rapidly.
Taking a break from the book long enough to pull her hair back and twist it into a bun, she pulled her wand out of her jeans pocket and stuck it through her hair, lowering her hands when it successfully held the bun in place. Now free of having to blow whisps of hair out of her face, she resumed scanning the pages and taking absent notes of pages of particular interest - all on her left arm and hand.
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Post by Tirona Lee on Jul 31, 2009 23:20:36 GMT -7
Tirona walked through the library absently, picking up books off the shelves for a moment, and without looking at the covers, moving them farther down and placing them in their proper section. A quick glance at the title on the side and the general form of the book was enough to tell him what it was, and where it rightly belonged. Speed reading and a photographic memory had helped him read a nice chunk of the library over the seven years at Hogwarts. It was handy when you only had to read through a book once and you could recall everything in it later.... Just took him a little bit to sift through all the information.
He held his wand in his hand, occassionally pointing at some book on a higher shelf with it and moving it through magic. It would be a bit of a hassel to find the ladder to move it every time he came across a higher book, so it was just simpler to do it that way. Otherwise, he was moving the books by hand. It was a way he ordered his thoughts while he was ordering the books. If he wanted to think, he'd go to the grounds and talk to himself, thinking something out. If he wanted to order these thoughts so that they actually made sense, he would come to the library and sort the out of place books.
Which was a fair amount, as most students didn't bother paying attention to where exactly they got the book from, so they just tossed it back up on the shelves when they were done. And the ones that did put it back where they'd gotten it, often got it from a place that was incorrect in the first place. Most people ignored him while he did this. He was a 'strange one' for just doing it in the first place. 'It's a job for the librarian, not the students, what's he doing it for?' he often heard.
He glanced at his shoulder and brushded a bit of dust off of it. Quite a bit of the books in the section had a heavy layer of dust on them. It was a handful or so of fiction books, not usually the priority at the school. Mostly the books that were clamoured for were ones with the information on what their teacher had assigned. This was extremely rarely a fiction book. There were a handful of muggle fiction tossed in as well, most likely for Muggle Studies.
He reached the end of the section and decided to stop, making his way to the front of the library. There weren't many people in the room, just a handful of students taking care of their weekend assignments on the Friday, instead of Sunday like everyone else. He stopped and looked at a girl, scribbling on her arm with a quill. That was odd.
Although, he did more than enough things that people considered odd (not the least of which keeping a boa constrictor longer than he was in the boy's dormitory of Hufflepuff), so who was he to judge. Still.... He stepped over to the table. "Out of parchment?" he asked. A quick glance at the book told him he recognized it, before he returned his eyes to the Ravenclaw girl.
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Post by Madison Baxter on Jul 31, 2009 23:33:24 GMT -7
So focused on her notes, page-flipping and the little area of the library that had become a sort of metaphoric bubble around her own little quiet world, the sudden sound of someone speaking close at hand - as well as their approach, indicated by a shadow cast across the table - made Alexis jump in her seat. Wincing at the faint splatter across the cuff of her shirt - the sleeves of which were rolled up as the room was quite warm enough to negate the need for them - she wisely decided to set both ink and quill aside. Putting the cork stopper in the former and wiping off the tip of the latter with a spare handkerchief, she then glanced up to see who had decided to make an appearance.
Though she knew little of those in Hufflepuff as a whole, this one she vaguely remembered seeing, probably during breakfast. Dinner was a hectic, noisy and downright chaotic time, making it hard to understand much of anything going on, much less making recognition of the many students and the faces that went with them. Glancing down at her arm again, she very nearly rolled her sleeve down to hide her rather embarassing habit, but didn't. If it meant she'd be made fun of, well..that was certainly something she'd dealt with before.
"No, I have parchment in my bag, I just don't like to waste more of it than I have to." Slipping a small bookmark inbetween the pages of the book, she gently closed it and pushed it towards the center of the table. "We have to use so much for homework, and I just..well, I think my arms are more convenient for what little I have to write down." Once done saying that, her face flushed at how absurd it could come across as.
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Post by Tirona Lee on Aug 1, 2009 19:14:00 GMT -7
He watched the girl jump with a small amount of surprise, he didn't realize he'd been being that quiet. Although, he supposed if he'd been absorbed in his work and someone suddenly spoke he'd be surprised. She was probably just not quite as good at keeping it hidden. "My apologies," he said, pointing his wand at the ink in her shirt, which immediatly 'jumped' off the collar and back to where it belonged. He'd never considered scribbling on himself before for notes... just didn't occur to him.
Although, all the notes he took down were just what the teacher's said during their lectures, set aside in his trunk. He wasn't really sure why he did it. He didn't need to... he just, did. He had the notes from all his years... first through the present. He'd probably keep doing it too. Just a little quirk he supposed.
"And what do you do with the notes before you wash?" he asked. He wasn't trying to pry, he was just curious. When he saw something he didn't quite understand, he liked to ask questions about it so that he could understand. He looked at her for a moment, sifting through his memories for her. She was in a lower year, so not from classes most likely....
From the robes she was a Ravenclaw... first or maybe second year from her height and other features.... He thought back to sorting ceremonies. Not one from this year.... Last year.... "Crawford, Alexis," he said allowed, letting the name stick to the face, and sticking to the front of his memory. It wasn't polite to have to search for someone's name multiple times in a conversation.
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Post by Madison Baxter on Aug 1, 2009 19:30:58 GMT -7
Regarding her sleeve as the ink disappeared from it, Alexis figured that it shouldn't surprise her. It had been an accident, granted, but it would still be nice not to have extra stains on her clothes. Catching the comment after that, it took effort for her to keep her face from going any redder than it already was. This wasn't the teasing she'd heard in the past, but it was just apparent curiosity.
"Usually by the time I clean up what's on my arms, I've already looked up what I need to or have finished the assignments they're for. Usually what I write on my hands just are..little reminders that aren't vital." Explaining it with no real thought about it, she brushed her fingers across the quill lying on the table. Her next surprise came when he guessed her name - stated it like Professor McGonagall did during the Sorting, no less.
"Yes, that's me." She replied quietly, keeping her surprise hidden this time. Unless she had reason to talk to someone, she kept mostly to herself, so to have someone able to recognize her just by a few glances was odd. "And I apologize for it, but..I can't really place you."
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Post by Tirona Lee on Aug 1, 2009 20:03:21 GMT -7
He nodded. Something to help her with short term memory, not long notes or anything, that made more sense. He hadn't ever particularly had that sort of an issue. For the most part his issues were finding the information in a timely enough manner that they would be useful. It was still a lot faster than having to find, look up, and read a section every time he needed it.
You just tended to remember a lot of useless information. He could tell someone, if they wanted to know, every breakfast, lunch, and dinner, that Hogwarts had served over the last 7 years. He could tell someone the exact number of times Professor Binns had fallen asleep in class. The exact number of times he'd heard a professor give the same lecture.
The exact number of times someone had mispronounced his name. 6,798,011. Those were just the ones he knew of, from the time he was four until the present day. It often took a few times before someone started consistantly getting it right. "That's an interesting way to remember it," he said with a short nod.
Most people didn't know he had a photographic memory. It wasn't really something needed to be publicized. "You wouldn't, we've never actually met. Tirona Lee."
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Post by Madison Baxter on Aug 1, 2009 20:17:13 GMT -7
"Interesting is a new word for it, I've never heard that one." Alexis smiled in a self-deprecating manner, not going any farther with that line of thought. It did no good to discuss such things, much less when there was nothing to be done about it. Redirecting her attention to the matter at hand, she caught the introduction and nodded slightly, able to put the name with the face now. A seventh-year Hufflepuff, a good reason for her not to know him.
"Well, then, I'm glad to meet you Tirona." Usually having no trouble with names, even the odd ones, she managed to avoid the blunder of mispronouncing his.
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Post by Tirona Lee on Aug 1, 2009 20:55:18 GMT -7
"People make fun of things that they don't understand, aren't smart enough to have come up with on their own, or are jealous that they didn't come up with first," he said. Something he'd observed over his years at Hogwarts. The comment could made himself feel alright if someone made fun of him, perk up the spirits of someone else, or quiet those that were making fun. Although, usually after that it turned to people throwing punches or spells. Usually when confronted with something that someone doesn't understand intellectually and they believe they're being insulted, they counteract with physical (or magical) force.
"It's nice to meet you as well," he said, taking a seat on the other side of the table. He removed his sketchbook from inside his robe and set it out on the table, removing a pencil from his pocket and starting a bit of shading on a sketch he'd done earlier that morning. Throughout the book there were dozens of sketches of things he'd come across throughout his time at hogwarts. The castle itself, teachers, students, statues, ghosts.... Some were shaded, others were coloured, still others were just sketches, some weren't even finished.
"What were you reading?" he asked, already knowing the name of the book, but feeling it would be more polite to ask.
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Post by Madison Baxter on Aug 2, 2009 16:05:44 GMT -7
Considering his first comment for a long moment, Alexis contented herself with not responding right off the bat. He had a point, and she had to admit it. It wasn't that much of a stretch to see that a lot of the conflicts and issues that sprang up from most of the students in the school were over biased matters or simple misunderstandings. The way she had to mediate such issues before enlightened her to it.
And though she could have said something to agree with him, it seemed almost wasted when he had already moved on to other things - especially by posing a question. So, she simply decided to answer that. "The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts. Don't know why I picked it out, but..it's a break from my History of Magic homework that I should be doing."
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Post by Tirona Lee on Aug 2, 2009 22:21:58 GMT -7
"Sometimes procrastination is an odd thing. We'll do things we don't normally do, or something that doesn't actually need to, or have any purpose being done. Occassionally we'll do other things we've been procrastinating about," he said. Seldom was it that he actually procrastinated when he was doing anything school related. Things like cleaning Lit's cage (which he liked to do without magical assistance), cleaning out his trunk, or picking out dress robes.
Dress robes had to be one of his least favourite things in the universe. They were itchy, usually, uncomfortable, and most often only worn once before one needed to buy a new set. Hogwarts didn't have an incredible amount of dances, and... outside of school... well, there was a reason his parent's cottage was in the middle of no where. It wasn't really dressing up that was the problem really. He was a very big fan of Halloween.
He continued his shading of th sketch, that of one of the House Elves that cleaned the Hufflepuff common room going about their cleaning. "An intriguing book nontheless. Not exactly a riveting read, but interesting enough I suppose. History of Magic doesn't really sound uninteresting, but Professor Binns is just so exciting he makes everything else seem so boring," he said, the sarcasm almost visible as it came out of his mouth.
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Post by Madison Baxter on Aug 2, 2009 22:34:55 GMT -7
Taking a moment to work on the logic of that one, Alexis lifted her quill from the tabletop to turn it between her hands. The fact of how abstract this conversation was coming only seemed to perk her interest in it - and in Tirona - more.
"I don't really think it's procrastination in this case, but you are right about Professor Binns." With no need to even think of seeing the ghostly professor to hear his boring, droning voice, she smiled dryly. "His subject would be fine if he could adopt something besides a monotonous monotone that, I think, could drive almost anyone to use earplugs within fifty yards of that classroom."
Trying not to think of school matters for the moment, however, she glanced at the top of the sketchbook, trying to make it seem as if she wasn't being nosy - just curious. "You must be good..don't think I've ever heard something brush across paper that fast."
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Post by Tirona Lee on Aug 6, 2009 22:54:45 GMT -7
"The day his voice takes up something other than that monotone, is the day that a Basilisk and a Cerebrus have a baby and Professor Dumbledore lets Hagrid keep it," he said. He wasn't one usually one for joking. However, Professor Binns was an easy target. Even for him. How boring were you, when you didn't actually notice you were dead?
"It's probably a good thing he doesn't teach something like potions. Madame Pomfry would have to increase the size of the hospital," he said. He momentarily imagined a student passed out in a draft of polyjuice potion. Which reminds me... he thought.
He made a notation in the side of the paper that said Polyjuice Potion. He needed to go down the Greenhouse and collect some ingrediants for one for homework. He'd gotten distracted and hadn't quite done it yet. "Fairly, I suppose," he said, flipping the paper around so she could see. He'd allow anyone that was curious or would ask to see what he was drawing. He wasn't one of those that hid what he did from the world.
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Post by Madison Baxter on Aug 7, 2009 12:28:08 GMT -7
The mental image of a ghost teaching - or trying to teach - Potions, especially that particular one, made Alexis giggle softly. Though Binns was hard to tolerate with his lectures that could make anyone fall asleep, it was no small favor that his subject was History of Magic. That was supposed to be boring, but it was simply quite a bit moreso. "At least that goes in the category of things that will never happen, even in a million years."
Presented with the chance to see the drawing he was working on, she looked rightly surprised. The detail that went into even the smallest things made her envious - drawing even the most basic objects was definitely not her strong point. "I can rightly say I'm a bit jealous of that talent. I couldn't draw more than an apple or pear, and even those are disproportionate."
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Post by Tirona Lee on Aug 7, 2009 14:00:57 GMT -7
Tirona cracked his neck and put away the sketchbook, he'd work on finishing it later. There wasn't a lot that he really had to do in order to finish it, just get a quill and some ink and ink the rest of the picture. "I can imagine someone passing out in their potions as he tried to explain the instructions. Although, I think they'd probably have him retire before then..." he said.
"When you know every detail of what you're drawing, the only trouble is getting your hand to do it. Same as in charms; practice, practice, practice." There weren't exactly art programs at Hogwarts. Professor Flitwick did a bit of a music program with some of the younger Ravenclaws he'd heard though. Though, he supposed students would be more interested in a Dueling program then an art class.
"What's your History of Magic essay on, maybe I could lend you a hand?" he asked. When he was a bit bored, he tended to offer homework help. Except for a 7th year Ravenclaw that didn't like him, that tended to make him leave any Ravenclaw he saw him near alone. Something about being outsmarted by a Hufflepuff, or so Tirona thought. He was sure the other guy just thought he was an idiot or something, he didn't particularly care. Not in the slightest.
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Post by Madison Baxter on Aug 11, 2009 20:19:01 GMT -7
"I'm simply surprised they haven't made him retire before this point." Shaking her head, Alexis said nothing more about the ghostly Professor in question. Just thinking about some of the lectures made her start getting drowsy then and there.
Now reminded of their Charms professor, she let out a soft snort. "Practice may make perfect, but only if you have the patience to put in the effort. That I don't really have in many things. Not where it would matter most, at least."
Coming to the final point and question about her homework, she turned a faint shade of pink and looked down at her left arm, trying to find the note. Not wanting to bring most of the notes she'd taken just to look for the book, she had written down what to look for - and the date was smudged off. "Well..it's about one of the numerous goblin rebellions, but I'm not sure what year. Something that ends in '56..or maybe '36, I can't be sure." Able to recall FAR too many such rebellions, it made her want to cringe. "Helpful..I know."
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