um...where am I? (North tower/open)

[Airous Fai]

Airous looked up at the huge wall by the moving stairwell. He couldn't believe how many paintings there where. He looked in each one and talked to almost all the people in them. They didn't like him staring but he couldn't help it. Airous had never seen anything like this before.

The staircase started to move and change. Airous blinked and held onto the rail to keep from falling. When the stairs where done changing with a low thud, he stepped onto the floor. Airous had never been all the way up here before. He was well past his dormitory, where he wanted to go in the first place. He shrugged and looked around the hall. He had heard of this floor. It was to the North of the castle. He wondered why know one came up here. There wasn't a sign of any students or ghost near by.

[Cailyn Maiya Talaith]

Cailyn grinned brightly at the Divination Professor as she twirled around in place to leave. While divination was far from her strongest class, Cailyn found the bizarre art fascinating in a way she felt only a muggleborn could truly appreciate. There weren't enough muggleborns at the school to permit the continued schooling in Divination, so she had managed to arrange special counseling sessions in which the Professor was able to give her a remedial type course. She could understand why others thought it was all rubbish, but it entertained her.

Skipping down the winding staircase that led into the very top of the tower, Cailyn found herself before the intricate maze of moving staircases that filled the castle. About to hop onto one of the staircases, she spotted a small form in the dark robes of a student. "Hey there!" She called out, adjusting her course to take her over to the other. It was rare for anyone to venture into this part of the castle when there was no class going on. "What are you doing all the way up here?" She asked with a bright grin, recognizing the younger boy as one of her housemates.

[Airous Fai]

Airous moved further down the hall wondering were he had gotten himself lost at. This tower was much different than the other parts of the castle.

Then he heard a voice. Airous turned around and blinked to see a girl walking toward him. From the colors of her school uniform she was a hufferpuff. Strange, he had never seen her before. Not even in the dorm. Which made a little sense since he was new to Hogwarts.

"I...got lost..." he mumbled the answered her question and looked down shyly. She seemed nice but Airous wasn't one to trust people right away. Not after what he had been through at home. He wondered if she was going to asked about his oversize robes, or why he was so short like everyone else usually did when they tried to talk to him.

[Cailyn Maiya Talaith]

Cailyn giggled lightly, her twinkling laughter soothing rather than mocking. "I've gotten lost too many times to count. This castle truly is a maze! And what's worse." She leaned in as if to tell a great secret. "It keeps changing! How are you supposed to be able to tell where you are if the corridors and stairs never lead to the same place twice?" She crossed her arms over her chest with a huff of playful anger at the magical castle. "I think Hogwarts enjoys toying with us."

She nodded as if she had come to a very serious conclusion. Giggling softly again, she held out her hand to the younger boy. "I'm Cailyn Talaith, by the way. Where were you trying to go, maybe I can help. That is assuming I don't get turned around as well." She smiled brightly, bouncing lightly on her toes. The robes the boy was wearing were a bit too big for him, making him appear younger than he probably was. It brought out the mothering side in her too see someone in need, especially one who appeared so young.

[Airous Fai]

Airous blinked. She was very energetic by the way she talked and bounced on her toes, almost child like. He relaxed a little bit to know she wasn't there to yell at him for getting lost. "Really?" He asked as she mentioned how everything always changed. "I...guess that's a good thing though...Bad guys can't find their way." He mumbled more to himself than to her but loud enough for her to hear.

Airous shook her hand. "I'm Airous Fai." He smirked knowing she either would forget his name or wouldn't be able to remember it. "Don't worry about pronouncing it wrong...I'm use to it." He looked around to make sure know one else was going to sneak up on them nervously.

"I was...trying to get to the hufferpuff dorms." He replayed answering her question.

[Cailyn Maiya Talaith]

"Airous." She repeated, dutifully trying to mimic his pronunciation perfectly. Despite his words, she repeated his name within her mind to be sure she got it right. The last thing she was going to do was forget his name, seemed he got that a lot as it was. Giggling brightly, she playfully grasped his shoulders and turned him around. "Well, our dorms are quite a way down from here. Just be sure to watch out, Slytherin's have a nasty habit of lurking around waiting for us." She frowned sadly, still not used to the cruelty of some students.

"You actually have almost made it to the Divination Classroom, it's at the top of this tower." Cailyn grinned, amused that the young boy had continued farther and farther upward rather than looking for a way down. "Sometimes, you can follow your nose to our common room." She told him in a conspiring tone. "It's so nice to have a common room right by the kitchens, the house elves are so fun! Come on, this way." Bouncing down the corridor toward the ever changing stairs, she waved a hand at the young boy.

[Airous Fai]

Airous nodded at her comment about the Slytherin's. "I know." He frowned remembering the last time he had been the center of attention to a group of Slytherin's. It didn't help that a lot of them were older than Airous and could pin him down so easily. He shrugged the memory of being pinned down a few weeks ago in the forest out of his mind. He didn't want to think of them.

He blinked. So that's what was up in the tower. "What year do you have to be in to take that class?" He asked interested as he followed her back from where he had came. He wondered why that was the only thing that was up on the North tower...

[Cailyn Maiya Talaith]

"Divination is an elective offered to all students in Third Year, though I am sure you could join at any point. Progressive classes after the introduction class, unfortunately, are only offered to purebloods and halfbloods right now. With so few muggleborn students, the Headmistress won't allow further study with only a couple students." Cailyn stomped her foot lightly, anger dancing in her eyes at the unfairness of it all. Just because her parents were muggles, she was seen as unfit to waste precious teaching time on.

Of course, she knew better than most how wondrous a gift it was that Hogwarts still allowed muggleborn students at all. From what Cailyn could find, ever since Grindelwald enacted the separation of the bloodlines, most magical schools refused entry to anyone with less than half pure wizarding blood. Shaking her head, she forced a happy grin back onto her features. Dwelling on a problem would not solve it. "Divination is a really fun class though, I highly recommend it if you have some free time. The professor is really nice, though I'm not sure divination really works half the time." Cailyn giggled brightly, her mood lightening almost instantly.

[Airous Fai]

Airous frowned at what she had said about muggleborns not being allowed to attend the class. "It's not muggleborns fault's that their parents are muggles and that they happen to have been blessed with magic." He sighed. "I don't agree with that at all. Everyone should get a fair chance."

Airous nodded slowly. "I really don't want to know my future." He frowned again. He knew that his future was grim. Airous didn't expect to leave home for a few years, and with that he knew that he had a long time until the abuse at home stopped. Then maybe, he would consider finding out what was next for him in this life. "Even if it doesn't work." He smiled lightly at her.

[Cailyn Maiya Talaith]

Cailyn grinned broadly at the young boy, bouncing lightly on her toes. "No one can help who their parents are, anymore than they can help what country they were born in. It makes me so sad that people can be so mean. Good thing there are people like you in the world." She added with a bright smile. While some hid the status of their blood as best they could, Cailyn believed it to be a mark of pride that her fellow students knew she was a muggleborn. At least not everyone in the school shared the same horrible distaste for her family that so many seemed to have.

"I think the future is fascinating!" She exclaimed with a small twirl. "I mean, I'd hate to know everything that was going to happen because that would make life boring. But just the endless possibilities that lie before us are... staggering! Oh, here we are." The staircase that lay before them seemed no different from any of the others in the castle. It sat quietly, unmoving for the moment. In truth, there was no way to really figure out one's way around other than the instinctive urge from many months spent walking in circles lost.