"--Hi."

The girl over here has clothing that is clearly made incredibly well, from fabric that is - not cheap, but whoever bought it could probably have optimized for a few more things at a higher price point. As it stands, it's optimizing very hard for being as light as possible while covering more of her body than would be typical of a summer dress, or whatever else you'd make with that kind of fabric. (Handkerchief linen, maybe?) The centerpiece of her outfit is her hat - a white velvet cloche with radiant crystal pins.

She startles visibly at the arm-grab, and when they approach she very nearly glances at the exits. Why would anyone approach her.

"Hello," she says on automatic. "I made them myself. I'm Sophie Hara, it's lovely to meet you. I - like your clothes as well - is that spidersilk, I worked with some sirenspider webbing once and it looked a bit like that but iridescent - I'm sorry."

"Yes, when we found out my affinity was thread Mum and Dad managed to get us a breeding pair of Darwin's Bark Spiders for familiars. I've never had the privilege of working with sirenspider myself."

"It really was a privilege. It handles so smoothly, and I only had enough to do detail work with it but the magic just flowed through it. I think that was the best hat I ever made. My little sister Lettie got it, she's coming through next year. This one's just - well. My hat."

Her hat, for concentration and working memory and mana-gathering, her hat that she talks to when she's got nothing else to talk to, her hat that's probably saved her life more times than she can count.

"I can't tell exactly what it does from here but it looks like a very nice hat."

"Oh - it gives me, you know. A bit of a mental edge. And obviously the crystals hold mana. I've had it for ages - hats are my affinity. Clothes in general, really, but hats are better."

"--That's fascinating, I bet we could do something really interesting if we collaborated."

Was that way too presumptuous? Probably it was aaaaaaa there is a reason Wilbur generally lets Lucy do the talking. 

"If we-"

Sophie stops listening to herself talk for a fraction of a second and remembers. Thread affinity. Good lord.

"-oh. Yes. I think we would be able to make something very interesting if we collaborated. I would want to think about it, though... I want different things than most students."

Sophie, you have just made them think you are a maleficer.

"Um. In - I mean - not, like, mice, or anything. I want - things I can pass down to my sisters before my senior year."

Sophie, you have just informed these people that you expect to die before graduation.

"Not that - um."

Sophie makes the wise decision to shut up.

"--It would be fine if you were a maleficer, part of the reason we have a breeding pair of spiders is to sell baby spiders to maleficers." Probably this is not a great thing to admit out loud but Lucy has been all evening so probably it's fine? "And also more individually to people who would also like to have spider familiars. They can eat mal grubs." She's more likely to bite that particular hook than most of the school, honestly. "We don't have any younger siblings, we were supposed to be an only child except that we were instead twins." Did that sentence make any sense???

It would be fine if you were a maleficer is a deeply confusing and concerning thing to say but Sophie has so few legs to stand on there. The concept of having a spider familiar is amazing and it cannot possibly be real. The concept of not having any younger siblings makes her pity the twins for a moment before remembering that not everyone is damaged in that particular way.

"I... will definitely want to think about purchasing a spider. Do you have them express web into vials and then draw it out somehow, or do you just collect the webs and spin them somehow?"

"They do a lot of weaving on their own! I do a lot of fiber-working but it's working with them, not just extracting their useful proteins and sending them on their way."

"How fascinating! I was almost looking forward to spinning and weaving, I'm sure it's a great generator. But I'll always have needlework, I suppose. What would you want for a good specimen, and how soon would one be available?"

"It'll take a little under two weeks before we can have some old enough to start becoming familiars, though they won't be fully-grown by then. We don't really have prices settled on yet--Lucy has been doing a lot of bartering for hair from the surprising influx of muggleborns."

"Muggle- you mean the ones who look so confused?* I... heard what happened. It almost made me happy to be an independent."

*Sophie Hara is among the perhaps five people in the British Isles who never read Harry Potter.

"Apparently people also say 'new blood' or 'mundie,' it's never been so relevant before."

"Quite." She shivers.

"...if we were to work together," she says slowly, "would you accept a ratio of one personal project apiece, alternating? It would probably limit you in terms of form, and me in terms of material, but for any project it applies to we'd be an excellent force multiplier. And - we're both independent, we don't have much to gain from power games."

Upon realizing she said that, she realizes also that some people would take it as a dire insult. She does not allow herself to wilt visibly. If she has made an enemy, she has made an enemy. 

"That sounds fair. With a certain amount of negotiating over individual projects--there will be schedule conflicts and I'm sure we'll both want to protect ourselves against being stuck with only the less interesting projects."

"Naturally."

She almost smiles. This seems like a very good way for this to have gone.

He bows slightly. "I look forward to a very positive-sum working relationship."