Penny had always considered herself a verbose person and took pride in her vocabulary but talking like this - with an undercurrent of possible flirtation - unnerved her and she felt gauche, awkward and...Ravenclaw. It was a skill she'd never needed to work on and her emotions would be too easily readable on her face.
"Or me," she acknowledged and tried to fight down the little flutter of..something in her stomach at his grin. It was ridiculous because it was Oliver whom she'd known forever and Penny refused to become another of the snivelling, silly little witches with high hemlines and low i.q's who had hung around the players dressing rooms after games hoping to score a different sort of match and go ga-ga because a boy smiled in their direction.
Furrowing her brow she made her way over and told herself off sternly. Tucking her hair behind her ears to ensure it didn't try to suffocate Oliver, Penny leaned over and followed where Oliver was directing her to.
"Statistics mostly. Any and all data I can get my hands on would enable me to build a picture of how many founding families were in each village, which settlements worked and which didn’t and why they didn’t work and what was required in those early days.” Her finger began trailing down the line of families and stopping on the occasional name. “To a certain extent, we’re lucky because Hogwarts will be able to supply much of the basic furniture and there are established buildings all over the UK but the supplies aren’t going to last forever and they won’t stretch to all of the families that are to come. If I can come up with what settlements worked where – what plants were successful and which are unlikely to be attacked by wild animals, a map could be built of the most logical places for us to go after we’re allowed to leave here. Some of the problems will be different but a lot of them will be the same and if we know what they faced and how they dealt with it, well we’ll all be forearmed as it were.”
Tilting her head slightly she shot him a glance. “I tend to ramble. Sorry. Hazard of the job, I guess.”