February 12th 2000, (Flashback)
Thirteen year old Astor Myon Koray sat slouched over the edge of the Library table, idly swinging his feet under his seat in boredom as he scribbled away at his Potions essay. It wasn't nearly as bad as History of Magic but he still found Potions pretty boring, he just didn't get what was supposed to be interesting or even challenging about following precise instructions. It didn't help that he'd started Divination this year, Trelawney had predicted something horrible- probably death- would happen to him one day in a dungeon so now everyone was afraid to sit near him lest he blew them all up accidentally or something.
Astor sighed and stretched, feeling like he'd had enough of Potions for today. He glanced around at the handful of other Ravenclaw boys at the table, all dutifully working on their own essays. He slumped back over his essay and dipped his quill ready to start writing again, he let his hand hover over the parchment and a drop of ink dripped onto one of his fingers, he really didn't feel like working on his Potions essay anymore. Even though it was nearly done, it was just so boring. He rested his head on his other hand and instead started to doodle idly on the edge of the page, drawing the planets of the solar system and wishing they had Astronomy tonight, it was his favorite subject. Honestly, he didn't know why they didn't have it more than once a week, it wasn't like they had any other classes in the middle of the night to compete for the time slot.
He scribbled away at his solar system, filling in all nine planets and starting to add in some kind of giant star serpent to coil itself around them. After several minutes, Astor leaned back satisfied with his drawing even if Slughorn probably would not be but eh, he wasn't worried. In fact, as he stared at the stagnant image his mind lit up with an idea and he grinned to himself as he withdrew his wand. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Orrin glance sideways in confusion but he didn't really care, he'd been reading though a book he'd gotten for Christmas of handy charms that weren't covered in class and one of them was about how to animate drawings. He hadn't tried it out yet but now seemed a good time, better than actually getting back to finishing his essay at any rate.
Astor focused- the spell had mentioned having to have a good idea in your mind about how you wanted the image to move- then tapped the page with the tip of his wand, muttering the incantation. To his delight, it worked. Immediately the planets started orbiting around his page with the serpent twisting through them as they went, perpetually trying to claw its way up through to Mercury but never getting past Mars. He watched it for a minute, impressed with how well his spell had succeeded before deciding he really should be getting back to his Potions essay, he'd had a break at least. As he reached for the quill again though, he caught sight of the inkblot on his finger and was distracted by another idea: would the spell work to animate something on skin?
"So, have you guys thought about who you're going to ask out for Valentine's Day?" Liam's voice spoke up but Astor was barely interested as he instead picked up his quill with his other hand, awkwardly but carefully trying to draw long lines outward from the blot.
"No," Orrin said immediately from his left while Sean mumbled something unintelligible from opposite him, Astor merely shrugged without stopping his drawing as he tried to turn the accident into a spider. He wasn't really sure who he liked, especially when the girls were as guilty of buying into Trelawney's dumb dungeon death prediction as his friends, so he wasn't particularly bothered about Valentine's Day.
"It's the day after tomorrow, you guys have got to a move on," Liam insisted while Astor finished his spider or spider-like thing, eight legs was a lot to fit on a finger, "It's not often Valentine's Day lines up perfectly on a Hogsmeade weekend like this, surely you don't want everyone to think Ravenclaws are a bunch of nerds who can't get dates."
Astor picked his wand back up as he was more interested in his spider, quite frankly he didn't care what everyone else thought about him or his love life, it was none of their business anyway. He focused again on his vision, this time for the ink spider staining his skin and tapped it with his wand, muttering the incantation. The spider sprang to life at once, trying to scuttle away off his finger like a real spider would and he grinned to himself, instinctively reaching out to cup it into his other hand to stop it going up his arm and to his surprise it transferred to his other hand.
"Not all of us are as good with girls as you are," Sean squeaked from opposite him though Astor was barely listening to their conversation anymore.
The spider tried to run away off his other hand too so he again put his hand out to stop it, and again it ran back onto the flesh of the hand it had been drawn on originally. He marveled at it in amazement as he kept switching hands as if it were a real spider trying to run away, seamlessly scuttling from one hand to the other like it were alive, he couldn't feel a thing either as it did this. Honestly, Astor was quite impressed.
"It's not as hard as you think it is," Liam offered while Astor remained enthralled by his spider, tuning him out as he started giving Sean dating advice.
Astor froze abruptly as beyond his hands and the edge of the table, a pair of legs- a pair of female legs- had moved into his line of sight. He heard the clop of her shoes on the floor as she walked past the table, his eyes traveling up the slender gray tight-covered calves, and up, and up- this girl was definition of 'legs for days.' His gaze finally reached her skirt and he was snapped from his trance before his eyes could reach her bottom, he shifted his position and shook himself, making sure his mouth was closed and that he had started breathing again. Sometimes he forgot girls had legs now, well they'd always had legs he supposed but now he couldn't help but notice them.
He glanced back to the owner of the legs, he didn't exactly know her but he recognized her as the Slytherin fifth year prefect who was very strict and there was a rumor she was part-giant because she was tall- very tall- she had to be as tall as an adult man or close to, something Novak he thought her name was. Thankfully she didn't seem to have noticed him looking at her legs and was waved over to the table behind them by another Slytherin fifth year girl with a blonde ponytail, she already had work out and books strewn across the table. He looked back to his friends, Orrin was watching him with a disappointed expression- though quickly looked back to his Ancient Runes essay when Astor looked his way- but the other two paid him no mind as they were focused on their own conversation, Liam was still talking and Sean was hanging off his every word.
"…you have to act soon or all the good ones will be gone, you don't want to be stuck with a real uggo," Liam was saying as Astor tuned back in, trying to remember what he'd been doing before he'd been distracted, Liam suddenly inclined his head in Novak's direction as she sat down beside the blonde who was presumably her friend, "Like her."
"Like I'd be caught dead going out with her," Sean scoffed in agreement, wrinkling his nose in disgust, "Think I'd rather go alone than be seen with the giant girl."
"What's wrong with her?" Astor asked sharply without thinking, too late noticing Novak had startled behind them in clear recognition and the blonde had thrown Sean a filthy look that he unfortunately couldn't see since the girls were behind him.
"Um… she's a giant girl," Liam reiterated as if it were obvious and the pair chortled like Astor was stupid for not knowing, behind them Novak seemed to be trying to ignore them and get on with her work though the friend was still scowling, "Who wants to go out with a lumbering ape like that? She'd crush your whole arm with her giant ham hands."
"Novak smash!" Sean said in a dumb voice, pretending to hammer his fists on the table and the pair howled with laughter at this.
"Guys, I'm pretty sure she can hear you," Astor pointed out and tried to lower his voice, Novak had curled her, admittedly large, hand at Liam's words and pulled it almost protectively towards her despite keeping her eyes determinedly on the parchment in front of her, her other hand still writing while her face bore the look of someone who was trying to not let on they were bothered by what they were hearing to limited success. He felt bad for her, it wasn't even like she was fat, she was just big, "Don't be so mean."
"It's not my fault if she's eavesdropping, it's not against the rules to talk amongst ourselves about who's hot or not," Liam insisted callously, over his shoulder Astor saw the blonde mutter something to Novak who nodded in response, "And she's clearly not, she looks like someone put a skirt on an gorila- Hey, maybe we should call her the gorilla girl instead?"
"I don't know, I think even gorillas have smaller shoulders than her," Sean pointed out and the pair laughed again, behind them he saw the girls were picking up their stuff.
"Seriously, knock it off!" Astor hissed at them, frowning as he watched the girls leaving to go find a different table, "And now look at what you've done, they're leaving."
"Well good, now you have nothing to complain about anymore," Liam said, looking rather annoyed with him.
"You still hurt her feelings!" Astor insisted, watching the girls settling on a table much further back and off to the right, well out of earshot of them, "You should go and apologize."
"For what? Telling the truth?" Liam scoffed, glaring at him now while Astor got to his feet, "Where are you going?"
"To apologize to her."
"For what? God, you're such a weirdo."
"Better a weirdo than an asshole like you guys," Astor snapped as he strode away from them.
He walked purposefully over to the girls' table, the blond was rifling through shelves with her back to him while Novak sat at the corner of the table facing towards him with her head over her work. She had dark ebony hair, tied into a neat bun at the back of her neck. She looked up at him as she heard him approach, her features forming into a frown.
"What do you want?" she demanded immediately in a voice with a hint of accent, her body tensing and her eyes narrowing on him suspiciously as she straightened up her extremely broad shoulders.
"I just um…" Astor began and trailed off nervously, suddenly feeling a lot less sure of himself now that he was actually over here but nonetheless found his voice and pressed on, too late to walk away now, "I just wanted to apologize for my friends over there, they were totally out of line."
"Oh," she muttered, her expression softening and she gave a sad shrug, "It's okay, you are not responsible for the words of others."
"I know but-"
"Ravenclaw, I think you have a spider on your hand," Novak interrupted abruptly with an expression of surprise, starting at his hands.
"Oh don't… don't worry about that," Astor said quickly, feeling his face flush as he hastily shoved his hands behind his back. He tried to avert his eyes out of embarrassment only to find them springing back to her face to avoid even more embarrassment lest she think he was staring at her chest which was very… ah, busty. So he looked back to her slightly puzzled face, this time catching her eyes, "And my name's Astor, by the way."
"Alright."
"So like I was saying, I…" Astor tried to continue but trailed off as he looked into her eyes, it was like staring into space, dark and deep, vast and beautiful, but he could still see a sadness there. He opened his mouth to continue his sentence, what he meant to say was that he was still sorry and that his friends were jerks, probably throw in something vaguely reassuring to try make her feel better but instead what came out of his mouth was, "I wondered whether you'd like to go out with me?"
Novak's eyes widened in shock at this while Astor's mind caught up with his mouth, it wasn't like apologizing for his friends was actually going to make her feel better since they weren't even the ones apologizing. On the other hand, something that might actually make her feel better about herself was someone asking her out and he could make sure she had a nice date on Saturday, cheer her up a bit. How hard could it be to show a girl a good time really?
"You know to Hogsmeade this Saturday for Valentine's Day," Astor continued, feeling more confident in his idea and smiling at her while she seemingly recovered from the shock.
"Are… Are you old enough to go to Hogsmeade?" Novak asked cautiously, surveying him up and down and Astor felt himself blush again, damn August birthday making him look young.
"Of course, I'm a third year," Astor insisted, trying not to let his lack of puberty deter him and he held his smile while her expression was thoughtful, "C'mon, it'll be fun, I promise."
"Well…" Novak began and glanced away nervously to her left where the blonde had frozen on her way back with a book, she grinned and gave Novak a thumbs up who then turned back to him and took a deep breath, "Alright, I will go with you."
"Great!" Astor exclaimed enthusiastically, his smile only widening, "I'll see you Saturday then."
"Alright."
Astor turned on his heel and found himself having to resist the urge to skip back to his table as his mind was suddenly running rampant with ideas for the date, where exactly in Hogsmeade should he take her? There was Madam Puddifoot's of course but everyone would be going there, this naturally put him off going there but would she care about that? What kind of places would she like to go? It occurred to him that he didn't even know a whole lot about her, including her first name so that was a bit awkward but it wasn't like she'd known his name either. He looked back over his shoulder at her, the blonde was now seated beside her and they were talking rapidly amongst themselves, she was smiling but Novak looked more nervous. He'd definitely have to give it some thought if he wanted to keep his promise.
"Well?" Liam asked as Astor got back to his table but he ignored him and started packing up his stuff, Liam wasn't worth wasting his breath on and his boring Potions essay could wait. As he spied his spider still scuttling along on his hand, he also thought he should probably find that animation counter-spell, "How'd your lame-ass apology go?"
"Wait- where are you going?" Orrin wondered in confusion as he realized what Astor was doing.
"I have a date to plan," Astor said with a smile as he swung his bag back over his shoulder, turning away from their confused faces and throwing up a hand of farewell behind his back, "See you later!"