Trains, Frogs and the Irish PV Aislin Darragh Finished

@Avis Greymond

The problem with having energetic cousins was that they did not slow down. Growing up, Aislin had found this fun, following them around her grandparent's farm on all sorts of adventures, but right now it meant she was standing in place on the train platform, turning in a slow circle and finding no familiar faces. Since they'd come from summer camp and her mam had a time-sensitive potion delivery that needed her continuous attention while brewing, Daphne and Orin had been charged with making sure she got to school okay. And they had gotten her this far, onto the correct platform with all the thrill of running through a wall, but then they must have spotted a friend and then rushed off to say hello, or maybe even sat down already, and Aislin was left alone on a busy platform, voices overlapping with goodbyes and reminders and tears, clothing of all shapes and colors passing in a barely distinguishable blur, nothing to latch onto, really. And she was not scared. She was going off to Hogwarts, she could take care of herself. But she was curling her shoulders a little more, small next to all the parents and upper years, and still not finding any familiar faces.

Eventually she decided the two smartest things to do--go find her cousins and ensure she got to Hogwarts--took her in the same direction of boarding the train, so she did, lugging her trunk up the steps with some difficulty. It might be just the one trunk, charmed to fit more than it looked like it could, but that didn't make it any less heavy or easy to fit in the train's narrow corridors without introducing her shins to new bruises.

Inside the train was less chaotic than outside of it, but only slightly. She still wasn't seeing her cousins, but it was a long train and they were fast, so who knew how far they could have gone while she stood around like a lost duckling. Aislin peeked into each compartment she passed, silently hopeful, but no luck. The corridor didn't go on forever--of course it didn't, trains needed to be able to turn and that meant they were broken up into segments--and she ended up behind someone with dark brown hair and a duffle bag that she'd just dropped at her feet. It had seen better days, just like the trunk that had once belonged to Aislin's mam, stickers pasted over dings and dents only for them to fade and tear with time and exposure to the elements.

They were both at the end of this corridor and Aislin was not scared, but she did really want to find her cousins. She'd heard adults say that if you were lost you should either stay in place (too late for that one) or ask for help. Maybe this girl could help? "Excuse me? Do you know anyone named Daphne or Orin?" They were fourth and second years, respectively, and it looked like she might be their age, though whether she'd seen where they were going was an entirely different question.

Avis turned at the sound of a voice, her duffle bag still lying dejectedly on the floor. A girl stood in front of her, determination blazing in her brown eyes and her question lingering in the air. Her first thought was that she might be a first year but she was rather tall for an 11 year old so it was hard to tell exactly what year she was in. However, Avis was quite certain she'd never seen her before. The most distinct thing she'd noticed was the possible Midlands Irish accent that had wrapped around her words when she'd spoken. There was something lightly comforting about the fact, despite it being a slightly different accent than her own.

She cocked her head, trying to place the names that the girl had mentioned. Orin sounded vaguely familiar. Perhaps a name she'd heard in the sorting ceremony last year? But alas, the Ravenclaw had never been good with names to faces. She shook her head slightly, her lips pursing.

"No, sorry. Don't think I do. Why? You looking for 'em?" Avis asked, her curiosity flaring up. Suddenly she wanted to know just who exactly these people were and where they were and why they were gone but then she glanced down at the bag and sighed, her mind switching tracks. The sudden jolt of the train beginning to move ushered her into action and she heaved the duffle back up over her shoulder, realizing she still needed to find a compartment, not to mention her friends, before she found herself lugging this bag through the corridors for the rest of the trip.

The Ravenclaw glanced back at the girl behind her again, wondering for a moment if she should make an effort to actively help, but half-heartedly shutting the idea down. The bag was already getting heavy. She really needed to find a spot for it, but she also felt bad about leaving the girl to her own devices. Avis sighed, conflicted. She ended up picking between the two options with her next phrase. "I'm going to look for a compartment in the next car. Maybe the people you're looking for are in there?" she eventually suggested, not unkindly, and stepped forward to make her way across the vestibule and onward.

Credit to Tabitha Murrey

@Avis Greymond

No luck. There were probably way too many kids at Hogwarts to expect a random pick of them to know her cousins, but the denial did dash her partially-formed plan (in which the answer was a yes, followed by a speedy escort to her cousins' exact location and possibly some sweets). She might have deflated if not for the fact that this girl, in a sea of primarily British accents, sounded familiar, accent matching up with Aislin's in enough places. They weren't identical--Ireland was a big island, even her cousins sounded a little different because they lived apart--but it was close enough that it helped ease some of the jitters of being an eleven-year-old alone in all of this.

"They're my cousins. We were coming here together and then I lost them," she explained. It might be more accurate to say they lost her; Aislin had done much less of the running around and disappearing behind tall people and the overlapping of voices that mostly didn't sound like home. Either way, they'd lost each other and now she was stumbling in a train corridor as it started to move, unprepared for the rock of it and looking entirely like someone who didn't usually ride the train, which she did not. Mostly she travelled by Floo, which had its own force to it.

Undeterred, she looked up hopefully at the other girl. She hadn't walked away yet, but she also kept sighing, or maybe just exhaling heavily? But she did share her plan of action, and Aislin took that as an invitation. "You're looking for people, too?" she asked, picking up her bag with a quiet huff of effort. Setting it down for a minute had been nice, but now she was following this girl onto the next train section and trying not to swing it into legs or compartment doors. She followed at a safe distance and seemed to remember her manners while stepping across the vestibule. "I'm Aislin Darragh, this is my first year. I'm guessing you've been here before?" She seemed to know what she was doing on the train, anyway.

As they walked along, she peeked into compartments, looking for specific occupants while the other witch checked for emptiness. A few compartments in, she gasped, a little noise that sounded excited and surely meant that she'd found her cousins. She had not. What she had found was a toad, someone's pet, and she pressed her face closer to the glass briefly to wave at it. "Toads use their eyes to help them swallow food, did you know that? They close their eyes so they can retract." She resumed their search, swinging her trunk a bit in happiness at seeing a toad in the midst of much more popular owls and cats, though she hit herself in the shins again in the process. The wince didn't stop her from continuing to talk. "I like frogs better, but toads are better as pets because they can live away from water more. Technically all toads are frogs but not all frogs are toads. Or it's the other way around? But that's just for scientific purposes."

mentioning: @Aislin Darragh | date: 01-09-2025 | fit: x

Avis made her way into the second car, Aislin hot on her heels. The Ravenclaw peered through compartment windows one by one as they passed, making a face at the group that was occupying each one. Merlin, had she packed bricks or something?

She nodded along to Aislin's question. "Sort of. Mostly I'm just looking for a place to put this bag of rocks down," she huffed, shifting the thing over her shoulder again. "I'll see my friends at school, anyhow."

The next compartment was, again, disappointingly full and Avis stuck her tongue out at a boy inside out of pure spite. He pulled back, looking horrified and she chuckled to her self, walking to the next set of windows. A small nostalgic smile lifted her lips at the other girl's next sentence.

"I'm Avis. Avis Greymond. Welcome to the Hogwarts Express where everyone seems to find seats quickly but us," she muttered, passing on by the next packed compartment. "And aye, this'll be my second year," Avis said pausing for a moment and looking back with a smile. "You excited?"

But Aislin was no longer listening. She was currently gazing into one of the compartments they'd passed, waving at something inside with her face pressed up to the glass. Avis cocked her head, confusion writing itself across her eyebrows. The expression soon turned to amused surprise when the younger girl starting spouting off about toads, which the Ravenclaw assumed she'd seen in the compartment. She snorted and turned around, resuming the search and stepping through the next vestibule. "I didn't know that," she replied, amusement turning to curiosity. "Don't think I know much about toads in general. Tend to let 'em have their space."

If Avis thought that that would conclude their conversation about amphibians, she was quite mistaken. As she stepped into the next car, Aislin continued on behind her. Merlin she could chat.Her eyebrows furrowed once again at the first year's next confusing statement. "Oi, how can one be the other? I thought they were two separate...things," Avis asked, trailing off as she noticed the snack trolley trundling its way slowly towards them. She stopped abruptly, hoping the younger girl would take notice and avoid running headlong into her back. She set down her bag with a sigh and relief and gesture towards the trolley, the goal of their mission fading from her mind.

"Care for a sugar quill?" the Ravenclaw asked absentmindedly, making her way towards the trolley.

Credit to Tabitha Murrey

@Avis Greymond

So they were on a joint quest to find their people. Avis did have the wise perspective that they would be alright whether or not they found them; the train ride wasn't so long compared to the whole school year of being in the same castle ahead of them. Though she definitely did not want to spend the whole journey in the corridor.

Avis Greymond was a second year and not the kind of person to collect facts about frogs, but that was alright. They couldn't all be invested in frogs, who would be left for all the other fascinating things out there? It was enough that Avis looked a bit interested, listening to Aislin ramble. Better yet, she asked a follow-up question, and Aislin's tiny hop was evidence of how pleased she was by that. Some of the kids she did tutoring with settled into annoyance very quickly if she went on about something too long, and sometimes that meant she bit down on really interesting facts, still half-convinced they'd see her perspective if she shared them but postponing the attempt for another day.

This was not a question she knew the exact answer to, unfortunately, since she still couldn't remember which way around it was. Still, she was undeterred from trying. "It's like rectangles and squares in maths." She had considerably less to say on the subject of maths--the subject had never really been her friend, numbers could be the passion of someone else--but this tidbit of knowledge could be a useful comparison. "One's a type of the other. I think it's about physical traits being similar, so it likely comes down to genes."

Talking about frogs was taking her mind off the weight of trunk, each step just another breath of time for more syllables. Luckily, her focus wasn't so scattered as to miss Avis stopping, and she stumbled only slightly in her rush to get her own feet under her, spotting what Avis had. Incoming was an absolutely glorious sight for any eleven-year-old with a sweet tooth: a candy mountain on wheels, peaks and valleys glittering with sugar, snacks, and more sugar. Her cousins had somehow failed to mention this detail.

Her mam had perhaps been a little stingy in the sweets department growing up, which wasn't to say she'd never had any. It was just that sweets often felt a little like stealing, smuggled to her by Christine and her grandparents, and that gave them a bit of an extra sparkle. Just a bit. Still enough that she was saying, "Definitely," before she completely thought about it, because she didn't need to think about it. Except then a little voice in her head, sounding vaguely like her mam's, was reminding her that things like this usually had a price and there weren't all that many coins clinking around in her pockets. Did she want to spend them on this? She squinted at the cart, reassessing it more skeptically. "Well, depends if they're overpriced." Hopefully Avis would know what counted as overpriced for a sugar quill.

"And I am excited," she said, once they'd dealt with the trolley, the question before the whirlwind of her frogs and toads interest seeming to return to her. "I'll finally get to brew potions all on my own, not just watch my mam do them and help with little things. And it's a whole new place to explore!" What she meant, mostly, was that she'd heard the ground were vast and thus filled with numerous critters. But her cousins had also told her about shifting staircases and secret passageways, which sounded both wonderful and impossible to keep track of.

mentioning: @Aislin Darragh | date: 01-09-2025 | fit: x

Rectangles and squares...in maths. Avis cocked her head. She supposed it made sense, and was about to say so when the topic abruptly switched from frogs to food in her head.

It seemed the Ravenclaw had found a kindred spirit in her new first year companion as the girl instantly agreed to a sweet treat. The two made a beeline for the cart but not before Aislin made a sensible comment about pricing.

Avis chuckled. "Oh definitely overpriced. They'd charge us for our knickers if they could but don't worry," she said smirking and jingling her pocket a bit. A satisfying clinking sound followed suit. "I can get us one of each," the girl said proudly, turning to the lady waiting impatiently for the girls to either move out of the way or order something off the trolley.

In truth, everything Avis owned monetarily was currently residing in her pocket but she didn't mind. She'd saved up over the summer by helping out with Mam's laundry business and she intended to spend it all on sweets, despite her sister's advice to save it for a better broom or some horse shite like that.

"Two sugar quills please!" Avis chirped, holding out a fist of coins and dropping them into the trolley lady's awaiting palm.

After they'd received their goodies and the girls had squeezed past the trolley, Avis handed one of the quills to her companion with a grin, who was currently informing her that she was indeed excited and that she was looking forward to brewing potions solo and that exploring was on the agenda. Excellent. Avis liked this girl very much.

"Does your mam brew a lot of potions?" the Ravenclaw asked, curiosity butting in to her train of thought. Her own mam brewed a normal amount, she supposed. For the odd bruise or to clean out the chimney. One time she'd brewed something to help the garden grow faster and the carrots ended up suspended above ground. "And there is a lot to explore. I'm still trying to find all the secret passageways my brother told me about...but I think he made up a lot of them, the ninny. Say, you're welcome to tag along if you'd like. Maybe find an amphibian or two in one of the ones he said was under the lake!"

Credit to Tabitha Murrey

@Avis Greymond

To Aislin's relief, she didn't have to turn down the cart of candy and wistfully watch it wheel away. She would have had to switch her tune, swallow down the quick excitement, because she couldn't actually convince herself a sugar quill that would soon be dissolved in her stomach was worth empty pockets, glittery and sweet as it was. But Avis offered easily, reassuring her not to worry while she dug out her own money, and any degree Aislin's expression had slipped was undone. She was getting good at following Avis' lead without really thinking about it, stepping around the trolley after her, and she beamed when handed the sugar quill. At least she remembered her manners before licking at the feathered end, offering a cheery, "Thank you!"

Listening to her creature facts and giving her sugar was truly a shortcut to Aislin's heart, and by this point her cousin was rapidly losing his position as her favorite second year. Avis was nice, she asked good questions, and her company made being stuck out in the corridor, still compartmentless, feel perfectly natural. Plus Orin had ditched her, if by accident.

"My mam's a potion maker," Aislin explained. "She brews all the time, mostly for selling." Of course, her mam had whipped up plenty of potions just for them, pastes when Aislin scraped her knees and remedies for when they caught cold and various cleaning concoctions. She did it all effortlessly, like she'd made each potion hundreds of times (maybe thousands, even--had she ever kept count?), and Aislin thought it would be so cool to do that, too. But she was a long way away from having even a fraction of the practice.

More interesting than potions, though, was listening to Avis share her insights into the castle's depths. Secrets, even, the same things her cousins had mentioned. She guessed if she were to build a castle, she would want to hide extra tricks. Another one of her steps became a hop, trunk knocking into a compartment door, at the invitation to tag along. Especially to a passageway under the lake. "There's really one under the lake?" she repeated, slightly awed, because how much water was above you when you were down in those? And Avis was right, there might be amphibians, definitely bugs, maybe even some undiscovered species that no one went down there enough to have noticed. "There has to be something good down there, don't you think?" By good she meant fascinating; she would likely lump cursed objects into that category.

She remembered, after a string of not remembering, to peek into the passing compartments for her cousins. Still, no luck. Aislin tapped her sugar quill against her lip, as if in thought. "Do you explore a lot?" she came up with, because Avis had asked if she was excited, so she should ask Avis what she was excited to get back to, right? "Or what else do you do?"

mentioning: @Aislin Darragh | date: 01-09-2025 | fit: x

A potion maker. "Blimey. That's got to be interesting," Avis replied, thoughtfully sucking on her quill. "What's the craziest thing your mam's ever brewed??" she asked, her eyes suddenly widening with curious excitement. Aislin was sure to have some good potion stories if her mam was a potion master!

Her eyes twinkled at the younger girl's excitement. Avis did always enjoy a good adventure within the halls of Hogwarts. There always seemed to be something happening at the massive school. Her wonderings would possibly never be satiated which was a tad bit disappointing but more ground could be covered with two anyways!

"I think Will...er my brother...might be bluffing about that one but it doesn't hurt to look!" she said with a grin. "There's definitely something, if not just puddles and seaweed."

Avis watched as the girl stole another peek into a compartment and suddenly remembered the task at hand. By this time, everyone had settled down which would make finding an open seat more of a challenge, not to mention the two of them getting distracted every so often. She furrowed her brows as she craned her neck around the next compartment, sighing in defeat at the group of fifth years huddled around someone's cauldron.

She perked up at the next question however. "I try to! There's lots of free time at the beginning of term until professors start loading us all with homework, but between that and practice, I've found some time to muck about in Hogsmeade," Avis added sneakily. Second years, let alone first years, weren't allowed in the village but she and her friends had found ways to get around that obstacle. "Other than that, I have Quidditch practice during season and hang out with Maisie a lot. My roommate, I mean," she said. "She'd like you a lot I think...if we ever find her on this barking train," the Ravenclaw grimaced.

She was about to let out another sigh at a full compartment when the two occupying the room suddenly burst out of the door, the first boy looking rather green in the face. His cheeks and eyes bulged ominously and Avis recoiled.

"What the bloody hell is wrong with him?" she squeaked in alarm. The second boy gave her a panicked look.

"Dared him to eat five Puking Pastilles! Didn't think he would actually do it!" he cried, his voice trailing after his friend who was lurching down the hall like a concussed troll. Hopefully he'd make it to a loo.

Avis looked after them with a concerned expression until she realized she had in fact found, an empty compartment. Her eyes lit up.

"Looks like my journey ends here," she announced, turning back towards the first year. "I'm betting that your cousin is in the next car over. Otherwise, he's either fallen off the train or he's driving," she added with a wistful expression. Wouldn't that be an adventure...

Avis glanced at the girl again, suddenly disappointed at the fact that her new friend might move on. "Unless you'd like to bunk with me for a bit, til we get to school. You'll definitely find them after the sorting ceremony," she added hastily, trying not to look too desperate. She'd come to appreciate answering all the younger girl's questions, as it was usually herself who was constantly in other peoples' ears.

Credit to Tabitha Murrey

@Avis Greymond

Aislin had to think for a minute about what the craziest thing her mam had ever brewed could be. She was a pretty orderly witch, and incredibly practical, so rarely would Aislin consider her concoctions much out there. Or maybe she was just very used to being around potions. Mirroring Avis, she gave her quill a thoughtful lick. "Once she brewed an Invigoration Draught that kept her up for four days straight, I think." Her memory of it was fuzzy, she'd been little, but her mam had some time crunch with orders and intentionally boosted the strength. "It was so strong it made her hands all jittery." In fact, they shook so bad at first that she had to call Christine over and talk her through brewing some sort of calming potion.

While Avis was keen to share how she spent her free time, Aislin wilted slightly to hear about how quickly it seemed to disappear, buried by the horrors of homework. This wasn't news, most anyone she'd ever talked to that went to Hogwarts had mentioned the course load (whether they considered it intense or engaging varied), but she was sure she wasn't ready for it. Still, she brushed aside the swirling spiral of looming misery to catch at least most of what Avis said: she did Quidditch and had a roommate named Maisie, who would probably like her. That was good, that there were more people than just her cousins and Avis that would like her. Though that was a small fraction of a ginormous school.

Wait, had Avis said something about Hogsmeade? The word clicked in some sort of playback, and her brain spun through a lot of words like second year and third year and cool, and she was three-quarters of the way to opening her mouth to ask more about how she did it.

Then the slam of an opening compartment door made her jump, and she blinked slowly at one very sick-looking boy and one normal, worried boy. Avis' quick investigation got a frantic answer of the culprit: Puking Pastilles. Her cousins had mentioned them before, and she watched with mild curiosity as the pair raced off down the corridor. What an interesting thing to be getting up to on the very first day. She guessed people did stick odd things in their mouths, especially kids. Orin tried to eat a frog she showed him, once, though he couldn't have been older than six, and Aislin had personally tried various plants and bugs. Not anything labelled as causing puking, though.

Wisely, Avis realized what she had been presented with: an empty compartment. Still none of their people, who had to be somewhere (likely not conducting, she thought), and Avis seemed to be giving up on that. Oh well, Aislin could continue on alone, swinging her trunk in a bit of a wider arc without an extra set of legs to worry about. But then Avis offered to share the compartment, and she was at a crossroads. Well, if she was being realistic, her cousins were with their friends, it would be crowded and loud, and they would probably chat to them the whole way so she wouldn't get many words in, as was her experience at summer camp. She would see them later, as Avis had said, they were all on the same train.

After quite a delay (thinking time), she nodded enthusiastically. "Okay!" She'd follow her in, briefly eyeing the boys' things and wondering what they'd do if they came back (Avis probably knew, she seemed very experienced), then hopped back into a seat. She left her trunk on the floor under her feet, though, out of doubt of her abilities to lift it to the overhead compartment. Aislin wasn't short for her age, but they didn't seem made for first year-sized witches, and one of her hands was occupied by a sugar quill. Anyway, she had remembered what she meant to ask earlier and was already blurting, "How'd you get to Hogsmeade?"