Goodbye London, Hello Hogwarts Completed

"Yeah, my mom taught me. She wasn't exactly the most understanding teacher but I learned quickly because of the tight schedule she planned." Airlia smiled awkwardly. Five hours a day of learning songs and one extra hour reading books about the instruments to learn their history.

"Muggle studies would be interesting. I doubt I'll be good at them though. I've been rather... Tucked away from non-magical folk." She said blushing.

"They teach you everything you need to know in Herbology and no worries you won't be allowed to kill plants. After all, the teacher will be taking care of them outside of class and on weekends. When it comes to astronomy, yes I had a home teacher for astronomy and we have a telescope on our balcony."

"I do wish to know more about these flying instruments of muggles. They sound so strange. People not flying on brooms I mean. Not that I was allowed to. No, I kept my feet firmly on the ground. I have never flown with an airplanehelicopter or this jet thing." Airlia said thinking that the words airplane and helicopter were just one word, not two. "Are they creatures that you fly with? We can fly with winged horses, thestrals and even hippogriffs if we are talented enough with magical creatures."

Airlia thought about her winged horse. "I have a winged horse, back at home. A Granian by breed. Their population is thinning so I take good care of mine. I think there are only five of them in Finland, eleven in Sweden and around 20 in Norway. That's where they are from you know. Norway. The first with to ride a Granian by legend was called Sigurd. Once muggles saw him on the back of his Granian they made mythological stories about him. But we think he was just a wizard. No one really knows though. There is no proper information about him. Since he lived centuries ago."

Airlia smiled. She'd loved the story of Sigurd when she was a child. And she loved her Granian winged horse. "I named my Granian after him. Sigurd is a boy's name and even though my Granian is a female I thought it suited her. The name means; guardian. It's customary for the women in my family to ride Granians."

"So is the airplanehelicopter a winged horse?"

Fumiko winced " Tight schedules... effective ...but the stress.." there was a time when she moved in with her aunt, where her schedules would be filled with all sorts of things.

Violin, History, Tennis ( she quit that rather quickly ) and so on.

" Say..are you a princess of some sort ?" she's been thinking about this since the first time she came into this compartment. Since they are considered ' friends ', Fumiko thought this was the right time to ask.

" Ah! really? " Fumiko felt her chest warming at the thought. She wondered if the brilliant teachers of Hogwarts could cure her curse. " Even if they do that...I still hope we get to take care of plants. There's some sort of ... nice feeling you get.. when you take care of one. Seeing grow from a tiny seed to a full-grown..healthy plant.Never abandoning them... I ... like that ", she felt herself smile. She probably just wanted to be a better parent than her own.

" WINGED HORSES ?!" she squealed, barely containing her excitement in front of Airlia. Fumiko basically bounced on her seat as her dark eyes sparkled with an abundance of wonder and glee.

She promised herself not to be surprised if that flying horses existed now but she couldn't help it! She loved winged creatures from birds to dragons but of course, she had to live with the fact that some of her most beloved creatures didn't exist

Until now

" You have GOT to show me a picture of Sigurd one day!" her mind raced, trying to remember any mythology about a dude named ' Sigurd ' annddd

she got nothing

" That's a lovely name though.." she mumbled out, tired of her sudden hyperactivity. " You must have a nice bond with her~ "

When Airlia told her about her family customs for women to ride Granians, her confidence in Airlia's status as a princess has increased by 20%. I mean, winged horses, especially such a rare breed like Sigurd must've costed a fortune! Now Airlia is saying every woman in her family had a personal Granian?

And Fumiko thought her aunt was loaded.

When Airlia asked her last question, Fumiko stood still. She bit her bottom lip as her eyes wandered to the floor as she felt her hands clenched on her pants.

No

No

Don't do this here

Think about world starvation. While you're like this, thousands of children are starvi-

Don't do it Fumiko

Think of corruption! How many families lost and cheated in-

Don't...

...


..


.


She burst out laughing.

" HAHAHAHAAH! WAIT WAIT NO- " she wheezed out " nonono- hahhh- noo" her arms hugged her stomach, hurt from laughing too much, while she finally stabilized her breathing pattern

A tad tired, she turned back to Airlia with a content smile. " Nnonononono muggles don't have such things. A- I'm sorry for laughing..you sounded so informative talking about Sigurd and Granians and then you suddenly-" she held back her laughter " it's not something I hear so often...but...-" she smiled and she sank back in her seat " That was...the nicest laugh I had in a while.." for a second Fumiko's eyes darkened at the thoughts of her previous environment.

Of course, she couldn't laugh like this when she was in the muggle world. Now that she was free...

" Muggles...they don't have magic that'll help them. Winged horses and a lot of other creatures you know would make them faint if they ever saw one. They need to...create things from whatever they have now .. so I guess... " she didn't know where she was going with this. She just wanted to explain an airplane and helicopter properly without confusing Airlia.

" Airplane...helicopter..." not aware of Airlia combining the two different words together, she continued using hand gestures " Airplanes...are big..." she stretched out her arms " and... they only take in a lot of people at once who all wish to go to the same place. And....helicopters....are...smaller..." her eyes furrowed " ..boxes? With wings on top? "

Even Fumiko is aware of how terrible she is at explaining.

' andd... they goo..." she lifted her hand like how an airplane would take off while making whooshing sound effects out of her own mouth. " A-" she flopped her hand back down " I give up. Forgive me Airlia. Explaining is one of my many weaknesses..." she pouted.

" I can..." a specific person came in mind " Ah! I can ask my butl- a - er I mean..my aunt to mail me a picture book of them! They might actually amaze you, like how everything amazes me in the wizarding world ~ "

She refused to speak as if everyone had a butler. Airlia might have one herself but Fumiko wasn't going to risk it. She just made her first friend so far and she refused to appear as a spoilt privileged child. Privileged is true though.

Nervous, she scratched the back of her neck while giving Airlia a sheepish smile. " We have a lot to learn about each other's world huh? I gotta admit, it's pretty..." she looked down at her hands, her small smile mixed with all kinds of emotions "...fun... " she breathed out like she just realized it.

Fun

When was the last time she had fun with another person her age?

"Oh, I have two pictures with me." Airlia smiled, got off the bench and gracefully landed on her knees on the train floor.

She opened her trunk and started carefully taking her clothes and books out, making sure not to get anything dirty or crumbled.

"It's great that you're interested in plants. I'm sure you'll get what you wish from Herbology." Airlia said answering to the girl a little too late since the girl had spoken about herbology about three subjects ago. It was a little hard to keep track.

She fumbled through her silky clothing, soft pastel fabrics like velvet and wool slipping through her fingers as she was looking for the photo book she'd packed right to the bottom of her luggage.

"And I'm not a princess." Airlia giggled. "My mother is a lady and my father is a lord but I won't be of noble blood unless I am made their official first heir and since my brother is older than me, that title won't be mine if everything goes as it should and he takes over the rule of our town. I don't really wish to be the heir. Too much pressure." Airlia smiled: "I guess I have been raised like a noble though; etiquette classes and history of great wizard houses. I'm the daughter of a lady but that doesn't give me an official title."

"The tradition of our Granians is centuries old tradition and we don't buy a Granian every time a new female is born to our family." Airlia said, knowing that having a Granian alerted the 'rich people around' bells at least on every wizard-born person. Granians cost a fortune. "We breed them. Sounds worse than it is. My Granian is the foal of my mother's Granian and my cousin Katie's horse is the foal of her mother's Granian. My Katie's Granian is actually one of twin foals that were born. They sold the other one for a hefty prize and my father had a fit. We don't sell Granians. Some people don't possess the knowledge that we do about rising the properly and even worse by selling the other horse they broke tradition."

Airlia was lost in thought as she rummaged through her luggage: "Aha! Here." She pulled out a baby blue photo album and scrolled through it, pulling out two pictures.

The first picture had Sigurd walking around on a flower field they would sometimes ride out to. When coming face to face with a new person; Fumiko looking down at the picture; Sigurd chose to show off and get on her back legs, spreading her wings and making butterflies fly around her.

Airlia smiled at the Granian's having fun in the pictures and happened to look at Fumiko's face. At that second Airlia realized: Fumiko most likely hadn't seen moving pictures before...

To say Fumiko was surprised at how the pictures move would be an understatement. She even tilted her head a bit to see if the pictures are actually tablets inserted in the pages of Airlia's album. Seeing that it wasn't just made the whole thing more fascinating than it was before. The gleam in her eyes shone more as they were hypnotized by the gracefully moving old pictures.

She covered her mouth with her hands in an astonished manner but kept her eyes glued to the pictures.

" They're...so beautiful..." she muttered.

Did she mention she loved winged creatures?

" Are they...in there? Is this where they are right now? What they're doing? I've seen moving pictures in newspapers from Diagon Alley but I never understood how they ... " she didn't know how to finish the sentence but she really didn't care.

" They're so beautiful..." she accidentally repeated. " I- " she pursued her lip as she glanced at the side with a questioning stare like she wanted Airlia to know she's thinking. " I loved winged creatures. " She thought it was fine to admit something simple as this " I love butterflies, birds and even flying squirrels " she declared with a determined look in her eyes " And I gave up on creatures like Granians, dragons and such so ...forgive me if I don't know how to express my happiness right now "

She was just jumping on her seat like a child a few minutes ago. " It felt like my happiness bubbles just expanded so much but it hasn't been ... " she make a ' pop'

" Have you ever ridden her before? To where? How? Is it hard? What about- " All sorts of questioned carelessly flowed out of her mouth as she was too busy contemplating if it was alright to touch the moving pictures.

She stopped her stream of questions and closed closer on the names of the Granians

" Wow~ They're all named such powerful people~ " she pointed to the word ' Hera ' . " Greek goddess of family.. stories of her didn't make me like her that much. Still powerfull though" her small fingers glided towards ' Artemis " . She couldn't help but smile. " My favorite. Hunt and Moon. Protector of females. I loved her stories when I was a child. Her independence was something I admired haahhah... . I used to call her Tsuki Sama because her name was a bit hard for me to pronounce when I was small. Andddd....Freya ~" she pulled her hands back " I only knew she was a Norse god. What was Freya's story? " she asked

"So many questions." Airlia chuckled when the girl seemingly threw all her thoughts on her at once. "Slow down if you want me to actually understand what you're saying."

Airlia smiled at the other girl's blush and started once the girl took a breather and calmed down: "So moving pictures." For Airlia explaining things that were common to her were odd. She'd never before had to teach a muggle-born about anything. "How much the picture can do depends on how powerful the person or creature is. For an example when making a painting of an average wizard they can mimic mannerisms and say catchphrases. But when it comes to stronger wizards they can speak, and you can tell them memories that they can pass on and all in all become more lifelike. With pictures, it's pretty much the same, but only pictures on magazines actually speak. The person isn't really there since you can have a picture of a dead person and they'll still move."

Airlia smiled after that letting the girl ponder through this new information: "There is no such thing as being 'too' happy."

"I have ridden my Granian, but never in the air, only with her four feet safely on the ground. My mom doesn't let me fly but it's pretty much like riding a normal horse just... Faster."

"And powerful creatures deserve powerful names. Now Freya was of Norse mythology and the goddess of love, beauty, and fertility..." Airlia and Fumiko went on to speak about ancient cultures and creatures. They spoke of their childhood and what they wanted to learn at Hogwarts, showcased their wands and Airlia explained the wood, core, and flexibility of wands and what they represented.

Their conversations were joyous and meaningful and as the train finally stopped at the Hogwarts station they tried to leave together only to lose each other in the crowd of students...

Unknown to the other they both wondered if they were lucky enough to meet again, or hopefully end up in the same house even...