open RP, corridors: Camilla as a child.

[c-macaulay.livejournal.com]

(( Camilla has eaten some magical chocolate and is now seven years old. ))

It's a make-believe place, isn't it? She's in a castle. She must be dreaming. It's a beautiful dream, Camilla thinks.

She seems to know where things are, here, in the way of dreams, even though she doesn't remember any of it really. That way's the Great Hall, not knowing what the Great Hall actually is, only somehow knowing its name and if she follows that particular turn in the corridors that's where she'll end up. That's the way out to the courtyard, though she's not sure what's in the courtyard.

Inquisitive, she wanders, that first exuberant skipping long since slowed to a sedate walk.

Comments

[ghostorangel.livejournal.com]

Silas, still wandering, caught sight of a child meandering down the corridor. He hadn't yet seen any small children here--a few who might be teenagers, but no true children. He might not have paid this little girl much heed, had she not wandered beneath a window, which lit her hair up with a pale golden aura.

That stopped him dead. Camilla's hair did that--was this child another angel? Could angels have children? Perhaps this girl was her daughter.

He knelt, wincing at the bite of the cilice (no, he hadn't given that up yet) and pushed his hood back, hoping his appearance wouldn't send the child running the other way.

"Hello," he said. "And who do you belong to?"

[c-macaulay.livejournal.com]

Camilla looked up.

She might have been afraid, except that this man was familiar (http://community.livejournal.com/hogwarts_hocus/1253843.html?thread=63969491#t63969491). How? She wasn't entirely sure, except she knew for some reason he was supposed to protect her. So she wasn't frightened.

"I don't belong to anyone," she said quite seriously. It was true. Her parents were dead. "You could say I belong to my Nana and my brother, if you wanted to. But really I just belong to me." Thoughtfully she paused. "Who do you belong to?"

[ghostorangel.livejournal.com]

Perhaps not Camilla's daughter, then...a child angel? She spoke of a grandmother and a brother, though...hmm. Her clothes certainly looked much too big for her--the hem of her robe was unhemmed and uneven. Even more puzzling.

"I don't belong to anyone, either." How very true that is, he thought. "What is your name, little one?"

[c-macaulay.livejournal.com]

Camilla tilts her head. What a silly thing to ask her. He should already know her name; she knows his. "I'm Camilla," she tells him. "And you're Silas."

[ghostorangel.livejournal.com]

Silas stared, his red eyes round as coins. Camilla? There was a possibility that Camilla could have a child, also named Camilla, but it would not explain how she knew his name. Then again, if she was an angel, would she not know his name? But...she was a child.

For a long, long time he could say nothing. His brain simply couldn't wrap around what she'd told him, so he did not try, not yet. "Camilla," he said at last, peering at her intently. "Camilla. Where have you come from, little angel?"

[c-macaulay.livejournal.com]

"I was in my room," Camilla answers simply. "Or do you mean before that? The Great Hall. I think."

[ghostorangel.livejournal.com]

...Not quite what he had meant. Was this real? Once upon a time he would have said no, but this was, after all, a magic school. His head was starting to hurt.

"I think perhaps you should come with me, little Camilla, until we can figure out what precisely is going on," he said at last. Magic school or not, it was probably best if she didn't wander about by herself. Silas had no idea if this child was connected with Camilla, or if for some reason she was Camilla--could angels do that? Could they change their age at will?

[usethepoker.livejournal.com]

The wall, quite solid, suddenly emitted a small, giggling child in an extremely unfortunate T-shirt. (http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b375/StevieBarry/religiont-shirt.jpg) Susan's bare feet stumbled over the hem and nearly sent her sprawling, and all the while she was laughing and yelling something about pudding-bombs.

[march-theater.livejournal.com]

((Pretend there is a mini-Jo icon for the purposes of this thread.))

Mere moments after Susan's arrival came that of another shrieking child, running full tilt down the hall and screaming for Laurie at a pitch that would have deafened small dogs.

She came to an abrupt stop when she saw Susan, and frowned, mouthing the words on her shirt.

"You've got a lot of naughty words on your clothes," she pointed out, intrigued. Then she asked, "What's a pudding bomb? I want one!"

[ghostorangel.livejournal.com]

Wait, now there were three of them? One little girl he could just about handle; three was another story entirely. And that one--she'd just run straight through a wall! Her shirt was truly appalling, too; Silas didn't know what sort of parent would let their daughter run about in such a thing, but at this point he was still too stunned to ask.

"There will be no pudding bombs," he said--the only thing he was capable of saying, at the moment. With Camilla's book in his arms he surveyed them all, wondering what fresh sin he'd committed to deserve this. "And little girl, your shirt is...." He couldn't even find words for what her shirt was. Her hair was disturbing, too.

[c-macaulay.livejournal.com]

Wide-eyed, Camilla watches the little girl with the strange hair run right through a wall. Only ghosts can walk through walls. Therefore she confides to Silas in a whisper: "She's a little ghost girl. She can wear whatever shirt she wants."

That having been settled, she approaches both girls. "I'm Camilla," she says. If they try to call her Milly she'll be angry. Only Charles can call her that. Where is he, anyhow? "This is Silas and he's going to read the Blue Fairy Book out loud."

[usethepoker.livejournal.com]

"Hi Camilla. I'm Susan." She grinned at Camilla, and looked at Silas. "...Wow, mister, you're almost as tall as Granddad." His hair was as white as (most of) hers, which was yet another anomaly. She grinned at him, too, turning to Jo. "I bet I could get you a pudding bomb! Stephen and I were designing one to fight evil wasp clowns."

[march-theater.livejournal.com]

Jo grinned broadly at Susan and Camilla. "Hello, I'm Josephine... Only don't call me that. Just call me Jo." The grin faded as she frowned thoughtfully. On the one hand, she loved fairy stories more than anything. On the other... pudding bombs and evil wasp clowns sounded interesting, too. "I wanna help fight the evil wasp clowns, too," she said decisively. "After we read a story." Her smile returned, and she was pleased with her powers of compromise.

[laurie-laurence.livejournal.com]

Laurie walked down the hall, sheet music in hand, rather more inclined to go and play piano than study, write to his grandfather, or try practicing magic. To his utter amazement, he saw a tall albino man in a monk's robe catering to three small little girls.

Moved by pity (and convinced that he knew how to take care of little girls because he usually got along with Amy) Laurie walked over and said, "Um, need some help?"

[ghostorangel.livejournal.com]

((Hee! Okay, so we've got Laurie-Silas-Camilla-Susan-Jo))

Silas cast Laurie an almost agonized look. "If you please, Monsieur. They wish to hear a story, and--" he held up the book "--apparently I am meant to read it." He glanced at the trio of little girls, twitching slightly. "I have...very little experience with children." He had to keep Camilla with him, he knew that much, but beyond that he was adrift.

[c-macaulay.livejournal.com]

Camilla lifts her chin. "Silas is going to read to us from the Blue Fairy Book," she tells the newcomer. "He doesn't need help to read, do you, Silas? He said he would read to me," she adds, a little uncertain now. Is this new man going to take the book away? You never know what to expect in a dream.

"You can listen with us," she offers, to appease him before he can take anything.

[usethepoker.livejournal.com]

Susan, who had been eying Silas contemplatively since he'd set her down, stepped up beside Camilla and now subjected him to a frighteningly penetrative stare. "He doesn't need help," she said. "He's kinda like my granddad, only not as tall and not, you know, dead."

[march-theater.livejournal.com]

Jo was also dubious about another grown-up, but the new one at least looked sort of familliar. "I think we should let him stay," she said, frowning contemplatively and chewing on her lower lip. "But only if he helps fight off the evil wasp clowns."

[laurie-laurence.livejournal.com]

"You speak French?" Laurie asked brightly, in French. "I went to school there. What you want me to do, Monsieur? Um, maybe... we could move them out of the hallway?" He glanced down at the girls and said, in English, with mock- solemnity, "I should be very glad to help fight off evil wasp clowns, even if Monsieur here doesn't need it because he is a not- dead shorter version of your grandfather."

The last girl looked kind of familiar... "Hunh. You remind me a lot of my friend Jo." He looked back at the second girl. "Wait, what is that on your shirt?"

[c-macaulay.livejournal.com]

(( after the above thread (http://community.livejournal.com/hogwarts_hocus/1264142.html?thread=64494606#t64494606) ends in gametime, which may take a while in realtime ... ))

The little ghost girl has a talent for flustering Silas. At first Camilla's a bit peeved by this. He's hers. But the ghost girl isn't doing anything wrong, really. In fact she's being rather funny, asking questions about the fairy tales as they're being read. The questions are pert and irreverent, and the flimsy logic of the stories can't hold up to them.

Even child Camilla can tell that Silas does not handle irreverence well.

As they argue, she's getting restless, in the way she always has. She wants to walk around. And she doesn't want people slowing her down or telling her where she can and can't go, either. Especially not the new man she doesn't know.

So, when she's sure no one is looking at her (why should they? she's been very quiet, unlike some people), Camilla slips away.

Soon she's far enough away she can't hear their voices any more. After that, she's in a corridor she doesn't recognise. There are some sets of armor on stands, which she stares at for a while, thinking of Ivanhoe. She ought to have asked the elf to bring them that book instead, maybe.

She tugs at the impromptu hem of her shortened robes. The stones of the floor are cold under her bare feet. "Maybe I'll go back home," she says, thinking aloud. It's unclear even to her whether she means Gryffindor Tower or Nana's house. Whichever, the direction she starts walking has to be the right one.

[chas-macaulay.livejournal.com]

On his way back to Ravenclaw from the Great Hall, Charles stops dead at the sight of the little girl meandering around the corridor. Anyone seeing his face at that moment might say he looks like he's seen a ghost. And why not, when in a very real sense he has?

"Camilla?"

[c-macaulay.livejournal.com]

Camilla looks up. It's a voice she knows, a face she knows. Not Uncle Hilary and not what her father looked like, in that one dim memory she has of her father before he died. It's family -- but the name eludes her. Confusion is plain on her face. She offers the man a faint troubled smile.

"Yes?"

[chas-macaulay.livejournal.com]

She doesn't know him. For a moment he's cut to the quick - he'd have sworn they'd know each other anywhere, in any state, not because they were twins (they always scoffed at the idea of a Psychic Twin Thing) but because they were them.

Then he thinks, why should she? She's the girl she once was, but he's a very far cry from the boy he was then, in more ways than one.

Is she even here, really? Even at his drunkest he'd never hallucinated her, but in this place, who knows? Either way, she's waiting for some kind of answer.

"Camilla, what are you doing here?" he settles on finally.

[c-macaulay.livejournal.com]

Some things aren't lost, though. Camilla catches that quick shadow of hurt crossing the man's face. Rounded childish features mirror it, as it echoes back through her. "Don't be sad," she says, worried, padding up to him. "We're only dreaming."

[chas-macaulay.livejournal.com]

Dreaming. That idea makes him smile, though he's not sure if it's true or not.

"Okay, then. Is this your dream, or mine?"