Skipping Out ((Xia))

[Sita Mehadi H7]

Sita had never quite got over the changes in her friendship group. It was too hard; it felt like all of her childhood was being wrenched from beneath her in the semi-loss of one friend. That was what she got for wanting continuity of her friendship with Ingy - they'd both gone to the same secondary school together, and in the different environment things were not what they had been. Life at home wasn't the same without Ingrid as her usual self. Or rather, her old self. She'd been the way she was now for long enough that it had to count as her usual self, much as Sita might be loath to admit that. Normally she was okay - after two years, you had to be to survive somehow, but since she was going home today and Ingrid was most likely the only friend that she'd be seeing in months, the change and the loss was brought to the surface. Ever lingering there in her mind, it was, and she didn't like to be reminded.

So it was that Sita was moody and silent as she dragged her heavy trunk (girls needed clothes! And lots of other things too!) behind her onto Hogsmeade station. Gavin was chattering away beside her, and she was grateful to him - grateful for his unwavering loyalty if not necessarily for the constant talking. He inevitably picked up her mood, and she could tell that he was going to start attempting to work out what was wrong. As though they didn't all know already. Sita had given up trying to hide it. Let them all be happy, if they could, while she wasn't, but not without knowing that she was missing out. She just wished that someone would take pity on her and tell her that there was a way they could get back to normal. Old normal. Sita's normal. She smiled at Gavin now though, and waved him off. He was trying his best, and she was grateful for it. She could cope at least, because he was here and he could be bothered with her, even if she might as well be invisible for all that Aaron realised she was there. He was so fixated on most girls around him that Sita sometimes wondered whether she was a third gender. But then, she and Ingrid didn't count, since they were his friends rather than a new impossibly older conquest. Maybe he'd got himself an overload of testosterone from somewhere.

Sita hadn't been paying any attention to the exchange between Ingrid and Aaron up ahead, but now as they chose themselves a compartment, she stopped in the doorway, feeling as though she was swaying a bit even though the train hadn't yet started moving and the floor was still beneath her feet. She'd just realised that this was something she really didn't want, and it was also something she could do something about. For once.
"Um... I can't." she said, and then realising that they probably wouldn't have a clue what she meant (Ingrid and Aaron especially, after all it wasn't as though they spent much time thinking about what was going on in her dull and rather less bright brain), she added again, "I can't. Um... Ingy, I'll see you at King's Cross, my mum said she'd be bringing Janine and Kirsty, I think it was. It might be a bit of a squash in the back..." she said, adding the last sentence before she realised that she didn't elaborate nowadays, in case they weren't interested. She'd used to just force it on them, thinking that they'd have to grow to like it. "Gavin..." Sita rummaged in her rucksack and eventually brought out a quill with flashy colours, bright as a racecar. "Um, you're not to lose this, because it's for writing to me with. I know it might be boring but... it's got a really smooth flow so you can write extra extra quick and tell me lots of news and things." She was about to hug him when she realised that he was a boy, someone she'd used to play knight games with, and so she instead shook his hand up and down vigorously for a couple of seconds. "Aaron..." She paused as she looked at the boy she'd hated steadily without even knowing what he'd become in the past year, and for a moment looked as though she was going to say something deep. Unable to, she just said, "See you next year."

And with that, Sita left, dragging her way-too-heavy trunk down the corridor as she turned her back on her friends for the duration of the journey. It would be Gavin's company that she would miss the most, but it wasn't worth being cooped up in an awkward situation with Ingrid and Aaron. She hoped they'd understand that she didn't have any sudden hard feeling, and just let her be to do as she wished. It wasn't as though she couldn't join them again if she suddenly wanted to... but no, she wasn't going to lose face by doing that. Sita peered into different compartments, glad that they'd been amongst the first on the station platform because it meant that the train wasn't jolting her about as she tried to find a new place to sit. Finally, she found one that looked promising. Just a small girl in there, who Sita thought she'd seen around the Hufflepuff Common Room this last year. Probably just finishing off her first year, but she supposed it might be second year. Though that would be a second year whom she hadn't seen very much of for a second year. Sita grinned to herself, finding her usual habit of using the same phrase about three times in consecutive sentences strangely comforting. This was Sita-think. She pulled open the compartment door and stepped inside, smiling at the girl. She was free of her friends and the problems she faced there. Here, she could be Sita. The Sita she wanted to be, rather than the Sita her friends found so tiresome. Even if they didn't say they found her tiresome, she was sure that they did. She found being miserable all the time quite tiresome, after all. Sita wasn't made for misery.

"Hello, I'm hoping that you have a spare space for me?" she asked the girl. There were plenty of seats in the compartment, but she could be saving them from friends. "I'm Sita Mehadi, just finished my third year at Hogwarts!" she said cheerfully. "What's your name?" she continued, as she heaved her trunk onto the storage rack overhead and sat down, her rucksack at her feet. "I know you're in Hufflepuff," she elaborated unnecessarily as she took out a notebook with pink tinted parchment and her book of stickers, "'cos I've seen you around the Common Room." She smiled as she looked up for a moment, and then started pondering which stickers should go where on the cover of the book she intended to use for rough notes next year.

[Xia Aeo Serpentine H2]

Sita Mehadi, the girl said and she looked familiar.
"I'm Xia Aeo," she introduced herself, purposefully leaving off the "Serpentine" bit of her name as she didn't want to go into that. "You're right, I am in Hufflepuff. You are to I think?"

Deciding she could trust this girl, Xia took her precious silver mirror out of her pocket and layed it on her lap.
"Map Home," she said and tapped it with her wand, then she tapped it again and said, "people."
That meant she could see the people and she did so now, examining where everyone was.
Her mother, Zhi was making everything ready for her to come home to. That always made her feel warm inside and it was the same now.
Arlen, her father was reading something and she didn't bother t find out what.

[Sita Mehadi H7]

"Nice to meet you, Xia!" Sita said, feeling a little oppressed by the girl's attitude and the comment therefore sounding a little too jovially. This Xia was so calm, and didn't even seem to manage quiet enthusiasm in her answer. Sita always found it disconcerting when people didn't try to match or didn't already have her own hyped-up way of thinking about things. With Xia, it felt almost as though she was cutting something off, pruning her introduction. How could you even prune an introduction? It wasn't as though they got overgrown - you couldn't introduce more than your name and a short piece of information about yourself. Though Sita supposed that 'short' was a quality rather than a specific quantity, and so some people might judge 'short' to be a couple of hours, some a couple of minutes, and most a couple of seconds. She amused herself by inventing what she'd say if her introduction had to be a couple of hours long, with no repeats. Then she looked up as Xia continued, cutting off that rather pointless bit of thinking to listen.
"Yeah I am, couldn't have seen you in the Common Room otherwise really." she said, refraining from calling the girl 'silly' as she would her friends were they not to follow through logic that easy, simply because she didn't know her very well so that might be a bit rude, and wondering if Xia had been listening to her much before, or just had a very short memory span.

Sita lifted a sticker of a bright yellow tennis ball carefully from a Muggle sheet of stickers, and placed it about one and a half diagonal inches from the top left hand corner of the notebook. Another tennis ball went in the top right hand corner of the notebook, and then Sita opened her pencil case to take out a set square and position another two tennis balls below the first ones. Her pencil case was woven out of strips of bark from a species of magical maple which moulted its bark once a year. They had one in the wizarding gardens near Ashton, which they called 'The Moulting Maple'. Sita suspected that whoever had named it must have attended Hogwarts and had a bit of a run in with the Whomping Willow to inspire them to name a more placid tree thus. The bark was surprisingly strong to say how thin it was, but Sita was still very careful with the pencil case and so placed it tenderly beside her on the seat where she could catch it if the train jolted. She was about to start adding stickers of tennis racquets and white trainers to form a box with the tennis balls as the corners when Xia took out her exquisite mirror. It glinted in the midsummer sunshine that was pouring into the compartment, and Sita glanced up from her own project. When she saw the lovely object, she smiled and went over to take a look at it. She reckoned the girl wouldn't have taken it out had she not wanted to be conspicuous with it in front of Sita, and she was in the mood to humour her. She also did feel a little curious, if she was going to admit that to herself.

"Wow, that is really clever," she said, gawping at the moving map on the surface of the mirror. The map seemed to be slightly translucent, so that the light around them penetrated through to the reflective part and shone back at them again to light the map clearly and entirely naturally. "It's really pretty too," she continued. Giving Xia a smile, she returned to her own seat. "I don't think anyone would trust me with something that special," she mused. "Though I do have this." She lifted up a tiny gold locket that dangled on a long chain around her neck, usually totally concealed. She opened it up to show a picture of her mother on one side and her father on the other. "My mum gave it to me, and her mum gave it to her and so on. It's supposed to be for the first-born daughter of the family. I'm an only daughter actually - an only child at that." Sita laughed. "My dad thinks that family heirlooms are silly, and I kinda agree with him. He says that each person has things that are special to them, and that they matter more than passing down one object using restrictive rules. He thinks that knowledge is the most important thing that can get passed down, that matters to everyone." She regarded Xia seriously for a moment, and then grinned as she started making her sticker border again. "He's quite wise - a lot wiser than me, that is." Sita fiddled with the friendship bracelet on her left wrist for a moment, knowing that whatever their friendship had become Ingy would still be wearing hers. That did matter more to her than any family heirloom could ever do. It might be made of worthless coloured threads, but it was special to Sita.

[Xia Aeo Serpentine H2]

Sita stared at the mirror, seemingly in awe of the beutiful silver and lovely map. Xia smiled, she loved it when people admired the mirror and the girl truly did.
She pointed to the figures on the map.
"That's my father, Arlen, he's Irish, and that's my mother, Zhi, she's chinese and sometimes I feel like she's the only one who gave me heritage!" Xia laughedand stayed silent for a moment before the girl spoke, she said something about having a locket and Xia examined it,
"that really is nice," she said.
Then the other girl spoke about her father being wise and Xia grinned,
"that's exactly like my mother!" She exclaimed,"she makes me realise I have so far to go.Not that I didn't know that but still." She quieted and returned to being her usual self,
"my father's like thay too."

Xia was never exactly the bubble of conversation but she did talk.
"So, what was your school year like? Mine was alright."
She didn't say anything more than that as she wanted to see if Sita would ask. The truth was about that but to give someone else an idea she'd need to elaborate.
((You definitely don't have to but just a suggestion for you replying: what about you ask Xia more about her year. Also can you give me tips of any kind about how to "prune" as Sita put it, her words since I'd like to build on that. This is my first post with Xia you realise and I don't really know her yet. I'd like to pose her a quiet girl, growing up to be wise like her mother.))

[Sita Mehadi H7]

Sita paid special attention to the figures Xia had pointed out to her, but couldn't help feeling that much as it was a beautiful item, it was no substitute for seeing the people in the flesh. It was just as looking at a portrait was a good way of finding out something about a person, but couldn't tell you as much as meeting them yourself, without any artistic interpretation or adaptation. Sita never found the pictures in her locket much help when she was homesick. But nevertheless, it was interesting to see the small figures on the surface of the mirror. Sita didn't look any longer, but instead began to trace out her name in faint pencil inside the sticker border. She considered what Xia had said about her parents' nationalities and hesitated a moment before replying. She didn't want to cause any offence - although she wasn't interested in becoming fast friends with this girl, it was never nice to make anyone annoyed.

"So do you live in Ireland then, if you're able to go to Hogwarts?" Sita asked. She pondered a while longer, again hesitating to voice her thoughts. But here, away from her friends, she had the chance to be open. She was going to do that. "Everyone has heritage, don't they?" Sita asked. "Even the lowliest shepherd has it, whether it's family heritage of generations of looking after sheep on lonely hills or more recent of how they ended up there. But I suppose... maybe it doesn't count as being passed on if you don't talk about it. Depends on how close you are." Sita regarded Xia closely. "Did you mean something else by heritage?" she asked. The idea had just hit her that the girl might be a snob, thinking that heritage could only come from a good family. Sita didn't think it was. But then, her parents had dedicated their lives to living amongst Muggles, people not regarded with much interest by most of the wizarding community. She maybe had different ways of valuing people than some other Purebloods.

Sita smiled at the girl as she became suddenly animated. This was much more like what Sita was used to! It made her feel more comfortable, and she was rather saddened when Xia lapsed back into her former self. Sita noted that Xia always seemed less enthusiastic about her father. That was a shame. Sita had a very good friendship with her father, and it was sad to think that other people might miss out on that same sort of relationship with some of their own family.
"Yeah, we do have far to go," she said, picking up on that as she didn't feel they had much further to go on this topic of conversation! She intended to close the subject for now. "But we'll get there in the end... just like this train journey has an end." She smiled. It was an absolutely obvious comparison to make, but she didn't feel the need to expand into something more imaginative in this case. She wasn't trying to stimulate the conversation in that direction anyway. "Though you won't have done as many train journeys home as I have by now..."

Sita was glad that Xia had introduced a new topic of conversation, and warmed to it as best as she could. Sita could talk, even to rival Gavin if she really wanted to, and she did that now.
"Well, I'm not so sure that I like my friends at the moment." she said, not thinking that it mattered if she told Xia anyway. "They're just... well, it's not exactly always easy. But Gavin is good." Sita nodded at that as if to emphasise her point. "He's good at talking, and talking, and talking, so then that means that I don't have to talk too much. Quite useful when I'm not in the best of moods. And he's fun, he'll play sports with me and so on. I really like sports. Especially tennis... that's a Muggle game if you don't know. Gavin likes baseball." Sita grimaced briefly. "He's loads better at it than me, but that doesn't put him off wanting me to try. Yeah... but my other friends, I'm not sure that I like them at the moment. That's been going on all year. So that tells you about my school year." Sita paused, considering what she'd just said, and then burst out bitterly:
"I suppose I should just say my school year was all right too? Is that what I'm supposed to do?" She stared at Xia, challenging her to answer her. "Your first year at Hogwarts, that should be something other than all right. It could be absolutely amazing, absolutely awful and traumatising, interesting, boring, lonely, challenging... any of these things, but not just plain old all right."

[Xia Aeo Serpentine H2]

"Yes," Xia said, "I live in Ireland but since that isn't technically Britain we technically live with my father's brother, Draco."
She relaxed a little more and waited for Sita's next words. The other girl didn't give her long to wait and soon she said something about how everyone has heritage.
"That's true, everyone does have heritage but what I meant is that I don't consider Draco uncle where as Mother's parents are grandparents to me. Even if we don't visit them all the time." Xia smiled. “He’s more like a friend, Draco.”

She looked at Sita closely for a moment, thinking the girl seemed to be disappointed about something.
"What are you disappointed about?" She asked.

Xia thought about Sita's next words about how her friends were changing in a bad way.
"Well I guess you might just have to wait a bit," she opined, “maybe you'll get used to them or them back to what you like." She thought about this some more.
"You probably can't wait that long though. I know it would sure test my patience. You could get some more friends. I don't want to sound like a muggle horoscope person or anything though. Even if mother does say they see things we can't," Xia thought about her father. “Father thinks they can see things that others can't but they don't know how to read them."

Xia paused at Sita's challenge, not blinking an eyelash and staying completely calm but nonetheless thinking.
"Well let's see.........
For the horrible things I could say: I ran into Ashakiran Gandhi no less than thirty nine thousand, one hundred and two times, I failed a Transfiguration test once which is my father's subject and though he wasn't the least bit disappointed it still felt horrible, I managed to subconsciously convince a Gryffindor I was predjuced, I thought my mirror was smashed twice and became paranoid for a week, Severus Snape made the most awful comments, darling Miss Gandhi spread a false rumor about how I fainted of fright when a staircase moved and I got laughed at for weeks.
Hmmmmm……….
What else do you want? Good things?
I managed to spell my mirror to give it a new function which is really hard advanced stuff with only a little help, I got the hang of some stuff Mother was teaching me which made her proud though that isn’t strictly my hogwarts year, all the magic in general, the fact I received my mirror this year and really lots of other things. Is there anything else you’d like to know?"
Xia returned to looking at her mirror and tapped it softly with her wand, whispering,
"map Draco's area." She looked up at Sita and said conversationally ,
"if I say area like that it means a map of where whatever it is is."

((Yay, I finally managed a long one! Also I presume when Xia asks what Sita is dissapointed about that it is possible to pick up on so that Xia doesn't appear the mind reader?))
((I'll remember in future I can only post Xia with Xia))