Addie made a point of meeting up with Ginny every once in a while. She didn't see any rhyme or reason in cutting Ginny out of her life for the minor offense of being in Gryffindor. If she had been so house essentialist, she would never have become friends with Neville, and that would have been a shame.
"I'm sorry I can't really help you with any actual magic," Addie told her as they sat together one lunch time that there was no lunch club. "I can help you with history of magic if you like though, and check that you are using apostrophes properly. Much more than that and you would be better off asking pretty much anyone else."
"I'm alright so far," Ginny said, "but if I think of anything, I'll tell you."
Addie took this as the dismissal it was, and decided to move on to other things.
"Well," she said, "how are things going? Generally speaking, I mean. Have you made any friends yet?"
"Not really," Ginny admitted, confirming Addie's suspicions. "I talk to people in class sometimes, but can't seem to be able to take it beyond 'acquaintance who I get paired up with in class sometimes'."
"It'll happen eventually," comforted Addie, "and in the meantime, you are free to come and find me whenever you want."
"Thanks," Ginny said. Suddenly she put her hand to her head as if in apparent pain.
"Have you got that cold that everyone's been talking about?" she asked, wondering if for the first time in her life, she had enough friends to actually be exposed enough to catch it.
"I'm fine," Ginny reassured her wearily, reassuring her that she in fact was not fine. "Percy has been trying to get me to take a pepper up all day, but I haven't let him get me all day."
"Try and get an early night," Addie advised her. "When I didn't really have any friends yet, I would go to bed at a ridiculous time. It wasn't that I was getting tied up with work exactly, but my ability to waste my own time at two in the morning with a worthless task is unparalleled."
"Yeah," Ginny said, and Addie hoped that she would settle in. Presumably there had been others in the past who hadn't, and it would be a shame, if Ginny ended up among them. "I wish I had ended up in Ravenclaw with Luna or vice versa. When I was at home, I may not have spent as much time with her as we did before, but at least she was always just over the hill and usually willing to play with me when we were younger."
Speaking of Luna, Addie had seen her around the school a fair bit. She was always wearing her hair loose or plaited and her feet, rather confusingly were always rather bare. In all that time, they didn't talk again. Luna always seemed to be rushing to go somewhere, and Addie wasn't ever in good enough spirits to match her energy or if she wasn't rushing Luna was not in particularly good spirits either. Every once in a while, on one of those days when they weren't in the best of spirits, they both happened to bump into Tabby who was on a mission to visit Professor Sprout and try and get some scraps of ham off her. They would both crouch on the cold stone floors stroking a purring Tabby before going their separate ways.
Once, however, when she found herself hiding from The Golden Trio in a cupboard, she found herself once more in Luna's presence.
"Hello Addie," Luna said in a tone that indicated that she was far less surprised to see Addie than Addie was to see her.
"Luna! I can't believe that we haven't spoken since the train!"
"Oh, that's alright," Luna said brightly, "you've been busy helping Neville with his magic."
"I didn't know that anyone knew about that," Addie said, surprised, "we've been pretty discrete."
"I suppose you have," Luna said, "but his magic is louder than most people's."
"What do you mean?" Addie asked, curiously.
Luna smiled serenely. Presumably she was being intentionally cryptic.
She suddenly said, "At least it isn't shouting anymore," before adding, "It's lunch time,".
"Oh," Addie started, looking at her watch to confirm her suspicion. "I have to go. I have to meet some people. It's been nice seeing you, Luna!" she yelled behind her as she ran in the direction of the art room.
She made it in the nick of time.
"Sorry I'm late," she gasped, as she arrived. Everyone else was already there, and they looked surprised to see her in such a state.
"Where on earth did you run from?" Cho asked.
"I was talking to Luna," she gasped. "We got to talking and I lost track of time."
"Luna?" Adrian asked. "Do I know her?"
"Unlikely," Addie replied. "She's a first year Ravenclaw. She doesn't really have many friends and people avoid her like the plague."
"She's nice," Cho added. "While she is the most unusual person I have ever met, she is also one of the nicest. I tripped over last week and she happened to pass by and helped me."
"The same happened to me," Addie said. "It's just such a Luna thing, isn't it, being able to show up at exactly the right moment."
"I used to see her sometimes when I was younger as she would be at the Burrow visiting Ginny," Neville said. "It's been ages since I've seen her properly. She went to Wales with her dad as he had work there, and only went back to the area just before school started back."
"We should ask her along to lunch club," Adrian declared suddenly.
"Really?" Addie said, surprised. "She's younger than any of us, and you don't know her."
In all honesty, Addie was just surprised that he was willing to change the usual way of things so that someone unknown to him and unlikely to have anything in common with him could join the group.
"Well I know all of you and I trust you, so I'm sure that she's great."
"Are we all agreed?" Neville asked, looking around the circle of chairs. Everyone nodded, and Addie decided that she would ask her the next time she saw her.
One of Addie's history books mentioned the value of talking to old people to collect their stories before they died. "Valuable, but endangered" was how it described them. Addie didn't really know any old people. While the teachers seemed old to her, none of them except for Dumbledore were older than sixty, and even then, wizards lived for a very long time.
She mentioned it to Neville at lunch club.
"I just wonder if there is any first-hand history that I'm missing out on, not talking to old people," she explained. "As far as I know, all my grandparents are dead, and all my neighbours growing up thought I was a juvenile delinquent."
"You could talk to my gran," Neville offered earnestly. "She has plenty of stories to tell. In fact, she and her lady in waiting recently wrote a book and are revising it in the view of getting it published."
"That might be interesting to read," Addie admitted, "but what I'm looking for is someone to talk to while I'm at Hogwarts. Professor Binns is old, but he only talks about Goblins."
"Well if you're willing to talk to ghosts," Cho said, "there are plenty of others you could talk to here!"
"Except for the Baron," Adrian said warningly, "he might be a bit much for you."
"I might go and ask one of them later," Addie said falteringly, "but I can't say that I'm the world's biggest conversationalist."
"You do fine when you're talking to us!" Neville said. "I would go so far describing you as 'chatty'."
"I can't say that anyone else would though," Addie said. "I think that the rest of my house hates me. Everyone there is talkative and supportive, and the most I have ever been confident enough in doing is picking up someone's quill when they dropped it."
"That's fine though," Cho reassured her. "Do you really need to socialise outside of our weird group of recluses?"
"Well no, but it would be nice to try and talk to a ghost. You know, go up to the first one I see and just talk to them, but I can't even talk to The Friar without freezing up."
Adrian grinned, "Well then, why don't we all come with you? Safety in numbers and all that."
It turned out that trying to find a ghost when you actually wanted one was nigh on impossible. While even the most difficult moments in life when at Hogwarts tended to be made worse by the presence of Peeves, it was a bright afternoon at Hogwarts, and seemingly, all the ghosts were off somewhere else.
Addie was discouraged quickly. She always had been a quitter, but Neville who was steadfast and knew that it would be good practice for her kept thinking up places where there could potentially be a talkative ghost.
"I think I've seen The Grey Lady around the Astronomy Tower recently," Cho offered, clearly trying to keep up morale. They had been at it for a while, and it was starting to feel as though they were going around in circles.
Eventually Addie had had enough, "I don't want to drag you all around for much longer," she begrudgingly sighed. "You must all have better things to be getting on with."
"No, Addie, we're all…" started Neville.
Just then, Nearly Headless Nick materialised through a wall.
Neville's face brightened marginally. "Hello, Sir Nicholas," he began, approaching him cautiously, "how are things going?"
"Oh, same old same old," Sir Nicholas said, shaking his head mournfully, before thinking the better of it. "What brings you four to this part of the castle?"
Surprisingly, they were essentially right back where they had started. After all that, they had traipsed around the castle for nothing.
"Well, our friend Addie," Cho gestured, "was looking for…"
Adrian, ever the Slytherin interjected, "…a teacher to talk about history with. She feels as though her advancement in the study of her favourite subject is somewhat limited by the constraints of her age."
"Aha," Sir Nicholas said understandingly. "Young Dumbledore has plenty of stories to tell. He always has another one every time I meet him. A thoroughly intriguing young man."
"Therin lies the problem," Adrian said sadly, "Adelaide has found, (haven't you Adelaide) that everything that they have to say is post statute. She knows enough about that already so was thinking perhaps Professor Binns would have something to say about it outside of goblin history. He may not have been there, but I'm sure that he has something more to say."
"Oh, I wouldn't count on it," Sir Nicholas said wisely, "he is a one trick pony. I remember him when he was a student. He always was a bit of a wet blanket."
Addie felt an overwhelming urge to intervene on Professor Binns' behalf. It wasn't his fault that that had been on his lesson plan when he had died. Sometimes there was no helping these things. Cho, sensing her discomfort, shook her head discretely.
"Oh, I completely agree," said Adrian, "you must be full of good stories."
"I see what you're getting at young Adrian," Sir Nicholas teased. He turned to Addie. "Well young, lady, fire away."
"Well…" she said falteringly. She didn't talk to people she didn't know very often, and when she did, she was never very comfortable doing it. "How did you die then?"
Sir Nicholas looked smug, "You'll be hard pressed to find a better death story than mine. You see it started on a starry night. I was wandering through a garden…"
It turned out that Adrian had done too good a job at getting Sir Nicholas to talk as once he started talking, it was hard for him to stop. The four of them were witness to a true performance from Sir Nicholas. He did voices, and regularly demonstrated how his head didn't quite come off which was quite a sight to behold. Addie was very interested. It was good to be able to clarify some of her uncertainties about the role of magic and wizards in the court of Henry VII and had given her more things to look up. Time seemed to fly by, and in no time, the bell for the next period rang.
"Oh, I've been talking your ear off," Sir Nicholas said, realising the time. "If you are all interested in hearing more, you could always come to my Deathday Party on Halloween. I know that you young 'uns are always excited about the feast, but if you could just pop in, I could introduce you to a few people. I'm sure they'd be delighted to talk to you."
Cho, who may or may not have been asleep on her feet awoke to reply, "Well I for one have plans for Halloween, but I'm sure that Addie would be delighted."
Addie was delighted.
"Urm, Quidditch," Adrian said vaguely.
"It's Halloween," Cho said accusingly.
"Yes, and I have planned the day off to stay in my dorm and read about Quidditch in peace."
"I think it would be very interesting," Neville said loyally, "and I'm sure I could put off my homework to another day."
"Wonderful," Sir Nicholas said enthusiastically, "that's two more live ones, which makes five…" Addie briefly wondered who the other three were. "Nobody else will bring more than me. That's for certain."
Lunch Club log: Considered adding a new member and went to see a ghost about a story. Sandwiches good.
A/N: This is the second chapter I have uploaded this week. The first was a short one. If you are unsure whether or not you have read the previous one, please go back and check.