When Perry and Bas were both busy, Safia found she tended to not get kicked out of the library for chatting and giggling. Still, as she went in there by herself to hunt for a book, Madam Pince insisted on giving her a suspicious look. Well, maybe Pince just gave everyone a suspicious look if they dared to enter the library. Safia responded with a cheery grin and continued on her merry way, browsing the shelves for a few minutes. Once she found the book on the historical design of cloaks that she was looking for (Perry hadn’t shut up about the topic a few days previously and Safia had been intrigued by what he was saying and wanted to know more), she glanced around the library, looking for a nice, comfy seat where she could read. Her gaze caught on Kirby who was easily noticeable by her blue hair. They’d chatted for a little while in their Potions class just last week, and Safia had found that Kirby wasn’t as annoyingly besotted with just talking about Quidditch as she’d expected. She had seemed friendly, in fact, not like the stereotypical Quidditch jock. Safia, who was always up for talking to anyone to satisfy her extroverted needs, wandered over to her, wiggling her free hand at her in greeting. “Kirby!” She said enthusiastically with a bright smile. “Can I sit?” She asked, gesturing to the free chair opposite Kirby.
Kirby was, ostensibly, studying. In truth, she’d read the same passage seven times and not taken a single word in. This was why she preferred to study with friends, but no-one was free today and she really needed to understand this stuff for this Potions essay due tomorrow. She had a feeling this was making it worse rather than better; her head felt like it was stuffed with cotton wool and her stress levels were definitely rising. She considered the consequences of handing in another essay in late: Slughorn might blow his top, but ever since third year she’d had a bit of a get-out-of-jail-free card. If she played it too often, though, they were likely to get her to see the counsellor again, and she’d really, really hated that, last time. She’d received enough diagnoses for five people, and pretended to get better until the counsellor had been satisfied. She hadn’t handed an assignment in late for a couple of weeks now, and that had been a different professor, so maybe it would be ok. She considered this for a while, still staring at the page, until someone spoke to her. Glancing at the clock, she realised she’d been sat there for an hour and read maybe three pages. Fantastic. She was definitely going to hand this in late. She blinked and tried to focus on the person speaking to her; it took her a second to place her as Safia. “Hey!” she said, belatedly, hoping not too much time had passed. Usually she did a pretty good job of passing as a normal, put-together human being, and people just thought of her as a bit dreamy and spacey, but there was spacing and there was silently staring at someone for an uncomfortable length of time. “Yeah, sure! Sorry, I’ve been tearing my hair out over this book,” she explained, shutting it and giving Safia what she hoped looked like a smile. She wasn’t entirely sure why Safia was talking to her; they weren’t friends, but maybe she’d slipped into a parallel universe or something. “How’s it going?”
Safia had a brief moment where she wondered if she needed to wave her hand in front of Kirby’s face; she was staring blankly at her. However, she blinked and replied normally, even if she seemed a little stressed, which was very much confirmed by her next words. Safia cocked her head to one side to try and read the book’s title upside-down, managing to place it as one of the books she’d used for her Potions essay. She made a disgusted face in sympathy while settling into the seat. “Oh, that book was awful, I’m pretty sure the author is one of those people who thinks that long words equals better writing. If you want a book on that, I’d recommend this one, one second,” she held up a finger while using the other hand to flick through her bag where she had a few books which she’d been planning on giving back to the library after checking out the one on cloaks. She grabbed it and thunked it on the table, wincing at the louder-than-expected thud. “Whoops, but yeah, this one was way more readable, I used it loads in that essay.” Safia had finished this essay the day before - she’d wanted to get it out of the way so had made sure to get it done early. “But yeah, I’m okay! Just came to get some light reading material out,” she said, wiggling her hand at the book she’d brought over. “How are you?”
It was nice to hear that Safia hadn’t liked reading the book either; maybe she wasn’t just entirely stupid. She ignored the part of her pointing out that she wasn’t stupid, she was struggling with trauma and mental illness. When Safia produced the book, she stared at it for a second, before looking back up and saying solemnly, “You have just earned my undying love.” She flipped the book open and scanned through a few random sentences, ready to weep with gratitude when she saw that it was, indeed, more readable than the other one. “Thank you, I might actually get it done on time now! I try to leave at least three weeks between late assignments,” she said, before realising a Ravenclaw might not approve of such things, and tried to laugh it off. Now she probably looked a little manic. She tilted her head to read the title of the book Safia was getting out, on… the historical design of cloaks? Merlin, that sounded boring, but she supposed Safia would probably find her books on Quidditch and art boring. “All right, y'know, just… studying. I know Hufflepuffs are supposed to love hard work, but sometimes I wish I was a crab. Crabs don’t have school. They just… scuttle around.” This was probably too much information for a casual acquaintance, she reflected.
Safia beamed at Kirby’s declaration of love. “Happy to help, really! Although, now you owe me a favour. Hmm, what shall I make you do for me…?” She pretended to look thoughtful for a moment before giggling. “Smart, then they’ll have forgotten the last one was late by the time the next one is late.” She nodded, as if she knew what it was like to hand in assignments late. Sure, sometimes she was working right up to the deadline, but she was never actually late with them. Safia noticed Kirby looking at the book she was getting out, and braced herself for a comment on how boring it looked. She was relieved when Kirby said nothing, though she’d started building a defence up in her head. She made a face at Kirby’s next statement. “I mean, who says you “have to” love hard work? It’d be boring if everyone in a house was exactly the same. Like, some of our Claws couldn’t care less about studying, but it doesn’t make them any less Ravenclaw. Although I’m not sure they’d want to be a crab. That’s an interesting one, I’ve never heard someone say they wanted to be a crab before. Do you particularly like crabs?” Safia was more fascinated by this than she’d admit.
“Fair enough, but I draw the line at doing your homework for you. Anything else, crime included, is deffo on the table,” Kirby told her, with a beam. Well, there were probably some crimes she wouldn’t mind committing. “Exactly!” she said, and tapped her head with one finger. “See, I’m not just a pretty face.” Some of her professors might argue with that one, but she couldn’t help it if they set essays on hard, boring subjects, when she would rather read about Quidditch and art. “Well, it’s the whole thing about Hufflepuff, isn’t it? Being unafraid of toil? I am very afraid of toil. Toil sets off my flight-or-fight instinct.” She thought she was quite funny, really. Maybe she should be a stand-up comedian, if the whole Quidditch thing didn’t pan out. “I don’t know, crabs just popped into my head first. They are pretty cool, though. Japanese spider crabs can be up to 12 foot long.”
“I don’t have any crimes coming up in my next business month, but if something pops up I’ll definitely keep you in mind,” Safia replied with a laugh. Kirby was cute and funny; if only she didn’t enjoy Quidditch so much then maybe Safia might have asked her on a date. “If I ever have anything I need which is best accessed by a death stick - y’know, a broom - then I’ll take you up on that favour.” She nodded in agreement that Kirby wasn’t just a pretty face. Safia couldn’t help but snort in response to the “fight-or-flight” comment. “Aren’t fighting and flighting a form of hard work? So if you’re gonna do that to avoid toil then you’re just doing a different type of toil?” She raised her eyebrows in a very Ravenclaw way. “Wait, really?” She stared around her, trying to picture 12 feet. “That’s, uh, kinda scary actually. Merlin knows I’ll never ever say anything bad about crabs now. Not that I would, anyway, crabs are chill, I guess.”
"I look forward to hearing from you next month, then!" Kirby said. She was pretty sure she wouldn't be anyone's first choice for crime - the blue hair was a bit too obvious - but the idea of Safia doing crime was pretty funny. "A death stick?" she asked. "I would happily let you ride my death stick, and I bet you'd enjoy it." She dissolved into giggles, and took a moment to recover. "Well, to be fair, my fight-or-flight instinct is broken, it just reverts to lying on the floor and crying, so it's not too toily. And I usually have a nap after," she added, nodding. "Crabs are good. Except for the STD crabs, those are bad, you can say bad things about those. All the other crabs are good, though!" Good, yeah, bring up STDs to the pretty girl. Good flirting, Kirb.