The Adventure Begins... Open closed

Crystal listened as Alora rambled about her siblings' names. It seemed an interesting strategy for naming your children, but Crystal supposed it did make picking out a name that much easier. No flipping through name books, no looking through generations of ancestors. It was simple.

"My moms' names are Katarina and Marie." Crystal laughed. "And I never met my dad. So I don't even know how my parents could have done that for me. Maybe Matarina or Katarie?" Crystal began laughing before she finsihed getting the last sentence out of her mouth, causing the words to become a bit unclear.

Crystal let out a small sign of relief when Alora took well to the idea of Crystal being raised by two mothers. To be fair, her acceptance wasn't so much out of devout allyship, but rather not knowing any different. Though, if Crystal was honest, support out of lack of knowledge was better than lack of support or outright harassment any day.

"Yeah, our family is definitely not in the majority." Crystal tried to laugh to cover up what she was about to say. "Some people just can't accept it. They're so dead-set on the idea that a woman has to marry a man. Almost every time we go out as a family, someone says something to one of my moms." Crystal wasn't trying to throw a pity party about her family. She was just trying to speak her truth, but she was often wary of saying things like this because she didn't want people to baby her with all their "I'm so sorry," and their "Aw, poor thing. That must be so hard."

Before Alora could get out a reply, the door opened, revealing another girl who appeared to be the same age as both Crystal and Alora. She was dressed slightly differently than the other girls, and her hair was covered by a headscarft, which she reached up to adjust after opening the door. The girl was most decidedly Scottish and her accent made it a bit difficult to understand what she was asking, but Crystal was able to understand that she was asking if she could join them.

Crystal nodded awkwardly, struggling to form words in the presence of yet another stranger she was expected to talk to. She felt immensely relieved when Alora invited the girl in and introduced herself and Crystal to the newcomer. When Alora offered the snacks to the girl, Crystal picked up the bag anf handed it to the girl as she was sitting down.

@Alora Shendrow @Isla Ainsley

Isla nodded in acknowledgement as the blonde girl, who introduced herself as Alora, greeted her. Crystal and Alora. When Alora offered her a plastic bag of snacks which Crystal had attempted handing to her, she paused hesitantly before giving a polite shake of her head.
"Oh, it's okay, thank ye," She piped with a stiff smile. She wasn't too fond of taking this stranger's snacks, afraid the kind girl was only willing to share for the sake of being polite. Besides, it was unlikely the food would be halal anyways, better safe than sorry. Isla shifted her gaze to watch the passing lush greenery out of the wide window before realizing she hadn't introduced herself. The young Scottish first year straightened herself, speaking up, "Ma name's Isla, an A'm a first year."

Isla had never been a social butterfly. It wasn't that she was nervous when confronted with new people, just unintentionally awkward. A lot of her time was spent in her room, a solitary haven. The hijabi just didn't seem to click with her classmates at her muggle primary school back at home, with her odd passions such as tinkering with muggle gadgets or her bizarre obsession with obscure subjects. Her half-wizarding upbringing was partially to blame for her absence of a wide social circle. Although her squib mother had shown her a multitude of muggle social norms and tools, her Wizarding world tendencies received from her father such as an odd fashion taste, preference for quills and ownership of general old-fashioned items were quite off-putting to potential friends without any knowledge of the magical world beneath their noses.

"Sorry if A interrupted yous, uh, dinnae mind me."
The first year felt intrusive. Perhaps there were empty compartments further down, and she had been unnecessarily bothersome. I just hope they don't know each other, and I didn't just waltz into their catch up. Isla shuffled her feet at the thought, offering another silent smile to the two girls.

So far, Isla's day had gone decently well, apart from her first train ride ever being today. She and her father had done all their mandatory shopping in Diagon Alley a few weeks earlier, including buying her cherry wood wand, which sat in the wide pocket of her black robe. She didn't mind the uniform of the school due to its simplicity, and it was ideal for her to keep herself all covered up due to her religion and to keep the cold out--the bizarre weather of her country had always made this a challenge. And the pockets were wide enough to fit an entire book. Not that she would do that... yet. After their shopping had all been ticked off, Isla had plenty of time to sit and mill over what Hogwarts might entail. She wasn't exactly fond of the idea of starting school all over again, but she would have had to if she was a muggle anyways, with secondary school starting next year. Her only concern was her performance in class, wracked with worry that she would finally get a taste of failure, something of a rare encounter at her muggle school. Despite halfway through all her school books, she still had no clue how she would do when it came to actually casting or brewing. And she can't fail. It's simply not a word in her vocabulary.

Isla snapped out of her long train of thought, adjusting her hands on her lap. It was a bad habit of hers, completely getting lost in her own mind. Her gaze flickered from girl to girl quickly, hoping she hadn't missed anything they'd said.

I was more worried about writing in Scots than anything! I'm Scottish, and I tend to generate a lot of confusion online with my slang lol. Glad to make your day, if any of you want me to tone it down just ask.

✩ The Adventure Begins ✩

𝒟𝒶𝓉𝑒: September 1st, 2022
𝒯𝒾𝓂𝑒: Mid-Morning
𝐿𝑜𝒸𝒶𝓉𝒾𝑜𝓃: The Hogwarts Express
𝒩𝑜𝓉𝒶𝒷𝓁𝑒 𝑀𝑒𝓃𝓉𝒾𝑜𝓃𝓈:@Crystal Walker and @Isla Ainsley

For as long as the young Irish girl had known she’d never been able to really openly talk with anyone outside of her own family let alone someone of her own age and the conversation so far had been rather pleasant nothing like her father had told her about all those years ago how she wouldn’t be truly accepted by anyone who didn’t bare the Shendrow name but it was nice to have some kind of conversation that seemed to be going well without her lack of ability causing it to go down south swiftly. Being a new student at any school is challenging no matter how prepared they try to be beforehand but for Alora Shendrow things would be slightly more challenging on the long road ahead of her.

Not only was Alora going to be new to the school like all of the first years including Crystal her newfound acquaintance, but the young girl happened to be what was known as a Muggle-born meaning that she herself was completely new to the world of witchcraft and wizardry itself and up until just mere months ago had not known of its existence. With this being a matter of fact the young girl definitely had a lot of adjustments ahead of her to undertake but with having the time to speak of her family in that brief moment of conversation and their obsessive way of naming, Alora couldn’t help but feel more at ease.

Hearing Crystal speak about her mother’s Katarina and Marie as well as what her name may have been if the two women had named her with a mix-up on their names much like the strategy that Alora’s parents had used the young girl couldn’t help but burst out laughing at the possible names. “I mean Katarie wouldn’t be bad, that name is quite nice and unique but not too weird if that makes sense?” Alora asked clearly amused with a bright interesting smile. “I mean could you imagine being called Katarie Crystal Walker that name would have been awesome not that your current name isn’t but at least you get what I mean” she smirked coyly with a half smirk.

The conversation swiftly moved forward onto the topic of how Crystal’s family belonged in the minority due to the fact that instead of the usual mother and father and how she had two mothers others would often pass their judgement. Seeing Isla enter the compartment and welcoming her inside with the offer of food the young Irish girl goes on to swiftly reply to Crystal relating to how it felt to be judged all too well through her own experiences during her time in Public School.

“That sucks… I mean you can’t help who you fall in love with and it’s not like it’s a choice it just happens” Alora shrugged her facial expression changing in demeanour rather annoyed by the fact that the judgements had been passed not that it may have been noticed. “I can’t speak of what it’s like to live as a minority but I can kinda understand how annoying it is to have people judge you before they even know you… I mean back home, especially in school I was just the farm girl whose only friends were her animals and the freak that studies” she chuckled trying to relate a little bit although she would never fully understand how it felt to be the daughter of two mothers.

Noticing how Crystal seemed to be relieved at how Alora had introduced both of them to the new face in the compartment the young girl turns her attention towards both of the girls as the scarfed female declines the offer of some food exclaiming she hoped she wasn’t disturbing the two of them in any way. “Not at all, we were just talking about our parents and how my parents have this weird naming system that involves naming their kids after themselves in some way and how Crystal would have been called Katarie if her mothers had decided to go down that route” Alora chuckles warmly catching Isla up on their conversation so she could get involved if she wished.

Hearing Isla say how she would also be starting her first year at Hogwarts, Alora couldn’t help but beam with excitement “We’re both starting Hogwarts for the first time too, how great is it that out of everyone we might have found ourselves sitting with on the train we find a group of first-years I mean at least we’re all in the same boat that way even if we come from different places” Alora chuckled brightly as she continued to speak “Are you both excited to be starting Hogwarts? Do you happen to know anything about what to expect today?” She asked the two of them clearly nervous and oblivious about what the day ahead had in store.

𝓣𝓸𝓽𝓪𝓵 𝓦𝓸𝓻𝓭 𝓒𝓸𝓾𝓷𝓽: 749 Words