“Their kids weren’t much to look at either!” Marco laughed himself, likely finding the joke funnier than it actually was. He lowered his brows, taking notice of the girl’s collection of different colored spots covering her clothes. Pointing at a particularly dark green dot, he stood up to be at eye level with the stranger. “Did you get in a fight with your paint brush? And lose, I’m guessing?”
Clementine’s brows knitted together as she attempted to piece together the joke she’d been told--provided what he’d said had been a joke after all. It took her a few seconds, but she eventually put it together, a short peal of laughter flowing past her lips. “Because they are invisible, non? Très drôle. Very funny.” At his comment, she let her gaze drop to her paint splattered outfit, eyeing it with a pleasant smile. She wore this particular outfit, a loose-fitting white t-shirt with a black suede jumper to cover it, every time she planned on painting, solely because of the poor condition it was already in. Streaks of paint lined the skirt of her jumper where she absentmindedly cleaned her brush, accompanied by fat splashes of paint where she’d taken more than she could handle onto her paintbrush. “Something like that. I do not mind the mess. It is very...erm, aesthetic? I like the look of it.”
“He’s jealous of my good looks and my sway with the ladies,” Jimmy offered with a shrug of his shoulders. “I just can’t help it. Anyways, thanks for helping– I’m Jimmy. What were you doing right now? Were you busy?”
“Non, not busy, no!” She assured him, offering a short and sweet laugh in response to his little quip. He was funny. She enjoyed meeting people that were funny. “Anytime, Jimmy. It is very nice to meet you--I am Clementine, and I was merely on my way to deliver these,” She held the books in her arm, “to a new friend.”
“Uh… Holland. Holland Oates,” he said slowly by way of returning the introduction. If there was one thing he didn’t want, it was to be associated with the persona he’d just created, that Clementine (who is actually named that?) had oh so much pity for. Hopefully this way he could disappear into the mass of students, and she’d never be able to find him again. Maybe he should shave his hair, or dye it. Or invest in hats and a false beard. “Thanks for the kind offer— I think I should go, though. I just… could use some time alone. You understand.” Hey, she had to be sympathetic to that— as she was sympathetic to everything else, apparently.
Clementine was midway through expressing how pleased she was to meet him when he mentioned needing alone time and she forced her lips to clamp shut, her wide eyes flushed with understanding. When she was trying to cope with something, she sought out the company of someone close to here, but she supposed that everyone processed things in her own way and perhaps some needed solidarity. “Oui, Holland, I understand completely. You need your time to grieve. Oh!--If you are ever to need anything, please,” she paused, and with a quiet murmur and a flick of the wand she’d pulled out of her coat pocket, she summoned a stack of stationary and was quick to scrawl her name and phone number on a flowered note before handing it over to him. “Don’t hesitate to ring me on my mobile. I leave it around quite a bit, so if you can’t reach me there, I’m staying in Dorm 1A,”
Marco tapped his wand against his pant leg as he contemplated what to do first, where to do it, and whether or not anyone would give him the time of day. Working with friends and familiar faces back at Hogwarts was easy, but warming up to strangers was an entirely different animal. The premise of the summit had been exhilarating when he was first invited, but now that he was actually in Salem, a case of the nerves had struck him and Marco didn’t know how to tackle it. It wasn’t until footsteps sounded near him that the boy worked up all the courage he had and spoke up before .
“Did you hear about the invisible man who married the invisible woman?”
Clementine lifted her head when she heard the voice of another, her bangs falling in a disheveled fashion against her forehead. With a short huff of breath, she blew them to the side and eyed the young man in her presence now.
“I’m afraid I haven’t,” She began honestly, letting her hand fall to rest on her right knee, careful to keep the colored tip of the paintbrush she held in her right hand away from her already paint speckled skirt. She’d been in the middle of painting the giant American Elm adjacent to the bench she was seated at when she noticed him, and she’d have to be cautious to avoid painting her clean outfit green. “But I must know now--are you willing to tell me?”
Clementine’s enthusiasm was infectious, and Grace found herself agreeing cheerily to the suggestion of French lessons, even though they’d probably have plenty of work on their plates when classes started anyway. “All right, it’s a plan then. I hope you’re okay with me being absolutely the worst at it to start off,” she cautioned. “It’s ice breakers, but you were very close, I understood what you meant.”
She considered the possibilities. There were a lot of people she could get gifts for, but she wasn’t going to rush. Better a good present than one just for the sake of purchasing something. “Hmm. Maybe something for my best friend, or my brother if I’m feeling generous? I’m sure if we hunt around we’ll be able to find something appropriate. If we find a record store, I could get something to send to my dad, too.”
Clementine noted her reluctance, even if only for the benefit of humor with a curt nod of understanding. She always found it odd how uncertain the people she met outside of France were. Perhaps it wasn’t a lack of confidence at all, but to her, the French always seemed more sure of themselves than anyone else. “I do not expect you to be fluent at the start--there’d be no need for me to educate you if that were the case.” She quipped back with a humorous grin. “Thank you for the correction. Broken English is embarrassing and few help me. Being here feels the same as learning the language all over again.”
Her interest piqued at Grace’s mention of the people she was looking to find gifts for. Her favorite part of making a new friend was learning as much as she could about the life of the other. “You have a brother? I always wished for a brother. Or a sister.” She paused for a moment, looking past Grace, before she snapped back into the conversation. “Vinyl records, oui? My aunt is a collector--there is a shop in Paris called Librairie Parallèles that she insists we stop at every time we visit. I am sure we can find a shop here! Perhaps we should recruit someone from Salem for assistance?”
“Oh, well in that case,” Jimmy faked dropping the books back in, before laughing, “Just kidding.” His eyes grew interested as he watched her wake the boy up and he nodded impressed. “Nah, he’s awake now. He’s good. We should go though because he doesn’t like me very much. So you know…” Jimmy gestured away, “Gotta flee.”
“Oh--I, ah--oui!” Clementine stopped tripping over her words, curbing her confusion to follow the young man as he gestured away, watching the student on the ground behind them rising groggily from over her shoulder. Assuming that the drunken student would be able to hold his own now, she turned back to the young man at her side, holding her arms out to accept her books back. “Is there a particular reason that boy does not enjoy you? I imagine I’d be tickled if you woke me from a drunken stupor--especially if I were in such an embarrassing position as he.”
“Fall in love more than once in your life. Fall in love with the way the stars whisper to the moon at night. Fall in love with the silent breeze that blows through the pines. Fall in love with a boy. Fall in love with a girl. Fall in love with the city you were born in and every city you travel to in the span of your lifetime. Fall in love with your parents--be sure to let them know that they are the reason you’re able to love so wholly. Fall in love with flowers and books and the smile of your lover. Fall in love with the pain you experience, and know that pain is only present to shape you into a better you. Fall in love with being in love. Fall in love with life.”
Okay, she was being so sweet Patrick kind of wished his house actually had burned down. He absolutely had to get out of this before the ground opened up beneath his feet and sucked him directly into one of the less-welcoming levels of Hell. “Well, I mean, I wasn’t totally honest, actually,” he said, guilt sort of overriding his better sense. “It, uh. It wasn’t really my dog so much as my sister’s…” Right. So now he had a fictional sister. Great. “And, well. We were going to move soon anyway, so you know. Insurance money,” he said weakly. “Ya-a-y…”
Clementine’s brows furrowed once more and she was silent for a couple of moments to let the young man rattle on somewhat shakily. This was probably as quiet as she’d been for the entirety of the Summit thus far, but she felt he needed to speak now more than she did. She nodded once, lifting the hand on his shoulder to offer him a couple of gentle pats. “My name is Clementine Laroux,” She offered him firmly, bringing both hands to the sides of his arms, which she gripped as if she was afraid he was going to break without her assistance. “If you ever find you need anything--tout ce dont vous pourriez avoir besoin--please do not hesitate to find me. I will offer any help I can.”
Simone Laroux never pictured herself having children. Five years her only sister’s senior, Simone was the perfect opposite of Saison, who’s only dream was to meet the perfect man and nurture a brood of loving children. Never married, Simone took her substantial cut of their deceased parent’s real estate fortune and used it to buy herself a chateau in Lyon that wouldn’t see much use until her sister’s death.
She was in French Polynesia on the island of Taha’a when she heard the news that her sister was in labor. Some twenty hours later, she received a wire from the doctor presiding over Saison’s delivery informing her that her sister had passed and that in her dying breath, she’d asked that someone attempt to contact Simone once more. Simone arrived back at her estate with an answering machine full of messages from her baby sister that had been left over the course of her travels and a heavy heart. In the time that she’d been gone, Saison’s life had only gotten harder and Simone hadn’t been there to pick her up. In her grief, Simone turned to the bottle and started her younger sister’s messages from the very beginning.
At the first sign of pregnancy, Olivier Markez--Saison’s long time beau--left the young witch on her own to raise the child she was expecting. Their child. With Olivier off-the-grid and no remaining family to care for the newborn, Simone filed for the adoption of the child, who she would soon name Clementine, after she and Saison’s maternal grandmother, who’d been their favorite family member.
While Simone Laroux wholeheartedly accepted her role as Clementine’s pseudo-mother after the death of her sister, the bottle cradling socialite pampered Clementine with the sort of affection that was expected from a friend, rather than a parent, which led to a lack of structure and rules in the young girl’s childhood. Aside from the newly introduced parental aspect in her life, she found herself longing for the freedom she once had before she took in her niece. As Clementine aged from baby to infant, then from toddler to child, Simone wasn’t sure how to explain the unfortunate circumstances of her upbringing to the wide eyed youth, so it wasn’t until Clementine was seven years old that her aunt explained that she wasn’t her mother. Noticing the girl’s confusion and befuddlement, Simone took the massive change in the young girl’s life as an opportunity to uproot from the Laroux Manor that she’d been so desperately trying to escape since Clementine’s birth. To shake things up, Simone pulled Clementine from her private school in Lyons and took to home-schooling her while they traveled from country to country in Simone’s efforts to raise her pseudo-child with more culture and grace than she’d been offered growing up.
And so the Laroux women spent the next two years dragging her adolescent niece from one destination to another, and it was during a visit to Helsinki that Clementine discovered her magical ability, much to Simone’s excitement. Though she was enjoying spending extra time with her niece, Simone readily sent the young girl off to her alma mater the following year, knowing that Clementine’s time at Beauxbatons would be the perfect opportunity to travel alone again.
Despite their distance during the school year (whether it’s the seven hours from Pyrenees to Lyon or Beauxbatons to wherever it is Simone is currently staying), Simone continues to be Clementine’s biggest fan, and it’s because of her free-spirited aunt that Clementine is the way she is. Previous emotional turmoil aside, Simone has taught her to always look on the brighter side of things, and as long as she’s still receiving post cards from the older Laroux woman, she knows things are still pretty bright.
He was suddenly being yelled at in French and Jimmy startled enough that he dropped the leg he’d been gripping. His eyes had flashed to the girl and where-in-the-hell she had come from– That was when he saw the books on the ground, fallen in a puddle. “Jesus Christ! He’s not that important!” Jimmy exclaimed before moving to the other emergency, in which he lifted her books and used his wand to dry them. “You should really be more careful with these!” He called out, “Not a lot of rules at Salem, but they’ll cut your hands off for ruining books– That librarian, she’s a shrewd one.”
Clementine gasped as the young man abandoned the other on the ground, going instead to fish her books out of the puddle they’d fallen into. A book lover herself, she understood where he was coming from but took a different course. “They do not belong to Salem, they are my own.” She informed as he dried them, nervously looking back and forth from the conscious young man to the other in the dirt. “I was bringing them to a girl, but I think Seble will understand if there is something more urgent to be taken care of.” That being said, she left him to hold her books and rushed over to the student on the ground, fishing her wand out of her dress pocket to point at his chest. “Rennervate,” she murmured, and a flash of red light left her wand. The young man in the dirt pushed out a feeble groan and stirred, his eyes opening reluctantly. Before he had a chance to say anything, she was standing again, her hair whipping at her cheeks as she turned to address the young man with her things. “Where do we take him?”
“Oh, splendid,” she laughed when Clementine confirmed it. “I can’t wait for all of us to hang out— have you met Zoe yet? She’s a total darling. I only got to say the briefest hello to Elena, but I’m sure we’ll all get along.” The girl from Castelobruxo seemed far more timid than the rest of them, but Grace believed firmly that it’d just take time for them to get used to one another. And with Zoe and Clementine being so friendly, she had no doubt it’d be a good combination. “Well, maybe I’ll make it a goal this year to pick up some French, too,” Grace supplied. “I’ve never really tried to learn another language, beyond some basic Latin and what I needed for Ancient Runes and such… it’d be fun.” When she suggested it, Grace’s smile grew. “Of course! Are you looking for something in particular? Who are you buying it for?” Maybe she could look for something for her friends back home, as well.
“I am afraid I have not had the pleasure of meeting the others,” Clementine offered back. “They sound absolutely darling, ‘owever. When I was told we’d be rooming with three others, I could not contain my excitement! We should all get to know each other tonight--what do the Americans call it? Glaçons? Ice melters?” When Grace readily agreed to go into town with her, Clementine's eyes widened in pleasant surprise. It took some time to warm up to her, and she was always pleased when potential friends could skip over the stage of toleration that most people suffered through before friendship with the French girl. “I can absolutely teach you French! It’d be my pleasure! You’ll be a regular locuteur natif when I’m done with you--that means native speaker. You will be able to visit me in Lyon after the Summit with how fluent you will be.” She paused “I’m on the hunt for a gift for my aunt. I only fear it will be difficult for me to find something unique for her. She has so many beautiful things from all over. Are you on the hunt for anything in particular?”
“School hasn’t even started yet and this guy is already passed out drunk,” Jimmy strained tiredly. “This is the second one. I don’t know where they’re from, but if you could just help me drag this guy to the nurses’ that’d be swell. Or just even open the doors for me.”
“Oh, my!” Clementine stopped what she’d been doing, quickly rushing over to the young man attempting to help the intoxicated student on the ground. Her books dropped out of her arms as she bent down to offer a hand. “S'il te plait fais attention! Watch his head!”
“Sorry, uh, chopper— it’s another name for helicopter,” he amended, making a little spinning motion with his finger in the air. In response to her question, he thought about explaining that cute French girls didn’t often just embrace him with sympathy for some bullshit he made up, but instead said numbly, “I dunno, must just be… shock… or something.” He was starting to feel like a terrible person but that was at war with his curiousity over how far this could go.
“Oh, hélicoptère.” Clementine exclaimed in understanding, raising a brow as she slowly pronounced each syllable. If she’d been feeling bad for the young man before, she couldn’t help but feel worse now. The mere thought of escaping near-death via helicopter was exhausting to her. “You are allowed shock,” She piped up quickly, laying a comforting hand on his shoulder. “I am shocked and it is not even my life. I am very sorry.”
“Uh.” The girl was hugging him. Like, full hug. He had not been prepared for this. No language barrier was that strong, no amount of cultural difference could explain her not understanding he was being a total dick. This was either a very disturbed individual he was dealing with, or else… “Am I asleep, right now?” he asked when she released him. “I mean, if I am, cool, ‘cause then I’ll just go, but if I’m not, then…” He had no way to end that sentence. “Then yes, I guess I am really brave, and no. Just… just Rufus. Everyone else made it out. On… my chopper.”
“Chopper?” Clementine’s nose crinkled as she spoke, her brows furrowing in confusion. “I do not understand that term,” She told him with the gentlest of tones she could manage, as if she was worried that the very thought of a harsh words aimed towards the young man would cause him to break. Another miscommunication, she supposed, struck her again as she processed what he’d said. “You are not sleeping, mon amie. I do not think you are sleeping, at least. Why would you be sleeping?”
The book’s cover was so frayed and worn that it was almost soft to the touch, and Seble couldn’t keep her smile from widening. She knew what it was like to have many “well-loved” books, and whatever unease she’d felt just moments before dissipated; Clementine, it seemed, was just naturally on her wavelength.
Seble nodded hurriedly as she accepted the book. “Oh, um…certainly…” She paused for a moment then, chewing on the inside of her cheek as though conflicted. “I, um…I am sure I have books you would enjoy as well, but I don’t have them here…”
Before her embarrassment could get the best of her, however, Clementine soldiered on, speaking of nature as if it were an old lover. Seble couldn’t pretend that she wasn’t taken aback by Clementine’s enthusiasm, but she also couldn’t say that it put her off; in fact, it was just the opposite.
“Is the weather like this where you’re from?”
Clementine hastily waved away Seble’s reluctant comment, her eyes crinkling at the edges with her widened smile. She expected nothing more from anybody than common kindness, and Seble had already shown her that. Her personal standard of kindness set an incredibly low bar to begin with, but she was pleased with the interaction so far. “No, no, do not worry. I only ask that you give me feedback as soon as you reach the last page. I brought far too many books across the ocean and I do not mind lending you any if you’d like something to read--have you heard of Jules Verne? He is a French writer--my favorite. His works of fiction are unmatched.”
She caught herself before going into too much detail about her favorite author, deciding to let Seble form her own opinion, should she choose to read any of Verne’s works. She hoped she’d remembered to bring Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea as well.
“Ah, the weather in France changes very frequently, but so long as I get a few hours of sunshine a day, I need nothing more. It is very beautiful towards the coasts, almost always. It is very cold in January. Oh--but very hot in July! Very wet in May. How is the weather where you are from?”
“Ah, thank you! Wait, you must be Clementine, then— with the flowers? I could smell them through your door, it was absolutely lovely.” She was overjoyed that the girl in the next room over was so sweet. Part of her worry had been that with the clashing of cultures, she might end up rooming with someone who had such different sensibilities from herself that she might end up offending them somehow. Though upon consideration, her roommate could be a goth nudist from Antarctica and she’d still make an effort to make them feel at home, so. That fear was probably unfounded. “I’m afraid I don’t speak a lick of French, so you’ll have to forgive me, but aside from that— I understand completely. I’m torn between wanting to go into town and see more of the American side of things, and messaging home to see if my father’s awake to chat online. I shouldn’t miss home already, I know, but it does help to know I’m not the only one.”
“I can only imagine that the only people who are not longing for their homes are those from Salem! Hopefully they are able to curb their homesickness enough to enjoy America like we will, however.” Clementine nodded to confirm that she was, indeed, Clementine. “That would be me, mon amie,” She replied, snickering at the accidental rhyme. Having now met one of her three roommates, Clementine was feeling a little better about missing the initial welcome from the other girls. Like she’d told Grace, her curiosity had gotten the best of her once again, and it made her nervous to meet the remainder of her roommates if they weren’t going to be as kind as the young woman she was speaking with now--the last thing she wanted to come off as was a flake, or even worse, have it seem she was anti-social or dismissive of them. “I will try my hardest not to, ah, melt English and French together. Oh! And if you’d permit it, I would not mind accompanying you into town! I’m on the hunt for a gift.”
