Discovering a new world Closed

Momiji jumped hearing the sound and looking at the new girl. Her expression reminded her of some of the older kids in her old school to focused on their studies and hated to be bothered by people below them academically.

"I-i don't mind..." she said quietly holding her bear close as she watched the girl before looking back towards Naomi as she spoke. "Houses?" she repeated. A thoughtful expression coming to her face before she remembered people or rather kids talking in the shops she had visited the day before something about a griffin and some sort of door. A ravens claw? something slithering and a huff... or puff? she wasn't sure what any of it meant she hadn't exactly been paying attention to what they had been saying either she had been too busy figuring out new money and trying to afford all of the school supplies she needed. But she did remember hearing the parents telling them about the houses they had been in. and how proud they were of them. either way, she didn't want to voice these memories out loud she wasn't quite comfortable enough with these girls but then again she hadn't been comfortable enough to tell anyone outside of her parents when they were alive.

Lillian sat down, opening her book and ignoring the ginger girl’s question. That was until the shy girl said "Houses?" with a confused tone.

Lillian knew something about this. She folded down the corner of the page she was on. “The four Hogwarts houses are Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Slytherin and Hufflepuff. They all have different values, and whatever values you hold will land you in your Hogwarts house. Personally, I believe it’s an outdated and improper system, but whatever.” She explained in her monotone voice, as if she had no cares in the world, although her accent was prominent.

Although Lillian didn’t particularly enjoy talking to people, she wanted to show off her knowledge. Her mother hadn’t told her about Hogwarts - in fact her mother hadn’t even gone there - but she did do a lot of research about it beforehand, using her fast reading skills to do as much as she could. “The Gryffindor values are Bravery, helping others, and chivalry. The Hufflepuff ones are Hard work, patience, loyalty, and fair play, Ravenclaw is
Ravenclaw Intelligence, knowledge, planning ahead, and wit and Slytherin is Ambition, cunningness, heritage, and resourcefulness.” She said, still monotone and uncaring, “So what one do you think suits you?”

@Momoji Mikoto

Naomi clearly did not appreciate being ignored by the new girl. She should have said no when this one asked to get in the compartment. She put her resentments aside, she did not want to start her new life on a scene. Nevertheless, her gaze on the Asiatic girl changed, becoming meaner. She did not even introduce herself. She bit her lips trying to contain the anger rising. She started explaining the houses, in a monotone voice. Naomi listened though but decided to not reply at all, as it seems that the dark-haired girl would only reply to Momoji.

She grabbed her book, and without a word starting reading it. The truth was that she had no clue which houses she would fall into and no clue how they would get sorted. Would they have to pass some kind of test? The red-haired kid was so confused about all that but refused to show it to the two other girls.

Her new life definitely was starting poorly, she hoped that not every wizard was like this girl who decided to straight-up ignoring her. If so, the following seven years will be very lonely. Not like Naomi minded, she would still have her friends back home but she would have liked avoiding this situation.

Momiji looked thoughtful at the other girl's words. so... I mostly heard right... sorta she thought to herself she really didn't see herself going into Gryffindor... She wasn't very brave. maybe one of the other three? but then again with Slytherin if heritage was a part of it she didn't really know hers so she was counting that one out. so she was down to two She was hard working. She loved school and learning new things... it sounded like she'd fit in with both of those. at least a little bit.

She watched as Naomi got out her book and now the two of them were reading. "i... I guess m-maybe h-Hufflepuff or r-Ravenclaw for me... I like school a lot and I like learning..." she said quietly and a little timidly. She could feel a sort of tension in the air like she had from the group home when a fight might start to break out. "i-i wonder what sort of t-test it will bet-to get in... w-what if you test well in more than one house?" she asked curiously. Thinking of it like they were different categories. if you got some answers right for more than one would the percentages for each thing go up? but then again this was a magic school so maybe they did something else... she thought about the wand she had gotten. perhaps something with that? she thought to herself.

The quieter girl said that she’d maybe be in Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff. Then she said "i-i wonder what sort of t-test it will bet-to get in... w-what if you test well in more than one house?" and Lillian laughed at this, making her seem rather condescending. “You clearly haven’t done any research,” she said. This made her sound a little mean, but she didn’t really mean to, she just didn’t think before talking.

“There’s no test to get in, it’s not written down on paper or anything. There’s a hat, a talking hat that they call the sorting hat. They call you up and you sit down, they put it on your head and it shouts out what house your in,” she explained with a shrug, “It’s that simple.”

With that, she put her book away and sat up properly. “I don’t like the system...it doesn’t work. People can have mixed values, people can change their values all the time.”

She looked at Naomi, wondering what she was reading. “Hey, you, what are you reading?” She asked, noticing that she wasn’t involving herself in the conversation. Then, she realised that she hadn’t introduced herself. “My name is Lillian, by the way.”

@Naomi Joh @Momoji Mikoto

The girl finally introduced hereself. How nice of her.

" Nice to meet ya. I'm reading the History of Hogwart. Y'know, doing my research "

She was saying that rather bitterly before noticing that Lillian tried to make what looked like an effort, and decided to do the same. She put her book aside too.

" What about you? What are you reading?"

She was willing to put her bad temper aside in order to get a good journey to Hogwart. Naomi tried to smile but it definitely failed. The best she could do in the mood she was in was an odd smirk.

" And for the house, I have absolutely no clue where I'd be going. And... I don't know enough to talk about my opinion on this system."

She shrugged, not liking that she did not know what to expect while being excited at the unknown. It was a weird and unexplainable feeling, and she did not know how to deal with that. She mostly understood that her house would impact future friendship and maybe path as her way to become a teenager. She finally understood why everyone was making a big deal out of that. People sorted in a house, might want to exacerbate the values they were supposed to represent, shaping them as being forever.

Naomi responded to Lillian in a rather bitter way, but she brushed it aside, not being that bothered. Lillian had actually already read The History of Hogwarts, History was something she was very interested in, it was even her favourite subject at muggle school so there was no doubt she'd enjoy it here. Then, the ginger said " What about you? What are you reading?".

Lillian shrugged, "It's a muggle book, I don't know if you've heard of it. It's called The Secret History and it's by an author called Donna Tartt. It's a beautiful book, really. I've read it over ten times, it's my favourite." She sighed, putting her book away and looking at Momoji.

"Hey, are you from East Asia? If you don't mind me asking...It's just, you know, your name and stuff, it doesn't seem exactly English." Lillian said. She was just trying to make conversation. Lillian was from China herself, and it seemed like the small girl might be from Japan or somewhere around there, although her striking blue eyes made Lillian wonder if she really was, "I suppose, what I mean exactly is..Are your parents from East Asia? Or at least one of them? I'm from China myself."

@Momoji Mikoto @Naomi Joh

Momiji looked between the two girls. She wanted to mention she had started reading A history of magic the night before but couldn't quite bring herself to do it. She grabbed her bear's paw and rubbed the fur to calm herself again. Then looked out the window as well seeing some animals from someone's farm in the distance. She turned back to look at the girls letting her mind drift into thinking about farm life and how different that world was from what she was doing right then. She blinked a little as the girl turned to her asking her pretty blunt questions. She bit her lip a little "T-To be honest i-i'm not sure... My b-biological parents died w-when I was really little... I was around 1 and a half to 2 years old... S-so I don't... I don't really remember them..." She looked down sadly. "I-i'm assuming i-i'm half.. c-cause o-of my eyes... k-kids a-always c-commented on them..." She shrugged a little then shifted to have her legs on the bench not really taking up much more room than she had before as she hugged her bear close. "m-my mom and dad were looking i-into them b-before..." she trailed off playing with the shoelace of her old hand me down shoes. "I-I am in E-England n-now d-did you l-live in china?" she asked suddenly changing the subject looking at Lillian then looked at Naomi. "w-what about you? i-i'm guessing s-somewhere i-in England as w-well?"

Lillian regretted asking once the girl brought up the death of her parents. “Oh...I’m so sorry, I didn’t know...My real father died when I was young too, in a car accident. I was with him but he died really quickly so I never got to say goodbye really.” She wanted to relate to the girl but she felt like she was saying too much and over sharing, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t talk about that, it’s dark.”

Wanting to change the subject, she said “My parents are from China, but I’ve always lived in Scotland, although we did visit China quite a lot whenever we could...I have a lot of relatives.” She nodded, glad that she wouldn’t have to talk about that anymore.

“And yeah, I get the eyes thing. When I went into school on my first try day, everyone stared at me like I was some sort of animal...Scotland isn’t very diverse, the only person I know who looks like me is my mum...” she laughed a little, but she was glad that there was something her and the quiet girl could relate to.

“But I’ve never lived in China. It makes me a little sad to be honest.”

@Momoji Mikoto @Naomi Joh

The topic quickly went into some depressing stuff. Naomi did not really know what to say. She wasn't good at helping strangers on that. The only words that she could come up with was a vague:
" Sorry to hear that."

She understood a little bit more why the girl always seemed so scared and shy all the time. Naomi was very closed to her family and could not imagine having to lose one of them. It was not even a possibility. They weren't perfect, but she could be ready to do everything in her power to keep them safe. At least the two girls found a topic that they could both relate to.

" And, I'm from Brighton, nothing exciting I'm afraid."

She looked at the window, Britain's landscape could be seen, mainly boring and plain countryside in Naomi's eyes. She went a lot of time in the English countryside during breaks, she knew it, and wasn't finding it very exciting. She still was curious about China, it seemed so far. Her parents certainly never had the money to visit there.

" I know China can be very different according to where you are, but how does it look like? Like the cultural difference and everything y'know.

She hoped the discussion would go better.