Zinnia blinked at the armful of books was taking from her. “Gracias,” she echoed quietly, although her extent of Spanish ended there. Her lips tugged into a small when he sniffed about her falling; it was something she feared, and in fact, Zin knew she did an excellent impression of a baby deer on ice whenever the ground was wet or slippery. Winter was worse with the ice, but she wasn’t going to offer that information up to him.

Instead she fell into step half a pace from his shoulder, ensuring she kept her distance in case any mud decided to splash as she walked. When he admitted to Slytherin, she tipped her head, studying him as though the answer solved a tiny riddle in her brain. It made sense, and although she didn’t know Olixander personally, she could see why the hat put him in that house. They weren’t all rotten and evil, and in fact some of them could be quite sweet. Olixander was one of them, she knew it.

“Ravenclaw,” she confirmed, her gaze turning fully toward him. She giggled at him as she nodded in confirmation. “So high up. When it’s stormy out, the tower rattles, and sometimes it sounds like a ghost is sighing through the stairwell,” though honestly, Zinnia wouldn’t put it past some of the ghosts to do just that, “But the view, the view makes up for it. The lake shimmers in the moonlight and everything below the castle reminds me of floating lanterns.” If he’d ever taken astronomy he’d know exactly what she was talking about.

“I love watching the sunrise from the tower. Everything turns gold for a few minutes, and the lake looks like it’s been set on fire. And sometimes when it’s foggy out, the whole castle looks like it’s floating.” Realizing how silly that might have sounded, Zinnia pressed her lips together as a soft blush spread across her cheeks.

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