3rd year Girls' Dorm on Aladren Commons

Bella Santoro

September 09, 2006 1:45 AM

3rd year Girls' Dorm by Bella Santoro

Bella had returned to school with so much excitement and passion that she wouldn't let anything or anyone get her down. All of midterm she heard her family complaining the entire time about her playing her new guitar, but she ignored them. Besides, she had gotten better since the start.

Jake, who seemed to be the only one willing to still talk to her by the end of holidays, had told her that the only thing that got better was that she could play one chord without making anyone wince. That was a huge accomplishment. Of course, that wasn't to say her family wasn't supportive because they were. It was just...distant support. Meaning, whenever she got out her guitar everyone would seemingly disappear from the house.

But she wasn't going to let that stop, oh no, she was going to show them. So, she had her Music teacher send her off with some music sheets and books for her to learn and practice from. And that was exactly what she was going to do. Seven days a week and at least two hours a day she was going to practice her guitar. As soon as she got all that down, then she would work on her singing (which she was actually talented in).

Bella stood in her dormroom with her guitar safely in her arms. At first she was plucking the strings, testing whether or not she was in tune. Once she was sure (and really, she didn't have much of a clue but what she was told) that her guitar was in tune, she took out her music books and started strumming.\n\n

0 Bella Santoro 3rd year Girls' Dorm 0 Bella Santoro 1 5

Anne Wright

September 29, 2006 9:32 PM

Our own dear home-sweet-home. by Anne Wright

Walking while reading a book was a fine art form. It was also, like most art forms, one Anne had yet to master. Drifting past her own dorm door, she didn't realize she'd deviated from a straight line until she bumped headlong into the seventh years' door, gaining herself a frown from a particularly irritable-looking inhabitant of the room beyond it as she discovered what had made the noise. Walking away after giving the girl an even dirtier look in return, Anne grimaced at the volume still half-open in her hand as she entered her own room, then felt the expression contort itself into one of pain as well as annoyance at the sound filling the normally quiet dorm.

Bella, standing there holding a guitar and looking at what appeared to be a music book, was strumming at the instrument Anne couldn't believe capable of producing such a racket. Art, in the frilly bright-colors sense of it, had never been her thing, but she'd always liked music. Good music, anyway, which was the polar opposite of what Bella's attempt to play the guitar was. She had to know how horrible it sounded, unless she was totally deaf - stone deaf, not just tone deaf. There was no other way anyone could possibly think that the "music" sounded good.

Of course, anyone who listened to that for long at a stretch might lose his hearing to keep his sanity...

Anne reminded herself that making an enemy out of her roommate was probably not conductive to spending the next four years comfortably. She reminded herself that all the evidence pointed towards Bella being a beginner, and that all beginners made mistakes right and left at first. She reminded herself that to be nice was to be the opposite of her relatives and so a good thing to want to be. Opening her mouth, she tried to find a nice way to tell Bella to put the instrument down. "Am I right to say you haven't been playing that thing long?" she asked, hoping to sound half-joking. It came out sounding...strained. Almost strangled. Sitting down on her bed, Anne gave her head a quick shake, trying to dislodge the noise and the memory of it alike. \n\n

16 Anne Wright Our own dear home-sweet-home. 59 Anne Wright 0 5

Bella

October 12, 2006 6:23 PM

Or as close to 'sweet' as one could get by Bella

Bella was still trying to work out this new scale and getting it half right when Anne walked into the room. Bella didn't notice her at first, her concentration completely on the guitar and the music book. She really wanted to make great progress with the instrument by the time she went home for summer. Granted, she had plenty of time until that happened, but...she liked to get a head start on everything. Plus, her lesson teacher would be proud of her and might even let her try out singing along with playing.

But Bella wouldn't hold her breath for that.

The sound of Anne's voice startled Bella, causing a strange sound to echo from the guitar as Bella's fingers slipped and she whirled around to find her roommate in the room. "Wha...oh, yeah, Christmas gift." Bella said, indicated the guitar in her hand. "I'm still working it out, but I'm hoping to be an expert by next year." Bella said, giving her roommate a bright smile.

Deciding it was best to take a break, considering Anne looked slightly ill, Bella placed her guitar back in its case and set it aside. Pausing after that was done, Bella looked over at her roommate. The only conversation Bella could really remember the two of them having was last year when Bella asked about Geoff. Anne hadn't seemed too happy about that.

It wasn't so much that Bella didn't like Anne. Truth was, she didn't know her. But there were times when Bella thought Anne snubbed her or...others. Anne reminded Bella of the Crotalus girls in their class. Of course, Anne was nice and fun too. So, Bella wasn't really sure why she sometimes felt that way about Anne. Perhaps it was because she didn't know her roommate.

"How's Quidditch going?" Bella asked Anne, knowing that Quidditch was probably the safest subject to ask her roommate. Unless Anne was angry at her for having not signed up for the team that year. Bella still loved playing Quidditch, but she didn't love it the way her brother did. And she was tired of being in her siblings shadows. It was the main reason why she had turned to music. It was her own thing and no one elses.\n\n

0 Bella Or as close to 'sweet' as one could get 0 Bella 0 5

Anne

October 14, 2006 3:04 AM

Sweet enough for me. by Anne

A Christmas present. That explained a lot. Anne laid aside her book, figuring she'd remember what was on the half of the page she'd read well enough to find her place again. It had been a present from Helena; they had the same taste in books, she and Lena did, and she was rediscovering how nice a pointless novel could be. "That's cool," she said, returning the smile with a quick one of her own. "Hope you manage it. I used to play piano, and when I first started, it took months before I could read anything without old Kirke spelling out every second note for me.”

She worked at smoothing out creases in her bedspread as Bella put up her instrument. The silence wasn't exactly awkward, but it wasn't exactly comfortable, either. Bella was looking at her sideways. Anne hoped her roommate wasn't waiting for her to restart the conversation. If she'd been more used to Bella or given less of a flip about Bella's opinion of her, she might have been more willing to try, but as it was, she didn't doubt that any attempt to do so would derail before it cleared the platform. She gave up on the wrinkles when Bella asked her about Quidditch.

"It goes," she said, shrugging lightly. "Got a pair of first-year newbies to train up before the games start. One's nervous as all get-out, but she started practicing on her own even before she knew she was in. I think she'll turn out all right. The other one's good - I think he's played before - but he needs some of the arrogance knocked out of him." She smiled ruefully, thinking of Geoffrey, and didn’t mention that she didn’t think it was likely to happen or be pleasant for anyone involved if it did. “There’s not really a good team for us to play this year, but we’ll do what we can, and if that ain’t good enough, well, we’ll just do some more the next time.”

Left to it, she thought she might go on about the topic for hours without a break, but Geoff and Lena had combined to get it through her head that most people just weren't that interested. Geoff had even stooped, once or twice, to interrupting with a request for help on his Transfiguration homework, and he hated it when anyone, including himself, noticed or acknowledged that he was no better than average in it. Bella might have more interest than most just from previous membership, but Anne figured she'd already more than answered the question. Which left her at a complete loss for a subject.

They were both Aladrens, which meant they had to have some things in common, but what they were was at least half a mystery. There had to be more to it than just being smart or a loner, because all of the Houses had their share of those, but Aladrens were always noted for the first and often for the second. The exact criteria for admittance to a House were half-lost in the stereotypes, but there had to be some commonalities between Housemates that were unique or nearly unique to them. Logically, therefore, it should have been relatively easy to talk to another member of her own House. Such a pity that logic and the real world weren't always compatible.

"So, uh...musical endeavors aside, how've things been?" Back east, that was usually used either as a greeting or to begin a conversation with someone one hadn't seen in a while, but she and Bella spent most of the time they were in the dorm together asleep and most of the rest of it in other, noncommon places. She didn't avoid Bella, and she didn't think her roommate avoided her, but neither did either of them go out of the way to cross paths. Anne usually didn't notice it, but at the moment, it looked like it might have been a good idea to have gotten to know the other third year a little better at some point.

Guess there's no time like the present, she thought, deliberately keeping her hands away from her hair. She didn't want to start playing with it without realizing what she was doing; it might give the wrong impression. She and Bella might not have been bosom buddies, but they shared a room and had done so for three years. It wasn't unreasonable to think that Bella might have picked up that she started fiddling with or pulling on the loose strands when she was nervous or mad or somehow out of sorts more often than she did under less stressful circumstances, though it did happen. Cutting it short had come to mind as a solution, but had been rejected on the grounds that she'd probably just wind up fiddling with something else. \n\n

16 Anne Sweet enough for me. 59 Anne 0 5