Waving through a window | Xena & Oliwia

[Deleted]

September 1st 2022

The Hogwarts Express. Wow. Xen stepped on board the train and watched her father and step mother wave from the platform before she turned her back to them and walked with wide eyes down the narrow corridor of this train car. She had no idea if this was the place she needed to be, but at least she was on the right train, she hoped.

It all seemed so sudden, she had moved in with her dad, left her mother and sister, and now was told she was a witch and was on her way to a magical school in Scotland where she would learn how to use her powers, but she couldn’t tell anyone in her life except for her dad and her step family. Her step brother was on the train somewhere too, but she didn’t know where. He had run off with his friends when he saw them and left her on her own. She didn’t blame him. Instead, she found the first open seat and sat down. It was at a table with a booth on either side. With her trunk already loaded onto the train, she set her backpack on the seat next to her and watched through the window as her parents disappeared back through the platform entrance just before the train blew its whistle and started moving.

@oliwia

[Deleted]

September 1, 2022

The past few days in London had been a whirlwind of trying to navigate the magical world. Never before in her life had Oliwia felt so clueless about… basically everything she encountered. London was one thing, but Diagon Alley? It was like she had stepped into a completely different universe. There were actually people who walked around in pointy hats and waved magic wands, and… now she was one of them. She wasn't just going to boarding school; she was going to a school for witchcraft and wizardry, and she still didn't know what to make of it all. It was like she had stepped into a fantasy novel, except it was her real life.

She didn't fully understand why she had to go on a magical train, of all things, to get to Hogwarts, but she had somehow made it through King's Cross. Trying to find a platform that seemingly didn't exist was a challenge, especially as her mother kept scolding her in Polish to tell her that there was absolutely no way that running straight at the barrier between the ninth and tenth platforms—as she had been told in Diagon Alley—would give her anything but a concussion. Still, at the risk of looking like an idiot, she had done it and made it onto the correct platform.

The Hogwarts Express wasn't like most trains, either. It looked like it must have been at least a hundred years old, and Oliwia hoped that it would run properly as she said goodbye to her mother and boarded the train itself with her belongings in tow.

Not knowing where to sit because her ticket hadn't specified a seat, Oliwia looked around. She hoped that she could find something with a window seat still available, but she hadn't been lucky enough to board the train early on. She kept walking down the length of the Hogwarts Express, her backpack slung over her shoulder. She didn't want to panic, but the train was going to pull out of the station at any time. Hearing the shrill whistle and feeling the train beginning to roll beneath her feet, she steadied herself against the glass that separated the compartments from one another and took notice of another girl who must have been about her age. And she was sitting alone!

Smiling slightly, Oliwia approached the other girl. She wasn't completely confident that the girl was actually alone because of how full the train seemed to be, but she would have to take her chances, wouldn't she? It dawned on her that she was going to have to be introducing herself to people a lot over the next few weeks, so she supposed that she was going to have to start somewhere. "Hi," Oliwia spoke, her ponytail bobbing behind her head. "Erm, can I sit here?" she wondered, hoping that her Geordie accent wouldn't catch the other girl off guard.

@xena

[Deleted]

As the train pulled away, Xen found herself alone and unsure about what to expect. Her step mother and step brother had insisted she would be fine and that it was all fairly straight forward, but they didn’t seem to realize what seemed straightforward and simple to them, people who had known about this world for their entire lives. What seemed obvious to them was still foreign to her. She had no idea what to do when the train finally stopped at Hogwarts school, but they told her it would be easy and just to follow directions. Xen was good at following directions, but she wished she knew who would be giving the directions, at least.

A faint voice came from beside her and she turned her attention away from the window. A young girl, maybe even her age, asked if she could sit here and Xen had never nodded faster in her life. “Please.” she agreed, nodding to the empty seats. She felt the anxiety of having to meet new people creep into her chest, but at least she wasn’t some weird kid sitting alone anymore. “I’m Xen, what’s your name?” she asked.

@oliwia

[Deleted]

September 1, 2022

The girl whom she had just approached nodded her head when she asked if she could sit with her. "Please," she responded, indicating the empty seats that remained in the compartment. She introduced herself, saying that her name was Xen, and Oliwia nodded back in acknowledgment.

"I'm Oliwia," she told her, thinking that the other girl's name was far more interesting than her own, especially considering how much it seemed to trip people up. Did all magical people have such intriguing names? She didn't know, but she pulled her backpack off, entered the compartment, and sat down across from Xen then. She had successfully met one other person at Hogwarts, she thought, and on the train ride there. That was a good start, wasn't it? It was better than showing up to the school itself without any idea of who the people around her were. "Are you a first-year?" she asked, though Xen didn't look to her as though she could have been much older than that. Oliwia didn't want to stand out so obviously, but she also didn't think that anyone would have mistaken her for someone who knew what they were doing.

Oliwia shifted her backpack so that it was sitting on the seat beside her, as Xen had done with hers. That seemed more convenient than having it on the luggage rack above her head, especially because she had her school robes shoved in there. She wasn't completely sure how to feel about those, though the people at the shop had said that they looked good on her. There had been other merchandise, too—in red and blue and green and yellow—but she had been instructed to hold off until she knew where she would be Sorted. She wasn't sure why the school couldn't have included that information in her letter, though that would have been the convenient thing to do. At least she supposed that she would find out soon enough.

@xena

[Deleted]

The girl introduced herself as Oliwia which Xena thought sounded magical and classy, unlike her own name. She always thought her name sounded too futuristic for her own liking. And she hated that she was named after her dad. Matching names wasn’t the coolest trend, in her opinion. Especially when everyone was included except their mom. She briefly thought about mom, wondering how she was doing and whether he even knew that her youngest daughter was on a train on her way to some boarding school in the North of Scotland. She doubted her dad had told her anything. It wasn’t like he could tell her the truth.

Oliwia asked if she was a first year and Xen nodded. “Yeah… I don’t really know much about it either. My parents weren’t magic. Well, my step mom is, but she didn’t really tell me a lot…” Xen had understood that there was a lot to tell and it was probably hard to explain. Aimee had said that she would understand as she went and that was probably the best way to learn. And her step brother had basically said the same thing. Xen thought they were both giving her more credit than she deserved. She didn’t like the idea of walking in blind. “Are you?” she asked.

@oliwia

[Deleted]

September 1, 2022

Oliwia felt more comfortable when Xen admitted that she didn't know much about things, either. She said that her parents weren't magical, apart from her stepmother, but that her stepmother also hadn't told her much. That must have been a little bit awkward for her, Oliwia thought, though at least Xen had someone she could go to with any questions that she had about…essentially an entire alternate universe. She hadn't really had that, save for the explanation that she was a witch and that a magical world actually existed with a school called Hogwarts and everything else that had led up to her being there on the train.

It must have been interesting, too, to find out that you were a witch with a witch for a stepmother, Oliwia considered. She didn't know who her father was and didn't really give him much thought, in truth. Still, she wondered what it would have been like for her if her mother had married someone who turned out to be a wizard. Oliwia wondered if she would have believed them, though she guessed that it wouldn't be too difficult to keep up the façade that she would be off at a normal boarding school for most of the year.

"Yeah, me mam and I, we're not—" Oliwia corrected herself after a second, realizing that what was about to come out of her mouth wasn't actually correct. She was actually magical; it was just her mother (and everyone else she knew) who wasn't. "Me mam's not magical," she explained, "so I don't know how this 'witch' stuff works, like." She hadn't really anticipated having magical powers, but there she was. She had the wand and supplies to prove that she was a witch, but she wasn't sure that she really felt like one.

@xena

[Deleted]

Xen loved the sound of her new friend's voice. The accent she had just drew Xen into her and she wanted to hear her say more, but she didn’t want to be weird about it. She hated when someone commented on her slightly different accent, though the Welsh accent was far from the oddest dialect. Oliwia admitted that her mother wasn’t magical and Xen nodded. Maybe someone really knew how she felt. Xen had no magical parents that she knew of, not even any magical family that she knew of. Her mom sure wasn’t magic, and her dad wasn’t either, though he had married into it. She supposed it wasn’t contagious so there was no way she could have gotten it from her Step-mom. She wondered how often it just cropped up randomly like it did for her.

Xen shrugged, wishing she had more to tell Oliwia. “My step-mom said a lot of it needs to be learned through experiencing it. But she told me that tonight we’ll get to the school and then go through a ceremony to be sorted into our houses.” Xena informed her. She didn’t know much about the houses, and she had in fact forgotten the names of them. They were odd names. “And then she said it was just like regular school except the subjects were aimed at our abilities rather than standard academics.” given their list of school books to acquire, that made sense. Xen had to admit she was glad to be rid of maths.

@oliwia

[Deleted]

September 1, 2022

Xen told her that her stepmother had explained to her that a lot of it needed to be learned through experiencing it. Oliwia supposed that that made sense, especially because she didn't think that just reading about magic was going to make her competent as a witch. Still, it would have been nice to have some guidance on how to be a witch. Xen also mentioned that there would be a ceremony at the school in which they would be Sorted into their Houses. That was about all Oliwia really knew, and she nodded her head.

"And then she said it was just like regular school," Xen continued, "except the subjects were aimed at our abilities rather than standard academics."

"…So there's no Maths there?" Oliwia asked in disbelief, only then realizing that she hadn't had to purchase anything like that when she had bought her schoolbooks. It was all things with which to make potions and textbooks on things like "transfiguration", which seemed to be… turning animals into objects and vice versa? She didn't really know what that could be used for, and she didn't think that it sounded too helpful. "It's just the… magic stuff?"

@xena

[Deleted]

Xena couldn’t help the laugh that escaped her when her new friend echoed her mental sentiments about being rid of the muggle subjects. “I don’t think so.” she agreed with a shake of her head. “There are no math books, or science, or anything like that.” she supposed potions could possibly be considered science since she had to imagine it was somewhat similar to chemistry. “Just Magic.” she nodded. She supposed that was for the best seeing as she didn’t know anything about how to actually use the magic that she was told she possessed. Besides a few freak occurrences, she wasn’t even convinced that she had magic in her. Xen was smart, she was always a good student, but she was starting to doubt how she’d be able to perform in this situation. “I’ve never done magic on purpose…” she admitted, leaving out flicking a handful of wands at Olivanders while shopping for her wand. That didn’t count, she didn’t know what she was doing. “Have you?” she supposed now since the girl admitted she too was a muggle.

@oliwia

[Deleted]

September 1, 2022

The idea of not having the school subjects that she had spent the past few years of her life learning at all at her new school was strange for Oliwia to think about. She didn't really know what that would be like, because she didn't know anything other than the non-magical world. Everything about being magical seemed to come with one revelation after another. Xen confirmed what she had said before, though, that there was nothing of what they were used to there. There was neither mathematics nor science; it was all just magic.

"I've never done magic on purpose…" Xen told her then. "Have you?"

"No, I don't think so…" Oliwia replied. She assumed that that was probably something that was supposed to be abnormal, but the closest that she had come was in purchasing her wand. Even then, it had been a lot of waving stuff around and hoping that nothing would catch fire in a shop full of wooden objects. She hadn't had a clue what she was doing, though. It was mostly trial and error, because she certainly didn't know what she should have been looking for in a magic wand. "Can we do magic just with our minds, like?" she expressed, recalling how her magical abilities had been explained to her.

Eyeing her backpack beside her, Oliwia paused. "If I wanted to move something…" she mused, not knowing how well it would work, if at all. Could she just send it across the compartment? Taking in a breath, Oliwia continued to stare down her backpack, moving her eyes upwards and then across from her as if the backpack would follow that movement. Realizing that it hadn't done anything, though, she frowned momentarily and looked back towards Xen.

"…Erm, I guess not?" she shrugged. She probably needed a spell for that.

@xena

[Deleted]

Xena gave a little giggle when her new friend attempted to move her backpack with her mind. She hadn’t been taught every detail of magic herself, but she was fairly sure what the girl was attempting was rather advanced magic. “I think we can one day. I think my step-mum can. But before then we use wands and spoken charms.” she explained easily. She wanted to know everything there was to know. She had felt like such an outsider with her step-mum and brother ever since she found out about Hogwarts. It was like they knew so much that she didn’t and didn’t much want to share it with her. She wanted to be in the know. She wanted to belong in their world. She wanted to belong somewhere. “Did you get a wand?” she asked.

@oliwia

[Deleted]

September 1, 2022

Doing magic with her mind obviously wasn't working out as well as she'd hoped, Oliwia thought, though at least she hadn't totally embarrassed herself. The only other person who had seen what she had tried to do had been Xena, but Xena didn't laugh at her. No, she remained encouraging of her, saying that she thought that her stepmother could move things with her mind.

That was a really cool thing to think about… By the time they finished their seventh year at Hogwarts, who knew what kind of magic they'd be able to do?! They would be real witches by that point. Maybe they could just snap their fingers and make things happen. Oliwia was pretty sure that she'd seen characters do that on television, but obviously that was fiction. This was real life.

She didn't want to do anything that would hurt anyone, and Xena also mentioned that they had to use "wands and spoken charms" before they could get to controlling things with their minds alone. It made sense. She had had to buy a wand; it had been on her list of school supplies, and it seemed that most people in the magical world—or the witches and wizards, anyway—used wands.

"Did you get a wand?" Xena asked, and Oliwia grinned.

"Yeah," she answered, digging through her backpack until she pulled out the long box that held her wand in it. "It's… hazel, I think?" she then explained, setting the box on her lap and lifting the lid as though she would open Pandora's box if she were to remove it too quickly. "It's nice, isn't it? A bit bendy, they said."

@xena