The Acid Pop Club #1 - A New Adventure

Adlai Winifred Rod. No discernible personality, much like the place where she was born and much like her father. Her mother carried all the spice in her family but all Adlai inherited from her were slim eyes, an allergy to pollen and beliefs. It was the same with her sisters.

Thus when she found out she could do magic she instantly jumped at the first opportunity to learn as much as she could. This new found excitement making her very naive.

Adlai stepped into the girls lavatory holding her favorite book, a plush rat that would make of yarn, of which she called Tobias, and a simple cotton shall that could be used a small blanket. She only had ever needed to come here when she needed to fix her Hijab after a class that had involved physical activity in its lesson.

“H-Hello?” She heard some one call out. Venturing future into the bathroom she saw the girl who had invited her to this strange and unusable gathering. She was seemingly tall with long brown hair and hazel eyes. Jo, her name was if Adlai remembered correctly.

“Hello.” Adlai called back to the girl as she stepped into the dim lighting of the powder room to face the young girl. Never in a million years would Adlai think she’d be doing something like this. If her mother were to find out she’d absolutely be dead. But, her mother wasn’t here and if Adlai was smart she’d keep her big mouth shut. That wouldn’t be easy for her.

“You’re Jo Morgan right? I’m Adlai, Adlai Rod it’s a pleasure to meet you.” She said before smoothing out the nonexistent wrinkles in her ankle length skirt and leaning back, making sure she wouldn’t slouch as she stuck out her hand for the girl to shake if she pleased.

The flash of a robe embellished with yellow, a draft of cold and clean air from outside the musty bathroom, and Jo found herself face to face with a pale girl wearing a hijab. Jo took a moment to process.
Chestnut…no, cinnamon…no, almond colored eyes.

Hello.

The girl responded. Jo nodded in acknowledgement, sensing that she was about to speak again.

You’re Jo Morgan right? I’m Adlai, Adlai Rod it’s a pleasure to meet you.

Jo lightly shook the girl’s extended arm, a gregarious smile spreading across her face.
She felt touched that Adlai had bothered to remember her name, although whether it was from a class, the flyer, or some offhand rumour she had no idea.

She was momentarily distracted by the sour stench of the room, but decided against voicing her concerns or proposing an alternative. It was her that had decided on this room, after all - she'd just have to deal with the uncomfortableness.

Nice to meet you, too! Come sit down. Just spread your blanket anywhere - the tile is really cold. I was going to bring a few more blankets, but I didn’t want all Gryffindor colors. Jo laughed awkwardly. I think one or two more girls might be coming in a minute.
She looked towards the door, and then back at Adlai - noticing her yarn stuffed animal. Jo gestured at it. Does it have a name? She asked politely, picking up her own throw pillow and placing it out of the way.

The telltale click signaled the arrival of another new member.

Hello?

A female voice resounded from the corridor.

Is anyone there?

Jo’s eyes widened in excitement. Truth be told, she wasn’t really sure that there would be anyone else, despite what she had told the little Hufflepuff.

A rather pretty half-Chinese girl gracefully made her way towards the center of the room. Jo fell silent, looking at the girl’s robes and beautiful, soft-looking green blanket. She’d heard from a prefect that Slytherins disliked Gryffindors. For now, she resumed her conversation with Adlai.
Is it a boy or a girl mouse?

Suddenly, the Chinese girl held up her flyer, and Jo’s heart skipped a beat. The shiny fabric slipped from the Slytherin’s hand, but she caught it with skill and demanded an answer from the nervous duo.

Hey. I'm in the right place, right?

Impulsively putting an abrupt end to her current conversation with Adlai, Jo scampered over to the new girl.

Hi! Um…Take a seat! Anywhere is fine. She waved her hand towards the mess of blankets on the floor. Alright, so, let’s get started! Jo looked around and sat down, grabbing her throw blanket and setting it beneath her book like a cushion.

Unsure of how to continue, she fidgeted with a corner of her blanket, glancing back and forth helplessly between the two girls as if to implore them to do something.

Adlai nodded as Jo instructed her of what to do next. The girls washroom was cold and the walls were fairly damp. Not many people used the bathroom other than to cry or the occasional cat fight from what she knew.

Taking the blanket she had brought from her arm Adlai stretched it out onto the ground where it absorbed a small puddle of water. “Oh dear...” Adlai mumbled as she began to ponder what measures she’d go through to insure that this wouldn’t happen again.

“Does it have a name?” Jo asked her as she placed a through pillow to the side. Adlai assumed she meant her stuffed rat. “Yes! Ive always called him Tobias. Not exactly sure why though.” She explained pronouncing the name in an inchmeal fashion to make sure her accent didn’t get in the way.

“Hey. I’m in the right place, right ” Adlai heard from the entrance of the lavatory. When she turned to see who it was she saw a progeny who’s hair was the color of caramel and eyes of glowing amber. “If Your here for Care of Magical Creatures...” Adlai said raising her stuffed rat, “then no you are not in the correct place. However this is Acid Pop.”

After a few moments of Jo speaking Adlai found a dry place to sit on her blanket and placed her book and plush in her lap. “I think we ought to introduce ourselves!” Jo exclaimed and Adlai leaned forward.
“Who’s going first?” She asked.

"I will," Guinevere interjected, striding across the pools of bathroom filth to meet the other girls. Carefully laying down her silken emerald blanket on a dry patch (or at least, as dry as the girls' lavatory gets), she examined the smooth tiling. Once satisfied with the lack of visible gunk, she took a seat beside the other two students, precariously balanced atop her blanket without letting her bare skin touch the bathroom floor.

As she opened her mouth to speak, she suddenly felt a tangle of nerves catch in her throat, and her heart began to beat swifter in her chest. In the muggle world where she was raised, Gwen never had problems speaking to her peers. An academic high-achiever and school relay champion, she carried a sense of self-confidence that bordered on obnoxious at the worst of times. But being thrust into the foreign wizarding world, she felt inadequate in ways that had never previously affected her. From her muggle raising to her half-blooded heritage, she was concerned that she would not be accepted by the other students and longed to prove that although her knowledge of the wizarding world and its bizzare customs was limited to her skim-reading of History of Magic, she was just as capable as her peers.

She hesitated for only a moment, unintentionally making uncomfortable eye contact with the almond-eyed girl's yarn rat.

"It's nice to meet you both. I'm Guinevere. Guinevere Brand, that is," she announced, smiling warmly at the two girls and hoping that her nerves were well concealed. "Gwen is fine, though. Better, actually; I've always thought that Guinevere was a little pretentious."

Jo smiled, listening to Gwen’s introduction. This whole club was your idea -this is your time to shine! She pushed herself to speak - opening her mouth, pursing it, and finally opening it again.

I’m Jo Morgan. You can call me Jo! And it’s nice to meet you, Gwen! Um…I was actually adopted at birth - a Japanese muggle family raised me, but I lived in London for the past year before coming to Hogwarts. Jo ceased her monologue briefly to shiver and look up at the ceiling - a large drop of green-tinted water had splashed onto her face. Ew… she laughed, disdainfully wiping the muck from her face. Sorry, guys. I didn’t expect it to be so nasty and cold in here. She paused, and then offered a solution. How about we meet in the trophy rooms office next time? I heard nobody uses it very often, but it's actually really comfortable. Anyway, I really like swimming in the lake, reading, and just generally messing around and having fun. The book I brought to share with you guys today is Anthem - it’s a short version with annotations for kids! I was hoping we’d be able to kind of pass them around each meeting to the next person, kinda like a book club or something. Jo shrugged. I don’t know, Quidditch and Gobstones really aren’t my thing.

Adlai nodded listening to each of the girls carefully.
“I think the caretakers office would be nice. And the book club idea is great!” She commented before proceeding with her introduction.

“I’m Adlai, Adlai Rod. I don’t have any nicknames other then the ones my family gives me but feel free to call me whatever you see fit I’ll most likely respond to it. I’m obsessed with astronomy! But I also really like knitting, tennis, and gymnastics. I also really like the muggle band Ghost though I know for a fact their music isn’t exactly appropriate for our age group.”

“Anyway, the book I bring today is Orlando by Virginia Woolf. This book was inspired by Vita Sackville-West who was Virginia’s friend and lover.” Adlai had always lived for the drama inside and outside books. She always found herself being the one who held the secrets of those and blabbering them off to the proclaimed “enemy.”

She flipped through the book where her handwriting tainted the pages and the smell of her home emitted into the room. All of her books and clothes had begun to lose this scent but this one she hoped never would. She didn’t want to forget where she had come from.

"Oh! A book, yeah, I brought one too." Gwen exclaimed, reaching into her robes and pulling out a crimson hardback embellished with metallic gold-coloured paper.

The cover was covered in drawn-on scales, with a circular symbol in the middle that framed its title. Dragonology, it read.

"I used to read this when I was a kid," she explained, "before I knew that dragons were actually real. It's a muggle kids book, but I've always loved it."

She flicked through the pages, which were printed to look aged and yellow but still had a glossy shine. It was a book designed to look magical; to captivate a child's imagination. Illustrations of dragons from around the world sprung forth from the book's pages, each looking ferocious but unique.

"This one's my favourite," Gwen announced, pointing towards a drawing of a small, serpentine dragon with a long body and short legs. Its whiskers flowed like streamers from its snout, and its eyes sat like polished jewels in its curious face. "It's a Tibetan Lung. I don't know much about real dragons, or if these ones truly exist, but when I was a kid I used to pretend I was a dragon catcher."

She shifted, her long legs awkwardly folded over her blanket, and passed the book on.

"You can take a look. The drawings are nice."

Saoirse burst into the door, such a way to make a good first impression right? Being late on the first meeting. Whatever, if she was turned away she was turned away. She set down her multi-colored blanket and quickly snatched it back up, okay not doing too well. Saoirse looked at her surroundings clutching her book tightly, she thought about her pastel pink and blue throw-pillow and the little color-changing cat-lamp she had brought with where would she put it. "...Hi! My name is Saoirse Dwight, how are you guys tonight?" She remembered seeing the very last poster on the bulletin board, and decided that she would be the last...definitely lived up to the one huh? Then she noticed how she was once again standing there like a young lamb in front of the door, waiting, watching nervously for it's mother practically about to fall over, so she wished they wouldn't care. Then she realized how stupid it was to think they wouldn't notice her, she is a member of the club after all. Finally she remembered the fact that she actually spoke and it was too late to go back now.
Settling down for a hot minute, Saoirse regained her composure and tried to adorn her cheerful, happy smile.