Backdated | 26th July 2020

Scarlet had waited so long for this moment, walking through the cobbled streets of Diagon Alley ready to work her way through the items on the equipment list that had arrived with her Hogwarts acceptance letter. So far she had only been into Madam Malkin's and bought her plain set of robes and some other bits and bobs she would need for different occasions and lessons, all now being carried by her father who with her mother followed closely behind her.

"Can I please get my wand now?" she asked back towards her parents, she didn't think she could focus on choosing anything else for school until she had gotten herself a wand. She could see the black painted shopfront of the wand shop, Ollivanders, at the end of the long winding street.

"I thought you were happy to just visit the stores as we got to them," her father replied.

"Yes that's definitely what she said this morning," her mother added, turning back she saw the two of them smiling at each other. "Does that mean we can go to Ollivanders next?" she asked, noticing the exchange of smiles. Her parents gave each other a quick glance before looking back towards her and releasing a small laugh.

"We can go wherever you want next, it's your trip, just make sure you don't miss anything off your list," her mother answered. Scarlet turned on her heels, her eyes now set for the wand shop in the distance.

When given the option, Scarlet had said she would be happy to go in and get the wand on her own, so her parents decided to visit Gringotts Bank in the meantime and meet her outside the wand shop after. The bell above the door to the shop rang out as Scarlet entered the shop, in front of her, rows of shelves full of wand boxes extended high towards the ceiling and lamps lit up narrow passageways leading towards the back of the store.

"I'll be with you in a moment," came a friendly sounding voice from somewhere deep within the store. Whilst she waited, Scarlet wandered over to the nearest set of shelves, taking a closer look at the collection of wands it held, when from behind her she heard the doorbell ring out again.

@Everly Charlton

INTERACTION───────────── @Scarlet Salvatore

────────────────MENTION -

──────────────────

Reducio action | health | stats | sta 6 eva 10 str 0 wis 7 arc 4 acc 8 abilities | seer year 1 • 10% autododge, 10% autohit | blindvision • can see in magical and non-magical darkness 26 july, 2020

──────────────────

Everly was beyond excited. She wasn't even sure there was a term in the world that could describe the amount of excitement and joy she had in her mind at that moment. It might've seemed like an exaggeration, especially for someone like Everly, but she was excited. The fact that she was beginning her first year at Hogwarts in a few weeks seemed thrilling. The prospect had seemed unreal, but this hit Everly hard in the face - it was happening, it was happening, it was happening. =================================

=======================

They'd gone through everything on her supply list, and on her siblings'. She was sure, she'd double checked twice. Everly firmly believed in the concept of saving the best for last, and that was exactly what Everly had done with her supply list. She'd bought everything that was essential, and the thing she was most excited for - her wand, her passage of rite as an actual student of Hogwarts - for last.

It was clear that she was excited to anyone her family passed. Bouncing on the balls of her feet, with a look of pure anticipation on her face, Everly was more excited for this than she had on her last birthday. Adeline, her sister, laughed, causing Everly to shoot her a dirty look. "Bit excited, are we?"

"It's a wand, Adeline. You can be all smart, but you already have one, and I don't." Everly cast her a glance, while Adeline let out a laugh.

At the speed Everly was walking, it was a wonder they hadn't arrived at the store yet, but Everly quickly skipped up to the front, observing the large sign up top, much higher than she could ever hope to reach. Everly's father was the only one who accompanied her inside, as Charmaine had stayed with Adeline while she chatted with one of her friends. The three of them left, with Charmaine accompanying the pair as they wandered Diagon Alley in some nostalgic memory or whatever that Everly didn't really understand.

The bell rang as Everly pushed the door open. She savored these moments, as she would likely not need to visit Ollivander's in the year of the rest of her life.

Mr. Ollivander was with another customer, but he greeted her happily, informing her that she would need to wait a bit. Everly's father lingered by the door, somewhat uncomfortable, as Mr. Ollivander went all "oh, it's you again" on him. Everly, unsure what to do, joined another girl that appeared to be waiting as well, and had took to venturing the shelves. Everly was kind of awkward around people, and she was unsure what to do. Say hi? (The girl might think Everly was way too over the top.) Stand there? (The girl might think Everly thought she was better than her.) Leave? (What would the girl think if she just walked over and left? How rude.)

So Everly just stood there, cleared her throat, and shifted on her foot, unsure what to do.

'How was he supposed to find anything??' Scarlet thought to herself as she examined the wand boxes piled on the shelf, they weren't numbered, or named, or anything, some of the boxes were actually identical to her, she couldn't imagine trying to find a particular wand. The shop owner, now stood behind the counter seemed to be doing well enough though, Scarlet watched as he presented a wand to a boy patiently waiting to receive it.

Not long after she had heard the bell ring throughout the shop, she was greeted by a second noise, the figure that had taken up a place beside her gave a slight cough in an attempt to get Scarlet's attention. Scarlet gently pushed back into the shelf the box she had pulled out by a small amount, there hadn't been any markings on the top side of the box either.

"Hi!" Scarlet said before she had even had a proper look at the person she was now facing, it was a young girl, probably the same age as Scarlet if she was also buying her wand. "Buying your wand for Hogwarts?" she asked, she wasn't sure if there were any other wizarding schools in the UK, there was Beauxbatons of course; she thought probably not, her parents would have surely told her if there was another school in the UK to attend.

"What house do you think you'll be in?!" she asked excitedly, Scarlet was pretty sure she would end up in Ravenclaw herself, it was where most of her family that had gone to the school ended up. Of course she didn't know how the houses of Beauxbatons translated to those of Hogwarts, if they even did, it was for this reason her mother had told her not to worry too much about getting into a specific house.

"You know about the houses right?" she quickly added, she hadn't even considered that the girl might have come from a non-wizard background and not know what to expect at the school. Even if it was the case that the girl didn't know about them, Scarlet felt like she could do some sort of summary of them from what he father had told her, if she did know however, well that would just mean she didn't run the risk of passing on wrong information.

@Everly Charlton

Everly let her gaze skip over all of the boxes presented in front of her, wondering how the heck the store owner managed to keep track of all of them. She knew that if she ever attempted such a thing, she'd forget at least half of them within the first five minutes, considering how forgetful she could be. Everly resisted the urge to tap her foot in impatience, reminding herself to wait a bit and that she would get her turn soon enough, swaying lightly from side to side as she scanned over the shop and the people inside.

A voice next to her startled her, and she flinched slightly, turning to meet the girl's eyes. "Hi," Everly said, voice coming out smaller than she'd expected, tilting her head. Maybe she was more nervous than she had thought. All this seemed like it was coming towards her like a landslide, but she was more than excited to dive into it. "Um, yeah, I guess," she responded. Everly had known that there were schools in different areas around Hogwarts, like Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, but she didn't know much about the different wandmakers in the area - the only one she pretty much knew was Ollivanders. "I... are you?"

Thank god the girl was willing to talk with her and stick around. Everly wasn't big on socializing, if she were honest. She loved making friends, it was just the making part that she particularly struggled with. She often found that when she was talking with strangers or acquaintances, she would panic when she couldn't find something else to say or another topic to talk about, or she would stress that she was talking too much or too less. Better to avoid it all completely than it was to try and fail.

"Um.. I-I mean, I'm not really sure." Everly didn't particularly feel as though she fit in any of the houses. There wasn't something that stood out to her, or that she felt that she was supposed to be in. And her family didn't really have a standard for houses, so there wasn't something that she felt like she had to be in. "Oh, no I do know the houses. Yeah. Um. What about you? Um - what house do you want to be in? Fit in?"

──────────────────

Reducio action | health | stats | sta 6 eva 10 str 0 wis 7 arc 4 acc 8 abilities | seer year 1 • 10% autododge, 10% autohit | blindvision • can see in magical and non-magical darkness

──────────────────

@Scarlet Salvatore

The longer that Scarlet stood waiting in the shop, the shorter the time she would find herself leaving between peering over the counter and trying get a better look at what Mr Ollivander was doing, hoping it wouldn’t be too long before she would finally get her hands on a wand.

Scarlet thought briefly about what she hoped her wand might look like, as she had done on many occasions in the past whilst she looked over her parents wands, she thought the dark color of her mother's wand was quite striking, she couldn't remember the details of it, ebony maybe. Her father's wand was much lighter in comparison, his however possessed intricate carvings extending to the very tip of the wand, she had invented her own meaning of the patterns, some ancient spell or forgotten language.

Scarlet maintained a friendly smile towards the girl, getting the feeling that she was feeling slightly shy, "I thought so," she said, "I wonder if there actually is another school for magic in England," she questioned, voicing her thoughts from earlier, "maybe not," she added quickly answering her own question.

"Yep!" Scarlet answered excitedly, this was the first chance she was getting to speak to someone who was actually going to be in her year at school, and in fact the first classmate she had ever met, having been home-schooled till now.

"Well, I guess it's something we don't have to think about really," referring to the sorting ceremony she was told all new students attend, "I'm feeling nervous about it really and it's not like we have to even do anything." Scarlet admitted to the girl. "Do you think the hat remembers all the students it's ever sorted, like it remembers where your parents went, and grandparents," she wondered. All summer long it had been her parents that had been subject to her endless questions about the school, well mainly her father, but now it was this girl, and Scarlet realised she might be getting a tad too carried away with her own excitement.

"Sorry, all the questions and I don't even know your name, I'm Scarlet," she said to the girl, hoping that she hadn't freaked her out and would get a name back in response.

"Ravenclaw, I guess," she answered, "a lot of my family have been sorted into that house," she added, she couldn't really say how similar she felt she was to that side of the family, having never really known them other than through the words of her father.

"Do you know anyone at the school?" she asked, "or is it just from your parents that you have been told about Hogwarts," she said, wondering if the girl had any siblings already at the school.

@Everly Charlton

Everly didn't really know what to do. Wait for the other girl to answer? Answer her own question? She'd never really understood what to do in a conversation with someone she didn't know; her family wasn't exactly social and Everly'd been surrounded by the same people her entire life. She shifted on her other foot, immediately feeling guilty. Did the girl think she was getting bored, had she offended her already within ten seconds of knowing her?

The other girl's smile failed to falter, thankfully. Trying to match her, Everly smiled slightly, rather uncomfortably.

"Oh - yeah, I guess, maybe there might be another school."

There isn't, but this is how you make friends, right?

"Not really, I guess," Everly replied, to her comment about the Ceremony. Idiot, you just said 'I guess' twice in a row.

"I'm nervous too, don't worry. Like... what if I don't fit in anything? Or like..." she trailed off, not exactly sure what she had in mind to say next. Can you do that? "Maybe... probably. It's magical too, isn't it? I'm sure there's something that helps it remember everyone. Y'know, like Ollivander can?" Was she talking too much? Was it the other girl's turn yet?

"No! It's not too much, keep talking." Immediately, she winced. That was definitely the wrong thing to say. She was desperate for the first person from Hogwarts she met to get a good impression of herself. "I mean, you're fine, you can keep talking, don't worry!"

After a small moment, she realized she'd forgotten about the second part of Scarlet's words. "Oh - nice to meet you, Scarlet! I'm Everly," she said.

"Oh, that's cool! My family's mostly in, uh..." she racked her brain - were they in a special house or something. "Nothing? I mean, we don't... yeah..." Were they supposed to have one? "Ravenclaw sounds nice. I don't have one in mind yet, I don't think."

"I do!" Finally something she could talk about without feeling unsure about her answer. "My sister, Adeline, she already graduated. She came here with me, but she's not here right now... she's in Hufflepuff. ... Do you know someone?"

@scarlet salvatore | 355 | july 2020====

The girl seemed slightly nervous, something Scarlet herself could understand, she never felt that she was really an extroverted type of person, but then again, in many situations, she wouldn't come across as an introvert either. Most of the time, she was just excited to get to know more people around her own age. Home-schooling. That's what she had always put it down to; it's not like looking back she didn't enjoy her early schooling years, her mother had made it fun, and she could always wear whatever she wanted, but it had always been a class of one.

"Yeah exactly!" Scarlet chimed in, feeling like the girl had summed up the cause of her own nervousness perfectly, "...like if it puts us in the wrong house, and you don't really click with anyone." Saying it out loud made her worry much more of a real possibility, "but I mean that's what the hat's there for - and they're still using it so it's probably not gone wrong yet."

At the mention of the wand shop owners name, Scarlet remembered that she was actually waiting to get her own wand and turned to see that the man was still serving the same student, she guessed it's not exactly the sort of thing you would want to rush, it's pretty much one wand for life.

"Wait...Mr Ollivander can do that too!" she said after processing what the girl had said before her mind had wandered to what was happening at the counter. Scarlet lowered her voice a little, it's not like they were saying anything bad, the opposite in fact, but it was still talking about someone else, "that's pretty cool if he can, I wonder if he drank a potion to be able to remember it all or something."

Scarlet held off on responding to what the girl said next, mainly because it left her a little confused, she quickly racked her brain for what she had just said, but couldn't remember saying anything that would yield such a response. But she quickly saw a faint look of discomfort on the girl's face and realised it had just been a slip of the tongue. Scarlet gave her a reassuring smile, letting the girl know that it didn't matter. "Nice to meet you Everly, officially I mean," she said with a little laugh.

"Yeah, I mean I don't know how common it is exactly for a family to tend to be sorted into one particular house," she said, starting to feel like it maybe wasn't as big of a thing as she thought. "And I guess it's only really half my family, my mum's side went to a school in France."

"Oh cool!" Scarlet replied enthusiastically, "that's awesome, has she told you lots about what it's all like?" Scarlet would have honestly loved an older sibling to tell her about all the different professors, and secrets about the castle and, just everything. She was pretty sure what her father had been able to tell her wouldn't all be super relevant for her. "No, only my dad and uncle really, or at least they're the only people who have been and have talked to me about Hogwarts, but that must have been ages ago!"

Scarlet heard the jangle of coins from the counter of the shop, glancing around she saw that Mr Ollivander now looked to be finishing up with the customer, it would soon be her turn - and she could hardly contain her excitement. "Looks like we'll be getting ours soon! Have you got much else to buy on the list from school?" she asked, she had made getting her wand a priority so still had quite a bit to buy.

@Everly Charlton

Scarlet seemed to be much more at ease than she was, and slowly, Everly began to relax, feeling a lot more comfortable by the other's side. Scarlet was really nice; hopefully, she'd see her a lot at Hogwarts too. She had no idea what to expect, as she'd never really been to a school. Or a boarding school, for that matter. Her parents had homeschooled her at first when she was younger, but eventually just brought in a tutor (which she'd hated). She'd never been in a real classroom with real teachers with other students, and it was a bit surreal that she would have that and more in just a month or so. Thankfully, the tutor had left rather quickly, thanks to her atrocious complaints.

The Sorting Hat was still much of a mystery to Everly. Of course, she knew what it was, as she'd pretty much pried as much information about Hogwarts as she could from her parents and sister. It was, from what she'd learned, a hat. It read your mind for a few, hour-long moments, and then shouted out the house that you belonged in. She still had her worries, of course, though it was a bit relieving to know she wouldn't have to make any decisions herself. "What if," Everly whispered, lowering her voice dramatically as if telling a very important secret, "the hat's wrong?" Her eyes widened as if she just whispered a sin. "Like, what do you do if it's just... completely wrong?" she said, continuing to whisper (rather loudly). "It has to have been wrong at least once, y'know?"

She followed Scarlet's gaze to the white-haired storeowner. He was somehow still helping the same person from before, though a considerable more amount of boxes were beside the pair. As much as she wanted them to hurry up so she could get her wand, she did want to continue talking to Scarlet. This was rather fun.

"Ooh, maybe! It's definitely not something to do with like, having magic or anything. Like, I'm a witch and I have the worst memory out of anyone. I have no idea how people like him can do it." Everly did have a terrible memory. It was too often that she suddenly remembered she needed something, ran up to her room to get it, then skidded to a stop in the doorway, wondering what she'd come up for in the first place, only to remember it the moment she arrived back downstairs.

"Oh? That's cool," she said at the mention of a magical French school. "I wonder if they have something like the hat. Or even houses." Everly was sure she'd heard of a name at some point, but, ended up forgetting it. She'd have to ask later. "My parents both went to Hogwarts. They didn't become friends until both of them were adults, though." She actually didn't know much about how her parents had met, besides that. Everly's father was still close friends with his circle from Hogwarts, and they would often come over. Her mother was more private about her childhood and upraising, so she pretty much had no idea how Hogwarts had been for her. Maybe one day she'd find out.

"As much as she wants to tell me, yeah!" Everly responded eagerly. Adeline was a little bit overwhelmed by how excited Everly was. "Did you know that they have moving staircases? And that there's ghosts, like, everywhere. And that you can teleport using the portraits!" Although, she didn't really know how much of it all was actually true...

Mr. Ollivander was almost done, and that meant she was finally getting her wand! "My wand's the last thing left! You know, saving the best for last..."

@scarlet salvatore
26 july, 2020