In a Crowd of Thousands (A'dam)

[Deleted]

May 24, 2025

It was a Saturday, and Dasha's boredom had gotten the better of her. There was only so much that she could do in Little Hangleton itself, so she felt fortunate that her older brother had no issue with her going to Hogsmeade. The all-wizarding village was very different from the one in which she and Dmitri lived, which was mostly populated by Muggles. It also helped that her first experience there had been during the Winter Festival; it had looked like a dream then.

It wasn't often that Dasha went out, if she could help it. The experience that she had had in Britain so far was in complete contrast to what she had known in Russia. Back home, she thought, she was out most of the day. If she was home, it was mostly just to sleep. In Britain, everything was unfamiliar, and she stayed close to Dmitri and to her schoolwork.

She was cautious, too, given how many people were falling ill with some startling new disease. The last thing that she wanted—or needed—was to catch whatever fever was going around. Maybe it was her imagination, but there seemed to be a lot of other teenagers around. Dasha had thought that Hogwarts was still in session, if only for a few more weeks.

Since she didn't know the village well, Dasha tried her best to blend in with all of the people her own age without attracting too much attention to herself. She wasn't a Hogwarts student yet, though she knew that she was walking among her future peers.

The sight of the music store caught her eye in an instant. They probably sold all sorts of things for the piano, Dasha imagined, which would have made a nice surprise for Dmitri—if there was anything that wasn't too expensive. Before she could reach the window to look at the display more closely, however, Dasha found herself narrowly avoiding a collision with a redhead about her own age though much shorter than she.

"Sorry," Dasha apologized quickly, her Russian accent apparent as she spoke. So much for not drawing anyone's attention.

@amsterdam

[Deleted]

It was Saturday and A'dam had received far too many letters of caution to be able to bear it. She was supposed to stay in today and write a lengthy update to her uncle about her progression on her personal studies (ew, etiquette and history of muggles) but after the sixth owl flew in with a letter to caution her about the new illness that had swept across the UK and confined all on the island she'd been done with it all. She'd stuffed each letter that hadn't held relevant information into a safe space in the fireplace and had decided to go to Hogsmeade after all, despite many pieces of advice telling her ever so wisely not to. It likely was a center of disease. Yeah, like the school wasn't. The fresh air was sure to do her some good at least.

She was aimlessly wandering around, mostly because she rarely got to go to Hogsmeade. Security reasons or whatever. No people in the magical community ever actually cared about her status in the muggle world. It had no meaning to them at all. She could wear a golden crown and nobody would care, except perhaps about the value of the object itself if sold. A'dam loved that about this world but hated it that her uncle didn't seem to understand. Not that she could blame him after what had happened to his sister, her mother. Not everybody was fond of royalty. She shuddered slightly. The magical world was safe. Or at the very least safer in terms of social standing. Not that she had much to say with the pureblood as she was practially muggleborn. If her father hadn't been a squib.....

So deep in her own thoughts and half used to everybody minding where she walked whenever she was out in the open she barely noticed the other girl heading her way until they almost collided. A'dam got quite the scare, not being used to this sort of a situation. She took a deep breath to steady herself and quickly check if the other person seemed to have any signs of intention to harm her. It was a girl of about her own age, maybe younger. Her thick Russian accent didn't quite help put the young Queen at ease but after a few seconds she managed to calm down significantly. She shook her head slightly as she looked at the other girl. "It's fine. You scared twenty years of my life but apart from that nothing bad happened, did it?" She tried to give a reassuring smile but she was worried she was a little on the pale side for it to fully work. "I'm A'dam, by the way. Do you go to Hogwarts? I don't seem to recognise you." Coming from her, that said quite a bit as she had been trained to always try to know most people around her. If the girl was in her house or year, A'dam should at least have known her. It was hard to say.

@dasha

[Deleted]

May 24, 2025

The redhead into whom she had almost collided seemed to accept her apology, which was good. "It's fine," they said, though they mentioned something about having been scared by her. That hadn't been Dasha's intention, and she was relieved to see the redhead smile at her. It could have been much worse.

"I'm A'dam, by the way," the redhead told her.

Wasn't Adam a male name? Dasha had always thought of it as one, though the redhead had seemed to be a girl to her, at least by appearance… Either way, Dasha knew that it didn't really concern her. Her primary focus was that A'dam hadn't been upset with her.

"Do you go to Hogwarts? I don't seem to recognize you."

Dasha shook her head at A'dam's question. She wasn't officially a Hogwarts student until the end of the summer, though it seemed as though A'dam must have been a student there already. "No," she replied. "Not yet. I will go to Hogwarts in September. I'm Dasha."

@amsterdam