Reaquaintance

[Kellen McCrea]

Kellen scrunched up his face and thought for a moment. "Four weeks? A monthish?" he estimated. "I don't really remember exactly." His tone would make you think it wasn't a big deal, though it really still was to him. "Oooh, hey, let me show you my trademark!"

He turned around quickly and pointed to a spot on his head. A section of his hair, maybe an inch wide, was still stone and grey-coloured. "Brilliant, right?"

[Benita Hendrix-London]

Beni snickered when she saw the spot. Reaching out to touch it, she felt the sturdy bristles of his hair. "That's so bloody cool," she said as she patted his head and laughed some more. "You'd win in a hair contest. But I must admit, you look like an old-timer with the grey-ness."

[Kellen McCrea]

"An old timer at sixteen! You're breaking my heart!" he exclaimed with mock indignation. "Besides, I think it's one of my better features. Makes me look distinguished." He gave a mischevious look as he continued, "My brother and sister couldn't believe it when I showed them. They thought I was mad when I told them what happened."

[Benita Hendrix-London]

" 'Tis a rare thing to happen, but it's not all that extraordinary," Beni commented. "Heck, I once turned my cat into a stuffed toy. Would've been excused for the mistake, but I did it on purpose and it was a month ago," she held a little mischievous grin as she went on, "Your sibs never heard of stone-itis or whatever you call it?"

[Kellen McCrea]

"Yeah, well, the biggest reason for that is that they're Muggles," Kellen confessed. "Besides, it's not that I got sick exactly, it was a curse. Somebody left a cursed book in the library, and I fell for it," he added, maybe a little embarassed about it. Still, he'd more than paid his dues for his mistake, he felt.

[Benita Hendrix-London]

"Ah! Muggleborn! That's gotta be one fascinating life. I'm half-muggle myself, thanks to my father. But I grew up in a magic-concentrated environment, sprinkled with muggle life every now and then." Beni was quite used to weaving in and out of both worlds, but it was a difficult challenge sometimes to separate the two worlds from another.

"Cursed book, you say? I thought all that dark hokey pokey was cleaned out of here," she thought outloud, considering that it was the only bit of news she followed concerning the school. "Ah... But nothing's ever final when it concerns the Potter chap..."

[Kellen McCrea]

Kellen nodded. "It was pretty intense finding out about this whole world," he said. "I mean, doing weird things and not knowing how I did them, that whole bit. It was a weird way to grow up."

"But about the book, it was kind of weird. It, like, changed titles, so I think that's how people didn't know it was there, you know?" he said, his tone going a little more serious.

[Benita Hendrix-London]

"Trapped in its claws," Beni said, though it was a thought that escaped her mind through her mouth. "That's sucky," she said, not quite sure how to explain it herself.

"Are you on good terms with the fams?" Beni asked, not feeling intrusive, but more curious. "I mean, I once wrote a little essay on muggle borns, and some have a hard time keeping good terms with their families after finding out."

[Kellen McCrea]

Kellen took a deep breath. His relationship with is family was pretty complicated--it wasn't bad, per se, but it was complicated. "I...yeah," he said, not sure he wanted to go into it. Despite that, he did offer a little more. "My brother and sister and I are, for sure. Eaden's always asking me about it all, and Kearney and I have always been close, so that wasn't going to change with all this. Maybe kids are just open-minded, yeah?"

[Benita Hendrix-London]

"That's for sure," Beni nodded. "I think it's because kids have a wee biit more imagination and they can accept it more openly. Adults, on the other hand, tend to feel jealous--though they won't tell ya-- and are just too fatigued with life to be open-minded about it. But I'm generally speaking here."

Beni did catch his uncomfortableness before he spoke, so she understood that it was touchy. She wasn't going to press on it, but perhaps take another approach. "Must have awfully great parents if they let you go to Hogwarts."

[Kellen McCrea]

"It took some convincing," Kellen admitted before he realized he'd spoken. "They didn't really want me to come," he added, before cutting himself off. What are you doing? he thought, annoyed with himself. You just met this girl. She doesn't need to hear your life story.

[Benita Hendrix-London]

"Really?" Beni said as she leaned on the wall to keep the pressure off her feet and maybe even off the conversation. "Ah, well, actually I understand. They want you to be 'normal'," she made air quotes along with the word, "But what did you do? Grovel and beg? Have a cry?"

[Kellen McCrea]

"Actually, it turned out, my piano teacher? This woman they'd been sending me too for years? Was a Squib. She recognized that I had magic one day, and decided to help me talk my parents into coming here," he said, summarizing a bigger story. "It still took until my third year, though."

[Benita Hendrix-London]

"Either way, you got in!" Beni said in a congratulatory tone, even though the the congrats was very late. "So you had to go to Muggle school for those two years, though, right? How was it? Did they make you write with those pen thingies? I can't get myself used to those contraptions, I like it when the feather of a quill tickles my nose."

[Kellen McCrea]

Kellen smirked. "Well, I'd been going to them for what, six years already? An extra two years didn't hurt," he said. "Besides, both my parents are Muggle teachers, so I've been pretty used to the whole school thing for a while. Pens aren't bad, you know. They don't tickle your hand like quills do."