Finished A Waiting Game

King's Cross station was a marvelous place for little Elspeth. Contrary to what many believed about her, she didn't hate people. She simply didn't possess the aptitude for talking to people very well. But the beautiful thing about King's Cross was the fact that there were many, many people around, and yet she didn't have to talk to any of them. She could just do what the adults referred to as 'people-watching,' and it wasn't even considered strange!

As Aunt Nessie held her left hand, and her mother held her right hand, Elspeth should have felt claustrophobic. Caged. Especially with the crowds around them that seemed to sidestep them, eyes drawn to the peculiar, garish clothing her aunt was wearing. Well, that or the rather large trunk her aunt was hauling on a small rolling car for her.

It wasn't that it was odd to wear feathers in her hair, Elspeth knew, but the muggles probably thought it quite strange that Nessa was wearing bright, purple peacock feathers in her hair and completely unmatching yellow and blue robes to boot. It was an outfit that drew eyes.

But instead of feeling caged between her family and under the gazes of strangers, Elspeth felt entertained. She watched a man speaking into a muggle 'telly-fone' in a frantic tone, insisting that it 'wasn't what it looked like' as he held a forgotten donut in his other hand. She watched a woman chewing on a lock of her own hair. She watched another girl, similar in age to Elspeth, pulling the hair of a long-haired, chubby boy, as if demanding his attention.

It was so fascinating, and her attention was only stolen when her aunt lowered herself to Elspeth's level to speak.

"Alright, little doxy," her aunt said, letting go of her hand and readjusting the blue ribbon in Elspeth's hair. "We're coming up on the entrance. It's best if you just run through. No lookin' back."

Elspeth looked up at her, then to her mom, who looked like she didn't feel very comfortable with any of this at all.

"I don't think I very much want to run," Elspeth said uncertainly. "I'd rather just walk."

Her mom let go of her hand and instead rested a palm on her shoulder.

"Then you'll walk. And you'll still be just as capable of a witch as any other girl on that train," her mom reassured her.

They reached platform nine, and then, of course, platform ten. Her aunt rolled the cart hauling Elspeth's trunk in front of her and put an arm around her shoulder.

"It's that one right there," she said, gesturing to one of the stone columns. "It only looks solid. Soon as you hit it, you'll pass right through."

Then Elspeth's mom joined the hug, wrapping both arms around her daughter.

"I trust you'll write every day. Even if you've nothing to say. Okay, darling?" Mom asked, and, if Elspeth didn't know better, she'd have thought her mom was about to cry.

"I will, mom," she said, her voice soft and gentle.

Then, she slowly began to push her cart. She wasn't moving fast or running. It was a slow, careful walk. The cart breached the wall, first. Then, when it was mostly through, Elspeth hesitantly extended a hand, pushing a single finger toward the wall, common sense making her believe her finger would make contact with the brick. But it didn't.

Her finger went all the way through, so she followed her own finger, inch by inch until her arm was through, then she took a final step in, and a whole different world opened up. It was still a train's platform, but the train within was nothing like the drab trains otherwise stationed at King's Cross. It was a beautiful, old-fashioned red train, with a smokestack and a number of empty passenger cars that were slowly filling with bodies.

Students old and new said goodbye to parents near the train. Elspeth watched them curiously as she slowly pushed her cart along the platform. An older boy was embarrassed as his mother licked her hand and smoothed his hair down. A slightly younger boy was bragging about something that Elspeth wasn't quite close enough to hear. A girl that seemed to be among the oldest of the students was actually applying makeup with a very muggle-looking compact. Cats, toads, rats, and owls were scattered throughout the area, some perched upon their masters' shoulders, others atop the train itself.

Elspeth was in no rush, since she was quite early, so she kept pushing her trunk through the early-forming crowds on the platform, watching people go about their lives. This was her world now. A world of magic, but not only magic. There were muggles, reading muggle books. There were people playing gobstones - which she'd only ever seen when her aunt pulled a fast one on her when she was eight. This was a world of magic and mundane, coming together to form a community. A family.

Then she saw him. A boy, probably close to her age, juggling a shuttlecock like a footbag. He was handsome. His wavy, blond hair. His green eyes that seemed to be, unless Elspeth was mistaken, clearly focused on the shuttlecock as he kept it in the air with elegant kicks and shoulder checks, and however else he could manage it with his body. Elspeth rolled her trunk over to the wall, sitting on top of the trunk itself, and watched.

"You're very good at that," she said, her voice soft, barely audible. "But don't most people use a sort of racket for that kind of thing?"

Ripley was in the flow. He was keeping a volley going slowly and deliberately like the boys at the Hong Kong park had taught him. So involved was he in the activity that when a sound came from the wall beside him, he let the shuttlecock drop. Ripley turned towards the voice and found that a girl had pulled her trunk up to the wall and settled down on it. Everything about her was small, like a mouse, except her hair, which was long and free. It took a moment for Ripley's brain to process the meaning of her words. It helped that her eyes, whose gaze had been rapidly encompassing everything, were now resting on his jianzi.

Ripley picked up the shuttlecock and smiled, "Ah, this? No, no, you're thinking of badminton -- that one has a rounded bottom and a little net on top." As he spoke he motioned around the object with his hand.

"This is a jianzi (dj-an-ts), see..." he came closer and took a knee in front of her, holding out the shuttlecock just beneath her eye level so she could get a better look at it, he continued, lowering his voice a little: "...this one has a flat bottom -- better for kicking -- and these feathers on top." He ruffled the feathers. "There are some really fancy ones with different kind of bird feathers and bases but mine is just a regular one, probably sold in any sporting goods store in China. It's special only to me because it was given to me by the guys who taught me how to play, and reminds me of that trip. Want to hold it? I think it's a tiny bit heavier than the one for badminton"

Ripley held the jianzi out to her with an earnest and open look in his eyes.

Elspeth had been bold, rash even, by speaking to the boy she was watching. She had spent the better part of the morning watching people without saying a word to them. That was what she always did at home, usually quietly watching the muggle guests at the inn while ghosts talked to her about whatever was on their mind at the moment. But this time, she hadn't watched quietly. She had commented on the game the boy was playing, and, oh God, now he was coming over and-

...explaining the difference between a badminton shuttlecock and the... "jianzi" he was holding.

Jianzi. Jianzi. She didn't speak the word out loud as he explained it, but she did let it echo in her head as she tested the sound of it with her internal voice. It was a pretty word. One that she wasn't sure she could say correctly if she tried. Not without practice, at least.

"I never knew there was a difference," Elspeth said in her usual, small voice. Her voice was small, almost timid, but her eyes were delighted to have learned something new.

When the boy offered for her to hold the jianzi, she hesitated. She didn't want to impose, or to make a fool of herself, but he was offering. That meant it would be rude to refuse, right? She slowly lifted her hand and accepted the jianzi, holding the weighted part in her palm as her thumb gently prodded the feathers. He'd said it was heavier than the ones used in badminton, but she'd never held one of those before, so she couldn't be the judge.

"Are you from China?" she asked curiously as her eyes took in the details on the feathers. Each little plume and barb comprising the vane attached to the shaft of the feather was like a boon to her eyes. Then, unable to hold back her own curiosity, she added, "Do you know what kind of feathers are in this one?"

She had to bite down slightly on her tongue to stop the parade of other questions that threatened to spill. She was having a conversation with another kid her age, and she didn't want to ruin it by rambling with a hundred questions.

She really is like a mouse, Ripley thought, as the girl cautiously took the jianzi from his hand and examined it. "Are you from China? she asked.

"No, I was born in Ireland...Kilkenny" Ripley answered -- still keeping his voice fairly low. He had learned through experience that people felt most comfortable when he matched their intensity level. When he was younger he'd rush his peers, and even adults, at full-tilt, eyes wide and at full blast. Adults thought that his manic energy was charming and some kids were able to match it, but the shy ones saw him coming and were either petrified, hid, or cried; undoubtedly they felt as if a cannonball was flying their way. It was actually his little sister Darren that had taught Ripley to self-regulate -- when she was a toddler, she would become overwhelmed with his boundless movement, noise, and ignorance of personal space. After she started hitting him as a way to get her space back, their parents taught her to say "too much," and Ripley, who wanted his baby sister to be happy, took the hint. Years later, mirroring other's vibe -- within reason, of course -- had become unconscious behavior for the boy.

He continued: "But we've travelled a lot since I could remember so it's hard to say exactly where I'm from. I got the jianzi on one of my father's work trips to Hong Kong. While he went somewhere to look at fabrics, my mom and sister and I went to play at a park. This was when I was 9, I think. We've been to China a few times -- mostly short trips."

He paused to let his words breath. The girl continued to look over the shuttlecock.

"Do you know what kind of feathers are in this one?"

Ripley thought for a second. Should I lie? What? No...Why? Why am I even considering it? the conversation in his head went. Then he spoke: "I'm not sure, probably goose feathers? The boys that gave it to me really didn't speak much English and I hadn't thought to ask."

A beat passed.

"I'm Ripley, by the way. Just starting at Hogwarts this year. Are you a first year, too?" He asked, not wanting to assume. Size, he knew, was less operative in the wizarding world than in non-mag society.

Elspeth's hands continued to turn the jianzi over as she examined it from different angles, almost as if committing the shape of the object to memory. It was helpful to have an object to latch her attention onto as Ripley spoke to her. That made his attention feel a lot less like a spotlight and more like a comforting bit of conversation from one of the ghosts back home.

Even though her attention seemed focused on the jianzi, she was listening to his words with apt fascination. This wasn't just a ghost telling her stories from hundreds of years ago. This was a real, living person telling her his stories, and that was different, but no less meaningful than what she was used to.

Ripley's father was looking at fabrics, on a work trip in Hong Kong. That meant that, logically...

"Was your father a tailor, or otherwise involved in the world of fashion?" she asked, finally looking up from the jianzi. She stowed away the info about the goose feathers and instead focused on learning more about Ripley.

"I am a first year," she hesitantly acknowledged. "I'm Elspeth, but it's spellt all weird. Elisabeth is the English spelling, I think."

She offered the jianzi back, not wanting to take too much advantage of the offer to hold it.

"Are your parents magical, too?" she asked, wondering what proper magical fashion was like. Her aunt thought she was a connoisseur of magical apparel, but Elspeth mostly thought Nessa just looked silly. Did most wizard adults look silly like Nessa, she wondered.

She didn't normally feel so comfortable around people, but there was something about Ripley that made her feel safe. He was soft-spoke, like her, even if she didn't know he was just unintentionally mirroring her.

Ripley took back the jianzi and bounced it up and down in his hands a few times. He was encouraged by Elspeth's curiosity. Unlike some of the adults he interacted with in his parent's line of work who asked questions but were clearly uninterested in the answers, Elspeth appeared completely genuine in her wonder. There was always the question of how much to reveal -- his parent's being semi-public figures in the magical (and to a certain extent muggle) world's, which occasionally changed how people related to him. These thoughts were instantaneous for the boy, who replied:

"My father, yes, he's the robe designer Obsidian Cunning. He used to work for Twilfitt and Tattings, but he's been doing his own stuff as far as I can remember. It's not clothes you'd find in Gladrags -- mostly he makes custom robes for private clients, but often those come from whatever line he's working on at the moment for, like, runway shows. You probably haven't heard of him; he's mostly unknown outside of the high fashion world but among those people he's, uh, very famous. It's a little bit weird."

"Anyway, I can tell you more later, if you like. It's really nice to meet you, Elspeth! You're the first Hogwarts student, well, future Hogwarts student I've met!"

Ripley got up and began to bounce the shuttlecock lightly while he talked, keeping it below his waist.

"I would say I'm from a magical family, though it's a bit complicated. My father is full mag, wand and all. He even attended Hogwarts, though he doesn't talk about his school years much. My mother...Well, she's technically half-mag -- her mother, my gran, was a witch -- graduated from Ilvermorny but then met my grandpa and went mostly muggle. She kept in touch with her wizarding friends, though, and that's how my parents met. My mother grew up essentially non-mag and only became exposed to the magical world through my father. She does have a wand now and can do basic charms, but that's it."

"How about you? Is your family as complicated as mine?"

Elspeth watched the jianzi bouncing in Ripley's hands, her eyes following it keenly and her ears listening to his story with apt attention.

She didn't know of an Obsidian Cunning. It was a silly name, she thought, but it was one she would have remembered if she'd heard it before. To be a fashion designer was a lovely career, really. Creating something from nothing and proudly showing it off to the world was a level of confidence she had never had, and probably never would in the future.

"The robes he makes..." Elspeth said hesitantly, wondering if her question was rude. "Are they ordinary-looking robes, or are they ordinary-looking only to wizards?"

It was a subtle distinction, but those two options painted very different pictures in her head. When she thought of ordinary robes, she thought of the black robes they bought for school, or perhaps robes of a pastel blue for certain festive occasions? But when she thought of robes that were ordinary only in the eyes of wizards, she thought of robes that had dozens of different mismatched colors, making the wearer stand out like a mountain troll in a nursery.

Elspeth crossed her ankles in front of her and swung her legs idly against her trunk as they spoke. Then Ripley told his family's stories, using words like 'mag' and 'mug' for magic and muggle people, and Elspeth's eyes shone with delight. She liked that. She would probably try to adopt that going forward.

"I never knew my dad," Elspeth answered, feeling a bit self-conscious to be talking about herself, but he'd asked. "My mam was a Squib, but her sister was a witch - a mag. She was a proud Hufflepuff, I was told. A chaser on her quidditch team, too, but I haven't had the privilege to-"

Her sentence was interrupted by a sharp whistle from the Hogwarts Express, and it became quickly apparent that people were beginning to board.

"Oh, we should probably get moving, right?" she asked softly.

She wanted to ask if Ripley would join her on the train, but she didn't want to be too forward. What if he said no? What if he laughed at her and said that he was only humoring her thus far? What if he emptied the contents of her trunk onto the ground and boarded the train himself, alone?

Okay, well, he probably wouldn't do any of those things. Or, at least not the last two. He seemed too nice for that.

Elspeth stood, grabbing the handle of the cart she was pulling her trunk with earlier and began to pull it toward the train, watching him hopefully.

The train whistle, the steam, the excitement of getting a move-on surged through Ripley! He could take a thousand more trips and the signals that a vehicle of transport was ready to go would still be a rush. The other passengers at the station began moving toward the train as well, perhaps afraid that they would miss it. The settled and stationary always approached travel with such anxiety, Ripley's dad would go on over dinner with a jet-setting friend or cosmopolitan client, their train, bus, plane, whatever was twenty steps away but as soon as the doors opened they mobbed the entrance. Did they think it would take off right under their nose?

Ripley smiled good-naturedly as Elspeth hopped off her trunk and began pulling it towards the massive locomotive. Their goes the mouse! Tossing the jianzi up and letting it drop into his hand a couple of times, he slipped the shuttlecock into his bag and followed the girl.

As she looked back at him, Ripley put his hand on Elspeth's trunk and pushed it lightly as he pulled his own with his other hand. Luggage was a team effort in his family and he figured that she wouldn't mind a little boost. As they got closer to the train, he called.

"Hang on, El, let all of these eager people get on first. There's plenty of space inside! Plus, it doesn't leave for another..." He consulted the giant clock on the wall, "...fourteen minutes."

Popping up on his trunk as Elspeth had been sitting on hers earlier, he said: "You asked about my father's robes. They are, eh, not ordinary. Even among wizards and witches. Don't get me wrong, he is able to make regular robes like these," he motions to his and her school robes, "from basic patterns. He's an expert at regular muggle tailoring, but he, how do I put it...does his own thing."

"Mom says that he likes shocking people on purpose. Like, he had a robe he made that reflected the world around it like a mirror but was soft and flowing like fabric -- it looked totally impossible, like you had to do a double-take when you saw it. He didn't stop there, though. When the robe reflected people, it gave each person a beak of a bird of prey so they saw they saw they would see their faces and they were part hawk or falcon, you know. The runway show for that one was wild! When the model walked out, they oohed and aahed about the mirror material, but then she walked directly past them and it was a mix of a silence and all sorts of shock and surprise. He called that one Preyflect. I think he only ended up making a few of them. So yeah, some of the stuff he makes bespoke for clients can look more ordinary, but even with those, it's always more than what it seems. Lots of really complex charms work."

Ripley looked at the clock and got up from his trunk.

"I'm sorry about your dad. But your aunt was a quidditch player! You'll have to tell me more about her on the train. It looks like the first wave made it on. Shall we?"

Elspeth was struggling with her heavy trunk. She never considered herself weak, but with a trunk full of books that she learned, from reading ahead, were meant to last until her seventh year at Hogwarts in some cases, and the clothes she brought, and, of course, her personal books, the trunk was definitely too heavy for the small, scrawny girl.

Then, she became stronger! It was the only explanation for why the trunk suddenly felt so much lighter. She was pulling it, feeling her arms burning, and then suddenly the pressure of its weight behind her significantly lessened.

Well, maybe she didn't grow stronger. As she peeked over her shoulder, she saw Ripley pulling his own trunk with one hand and pushing hers with the other.

Gods, she thought, eyes slightly wider than before. He's strong.

When Ripley called out for her to stop, Elspeth stopped in an instant, no longer pulling the heavy trunk. She turned back to face him, her hands clasped in front of her on top of the trunk. Was he waiting for the crowds to thin out? He must have lacked the anxiety that Elspeth possessed. She had been so worried about missing the train, even with fourteen minutes to spare, that she had instantly rushed at the sound of the first whistle. She still felt nervous about it, but when Ripley sat on his trunk in a mirror of her earlier posture, she relaxed a bit, joining him on her own trunk.

"Minus the bird of prey aspect, I think the mirror robe sounds lovely. Unique," she said, picturing the robe clearly in her head. It would look better as a dress, she thought, but the robe itself sounded enticing enough. She wasn't a fashionista by any means, though, so she knew nothing about such things.

Then Ripley stood, watching the clock and talking about Elspeth's Auntie Nessie, and suddenly they were on the move again.

"Sure," Elspeth nodded. She loved talking about her aunt. Her aunt was one of her two favorite people in the world, and Elspeth had definitely listened to her fair share of stories from the witch.

"But first, we should help each other with loading our trunks onto the train," she said, dragging her trunk forward once more.

Obviously it would probably boil down to Ripley doing the actual heavy lifting while Elspeth embarrassed herself with her lack of muscle, but that was a sacrifice she was willing to make.


{To the Express!}