Making friends [tag: Lily Spencer] on Cascade Hall

Madeleine Dautin

August 08, 2016 9:24 PM

Making friends [tag: Lily Spencer] by Madeleine Dautin

Since both of Madeleine’s roommates were a little strange, Madeleine had made it her goal to befriend Lily Spencer. She had willingly crawled around on the library floor with Madeleine and Killian Everett and therefore she was exactly the sort of person who Madeleine liked to hang out with. Lily Spencer was, in a word, cool. And soon she would be Madeleine’s best friend at Sonora, she was sure of it. Madeleine had noticed, of course, that Lily spent a lot of time with Jozua Sparks, but Madeleine spent a lot of time with Sébastien Évreux. So it was a different kind of best friendship that she would have with Lily.

That morning, Madeleine dressed herself in her most appropriate friend-making dress, a Maman-approved white cotton dress (all of her clothes here were Maman-approved and dressy but the cotton felt the least formal and so Madeleine had gone with it), and tied a bright red ribbon in her hair to keep the messy blonde strands out from her eyes. She made sure that there was a large bow to flop down on either side of her head, slipped her feet into a pair of scuffed canvas shoes and set off for Cascade Hall. A quick look around suggested to Madeleine that Lily was not there yet—she did wake up rather early for a teenager, Madeleine supposed, and so she poured herself a cup of coffee (which was mostly creamer anyway) because that’s what grown-ups drank and prepared for a wait.

When Lily arrived, Madeleine discarded her barely drank coffee—she didn’t like it cold and the creamer had cooled off the hot beverage relatively quickly, for a mug of hot chocolate (watery in comparison to some of the richer, European chocolates she had drank in the past on holidays and at home) and for the company of the friendly Quidditch player. “Hello,” she said with a smile as she sat down next to her hopeful friend. “Would you mind if I joined you for breakfast?”

10 Madeleine Dautin Making friends [tag: Lily Spencer] 340 Madeleine Dautin 1 5

Lily Spencer

August 11, 2016 12:24 PM

I like new friends. by Lily Spencer

Mornings were Lily’s least favourite part of the day. The sun was always in her eyes whenever she awoke, and Lily stretched in bed and turned around to sleep some more. Unfortunately, her alarm did not think that appropriate, and the faux Snitch sprouted wings and flew around her head. The faux announcer’s voice commented on an imaginary Quidditch game, and the crowd was cheering -- Lily groaned. No matter how she tried to wave the Snitch away, it wouldn’t leave her alone. Finally she sat up and plucked the Snitch out of the air.

“She’s caught the Snitch! She’s won the game!” the announcer screamed and the crowd cheered before Lily shut the alarm off. This was the perfect Christmas gift from Adam, and though Lily loathed it in the mornings, she loved it all the other times of the day.

After getting dressed and remembering to brush her teeth, Lily dragged her feet out of the common room to Cascade Hall. She enjoyed breakfast once she was fully awake, and the brisk walk helped liven her up a bit. She liked having breakfast with friends every morning, and Lily was looking forward to it again. No matter how tired she was, being around people she liked lifted her spirits, and she didn’t dislike anyone at Sonora yet.

Lily stifled a yawn and sat down at a relatively empty table. She poured herself some tea and hardly had a moment to herself before the French witch joined her. Madeleine looked nice and feminine whilst Lily was wearing a loose blue T-shirt and trousers and her coarse hair long and slightly unruly. She didn’t put much thought into her appearance unless it was a hinderance or she was attending some sort of formal event. It didn’t matter to her, and she never considered how others might see her based on the way she dressed. Things might’ve been different, so she thought, if she were as lovely as Charlotte, but Lily didn’t think she was.

“Hi Madeleine,” she said with a friendly smile. At least what she lacked in appearance she made up for in personality. “I wouldn’t mind at all.” As Madeleine got comfortable in her seat, Lily spread jam onto a piece of toast. “I had the strangest dream last night,” she said. “I was with Jozua and we were crawling underneath tables and running through Labyrinth Gardens, but I didn’t know why. Then suddenly we saw this enormous insect -- I don’t know what it was -- and it tried stopping us. I tried to fly over it, but I couldn’t and neither could Jozua. And then my brother Adam appeared and killed it so we could keep running around. Strange, isn’t it?” Lily munched on her toast thoughtfully. “What do you think it means?”

40 Lily Spencer I like new friends. 357 Lily Spencer 0 5

Madeleine

August 17, 2016 3:07 AM

Good, because I plan on being yours. by Madeleine

The sight of Lily caused Madeleine to feel a mix of emotions. On one hand she was jealous with how little Lily had to do to look nice—Maman never would have allowed Madeleine to pack anything like what Lily was wearing and the closest thing she had to it was a nice pair of black jeans, but as Madeleine only had couple shirts that she could dress it down with, she liked to save it for adventuring days. On the other, she couldn’t believe how little Lily cared about her appearance. Appearances were something that Madeleine had been raised to believe were important. How you looked determined a first impression—and first impressions were important.

But none of that really mattered, Madeleine decided, because so far Lily Spencer was the only witch at the school who interested Madeleine beyond the potential to be a serial killer or criminal mastermind. She reached for some bread and dunked it into her chocolate, having always preferred a sweet breakfast to a savoury one. She was glad to see that Lily followed that belief as her new best friend had selected jam as a topping for her bread.

“I don’t know,” Madeleine said, frowning in thought as she pondered Lily’s dream. It was, as Lily had said, quite strange. And Madeleine didn’t have much experience analysing dreams. She was now starting to wish that she had paid more attention to Myrtille when her older sister and her friends talked about that sort of thing over the summers in the covered porch. “Maybe it means that in the future, there will be a…” She paused for a moment as she searched for the right word. Now that she had been in America for nearly a whole school year, Madeleine’s English was improving but she still had trouble remembering the right word for things as she was still thinking in French. “An obstacle for you and Jozua and only your brother will be able to help you?”

It was a rather simple translation of the dream, Madeleine thought, and if one read literature at all, a rather easy conclusion to draw since there was a lot of symbolism like that in books. However, this was real life and although Madeleine was a pureblood witch who had grown up around magic, she didn’t put a whole lot of stock in the art of divination. “Maybe we can ask Professor Starra?” Since divination was a course that only third years and up could take, Madeleine had never interacted with the professor before, but she was interested to know just how much of an authority the witch claimed to be. It was important to know what kinds of professors were teaching at Sonora, even if Madeleine didn’t plan on learning from them—her parents would want to know everything when she returned home that summer.

10 Madeleine Good, because I plan on being yours. 340 Madeleine 0 5

Lily

August 17, 2016 1:17 PM

Let the mischief-making begin. by Lily

It was loads of fun having international friends, and Lily enjoyed getting to know what they thought. She'd imagined only meeting Americans here, and whilst Jozua was the epitome of a pure-blood American wizard in her perspective, someone like Madeleine who was also a long way from home was a nice treat. That is, a nice unexpected acquaintance, not a sweet snack.

Lily took a bite out of her breakfast as Madeleine gave her opinion of the dream. Lily hadn't spent much time thinking about what it could mean, but she had found it odd. On most occasions, she didn't even remember what she'd dreamt about, but this one had been particularly vivid. She hadn't been afraid of the enormous insect, though it had simply appeared out of nowhere, but she remembered feeling helpless against it. She and Jozua both.

Madeleine's interpretation was simple, but it made sense. Lily shrugged. "Could be true. Maybe I'll write home and tell my brother about it. I never believed much in divination and I don't think Professor Starra would appreciate that." She didn't know who Professor Starra was, but she surmised from Madeleine's suggestion that Starra taught Divination. Lily had always been suspicious of those sorts of things because her father was suspicious of them, though astrology was fun even if one didn't particularly believe in it.

Lily grinned at Madeleine and finished off her toast. "Who are you going to the ball with?" She scooped two eggs onto her plate and sausages. Now that she'd whet her appetite, it was time for a substantial meal. "Did you already eat before I got here?" she asked, not wanting to judge Madeleine on her very light and sweet meal choice. "That looks delicious for breakfast, by the way, bread and hot chocolate."

40 Lily Let the mischief-making begin. 357 Lily 0 5

Madeleine

August 25, 2016 2:05 PM

Sounds like a plan! by Madeleine

Lily’s distrust about divination only further confirmed that, despite the history of inter-country relations between France and England, she was destined to be Madeleine’s friend. “No,” Madeleine agreed. She didn’t have an overwhelming desire to talk to the professor, but she was still curious. Dreams and tea readings just sounded like a lot of white noise to Madeleine, but she liked to collect knowledge. Her new friend’s apparent lack of intellectual curiosity gave Madeleine some cause to wonder over her choice—especially as while Lily didn’t take stock in divination, she did apparently enjoy a hearty English-style breakfast.

“Sébastien,” Madeleine replied, refraining from using Bastien’s more familiar name with someone she didn’t think he knew that well. Besides, although she had made up with him, she was still a little annoyed that he had waited so long to ask her. “I heard you asked Jozua?” Madeleine didn’t blame Lily for doing so. According to her conversation with her best friend’s ball date in class, he had waited a very long time to ask—even going so far as to avoid the Pecari witch. She rather thought she might have asked someone else while waiting for Bastien to get it together—if it wouldn’t have messed with the business affairs of the parents of all those involved.

She blushed slightly at Lily’s questioning after Madeleine’s breakfast and she shrugged. “I was waiting for someone to eat with,” she admitted before scanning the table for other things to add to her plate. She had grown up in France where breakfasts were light and on the smaller side—lunches and dinners were the larger meal of the day and she had grown up eating very nicely prepared, multi-coursed second and third meals. Madeleine placed a small amount of plain yogurt on the corner of a plate and filled the rest of it with strawberries.

“I have chocolate almost every morning for breakfast,” Madeleine said excitedly. “My mother doesn’t like it so she’s trying to get me to eat other things too.” It was true, Maman had been getting on Madeleine to include things other than chocolate in her morning diet and while Madeleine could always get behind strawberries, yogurt was something that she had never been fond of before. The thought never occurred to her that this was because they only had plain yogurt in their house rather than because yogurt was a universal Bad Food. But at least the sweetness from the strawberries made the flavour at least slightly more bearable.

10 Madeleine Sounds like a plan! 340 Madeleine 0 5