Chapter Twenty-Two: One-To-One
"Do not pity the dead Harry, pity the living; and above all, those who live without love." -Albus Dumbledore
Azalea didn't go to sleep like she usually did after writing in her diary. Instead she had taken to laying down on her bed, listening to Lumos' soft rumbles as the kitten slept. Both she and the kitten jumped when the dormitory's doors flew opened, revealing Ocean awkwardly walking through.
"Hey," she said, starting towards Azalea's bed. "When I saw Riddle come back to the Great Hall and not you, it had me kinda worried," she admitted. Azalea found herself quickly brushing off the fight they had previous to her odd conversation with Riddle. "Thank you for checking up on me and I probably should've listened to you. It was a waste of time," Azalea said, propping herself onto her elbows to look at Ocean.
The look on Ocean's face shifted from awkwardness to curiousness as Azalea mentioned Riddle. "What happened? How'd it go? What did he say? Was he mad?" Ocean fired off one question after another. It made it nearly impossible for Azalea to answer any of her questions.
"Well, first, he was obnoxious as usual. It sounded like he wanted to call a truce or something. He seemed pretty calm, amused even, so I assume it went well." Ocean plopped herself down onto the bed beside Azalea and they engaged further into their conversation.
"Okay, so if Riddle's not your type; what do you look for in a guy." Azalea sent Ocean a funny look due to her abrupt change in subject matter. "You thought Riddle and I might've had something," she finished with a snort. "No," Ocean responded, "but you two are so alike I thought you would develop something for him. I'm glad you didn't though, I wasn't joking about what I said earlier. He's not right!"
The comment caused Azalea to roll her eyes. Not only had Ocean reminded her of it on multiple occasions, but she didn't need her insight on Riddle's mental state to tell Azalea that he wasn't right.
"I'm aware," Azalea said in a teasing manner, though no humour actually laid behind it.
Ocean completely ignored the comment and looked at her expectantly. "Well? Aren't you going to answer me? Tell me about your dream guy." The laugh Azalea let out this time was one of mirth. When she was growing up, she never had anyone to talk to about stuff with. She figured Harry wouldn't be interested in such conversations. Ron wouldn't care. And her Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon were totally out of the question. It definitely made her feel delighted to finally have a one-on-one with another girl on this topic.
"Preferably a guy a little less intelligent than me. I want to be the smartest in the relationship but I want him to be able to hold a conversation with me." Ocean snickered to herself as Azalea took a break to think of more things to say. It didn't go unnoticed by Azalea, but she chose to ignore it. "Someone who has the same values as me yet challenges me on the things we don't agree on." She took another stop to collect her thoughts, perfectly aware of Ocean's prying stare. "Romance would be nice too, I suppose." At that, Ocean bursted out into laughter. This time Azalea didn't ignore it and glared at her.
"I'm sorry but that's just not practical. Where do you ever think you're going to find someone like that," she barely got the sentence out between all her giggling. The infectious laughter was soon passed on to Azalea as she joined in on the laughing. "I guess it is kind of fanatical, huh?" She said sheepishly.
Ocean brushed the comment off and let out a softer laugh than before. "There's no person in this school who doesn't set their dreams high sometimes." Though the comment sounded cynical in Azalea's ears, she felt Ocean didn't mean it to sound like that.
She ignored the action from Ocean for the second time today to continue speaking with each other.
Their conversation never halted once. It was only when students started coming into the dormitory did the two girls cease talking. Getting ready for bed like the other girls.