11:20 AM, near the lake

October was not, exactly, the ideal month to decide you wanted to be out of doors in Scotland. It was chilly to the bone and everything was slightly damp. Yet it was better than the strangled air of the castle, of the whispers and looks - real or imagined that Sophie felt all around her. Even though the meeting with Reid had gone fairly well (in so much as he hadn't forced them to disband or expelled her for breaking Figaro's face) she couldn't shake the feeling of failure, of letting everyone down. Zel was avoiding her, she didn't blame him, most days she wanted to avoid herself. Deus had been scarce too, which some how made her feel more lonely than ever. Her letters to Fauna helped but mostly the petite Gryffindor wanted to spend most days hiding in her bed, waiting for this whole mess to blow over. Of course that was selfish because now that he'd been outed this would never just "blow over" for Zel.

Perched on a rock looking out over the lake Sophie huddled in her jumper, arms crossed over her chest. She was supposed to be lowering her stress levels but that seemed like an impossible task. There was just so much going on, so much to take care of. She missed Ollie terribly, she missed her sisters... and for once she could admit to herself that she was not grown up enough yet to be without her mother. Ramona would have known what to do, what to say, how to fix things. Sophie felt like she was flying blind into enemy territory wherever she went now. She knew people blamed her, maybe she deserved it. She still wasn't really sorry she'd broken that little pissant's nose. She should have been, logically she knew that, but she just couldn't bring herself to be. It seemed like such a small punishment for what he'd done... and the crunching sound it had made when her tiny fist made contact was so satisfying.

Of course now she had to find someone to help her run things because Reid thought she might be becoming slightly emotionally unstable. He hadn't said it exactly like that, but it had been what she inferred from his instance she find someone to help her. All things considered it should have been a relief. She had been trying to do too much, be too much, for everyone around her. Trying to help Ollie, trying to keep Zel's secret, it was probably amazing she hadn't been the one to crack and spill the beans... but she hadn't. She had kept her mouth shut and just worked away and trying to keep everyone happy. Now everything was a mess, Ollie was gone, Zel was exposed, and everyone blamed her. Raking her fingers through her hair she was too caught up in her own thoughts to notice the rustle and crunch of ground behind her as someone else approached.

"You look like you haven't got a friend in the world."

Heinrich was enjoying the cool brisk weather.  He'd told himself he'd come out for the exercise and to walk Holly but his real reason was nerves.  The drawing of the second set of names for the tournament was the next day and as much as he didn't want to admit it, Heinrich was feeling the butterflies.  He just needed something to do to take his mind off things.

He didn't recognize her from a distance but something about the way she held herself told him that whoever it was that sat so still and so alone was desperately in need of someone to talk to.  When he got closer, he recognized Sophie and hesitated.  Their first meeting hadn't exactly been a totally positive thing.  Still, he would have had to call himself a coward if he didn't make an effort to offer her solace.  If she rejected it, then at least he had made the effort.  If she accepted it, then they were on their way to undoing any damage their first encounter had caused.

"You don't mind if I join you, do you?"

Sophie looked up with a wane smile, scooting over to make room on the rock for Heinrich. To say their first meeting had been terse would have been an understatement, the whole thing had just gotten off on the wrong foot and she was already under so much stress with it being the first meeting back and Ollie and Lexi being there. If recent events had proved nothing else it was that Sophie, despite her best efforts otherwise, shared the same emotional limitations as every other sixteen year old. Yes, Heinrich had been grating but if all of the other things hadn't been on her plate she might have handled it better. The thing about having such a spectacularly public fall from grace was that Sophie just didn't have the energy to be guarded and suspicious.

Rubbing the back of her neck, head tilted down she gave a soft albeit dry laugh, "So much for my dedication to no scenes being made this year, eh"? She had been so sure she was doing the right thing, that she could keep it all in line... and then it had slipped through her fingers - and the worst part of all was that it wasn't even the fighting with people against the cause. They had been fighting with themselves. Giving a deep sigh she looked out at the water before turning toward the boy, "I thought you'd be more excited, second round of Champions are drawn tomorrow. You put your name in yea"? So maybe she was deflecting, she didn't fully trust herself to talk about things without completely falling apart still. And while she bore him no ill will, she was not ready to come apart at the seams in front of Heinrich V. J. Faust.

"I'm bearing up bravely,"  Heinrich answered.  Then he chuckled.   "Terrified, to tell the truth.  What if I don't get picked?  What if I do?  Confident and insecure all at the same time."

Heinrich reached out and rubbed Sophie's back for a few seconds.  "It just shows that you're passionate about your cause, Sophie.  I've heard through the grapevine what happened.   Every leader has their missteps.  It's how you deal with it that will tell where you go from here.  What's the old saying about the broom?  If you don't get back on the first time you fall off, you'll never fly.  You're a good person and you believe in what you are doing and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that."

Holly, Heinrich's dog, wriggled out of his arms and jumped up into Sophie's lap.  The little black Pomeranian tried to lick the girl's nose but was too short and only succeed in jumping on her. 

"Hollenhund, kommen sie.  Stoppen met lastig."[1] There was no anger in Heinrich's tone, just a touch of amusement.

1.	Hellhound, come here.  Stop being annoying.

"Am I a traitor if I give you  a pep talk"? She couldn't help the little smile that twisted at the corners of her mouth when she asked, maybe it had been all the in-fighting lately but she just didn't have it in her to buy into rivalry at the moment. "My mum used to say... the most you can do is the best you can do in any given situation. Of course she was practically perfect in every way so it was very easy for her to say things like that because very few people could top her best". Sophie sighed a little, looking out over the lake, focusing on some hazy middle distance that wasn't really there at all. Sophie was competitive, but she was only competitive with things she was fairly sure she couldn't lose. Her frustration last year at coming in dead last with House Points was not so much about the cup itself but the idea that Gryffindor was better than that.

Finally looking at the foreign boy she managed a real smile, "It can't be any worse than the first task, I mean I don't know about you, but I'd have pissed myself coming into contact with those buggers. There aren't a lot of things that really scare me, but I am not a fan of spiders - and in case you haven't noticed I am a bitty bite sized treat compared to most everyone else wandering around campus". As the tiny dog jumped she looked down, grin twitching on her lips, "We have a westie and a scottie at home, plus two big galoots that like to follow me around and try to herd me. Thor, he's a Dane, when he stands on his hind legs and puts his paws on my shoulder he's a good head taller than I am, but he thinks he's the same size as Loki and Daphne," lightly scratching the small dog behind the ears she stopped when  the boy called the Pom back, drawing one knee up to her chest, "I spend most nights on the floor between the four of them, I miss them when I'm back here though. I guess it's like everything, no matter where you are you're wishing you were somewhere else". 

"Don't think it would be out of place at all," Heinrich replied, smiling.  "Aren't we supposed to learn co-operation and an appreciation for the students of other schools?  I hear you about the practically perfect person too.  That would be my brother Viktor.  He graduated at the top of his class.  Everything he touched turned to gold.  Married a beautiful girl who happened to be an amazingly sweet person.  Owns his own business that he started from scratch.  Trust me, I know about having big shoes to fill."

His smile faltered slightly as he listened to Sophie talk about wanting to be somewhere else.  "They say the grass always greener in someone else's field,"  he said.  "But we can't just live our lives wishing we were elsewhere.  If we do that, we will never be content with what we have and we'll always be miserable.  It's good to want something more but they need to be realistic goals.  Right now mine involves making it through to the drawing tomorrow.  After that, I will have a new goal, hopefully one that keeps me away from eight legged monsters that are twice the size of a small carriage and three times as mean as a Durmstrang professor with hemorrhoids."

Realizing that Sophie wasn't upset about Holly's presence, Heinrich released the little dog, who returned to begging they young woman for attention.  "Traitor," he muttered to the dog, under his breath.  "You'd abandon me completely if you thought you'd be able to find someone to feed you on a regular basis.  Karl's wolf wouldn't be this fickle."  The black Pomeranian ignored him completely, happily wiggling at Sophie's knee.