General The Ravenclaw Table 2017-2018

Mason turned away from Jeronimo and towards Cecily, smiling at her.
"Hi!" he beamed. "Oh, I don't have any siblings; I'm an only child. It gets a little lonely sometimes, to be honest. I have some cousins, but they're way older than me..." He laughed. "What about you, how many siblings do you have?"

Mason looked around the table at the acquaintances he'd made. Everyone was quite friendly, and he was no longer worried about whether or not he'd be able to make friends. He was sure that, even if he didn't grow close with the three people he had met tonight, he'd make friends with someone very soon.

Still, in the back of his mind, he thought about his friends back at home and wondered how they were doing. He wondered how he'd manage to communicate with them- he couldn't just send them an owl, could he? Obviously not- mail generally wasn't sent via bird in the muggle world. he didn't have the means to communicate with them, and even if he did, there wasn't much he could talk about since they couldn't know about where he was. His friends probably weren't missing him as much as he missed them, considering they didn't know how far away he was... but Mason was okay with that. He didn't want them to be sad.

Looking around at his three new acquaintances, he absentmindedly asked, "Do any of you have friends at home that you miss?"

Lucia was still focused on her drawing as she was only on the third tree.She couldn't miss a single detail.She was doing this drawing in full color and not sketching it out first so she couldn't mess up. She was about on the 10th leaf of that tree.She was using many shades of each color in the drawing.

She was using marker so she had to be careful when blending the darker with the lighter.She carefully switched between the lighter and darker shades of the green working on the leafs.When she finally finished the leaves on that tree she began another tree which with each tree she took one shade of brown making careful strokes with the brush side of the marker she was using.She did this so it would look like a real tree.

She slowly went with the marker before switching to another shade of brown making more soft strokes with the brush side. She continued this with every color not making a mistake on any mark to make it look realistic. She had about 7 different shades of brown to go through and about 4 shades of green for the leaves.She had only been through about 3 of the shades of brown when she decided to take a break.

Jeronimo beamed.

“Absolutely, Mason!” he exclaimed, “That’d be great! Roommates! I don’t know what dorms are here, but maybe we can register together!”

Jeronimo laughed in relief as he scooped some pie into his mouth. Thank goodness. He thought he’d have to make friends inside the dorm.

The other girl, Cecily, had more or less been watching them talk this whole time. When she finally spoke up, Jeronimo leaned in to listen to her quiet voice. When Mason replied about his family, the boy grinned widely.

“What do you know?” Jeronimo said, leaning back on their bench, “I’m an only child, too! Though, not as lonely as people say. I dunno. I can always amuse myself.”

The boy glanced around, almost apologetically.

“Uh, so, how about you, Cecily? Brother-sister-wise?”

Jeronimo glances at Mason, who had thankfully changed the subject. However, his new friend had suddenly taken a forlorn expression.

“I mean,” Jeronimo shuffled uncomfortably, “Some friends. I know this other boy, Peter. He has long hair. He’s nice. Muggle, though, so he thinks I’m getting homeschooled. He must think I’d gone mad.”

As he noticed the somber tone of his voice, Jeronimo cleared his throat.

“If you have friends out there, maybe you can ask one of the Prefects for help. I’m sure they have friends who are also Muggle-born, who’ve dealt with this sort of thing.”

Clarisse beamed at Lucia, shovelling cereal while the other girl spoke. It left her in a rather awkward position when it came to her replying. After a short moment of silence as she made sure her mouth was empty enough to avoid spraying milk everywhere, she replied, "I was eating cereal, just like this. And then it came - it wasn't that exciting when the owl flew in, we get messages like that from my mum's friends and family all the time. Only it was addressed to me - just me! - and it had the Hogwarts seal on it. I still have it, in my room." She grinned widely. "How about you?"

Lucia then joined the conversation the other first years were having and Clarisse listened in, a little too shy to join in straight away. She didn't want to interrupt, anyway. Cecily, Mason, Jeronimo... She was never going to keep up with all these names, and that was only people who were in Ravenclaw. Coming to Hogwarts, with all these students, was so overwhelming, especially after spending the last few years with the same twenty people.

Finally, she built up the courage to speak to them.

"Do you think we can ever tell our friends, the muggle ones, about us? Or can we never?" she added, directing her attention towards Jeronimo and Mason. "I mean, my dad found out eventually. So I guess you can tell some at some point. It's just weird, isn't it? Thinking I could be having maths and geography and physics with them, and that they don't even know my next lesson is Charms. Or Transfiguration. Or flying. That's weird, right?"

Cecily had been listening and sitting very quietly this time as they all went around to talk about their families. Finally, she spoke.
"Yeah, I'm sure it must be. I'm glad I have siblings. I have four siblings, Connor, Gavin, and Charlotte and Savannah who are twins. I really enjoy them, but they talk about Hogwarts so much, that it made me want to go so badly. And I'm finally here! Although I am so shy, and it's very hard to make friends for me. All my siblings love talking to people, they're the kind of people who will go up to anyone and become friends with them. Even if they are in a different house! It amazes me. They always tell me that they used to be like me when they were younger. They say that someday I'll be like them... less shy. But I don't know if I believe them. I can't imagine that I'll ever be as talkative as them."
Cecily noticed that she had been talking for a while, which seemed to always happen to her. She immediately stopped talking and let other people talk. Another question was asked, and once again everyone in that conversation went around to answer.
"Well, I guess my parents, but I still feel close to them because I know I can write them anytime I want, and they can write me. I don't have really any friends at home, except for two muggle friends. I don't really keep up with them though, and they think I'm a little bit awkward. I'm always awkward around muggles."
Cecily stopped it there, so she wouldn't keep rambling on. Then she heard the question that Clarisse asked.
"I don't know. I don't think they'd understand, really! My dad obviously figured out by my mom, and all of our actions when we were showing signs of Wizardy. But I haven't told anyone else, although they think I'm... different. Doesn't the Ministry of Magic forbid that though? But that is weird to think about!"

"When it comes to talking to our friends about the school we can talk about friends we've made and anything not related to magic,"Lucia said "but if any of us began to talk about magic we could be removed from the school."She had finished her drawing finally with each tree looking like it was an actual moment in time. Every tree looked real and had movement and so did the thestral, but different from the other picture is that she made it so this one did move. The thestral began to move through the forest going deeper into it and back to the front of the picture it flew across and through the leaves too. that's when she whispered to the thestral "Keep quiet I want you to be still until I show them the picture your in." The thestral nodded and got in place. Lucia then yelled in the middle of their conversation"Can everyone pause for a second! I have something I want to show you."She then set the drawing on the table once everyone had looked over the Thestral decided to begin bounding through out the drawing.Lucia laughed with a smile, happy to see the thestral having fun.

Mason smiled wide, relieved that Jeronimo liked the idea of being roommates. He was glad he'd be rooming with someone he knew.

He nodded as Jeronimo spoke of his friend back home, but when Jeronimo suggested he ask one of the prefects for advice, he smiled and his eyes went wide.

"That's a good idea!" he said excitedly. "Why didn't I think of that? Thank you, Jeronimo." Mason immediately felt better knowing there could be a solution to his problem. He grabbed a cake and put it on his plate, no longer feeling down. He nodded as Cecily talked about his family.

"Four siblings!" he said. "That's a lot. I understand having a hard time making friends sometimes," he added, "I'm the same way. Though, for me, it's usually not from being shy- it has more to do with being the opposite." Normally, Mason didn't like admitting that making friends could be difficult, but he didn't mind when he was talking to someone with the same problem. He smiled at her reassuringly.

He looked up at the girl who's name he thought was Clarisse as she joined the conversation.

"Oh, I dunno," Mason replied. "I guess there must be some kind of exception to the rule... maybe you're allowed to tell someone if you've known each other for a long time, or if you're married to them or rely on them in some way... But I doubt we'd be able to just casually tell our muggle friends. If we did that, the wizarding world wouldn't even really be hidden anymore." Mason was pretty sure most of his friends would tell the moment Mason said he was a wizard, and he couldn't really blame them for that.

Mason flinched when Lucia yelled. He turned and looked at the drawing.

"Oooh, that's so neat!" Mason said, much like he did before. "How do you get it to move like that?"

"I agree," Cecily said to Mason, "but I love having four siblings! Until they all went off to Hogwarts. Then it felt like I was an only child! That's why I'm so glad I'm here at Hogwarts! But I'm also not glad, because I'm not in any houses that my siblings were sorted in. Connor and Gavin are in Griffyndor, and Charlotte and Savannah are in Hufflepuff. It'll be hard not hardly seeing them even when I'm in the same school as them. Wait a second, you mean you are too talkative? And that's why you don't have any friends? But, why?"

Cecily turned to Lucia as she yelled. "Wow, that's a really cool drawing, Lucia! Why do Thestrals look like that though?" Cecily had no idea what a Thestral was, but she did indeed notice it looked a little scary.

After everyone had looked at the picture and began talking with each other again, Cecily looked at Lucia. Cecily thought she took a little too much pride in her drawings, which Cecily disliked a lot. Cecily also thought Lucia was a little bit of a know-it-all, but Cecily felt tiredness overcome her, so she decided to go on to bed.
"I've signed up for the Luna Lovegood dormitory if any of you girls want to join me! I'm so tired, so I'm going to bed," Cecily expalined to all of them. She waved goodbye and left, very tired.

Jeronimo licked the vanilla ice cream off his lips before speaking to Clarisse.

"Well, maybe. Maybe it's to do with family? They can't exactly blame children for accidentally knocking a cup off a table with magic. Although... I wonder if my father still remembers magic. He's a Muggle, and he uh..."

Jeronimo shrugged.

"He's left the family."

The boy smiled quietly for a moment. "Not in a... he couldn't handle it, you know. The magic. He's still my father."

"You're absolutely right, though. It's very odd. It's also kind of odd that we don't learn maths. Do wizards not use maths? Not that I mind, obviously. My mother used to make me study my multiplication tables. I used to hate it. Thought it was pointless."

Jeronimo turned and watched the drawing move on the sketchbook.

"See, I don't even know how you do that," Jeronimo mused, pausing as he swallowed the last of his ice cream, "Is that a spell? Does that just happen when wizards or witches make pictures? Or-"

He stopped cold in his speech.

"Thestrals?" Jeronimo said, eyes growing dark, "Those are the... That's the haunted animals right? Something to do with dead people... um... Right. Only dead people can see them."

Jeronimo glanced to the sides before looking at Lucia with concern.

"Have you... seen a dead person?" he whispered.

Jeronimo blinked, then rose from his seat.

"Listen, I think I'm gonna go and register for dorms. I'll see you there whenever, Mason?"

The others explained their situations and what they thought about it all. It was true, wasn't it, that there was a law to keep them quiet? But of course, her mother told her father at one point. What was the deciding factor?

And why did she think the first years would have enough knowledge about wizarding law to tell her that? She smiled at their responses, but noted to herself to look it up separately.

She turned back to Jeronimo, who had been talking about maths. "They're not pointless! There are tons of uses, like the whole of rest of maths..." She trailed off, realising that at this point, maybe it was. "So wait, if we don't do any maths... That's stupid. Maybe times tables are pointless for us after all." But she liked maths. Maybe she'd just have to learn it alongside magic, with all the other muggle subjects.

She was about to say something else when Lucia announced to the table that she wanted to share her picture with them. Perhaps a little vain. Then again, the girl had talent - real talent. "I wanna know what Mason asked - how'd you get it to move?" Had she had just done that now? The girl had been drawing, but Clarisse couldn't remember what it was. If it had been that...

"What's a thestral?" she then asked, staring at the picture to spot the creature. It was a strange, bony-looking horse thing, with wings. Scary, overall. They had to be some sort of magical creature, but Clarisse didn't know very many. Jeronimo explained (not properly, of course), before whispering something to Lucia.

Without even waiting for a response, he moved to leave.

What was that?

Clarisse wanted to ask. But she felt a little awkward to. Perhaps it was better to wait until someone else did.

Instead, she changed the conversation. "So how do we pick dorms? I dunno who I should go with."