journey of a thousand spells PV Closed

Sylvie Hawthorne
⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅
Date: 1/Sep/2021 | Time: 11:00 | Mood: Excited/Nervous| Location: Compartment 31, Hogwarts Express
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─────“That’s too bad! I’m almost glad I didn’t have a phone—I would hate to lose it for a whole year.” Sylvie brightened at the sound of all the activities Anemone had been into at home. “Do you live with your grandparents? Or do they just live nearby? They sound really lovely. I don’t know much about gardening or fishing, but I do love being outside! There are some really nice trails near where I live, I loved being in the forest there. And you draw! That’s so exciting—can I see some of your art sometime?”

“The bus ride wasn’t very long, though!” Sylvie said, turning to Zelda when questioned on her trip to York. “Just 40 minutes from the Post Office in Wheldrake to Piccadilly, and then a six minute walk to the chocolate museum. Kids at school teased me about not doing anything fun because my parents are too old. Just because I’d never tried bubble tea or been to the movies! So I took my pocket money and I walked to the Post Office—it’s not a very far walk—and off I went! What a jolly time. The bubble tea was quite filling, but fortunately there was room left over for the chocolate I had at the museum. It was only 13 quid for a child ticket, and as my da would say, ‘that is nothing in this economy!’.”

What a fond memory! Sylvie was glad to relive it a bit, and relished Zelda’s reaction at her being bold enough to travel by herself. She hadn’t even brought Sevver along, though it would have been fun to have him. She’d been so miffed by the children at school that she hadn’t really planned for the trip—when walking past the Post Office on her way home from school she’d gotten the idea. She had the lady working behind the counter look up the location of a bubble tea shop she could easily reach by bus—it had been a very slow day, so Kathy hadn’t minded—and it just so happened York’s Chocolate Story had been right there. Everyone at school had been so jealous of her! But she’d been grounded for a month from it, which only Sevver knew, and he was a good chum and kept quiet about it.

Sylvie listened as the girls began to talk about wands, and peered avidly at both of their wands. She had forgotten that everyone would have a different one! Shopping for the school supplies had been so fun, but trying out wands had been her favourite part—besides the ice cream sundae, of course. If the kids at school knew about shopping for wands and eating magical sundaes heaped high with toppings they would not say she and her folks did not know how to have fun!

“What is a snallygaster?” Sylvie echoed. “Do you suppose we’ll learn about it in Care for Magical Creatures? It sounds like it’d be… I don’t know… a tiny creature, like ferret or something! I would not want to be the one responsible for getting its heart strings, though!” The diamond shaped pattern around the handle of the wand was so attractive. “It’s such a pretty wand!”

Sylvie set the lute back into its case, then dutifully retrieved her wand for the impromptu show and tell. It was far plainer than Zelda’s—in fact it resembled the dowel on a rocking chair back more than anything magical or mystical. It was of a lighter wood with multiple inlaid grooves placed along the length of it. Sylvie held it out so that Zelda could touch it, or even hold it if she chose.

“Mine is 28,4 cm, alder wood, and unicorn hair core!” she said, brightening at the mention of unicorns. “Isn’t it wonderful to know that unicorns are actually real?! And I’m glad it’s a hair and not a heart string—that’d be too sad to think about. I can’t even picture snallygaster, so I don’t know what to be sad over.” She turned to Anemone. “What about yours? And how many wands did you go through before one chose you? The person in front of me took ages in the shop, it must have been quite fun to wave so many around!”

Sylvie reached out and patted Zelda’s knee in an effort to comfort her. “Don’t feel foolish,” she said gently and earnestly. “All of us have questions about this. I think it’d stranger not to!” Setting back in her chair, she smiled. “I’m a half-blood, too, on my pa’s side. I’ve known since I was little, but I suppose it’s different if you come from a big wizard family and all your aunts and uncles are off doing magical jobs all day long and spelling your Christmas present to do who-knows-what!”

Zelda listened with mouth agape as Sylvie related her adventures in York. The girl sitting opposite her seemed fairly retiring and mild-mannered but Zelda was pleasantly surprised to see that when she really entered into a subject, her face was illuminated with a cheerful glow and she could be just as talkative as Zelda felt like she was being herself. “I think I’ve only had bubble tea just the one time when we went on a short family trip to London. Not sure if I was a fan honestly! I’m really interested in this chocolate museum though, I’ve never heard of anything quite like it!” Zelda quipped, making a mental note to write about it to her younger sister, who would be equally interested in such a venture. Her heart twinged a little at the thought of when she might next see her that they might be able to go to York to check out the museum together.

When Anemone explained the meaning behind her name, Zelda listened intently. “Those are such great reasons for that! Do you have a nickname or something you prefer people to call you? As for me, my name actually means something like ‘strong woman’, which my parents hoped I would become when I grow up. But I’m pretty sure it’s also because they both used to play a lot of that video game together when they were dating.” Zelda rolled her eyes but laughed. Her parents were actually still playing that series of video games when they had free time.

Zelda leaned back as the other girls speculated on what a snallygaster might be. She loved that point during the conversation when enough awkwardness had been dispelled that it could carry itself, and she could rest and fade a bit more into the background. “A snallygaster makes me think of a really horrible snail, or some equally gross insect or bug,” Zelda made a face as all manners of icky animals came to mind. “But then again, I don’t suppose they could make a whole wand from the heartstring of a small bug, so it has to be a pretty big animal, won’t it?”

As Sylvie and Anemone took out their wands and described them, Zelda looked over them with wide-eyed and open-mouthed curiosity. To tell the truth, she was a little jealous that Sylvie had a unicorn hair in her wand. Which child wouldn’t want something that had belonged to a unicorn in something that they would presumably use quite a lot from then on? Furthermore, at least it was just a unicorn hair, which sounded a lot less nasty than a snallygaster heartstring. Anemone’s wand turned to have a dragon heartstring in it. It wasn’t a lot better thinking about how people got hold of that to make the wand, but all in all Zelda felt like her wand core was the least cool of the three. She really hoped that she wouldn’t underperform in Hogwarts because of that, though she had no clue how wand ingredients affected someone’s magic, if at all.

“You guys honestly have the coolest wand cores, mine must be some nasty big bug or something!” Zelda lamented as she kept her wand back into the box. “I suppose they would have to kill the animals to get their heartstrings. Unless magic has a way of obtaining the heartstrings without any harm to the animal?” Zelda brightened up. Perched as she was on the precipice of the wizarding world without the foggiest idea of what was ahead of her, the potential of magic mixed with her childish imagination was, just then, endless.

Anemone talked about her own experience choosing the wand and how hers had purple sparks flying out. “That must’ve been awesome! I can’t remember how many wands I tried, maybe just about two or three? I don’t remember it taking that long. Nothing super interesting happened when it did too, the wand seemed to grow a little warm in my hands and I think it shot a gust of air out that blew down a stack of Ollivander’s papers.” Zelda remembered that day, when her mom had accompanied her to Diagon Alley to get her school supplies. Zelda hadn’t even realised the gust of wind had come from her wand at first, and merely thought it had just been a particularly strong breeze coming in through the open door.

She felt immensely relieved to hear that Sylvie was also a half-blood, even if she hadn’t been kept in the dark about magic. “It’s so nice that you grew up with magic! I’m honestly pretty nervous that I’m going to be so far behind everyone else because I didn’t even know magic was a thing until just last December!” For a long time, Zelda had wondered why her mom had chosen to keep magic a secret from her children. Of course, Mrs Lime had explained many times to her and her siblings her reasons—so that they could grow up with as Muggle-like a childhood as possible in case they needed to grow up and live Muggle lives—but at her age and in her current situation, Zelda still had some trouble reconciling it. It almost seemed a bit like Mrs Lime was culpable of making Zelda feel like such an odd one out in this new world.

As she spoke, a particularly big bump from the train rattled what looked like a sketchbook out of Anemone’s bag onto the floor. As the girl bent down to pick it up, her wand also slipped out of her grasp, shooting something bright and yellow directly towards the sketchbook, which then launched itself towards the wall and exploded into a strange burst of yellow butterflies.
“Whoa!” Zelda exclaimed. She was so stunned for a moment that she wasn’t sure if she should be helping to catch the butterflies or help them escape the train. The butterflies themselves clearly knew better than her what to do and most of them had slipped out of the windows and door before Zelda could gather her wits.

“Oh no, I’m sorry that happened to a gift from your grandma! Does that happen very often, this thing with making notebooks into yellow butterflies?” Zelda asked. “The only thing I’ve really made my wand do is maybe just sparkle a little when I’m waving it about really hard.”

Just then, Zelda’s stomach gave a deep growl. “Are any of you hungry? Do you reckon there’s food available on the train? I really lshould’ve packed a sandwich but I was really rushing to make it in time.”

interacting with: @Sylvie Hawthorne, @Anemone Waddleath

Sylvie Hawthorne
⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅
Date: 1/Sep/2021 | Time: 11:00 | Mood: Excited/Nervous| Location: Compartment 31, Hogwarts Express
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─────Sylvie looked between Anemone and Zelda as they spoke, smiling and nodding and adding in when there was a chance. The train rolled on, and it was comforting now. Her whole magical life was opening up in front of her: new friends, new places, new abilities. She felt the spark of possibilities like a physical thing, a current of energy that hummed just beneath the surface of her skin.

She grinned when Anemone said she’d share her art. She’d have to remember to ask again when they were at Hogwarts! Or would Hogwarts be so big that she’d never see her again? No… they were both first years! At the very least they’d have classes together.

“‘Loves being powerful…’” Sylvie repeated, eyes wide with awe. “Mine said it was ‘reasonably springy, ideal for duels,’ and,” she blushed, as if bragging, “‘fond of fast, quick-witted and flexible wizards’.”

She listened attentively as Anemone and Zelda talked about their names. There was nothing particularly special about 'Sylvie', as far as she knew.

“Don’t worry,” she said to Zelda when she expressed her concern at being behind. “Wizard children aren’t allowed to do magic until they go to Hogwarts, and even then, they can’t use magic when they—we—go home on vacation. I doubt they’ve been reading textbooks or anything!”

Sylvie really had read a textbook—the one on Charms—but that was an accident, and she hadn’t realized it’d be required reading at the time.

It was delightful when the book turned into a swarm of butterflies—but also very sad, and a little alarming! She would hate it if that happened to any of her instruments… She wondered if it would be rude to nudge her lute case somewhere safer.

“Oh, I could do with a sandwich right about now! Or scones! Or crepes! Or all of them, heaped on top of each other! My pa said there’s a trolley the comes by with food. I wonder if it’ll show up soon?”

Zelda listened with fascinated silence as Sylvie explained that wizard children didn’t actually do magic from when they were babies. It made her feel a little better but still – she thought there must be a difference growing up in a wizarding household even if you couldn’t do any magic yourself, than having what must be a comparatively boring Muggle life until one got one’s Hogwarts letter as had happened to Zelda.

“So what does happen if we use magic when we’re back home then? Do we get arrested or expelled?” Zelda asked. Her mom hadn’t explained anything about that to her, but she supposed there was just too much about this hidden world for her mom to have been properly be able to go through with her in the time between Zelda getting her letter and when her Hogwarts term started.

Zelda raised an eyebrow when Anemone revealed that her nickname had in fact been ‘Sprigs’. It seemed like a bit of a mean nickname but Anemone didn’t seem to mind it that much. Perhaps it had been used in an endearing, affectionate way, Zelda thought. It was like when her father and brother sometimes called her Princess purely as a reference to the video game instead of any mean-spirited intentions and Zelda didn’t mind that at all.

“You know what, this whole conversation about Snallygaster is making me so curious that I’ll go look it up in the Magical Creatures textbook once we get to Hogwarts!” Zelda laughed. It still sounded like a nasty creature to her but at least it made her feel better knowing that people who may have grown up in more magical environments than she did still had a lot they didn’t know about the wizarding world, and maybe she wasn’t going to be so behind everyone else after all.

Zelda was pleased when her newfound train mates confessed that they were just as hungry as she felt. She got off the seat and peered out of the compartment door. She couldn’t quite see anyone just yet but heard the sounds of what might be a conversation between the trolley witch and some other students floating down from the next carriage just out of sight.

“Seems like the trolley witch is just around the corner!” Zelda announced as she sat back down and rummaged in her bag for her wallet. Just as she found it, though, a thought struck her. “Hang on a minute. Does the trolley witch accept Muggle money or do we need to pay her in those funny coins that I had to use in Diagon Alley?” Mrs Lime had given her a bag full of those but until now she wasn’t quite sure what the denominations were and how to tell them apart, and she hoped she could use her Muggle money all the same.

interacting with: @Sylvie Hawthorne, @Anemone Waddleath