Smile

"So does getting eaten, swallowed, digested, and regurgitated only for the whole process to repeat," Roxanne said, cringing at how much pain she imagined that scenario to cause.

I'm not dramatic! the brunette thought exasperatedly.

"I only have the one," Roxanne answered. "But, I don't know. My mum and dad had been talking about having another baby, but then the whole 'witch' stuff happened. So yeah..."

She shifted uncomfortably. It was a sort of weak point for her to talk about her family's future. Now that her mother's secret was out, nobody knew what would happen. He father had accepted it easily enough, but you never know.

"So I guess life gets pretty hectic with so many siblings, huh?" Roxanne asked, shifting the light back to the blond.

Marlene watched the girl carefully, her mood seemed to change a bit when Marlene had asked about her family, shrugging it off the blonde laughed at the question.

"Yeah," she replied, "it's pretty crazy actually. My older brothers are a lot out though, Mark anyway, he has a girlfriend you see. Mel, my sister is pretty annoying when she's always coming into my room, without knocking and then the little ones are pretty much just screaming and shouting every chance they get. Our house is huge, it's four floors."

Sighing, the girl propped herself up on her elbows and tried to see out the window. "Do you think there's a lot, lot, left?"

"Four floors?" Roxanne asked. "That's like, four times the size of my house," she laughed. "I guess wizards can have as big of houses as they want, huh? With magic on their side and all?"

I wonder what it's like to have been raised around magic.

Looking outside the window, Roxanne saw that the sun was still very high up in the sky. "I say about a few hours. Mum told me that we don't get to the castle until dark," she shrugged. "She also told me there'd be a trolly..."

The brunette pressed her face against the compartment door window, trying to spot the sweets cart but had no luck. Sitting back in her seat with a pout, she sulked silently. Roxanne needed her chocolate.

Marlene shrugged "I dont know about that, spells have to be pretty affective and strong to be able to hold many floors of a house, but ya know everything's possible I guess."

"I really cant wait," she said, grinning at Roxanne "-until we start learning to use strong, large and powerful spells. Can you?"

Marlene's ears perked up at the sound of a trolly. "Oh! I hope it has pumpkin pastries! I love pumpkin pies."

It could still all be a lie, Mary thought. Even now as she loped along the corridor with a new set of robes, spell books and even an owl, there was still a tiny cynical spec in her brain that continued to question it.

As she searched for a compartment, she peered into one window to see only two girls sitting in it. Sliding the door open, she poked her head around the corner. "Mind if I sit in here?" she asked, although she had already decided she would join and had plonked her stuff down, beaming between the two girls.

"I want to learn that one spell--what did mum call it? ahkio? Accio!--I want to learn accio; that way I don't have to get up when I'm too lazy to get the remote," Roxanne grinned. Imagine how many minutes of unnecessary walking she would save if everything just flew into her hand.

Roxanne muttered under her breath about sweet, precious chocolate. The galleons her mother had given her before boarding the train seemed to weigh down her pocket as her digestive tract craved for the the brown delicacy.

As she mumbled to herself, the compartment door slid open, and yet another blond joined them. She hadn't even waited to know if they allowed her to sit before she did so. Roxanne nodded in greeting, her mind still on chocolate.

"Whatever," the brunette said, staring out the compartment window longingly as the trolly drew closer. It was only a compartment down now, and it looked like it would be staying there.

Glutinous fiends! Roxanne thought angrily; I want my chocolate!

"Ahkio" Marlene muttered under her breath, "It's written with two c's but it really sounds like Ak-hio, I guess."

She looked up, as the compartment door was opened, spotting another blond girl. "Yeah, sure have a seat." she said, grinning and sitting up and straightening her skirt, excited for a new person. "I'm Marlene or Lene or Marley or whatever." she said, waving a hand. "That's Rox, she's dramatic. Who are you?"

"Hi, Lene or whatever, hi Dramatic Rox," Mary said with a grin, waving at them both as she sat down, flicking her hair out of her eyes. Okay, definitely not a prank.

"I'm Mary. You can't really shorten that, can you? I guess you could call me Mare." She pondered this thoughtfully. "So, what happens next?" she asked, staring between them.

"I'm not dramatic!" Roxanne exclaimed, glaring at the two blonds before sulking in her seat. She muttered a quiet, barely audible "Nice to meet you, Mare" before continuing to sulk. She wasn't dramatic, was she?

"We wait for the trolly," the brunette said, answering Mary's question, a bright smile lighting up her face. "Then we buy chocolate, and all is well with the world!"

Her cheery mood suddenly dampened as she realized that the trolly still hadn't moved.

"If only those inconsiderate jerks next door would stop hogging up our precious trolly lady's time so she can get over here..."

"Mare." Marlene repeated, pondering the name for a second before she nodded her head. "I like it."

Marlene rolled her eyes at Roxanne and pulled a face towards Mary mouthing 'Ignore her' in her direction.

She then sighed heavily. "I'm getting tad hungry my self, what about you Mare? Do you like pumpkin pies? I'll get some chocolate frogs too, I think."

Mary grinned at Marlene and shrugged, mouthing 'okay' back, before grinning at Roxanne, who explained to her that the trolley lady was coming. Craning her neck to peer out the window, she saw said trolley lady and nodded. "Cool," she said, nodding.

Marlene asked her a question and she nodded, pulling on her lip with her teeth. "Uh, I don't know. Probably. I don't know what either of those are but I'm sure they're lush. I eat anything."

"Chocolate frogs?" Roxanne asked. "What are those? Frog shaped chocolate?" Though the thought of eating something in the shape of those slimy disgusting creatures didn't appeal to her, the brunette would eat anything if it was chocolate.

When Mary mentioned that she didn't know what those sweets--wizarding sweets, Roxanne had assumed--she turned to look at the blond with wide eyes.

"Wait, are you a...a...," she thought hard, trying to remember the term Marlene had mistaken her for, "muggleborn?" She turned to the other blond for confirmation.

Marlene sighed. "Chocolate frogs are sorta like frog shaped chocolate, it's frogshaped chocolate but.. magical?" she frowned, not really wanting to go into further details with more questions.

Marlene's ears did, however, perk up when Roxanne asked Mary if she was a muggleborn, she nodded quickly at Roxanne, giving her the thumbs up for saying the word correct, before she then turned to Mary. "Oh, are you? Are you? Please be, that would be so cool, I've never met one before!"

Mary raised her eyebrows a little at Marlene's explanation of chocolate frogs to she and Roxanne, glancing over at Roxanne to see if she understood it any more than her.

"Um, I... don't know," Mary said truthfully, frowning. "What's a muggleborn? Does that mean I am one?" She shrugged, giggling. "If you've never met one before, what does that make you?" she asked jovially. Oh, Merlin, she did not belong in this world. Well, she'd just have to force herself a place in it, wouldn't she? That wouldn't be so hard. She was good at forcing herself places.

"I'm gonna...eat magic?" Gross...

Roxanne grinned when Marlene confirmed that she was correct. A small giggle excaped her lips as the blond seemed to be set from 'happy' to 'hyper'.

"A muggleborn," the brunette said, smiling at Mary, "is a person who's magic, but has no magic parents...I think." She turned to Marlene, biting her lip nervously. "I got that right, didn't I?

Mary's question on what Marlene was made Roxanne confused. "What does that make you? Wait, what does that make me?"

"Yeah, what Rox said. It's someone that's born into a muggle family - a muggle is a person that can't do magic, - and can do magic. So they are a witch but the others in the family are... normal... people. Muggles."

Just as she was about to answer the other questions, the door was pushed open and the trolly lady smiled a toothless smile at them. "Anything for you dears?"

Jumping up from her seat, Marlene ran towards the trolley and got herself a pumpkin pie before she walked back to her seat and plopped down. "Do you have muggle parents Mare? Roxanne you are a... surprise-witch." she giggled.

Mary nodded slowly, absorbing what Marlene was saying. "Oh, okay, makes sense," she commented at the end. "I guess that I am one of them, then. Cool!"

She watched Marlene order something, and looked over at Rox. "Shall we go together?" she asked. "I have no idea what I'm getting. I'm kind of... new to this."

In the end she ended up getting a chocolate frog and a weird box of things called Bertie Bott's Every Flavoured Beans, a pumpkin pasty for good measure. She grinned. "I'm a pig," she told the other two as she sat back down.

"Yeah, my parents are both muggles, I think," she told them, grinning. "At least, my mother's pretty boring. What about you two?"