Meeting at beach festival ((Sapphire))

[crane]

Gary swam with long strokes that moved him forward quickly and effectively, but didn’t burn too much energy. The water was warm and Gary enjoyed the sensation of swimming – this was one of the things he had missed in Hogwarts. There weren’t any good enough pools in the castle. But naturally no pool could compare with swimming in the sea. Deciding it was time to start returning to the shore, Gary turned around and swam back to the lively sand-beach. It was merely the first week out of school, but Gary was already working. He always worked during summers to earn the money for his school-books himself. His family didn’t have too much money, so Gary had to do it.

There was a festival or a family day or whatever it was called held at the beach today, so Gary had been called in too, as he worked here as a junior life-guard. Considering the clowns, entertainers, live music and different kinds of attractions people didn’t swim much, so his supervisor had told Gary to go and enjoy himself at the festival. He would get paid for the full day none the less.
Climbing to the shore Gary pulled shorts and started walking towards the festival. He might as well see what was going on there too, now that he had got to swim a bit again.

Turning his T-shirt correctly Gary started to pull it over his head while walking. The shirt had barely managed to slip over his head when Gary collided with someone.
“Oof,” Gary grabbed the hands of the girl he had walked into and managed to regain his balance while giving some support for the girl too, so neither fell.
“Oh, I’m terrible sorry, are you alright,” Gary asked concernedly from the girl before squinting his eyes towards him. He was sure he knew the girl. Could it be…
“Sapphire?” Gary asked hesitantly – did the girl go to Hogwarts too? Gary thought he had seen her in some of the classes, but he wasn’t completely sure whether he had gotten the right name and the person.

[Sapphire Phoenix R7]

They were terribly noisy and crowded, these beach festivals. Sapphire really didn't understand the attraction of them. You could never get away from all the raucous singing for one thing. Sapphire had yet to come across any half decent musicians at the festival, but the rest of them still plagued her with their noise relentlessly. As if they weren't enough, there was this dratted roundabout thing she was standing in front of, which blared out the same broken electronic sound pretending to be a 'classic' which would have been better off forgotten anyway every time it went round. The sun beat down strongly as a mother admonished her son for some unknown offence and a father called crossly and with more than a touch of exasperation in his voice after another child who was making a break for it towards a man doing 'magic' tricks. Fighting a losing battle there. All the stalls set out around the place were blocking out all view of the lovely sparkling blue sea save for through the few tantalising gaps not occupied by people.

Finally! She'd managed to find the end of all the festival area. She didn't give a backwards glance to the area it occupied, which even now was getting littered with the wrappings of those processed ice creams the Muggles liked to eat. So messy, these festivals. No doubt it'd be a nightmare to clean it all up after, and the people that dropped the litter regardlessly didn't think about the people that had to do that thankless job. And without magic, too. It'd be terrible. Sapphire was glad she would be one of those unfortunate enough to be doing the work. What was this festival in aid of anyway? The lifeboats was it? The RNLI, that was what they called it in Britain. They didn't call it that in Russia. She wasn't sure what they called it now. But there was the sea. And it was just as beautiful as ever. She might not be able to hear the gentle wash of the waves against the sand thanks to the festival but it was still there.

Sapphire bent down to take her sandals off so that she could go and dip her feet in the sea. She was too late as she straightened up to avoid the obstacle coming towards her in a very unsteady way, and the next thing she knew the Muggle who wasn't looking where he was going had bowled into her and was gripping her by the hands, pulling both of them to a steady standing position. She regarded the offender cooly. He didn't look to be older than her, although he couldn't have been much younger either. He was asking if she was all right.
"Well yes, I am," she replied with just a tad of irritation, "and will hopefully continue to be as long as you don't make a habit of doing that." She gave him a grudging smile to back up her statement, looking past him to the sea, her attention only drawn back to the boy in front of her as he said her name querilously. "yes?" she asked. "Do I know you or something?" Sapphire inspected him more closely and then in a flash of revelation it dawned on her. He was in the year below her, but he was a Ravenclaw which meant... what was he doing here? Sapphire held out her hand and said quietly, "Sapphire Phoenix. And forgive me for not being too good with names but I believe you are... um... Gavin Crane?"

[crane]

Gary looked at the girl who seemed a bit irritated. Gary didn’t blame her. Random people colliding with you wasn’t overly nice. At least the girl hadn’t gotten hurt Gary decided as he took a step back. The girl seemed to be in the same kind of confusion about whether Gary was faintly familiar or as Gary himself was.
She introduced herself before hesitantly guessing Gary’s name.

“Well, you got it partially right. Gary Crane,” Gary answered with an open smile as he shook Sapphire’s hand. The girl was a year older than he was as Gary recalled, but in Ravenclaw as well. He was rather surprised to see Sapphire here. The festival was amusing to one point. But in Gary’s opinion Sapphire didn’t seem like a person who would enjoy such entertainment. Then again she was out here at a rather empty part of beach not within the ramble of the festival. Noticing that he had been staring Gary shook his head, coming back to the present moment.

“Sorry, my thoughts wandered away, but it’s a pleasure to meet you. I don’t think we have ever spoken earlier at school. I didn’t expect to run into someone from school, not to mention from Ravenclaw, here either,” Gary said with a bright smile as he tilted his head listening the noise coming from the festival. Hopefully the people coming here would be generous enough that the life-boats and maybe even something more could be put into order once again. It would make lifeguards work easier and therefore benefit everyone who came to the beach.