Nature Walk PV Hugh Lowe Finished

Hugh needed some fresh air after all these fantastic changes to his life. He needed something he knew from home. Deciding nature would be his best call to fnd some peace, he stepped onto the grounds and brought along his sketchbook and some pencils inside a leather shoulder bag.

After a short stroll, he reached a nearby stream. A subtle smile grew from the corners of his mouth as he gazed upon the shallow water pleasantly gushing through the remnants of some dam; most likely set up by another student many a year ago.

The sound of water brought his mind back to his home in scotland. His father used to bring him on trips to the shores and riverbanks. They'd skip stones together. As a fisherman, Hugh's father had been around water all his life. A love of water that had passed down the bloodline it seemed. Instead of the original plan of sketching, Hugh dropped his bag somewhere on the side of the stream. he picked up some flat rocks that seemed fitting and tried skipping them along the length of the running water.

He hadn't started for long or a faint voice reached his ears. A pleasant tune seemed to be echoed by a pair of nearby birds. As much as he wanted to find it, he saw no trace of the source. As he continued to listen in peace, he went on skipping stones. Until one stone skipped so far, the final splash silenced the hidden song.

Realising the stone must've landed near the singer. He jumped up and grabbed his bag. With his long legs he took a few great leaps over a couple of downed trees. With the end of the tree line in sight, he noticed a girl about the same age as him sitting quietly on a small rock by the stream.

Still trying to hide behind a thin sapling, he slowly approached the girl. Not out of an intent to scare her, but out of curiosity. Crack! His right foot had stepped on a treacherous branch, immediatly notifying the girl of his presence. he had no time to waste now.

"Hello there" He raised a waving hand nervously. "Don't stop on my account. Your voice is beautiful." Hugh branished a friendly smile as he stepped closer. "I-I'm Hugh" He reached out his shaking hand as a formal greeting.

Rorie looked up at the boy. Standing up confidently and accepting the handshake, she smiled broadly.

"Hello! I'm Rorie, nice to meet you!"

She closed her journal and slid it into her bookbag quickly, looking over at the birds that were still at it chirping loudly.

"Hey, I think I recognize you from the common room. Are you in Gryffindor?"

Rorie really hoped he was, as if he wasn't, it would be extremely embarassing. She crossed her fingers and hid them behind her back, trying to assure herself that she wouldn't make a fool out of herself.

"I've been trying to write, but I'm not doing too well. I'm going to go on a walk through the grounds in hope of some inspiration, do you want to come?"

She silently thanked the heavens for not making her lisp too dominant over her speech today. She had been improving on her speech lately, something she was very proud of.

She quickly tied her shoelace, not wanting to trip and embarass herself. Her sneakers were quite dirty, so she tried to absent-mindedly brush off some of the caked mud. She had learned from her newly formed enemy that she had to hide her true self to people.

She appeared to be friendly. Her broad grin caused Hugh to widen his own closed smile a bit. Rorie mentioned seeing him in the Gryffindor common room and she must've been correct. Which caused him to be a bit embarassed he did not recognise her in return however. Though he'd make that up somehow soon.

"Correct. I'm Hugh! ...aand I already said that" He laughed nervously with his repeated introduction, all the while giving his head a mental slap. Luckily Rorie went on with the conversation. Having seen her put away her notebook, she now also mentioned writing something. Most likely lyrics to a song, Hugh figured logically. He did not expect to be invited for a walk however. Yet he also didn't need long to think it through. "It would be my pleasure." He replied with his scottish accent slipping out a bit.

As Rorie began to tighten her shoelaces, the boy decided to express his curiosity. "Anything specific you're trying to bring to the song? I mean, I assume it's a song?" He spoke in a calm and kind manner.

He turned around and tried to find an invisible path they would be following for their little fieldtrip. They could follow the stream in both ways or go deeper into the trees. Or perhaps Rorie preferred the open field, he did not know. "Any idea of a direction you mean to go in?" He added with a smirk and one raised eyebrow.

The two began to walk in no direction in particular. Rorie explained to her new acquaintance what exactly it was she was working on enthusiastically.

"Yep, you guessed it, it's a song. I run a band, and we have a sort of mini-show coming up just for fundraising, and we are going to be doing covers of a lot of songs, but we need a few that we write ourselves. There's one other girl in the group that's also working on writing some, so we should have three or four of our own songs to perform. We planned on this specific one I'm trying to write being a bit more peaceful, mainly just singing with some piano and violin in the background to support the vocals. I dunno, I always just felt that peace and nature went hand in hand so I wanted to do something with nature..." She trailed off, looking around at her surroundings.

There were some really good metaphors that were coming to her mind, about the canopies of trees and the pine needles on the green ground and whatnot. She made a mental note of them, making sure to include that in the lyrics.

They reached a sort of fork in the imaginary path they had been travelling along.

"I dunno, why don't we just follow the stream. I quite like the sound of it." She said, laughing at the inquiring face Hugh had given her.

"I play electric guitar, you know. My mum says that because of how loud I always play it that I've destroyed my ears and I can't hear a thing other than my own music. Maybe that's true, but I can hear the water and the birds," she mumbled, watching the water flow over the rocks. Yet another metaphor she could use, she definitely wasn't regretting her decision about going for a walk.

“A band huh?” Hugh got a little excited on hearing that bit. Though there was an essential part missing. “Does that band have a name yet?” He teased a bit but was actually sincere in his curiosity. He loved creativity, in whatever form it could present itself. Though he never touched an instrument in his life, he had always dreamed of learning to play the piano. Maybe Rorie would be willing to teach him some day.

“My dad says nature is old. Calm and ancient. Something balanced.” The scottish boy was by no means a writer of songs, not even a writer in general. But nature inspired him no less than Rorie. “I draw alot.” Hugh replied shortly after. “It needs to get out of my system every now and then. Nature helps with inspiration.” He gave an unapologetic shrug, as if he needed to explain his wandering ways.

His eyes turned to her, this time trying to find out what exactly the girl was thinking. She seemed deep in thought. Rorie chose to follow the stream, which was much to Hugh’s liking. “Sounds like a plan miss Thompson.” He added as he gave another quirky smile.

“Electric guitar? Really? That’s pretty cool.” His eyes widened in surprise as he gave her another friendly smile, he took a moment to look at her from head to toe. He was definitely taller, but it seemed they pumped a whole bunch of talent in that little girl.

“How did you get into music?” Hugh wondered, walking along the stream as suggested. He was enjoying himself and surprisingly, didn’t feel nervous at all. He took a deep breath while closing his eyes for a long second and letting his head hang low.

Rori had a very enthusiastic air around her. It worked highly contagious. An itch for drawing crawled up in his head. Though he had no intent to randomly start sketching while he accompanied Rorie on this refreshing stroll. He did grab a pencil from his bag and started playing with it in one hand. Sometimes holding it in his mouth and other times putting it behind his right ear. He started to mumble Rorie’s tune from earlier. Or what he remembered of it at least.

She laughed at his teasing question.

"Yes, the band does indeed have a name. Enchanted Souls, that's what it's called," she smirked. "And your dad is certainly right. Nature is good. I like nature." Rorie tried to simply state her opinion and then burst out laughing at how stupid those two short sentences had sounded. Rorie was always one to laugh at herself.

"So you draw? That's cool. I've never been able to draw well..." she thought about the time she had been going through boxes of her dad's belongings, stumbling apon the cards she had made for him. One, what was supposed to be a picture of her and her father, looked like two potatos with faces.

Her artistic talent hadn't gotten much better since.

"Oh, me getting into music? Well, I was practically born with an instrument in my hand. My dad was very musical, so he was always teaching me stuff..." She trailed off, thinking of past memories with her father. She had talked about her father in past tense, and she just hoped Hugh wouldn't point it out.

"Hey, I have an idea! What if you taught me how to draw better and I maybe taught you how to play a few instruments or something?" She smiled at the messy-haired boy, an exciting prospect.

With a broad grin, a small chuckle came out. Hugh was not used to laughing out loud. People back home knew him as a happy lad, but one who preferred to enjoy his good time in silence. Now he failed to keep himself from laughing. "Yes, nature is good." He repeated with pursed lips hiding another smirk. All the while holding two thumbs up in the air as an exaggerated emphasis on Rorie's final statement.

They went on and Hugh listened quietly to all Rorie had to tell him. It occured to him to late she said "was". By the time he had noticed, it seemed too late or inappropriate to ask. His uncertain eyes tried to look for some sign whether or not he should say something, without embarrasssing himself or maybe her. "Music's good. I like music." He eventually said. Trying to distract her with a throwback on her earlier statement. He couldn't help letting out another chuckle as he was facing his head down.

Thinking on her proposal, his nose wiggled a little. He was pretty sure he'd mess it up somehow, but maybe she was a great teacher. Who knew? He wasn't exactly sure he'd be a decent teacher either. Eventually he decided he was overthinking what seemed to be a simply fun idea. "That would be nice Rorie." He gave her a friendly smile as he placed his hands in his pockets.

A small blue bird came fluttering down towards the two students walking. Rorie stuck out her finger and the creature landed on it, chirping happily.

"Hi, little guy. Are you hungry?" She talked to the bird, fishing out some sunflower seeds she had been planning on planting in the grounds from her bag. It was a worthy sacrifice, though, as the bluebird seemed contented.

Turning back to Hugh, she was happy that he didn't touch on the past tense. She laughed after her brought back the statement from a few minutes earlier.

The bird set off from her finger, flying a few feet above Rorie's head and then coming back down for a small snack before lifting off again, a repeating cycle.

"This bird is as hyper as me..." Rorie joked after its fifth round of flying and feeding. It was a cute little thing, and she planned on making it a little home somewhere so that she could check on it every so often.

"Alright, sounds like a plan. Do you want to meet somewhere on the weekend or something?" She asked, handing some more seeds to the enthusiastic creature perched on her hand.

The next time the bird fluttered back down for food, though, it perched itself on Hugh's hand.

"Here, it wants you to feed it!" She cheered, handing her friend some of the seeds.

The amount of surprise that was clearly visible on Hugh's face must've looked stupid even from a distance. A confused frown and open mouth kept gawking at the scene that transpired before his eyes. "D-do birds do that often? Where I live they usually aren't this tame." His eyes kept tracing the bird's path as he flew up and down repeatedly. An active little bird indeed. he thought to himself.

"This weekend? Sure, I don't have plans anyway" He had to smile at that note. Of course he didn't have plans, he knew nothing about this place or its people. He should make work of that though. Try to explore the castle a bit. "Where do you want to meet? I think there was a rehearsel room somewhere? I bet you and your band practice there." His eyes kept following the bird as he spoke. The little creature seemed to like Rorie, or at least the sunflower seeds.

Without a warning the tiny fellow landed on Hugh's hand all of a sudden. Did it suddenly think he was a tree or something? He was a cute little fellow though. "Hello there birdy" In Hugh's mind, the bird understood every word he said. They were friends already. An excited Rorie handed him some seeds. Carefully, Hugh began to give his new friend bits of food as they "conversed". It all made Hugh beam up like a lantarn. He hadn't felt like this in a long while.