hh_mirror | A long- awaited introduction; Open rp

Laurie had settled in quite happily to Gryffindor, though, alas, without much of Jo's company. Since Laurie had never been comfortable around strangers, he was incredibly bored.

As such, Laurie wandered around the castle, thinking longingly of his grand piano back home. He entirely failed to notice where he was until he glanced to the side and realized he'd passed the same statue two or three times. Inwardly cursing (no one in books or in Jo's stories ever got so wrapped up in wishing for pianos they got lost), Laurie wandered around the all again... and ended up exactly where he started.

Damn it- er, bother it all? Mrs. March and his grandfather would give him horrible lectures if they even suspected he'd thought a curse word.

In an effort to stave off guilty thoughts, Laurie turned his attention to the wall. There was, rather suddenly, a door there. Thinking that he'd just missed the door the first few times around, Laurie pulled it open and, much to his astonishment, saw a grand piano in the center of the room. He walked in quickly, without bothering to shut the door after him, and propped open the lid.

After a few scales, Laurie plunged into Liszt's arrangement of Saint- Saens's Danse Macabre, the music pouring out from the open door into the hall.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

((ooc; XD Christian Bale love!))

A what? Laurie was relatively sure that he didn't have any family other than his grandfather. His father had run off to Italy and married his mother, his father's sister had died really young- no, no cousins.

"Um, no," Laurie replied, looking puzzled. "You can call me Laurie, if you want. Or Teddy. Not, um, 'Laurie er Theodore Laurence'. Um, I don't have any family other than my grandfather, so... no, no identical cousin. Do I remind you of someone?"

((Couldn't resist! Christian Bale is all about playing good-looking orphans!))

"Just a bit, yeah." Huh. Yet another thing Steph was going to chalk up to the whole 'magic castle!' angle.

"Sorry, er, Teddy. I'm Stephanie Brown. Everyone calls me Steph."

Laurie held out his hand to shake Steph's before realizing that it was improper, blushing slightly, and bowing. "A pleasure to meet you, Steph."

And then the awkwardness set in again, though, Laurie thought rather glumly, it wasn't like it had ever left.

He cleared his throat and glanced back at the piano. "Um, do you play? Piano, that is?"

Steph reached out for Laurie's hand, before putting it right back at her side, and curtsying awkwardly. Very awkwardly. There was some stumbling and near-falling involved in that curtsy. She tried to laugh it off.

"I do! I mean, not nearly as well as you were, but I used to take lessons. I can play things other than chopsticks!"

Laurie laughed, feeling significantly less awkward. "I'm sorry- I'm not good with meeting people for the first time. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to bow or shake hands or what. Um, do you want to play?"

He carefully moved out from behind the bench and gestured to the keyboard. "Um, and thanks. I've been studying piano since I could reach the keys- my mother and father were both musicians. Then when they died, I went to live with my grandfather, who hates music. As a result, I practiced. A lot." Mostly becuase it irritated his grandfather, but still due to Laurie's long- standing love of music.

"Don't worry about it." It was kind of cute, though Steph had the good sense not to tell the poor boy. He might have a nosebleed or something. Gah. Play in front of people who were not Tim? "Um. Yeah, okay."

She eyed the keyboard. "I started when I was eight. My parents were definitely not musicians. It was a nice escape." She dusted off some Brahms. One of the Six Pieces, but Steph couldn't remember which. It wasn't as terrible as she expected!

"I used to be a lot better. Had to give it up."

Laurie smiled. "That was really good, particularly since you had to give it up. Any reason why you had to?"

Poor Laurie had no idea how loaded that question was. Steph shrugged and tried not to picture 'Uncle' Murray's face. Sick dead bastard. Time to employ patented bat!vasion skills.

"Oh, long, boring story. So what brings you to Hogwarts? Not exactly local, is it?"

"No- I'm from Massachusettes. My friend Jo came here, first. She wrote back and told me of all the fun she was having, and I convinced my grandfather to let me come here for a semester before going back to college. It's studying abroad early, I suppose."

Steph, being a romantic at heart (deep, deep at heart) honed in on one thing.

"So you came all the way to Scotland to be with your ‘friend’?" Adorable!

"Of course," Laurie said simply. "Jo asked me, so I did. It's what friends do for each other. Jo was getting rather lonely up here on her own, after all."

It wasn't like he was half in-love with Jo or anything, nor had he been since they first met. Nope, not at all... and... grandfather would wallop him for lying, even to himself.

"I like to travel, too," Laurie added on, in a effort to keep his crush on Jo from being horrifically obvious. "I've been to England before, but not Scotland. Now was as good a time as any to go."

"All on her own?" Steph feigned miscomprehension. "But this school's crawling with people. Hmm." Hee!

"Traveling’s good! This is my first time living in another country. Up until now, my bragging rights amounted to a class trip to Williamsburg." If you didn't count that other dimension thing with Young Justice. Even then, she had technically still been in Gotham. "I used a loom, but it broke. Wound up with an oven mitt that said 'Ste'."

Good ol’ Ste!

Laurie blushed furiously. "I mean, without any people she knew. She's realy close to her family, and none of them are here with her."

And if Laurie secretly wished Jo rather wanted to see him for reasons other than the lack of her family, Laurie didn't show it. "I didn't know you could knit oven mitts on looms, though. I suppose it was fun?"

Steph nodded sagely, holding back a smile. "Oh, I see. Makes perfect sense."

"Apparently, you can't! That's why it broke in the first place. I still maintain that it was company's fault for letting an eight year old near one of those behemoths. I couldn't sew, let alone loom." Was loom even a verb? "I hate to admit it, but breaking that thing was probably the highlight of the trip."

((ooc; Argh! So sorry for the delay!))

Laurie grinned. "I'm sory your trip was such a bad one then, if your fondest memory is breaking a loom. How do you loom, anyways?"

If 'loom' was not a verb, then Laurie had no idea.

((No worries!))

"I don't think I'm the person to ask! I did learn to sew, eventually. Costumes, and such."

Caaaaareful Steph!

"For school plays!" she said quickly. "Costumes for theater club."

"That must be great!" Laurie exclaimed enthusiastically. "I used to act in plays with my neighbors all the time- er, hey. Um, the Sorting Hat, um... as a bribe, um... wanted me to put on a dress and send it a picture. Do you think that you could, um... help me with that?"

"Are you kidding? Absolutely!" Dress up a Bruce doppelganger in frilly woman's apparel? This was a once in a lifetime opportunity. "With or without a corset?"

"Um... without?" Laurie replied, somewaht baffled. "Jo's always complaining about hers, so, um... I don't think I want one."

A long- awaited introduction; Open rp

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