(1937-12-28) Holidays at Hogwarts
Details for Holidays at Hogwarts
Summary: Like many students, Eamon and Kimiko are spending the holidays at Hogwarts.
Date: December 28, 1937
Location: Gryffindor Tower
Related:
Characters
KimikoEamon

Christmas has come and gone, but Hogwarts Castle remains in a festive spirit. Christmas decorations still hang all over the school, carols are still being sung in the halls by the few students remaining over the holidays, and shattered ornaments are littering nearly every room (Peeves found a forgotten box of them).

The hour is late, and the windows of Gryffindor tower are solid white with the flurrying snow outside. But within, the students are warm and relaxed. Kimiko Saito has commandeered one low table of the common room, where she applies some new paints to her latest sculpture, depicting an Eastern-styled dragon intertwined with a classic European dragon in some sort of dance or battle.

Feeling rather sluglike after all of the candy he consumed for the holiday, Eamon arrives in the common room wearing at least six layers of sweaters (or maybe he really did eat too much chocolate!). He strips off his hat and gloves, leaving them to dry carelessly on the back of a chair near the fire, and then starts stripping off snow-soaked layers. "Gotta be careful where you walk, it looks like someone's declared war on the Christmas trees," he announces to the room in general.

Kimiko looks up from her painting, smiling in greeting to Eamon. "The ornaments?" She sighs, nodding. "Peeves. He's been flinging them all day. One bounced off of my head." She wrinkles her nose at that. "Goodness. Have you been outside, MacCaille?"

Coming around to see her sculpture, Eamon's face lights up. "That looks great, Kimiko!" he praises her, bending in to see the detail. "Your head?" he adds, distractedly glancing back up at her and squinting as if he might see some damage. "I hope you threw it back." He removes another sweater and nods. "Yep, just a little bit of flying. Can't get soft over the break just because of a little snow, right?"

Kimiko's eyes go wide at the notion of throwing the ornament back. "No…it broke on the floor after that. But I would never throw something at Peeves. Then he'd never leave me alone." She points to his face, grinning. "You have a stubborn snowflake in your eyebrow."

Boring! "Oh. Well. I suppose he is a bit much," Eamon agrees mildly. Then his eyes roll up, trying to see the snowflake she's pointing out. He lifts a hand, brushing at his eyebrows. "Get it?" he asks hopefully.

Kimiko nods, giggling softly. "You were actually flying out there? Pretty brave, MacCaille. How could you even see where you were going?" She turns the sculpture to work on another side of it, smiling proudly, especially after Eamon's praise of it.

"I couldn't," Eamon admits with a grin. "I gave up and came in when I had to stop and unfog my goggles for the 10 millionth time." He steps back to watch her work, silent for a moment while he searches for something else to talk about. He's not exactly great with girls. "So, uh…why didn't you go home for Christmas?"

Kimiko sets down her brush with delicate care. Everything she does when it comes to the arts is a deliberate act of precision. "My parents and I agreed it would be best, because of my great-grandfather, since I'm sixteen now."

Eamon's lips purse together and he offers her a bewildered shrug. "So you can do magic outside of school now?" he tries, being very much not on the up and up with Japanese culture.

Kimiko tilts her head at his bewilderment, then winces in sudden realization. "Right, sorry…you had left by then. Um…my great-grandfather wants to send me to Japan to get married. But as long as I'm here, he can't get to me. So it's just better if I stay here." She shrugs. There, explanation given. "But, yes. I can do magic legally outside of school now." She gets a satisfied little grin at that notion.

"Get married?" Eamon's eyebrows draw down. He's not the brightest crayon, but he's not stupid, either, it just…takes him a moment. "You're too young to get married. That's silly. Who would you even marry?" Frown. "I didn't even think you were dating anyone." No, he still doesn't get it, but that's okay.

Kimiko smiles endearingly at Eamon. "I'm not dating anyone. But it's my family's tradition. At sixteen, the girls are sent to Japan to get married. I don't want to. I want to stay here. But if my great-grandfather had his way, I would be shipped off tomorrow."

Eamon's nose wrinkles. "That's terrible. Can't you just…tell him no? Or.." he scratches his head. "I mean, what if you were already promised to someone else or…" He stops, shakes his head, and turns a wee bit red, not following his words to their conclusion.

Kimiko shakes her head. "He wouldn't care. I've been promised to a man in Tokyo for three years already." She grins at Eamon. "You're very sweet to be concerned. Don't worry. I'm not going. It isn't as if he can really force me. I'm a witch, after all. But…I just didn't want to face him yet." She lowers her eyes. "I suppose I'll have to, come summer."

"Well I just mean…he can't marry you to someone if you were…unmarriable, right?" He shrugs. "I don't know a lot about the Japanese or any culture that does arranged marriages, but if he didn't want to marry YOU, then your grandpa couldn't do much, right?" Eamon reaches up and rubs his hand through his hair. "it's just a thought, any way. You've got a few months to figure it out."

Kimiko shrugs, "I suppose not. But then Great-Grandfather would probably just find someone else to marry me to. He does it for his business contracts." She pulls her feet up onto the couch, tucking them under her. Her shoes are off, leaving her toes covered only with her stockings. "So, why are you here for the hols?"

Eamon lets it go, as she seems to want, and allows the conversation to turn back to himself. "Oh… I, um… just didn't want to spend two weeks on the Isle of Man being bored, I guess. I've been exploring the castle and grounds. It's not as great as exploring the world, but it's better than climbing the lighthouse steps for fun."

Kimiko lifts her brow at that. "You live in a lighthouse? I've never even been in one. Though…I suppose it doesn't seem so exciting if you've lived there all of your life." She screws up her mouth in an awkward smile. "So…is that what you want to do after Hogwarts? Explore the world?"

"I do…I did," confirms Eamon. "It doesn't feel so much like I live there anymore, honestly. Not when I spend September through June here." He turns towards the fireplace, which somehow manages to always be warm and lit despite the lack of tending. "I'd love to explore the world. I suppose that's not really a job though, so I'd have to find a way to make money and explore the world at the same time, right?" He puts his butt to the fire and puts his hands behind him, palms up to warm his fingers. "What about you? Will you go be a famous sculpter? Maybe enchant moving statues?"

Kimiko grins brightly. "That would be amazing, wouldn't it? I don't know. I know I would like to do something in the arts. Maybe dance. Or maybe I'll open a pottery shop. I don't know." She ponders for a moment. "You know, you could work for a company like my family's, looking for rare things to ship in from other countries to sell. Then you'd be getting paid to explore and travel."

"Do you dance?" asks Eamon curiously. And then in response to her suggestion he straightens. "Hey, that's not a bad idea. Er. As long as your great grandfather doesn't want to marry me off." Bad joke. He laughs weakly.

Kimiko giggles at the bad joke, but gives him a look that would be indignant if not for her smile. "Do I dance? You've never…?" She nibbles at her lip, blushing softly. "Yes. I love to dance."

"Never danced?" offers Eamon brightly. "Just with Hawker, you know, at the Halloween ball. I, er, was going to take her to the Yule Ball but… well." Everyone has more or less heard of Mabel shooting him down at this point.

"I meant…never seen me dance. I'm sorry, how vain of me." Kimi blushes, looking down at her hands in her lap. "The Yule Ball…oh, that's right! You're in the Champions entourage, aren't you?" That seems to brighten her spirits again. "That's wonderful. I was afraid that Leander wouldn't invite any Gryffindors."

"Leander is dating Lois," Eamon points out. "I don't think he's got much of a house bias. He asked people who would be useful to him, and he seems to think my knack for runes will be of some use." He steps forward, dropping his hands, which are now quite toasty. "I'd love to see you dance. You're not being vain. I'm just… Well. I'm not always the best at talking to, um, girls."

Kimiko blinks in surprise at the news that Leander is dating Lois. That shows just how deep she is in the gossip grapevine. "I dance in Arts Club all the time. I could…show you?" She looks around the room, suddenly conscious of the other Gryffindors sitting about. "Maybe sometime?" she adds.

"Some time," agrees Eamon with a smile. "But you have to let me show you something in return. It's only fair. Not that I'm very talented. Or, talented at all."

Kimiko grins, shaking her head. "You fly a broom in a blizzard," well, a nasty snow flurry, anyhow. "That takes talent and courage. Though, I don't think I'd be able to see you for you to show me that. So you might have to think of something else."

"Could put you on the broom behind me," teases Eamon. "But you've probably already seen me fly. So that's not all that impressive or new. It would be like…watching you paint."

"Okay, so not flying. What else? You must have something I've never seen before. Impress me, Prefect." Kimi smirks, delivering his title as a sort of challenge.

"I'm learning German?" Eamon offers hopefully. "Sie sind sehr … ah… schon?" he squints. "I think that's the right word." Or else he's made a fool of himself. Either way is good.

Kimiko lifts her brow, at least a little impressed. "Well, that's certainly different. What did you say?" She obviously has no idea whether he made a fool of himself or not.

"I think I said you're very pretty. But I could have also said you had a big nose. Which isn't what I was going for so I hope not." Eamon, he tries so hard. Too hard. His eyes shift around the room and he pretends nobody else just witnessed his bad attempt at flirting.

Kimiko blinks, momentarily stunned. Then a slow smile curls her lips as her cheeks colour. "Oh…um…anata wa totemo shinsetsu desu," she shares a bit of her own language with him, then, grinning, she translates: "You are very kind."

"Kind is good," says Eamon, satisfied with the compliment. "We can't all be ravishingly handsome, after all." Winking at her, he scoops up his sweaters. "I'm going to go hang these up and think about what I can impress you with…besides my ability to take away points from Ricky over there who thinks I don't see him about to put gum in Lottie's hair." The last is said with voice raised casually to carry to the first year, who suddenly looks very busy and not at all interested in Lottie's frizzy brown hair.

Kimiko giggles at Ricky's feigned innocence, covering her mouth. "Oh, I didn't mean that you're not handsome. I-…um…I just meant…yooooouuuuI think I'm going to go to bed." Her reddened cheeks clearly have nothing at all to do with her sudden desire for sleep. Nope. None at all.

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