Hogwarts School of Femslash and Wizardry
“Lauren,” Root teased at their token American, who was getting her shit together, “you’ll make us all late, again.”
She bustled around her cart, tugging and checking under everything. “Yes, sorry, um… Okay, so I have, my- good. Sorry, so are we all ready?” she finalized.
“For the past five minutes, yes.”
“Someone else has to be the over-prepared one if it isn’t me,” Waverly pointed out.
Their other friend shrugged in agreement, “I’m sure as hell not it.”
“We know,” Delphine joked. “Come on, before we lose a spot.”
They ran through Platform 9¾, Lauren shot through the portal but not before Root had a chance to slap her ass when she passed by. On the other side, Root greeted her friend with a mischievous grin. Waverly vaulted towards the train in search of an open compartment before they were forced to share one. She quickly found one and pushed her cart to the edge then took out her linguistics book while Lewis helped the others.
Root struggled to pull her dolly onto the train, jumping slightly when a hand reached out to hoist her belongings off the platform. She looked over to the still face of a peer. “Thank you, Shaw.”
She responded with the most words she had ever heard her utter, “Was nothing.”
Shaw spent her time either with the other three queer kids she was currently standing by or her exclusive friends in Slytherin. To Root, she seemed nice enough, save for her resting murder face, yet fit in perfectly with her cunning and ambitious tactics. Her kind gesture did surprise her, being under the notion that Shaw found her annoying. Shaw glanced back at her friends then returned to their beck and call. Root cocked her head to the side and grinned wider as she watch the flabbergasted student speak with them before rejoining her own peers.
Sam watched her fellow Slytherin from the corner of her eye, something quite noticeable by her friends.
“What a hero,” Bo jibed.
“Shut your face, Dennis,” she retorted in annoyance.
Cosima stifled her laughter. “Come on, let’s grab a seat.”
Bo and Nicole snickered as Shaw stomped to the train, leaving her friends behind. Haught was quick to snag her belongings and rushed after her, while Dennis helped Cosima, dragging them to their seating arrangement. Shaw got caught on a door and left behind. Once she finally tugged it out, she stumbled backward into Root’s compartment. Lying flat on her back, she caught the stare from three sets of unfamiliar eyes and another pair of adoring ones.
“Hey, sweetie, you need help?” Groves flirted. Shaw scrambled to her feet then caught up with her friends.
“A little short on words,” Lauren pointed out.
“Yeah, didn’t say much earlier.”
They continued their previous conversations, Delphine getting immersed in her book while Lauren nerded out about biology with whoever would listen. Waverly debated the merits of anthropology with Root between factoids, although the latter truly couldn’t care less about the subjects but entertained them all the same until they grew bored of the bumpy train ride. Cormier eventually took a look around the old train while she read, dodging students and employees on her shaky promenade. The brief flashes of the British countryside made her think of the flatlands back home. She peered through the crack of a compartment before the train rushed through a tunnel. Continuing on her trek, a student poked their head out of a doorway, getting smacked by the hardcover of her novel.
She slammed the book closed to diligently apologize. “Oh my, I am so sorry.”
“Hey, no sweat, dude. It’s okay,” Cosima tried to console her. Noticing her pristine blue and bronze trim sweater, she asked, “You look new, what’s your name?”
“Delphine, and you?”
“Cosima… Niehaus,” she greeted, partially closing the door to the compartment.
“Enchantée.”
“Enchantée. So, what, uh, what are you- year wise?”
“This is my Fifth year, yourself?”
“Fifth, too. You’ve got blue, so I assume you’re in Ravenclaw, so how’d you end up here?”
“I just transferred from Beauxbatons.”
“Wow, you’re a long way from home,” Niehaus commented, earning a slight shrug. “Cool- uh, so, what’re you reading?”
“Just a book.”
“About what?”
“Darwin’s finches. It’s a log of all of the birds he encountered.”
“Really, dude, that’s awesome. I thought I was the only one who was obsessed with Darwin.”
“Have you read his books?”
“Only, like, all of them a hundred times,” she tried to impress her. She heard her friends snicker and gossip from behind the sliding door.
Delphine glanced over her shoulder, “I guess I should go.”
“Oh, okay. So, see you in the commons, then.”
“Yes, au plus tard.”
“Bye,” Cosima blushed, ducking back into the room.
“Wow,” Bo noted, “you got game.”
Cosima nodded and rubbed her forehead. “Yeah but my head hurts a bit.”
“She must have been flying down the corridor?”
“That’s for sure, she had some speed on her.”
“Don’t let your injury prevent you from getting us snacks, Niehaus,” Shaw jibed.
“Pfft, you got arms too, why don’t you help?”
Sameen raised an eyebrow but was interrupted by their resident Hufflepuff. “I’ll join you.” Nicole hoisted herself up by the tarnished gold rail and followed her to find something to eat.
“Hey, when you get back, you guys wanna play BS?” Bo offered with a deck of cards in her hand.
“Yeah.”
Shaw pulled up the table and offered, “Knock-rummy while they’re out?”
Bo cut and shuffled the deck a few times before putting out the cards.
~
Lauren looked at her watch then stood up to stretch. “We have about an hour and a half. I’m gonna go walk around, anyone wanna join me?”
“No,” Root answered, too distracted by her current task of gazing out the window to be polite.
“Why not, maybe we’ll find Delph,” Waverly offered.
They walked out and made their way to the bistro cart. Waverly’s shirt got caught on a bolt, sighing in frustration as she tried to reach the thread. “Hey, Lauren, can you help me?”
“Here, let me,” another student broke in, swiftly releasing the thread from the screw. She had haphazardly shoved three boxes of chocolate frogs and a bag of jelly slugs into her pockets.
Waverly swept her hair over her shoulder and turned around. She smiled at the taller woman and then glanced back at Lauren. “Thanks… um, Haught, right?”
“Yeah, Nicole works though.”
“Hey, nice work last season,” Waverly proceeded to congratulate, “I know we didn’t place well, but you were a force to be reckoned with.”
“Oh, thank you,” she shyly accepted.
“Um- sorry, I should go, you know my friend…” she began, turning around to see that Lauren had already continued down to the bistro without her. “We… yeah. It was nice to see you. Thank you for helping with my shirt, they really should fix the bolts and screws. One of your lot fell into our compartment earlier.”
“Shaw?”
“The angry one?”
“That’d be her.”
“Just curious, does she talk?”
“Oh, yeah, she’s just a woman of few words.”
Waverly nodded with a pleasant smile and watched Nicole make her way to her compartment. Once inside, Haught tossed the boxes at her friends, keeping the Jelly Slugs for herself. Cosima caught the frog as it hopped out of the box. She smiled and popped it into her mouth then checked her card.
“Awesome, I got Bowman Wright.”
“Indira Choudry,” Shaw shared with a frog hanging out of her mouth by the leg.
“Cliodna,” Bo interjected.
Nicole opened up the bag and sat next to Cosima who was tucked up into the corner close to the door.
“So, Cos, who was that girl you were talking to?” Sameen asked, biting off the head of her frog.
“Just a transfer, she’s kinda nerdy.”
“Really, must be a complete bore, what’s her name?”
“Delphine. She’s a Ravenclaw like me.”
“Perfect if you want to get to know her better,” Bo nodded, playfully hitting Cosima’s knee.
Niehaus rolled her eyes in response then drew her attention to her dreamy-eyed friend. “What about you? You look like a love-sick puppy.”
“Oh, it’s nothing,” Nicole tried to cover up.
“Mhm, and it has nothing to do with that girl you ‘Helped’?”
“Piss off, that was Waverly.”
“Wait, Earp, that Waverly?”
“Yeah, she’s a lot nicer than her sister.”
“Yeah, she was a shocker. She got you guys in second and is dating a douche,” Sameen informed with a cocky smirk.
“Yeah, I know,” Nicole quickly stated. Sameen smirked and threw the box at her, but soon had it tossed back at her. “Haha, nice shot.” They got caught up in a brief kicking match before they mutually conceded. “Fucker.”
“I gotta keep you on your toes somehow? So, what about you Bo, it seems like everyone else has found their soulmate?” she sarcastically remarked.
“What? No, not yet,” Bo responded, resting against the wall and back of her seat. “Besides, why should we be finding our wives here? There are so many other wizards out there who are less annoying than the MoM ones here.”
“Really? I would have thought that the boys’d be all over you.”
“I was under the impression that we were at school to learn.”
They all burst out laughing, Cosima chuckling in the corner while Nicole completely doubled over. Sameen only shook her head in amusement. Haught leaned on her shoulder, earning a brief pat on the head before Sameen decided to practice some spells on their trash. She then retrieved her Dark Arts book and began to study.
Bo finally took a moment to stretch and stood between the sliding door and its frame. “Alright, I need to take a break from you lot, peace.”
“Keep your eye out for the one,” Shaw forebodingly warned.
Bo affectionately flipped her off then went off to explore the train, sliding out of her peer’s way. She spotted three students a few paces down beside a compartment. Two of them she recognized as Lauren and Waverly, the other she couldn’t quite place yet. Lauren shrugged her shoulders and peeked inside, then Earp and the curly-haired blonde slipped past her, leaving Lewis alone in the walkway.
“Lewis, that you?” Dennis inquired.
The other Gryffindor student furrowed her brows to study her. “Dennis?”
“The one and only.”
“I thought you transferred back to the states.”
“No, I was just visiting for the summer. Wow, I almost didn’t recognize you, what happened to your princess curls?”
“Oh, well, it always took too long to do, so I kind of stopped. You’re definitely different, in a good way, though.”
“Really, how?”
“I mean, you don’t have a trail of boys behind you like last time. Must be nice to have a breath of fresh air?”
“Oh, I’m sure they’ll come by like usual, I’m just enjoying the peace and quiet. I’m just taking a cruise, glad I caught you,” she flirted.
“Ah, back at it again,” Lauren awkwardly teased.
“I got to try.” After a brief moment of silence, she sighed, “Would you like to join me?”
“Oh, no thank you. I wouldn’t want to intrude.”
“It wouldn’t be intruding if I invited you.”
“It’s okay, we’re about to start a round of chess in here, so I’m interested in how it will go.”
“Who’s playing?”
“The Delph and Waves.”
“Okay, well good luck, I’d love to see you again.”
“That’d be great, Dennis.”
“Please, call me Bo, I get into too much trouble to let my mates call me that.”
As Bo left, Lauren slipped back in to watch the game take place. Already within the first minute of the game, there were white fragments on the board from Waverly’s minor victories. Root was completely invested in the proceedings, adding in audience sound effects like gasps and cheers when a smart move was made. Delphine quickly got the upper hand when she took away her opponent’s knight and pawn, but quickly lost ground when her rook was cornered.
“You are a sneaky little brit,” she taunted.
“Pfft, you’d know about that, Frenchie.”
She only shook her head and proceeded to take away five more pawns. “Bam, what do you have to say now?”
“Shit,” she muttered, “that was good.”
“Yeah, I think she’s got you cornered there, Waves,” Root added.
“Do you want to commentate this entire game?”
“Don’t mind if I do!”
“No, that’s-”
“Will Earp be able to get back on her feet and make her country proud?”
“Root-”
“Oh, seems not,” she cut off when another black piece shattered. “Cormier takes out yet another pawn, but would you look at that! Rook to E5 takes out Cormier’s knight, deadly move.” Root proceeded to commentate on their brutal game, never growing tired of her jokes and jibes, but went silent when Delphine found herself down to three pieces.
“I sense a distraction coming this way,” Lauren finally interrupted as she spotted a familiar student tromp his way in their direction. They knocked on the sliding door, so she glanced in Waverly’s direction. “It’s the boy.”
“Let him in.”
She rolled her eyes and opened the door. “Hey, James.”
“Ladies, m’lady,” he greeted them then his girlfriend. “I’m here to steal you away.”
“Just a sec, I’m gonna crush Delph.”
“You’re so sure of that?” she taunted back.
“Checkmate.”
“Merde,” she muttered.
“And the Brits win again,” Root cheered.
Waverly grabbed a few belongings and joined Hardy and his goons back to their compartment, “I’ll be back to grab my stuff.”
Lauren closed the door right behind them and rolled her eyes. “What a jag-off.”
“I can’t believe she’s still with him,” Root agreed.
“Who is he?” Delphine inquired.
“Hardy James, aka Champ. He’s a beater for the Hufflepuffs.”
“And a lunk,” Lauren added. “I thought she would have switched it up by now, joined the dark side.”
Root chuckled in response, but their other peer only looked on in confusion. “Dark side?”
“You know, accepted her gayness,” the Slytherin explained. “I mean it’s pretty obvious he’s a beard, whether or not she realizes it.”
“I don’t understand.”
Lauren glanced to the side for a moment then further described, “Basically, a beard is someone a gay person dates to appear straight.”
“How do you know, though?”
“It’s a feeling, pretty strong one, too.”
Delphine crooked an eyebrow at her forward explanation, then considered her own ‘gayness’ before pushing the thought aside. “Are you two gay?”
“Yeah, birds of a feather flock together.”
Root began to pack away the chessboard, “It’s just a matter of time.”
“That can’t be true,” the transfer student bargained.
“Well, it can happen,” Lauren pondered, “but most people tend to enjoy the company of people they are akin to.”
Root peaked out of the window and nodded in agreement, “We just passed the hutch, so we’re not that far away. Have you been on the train before?”
“Not this one, no.”
“It’s old, so hold on tight or you’ll go flying, this one still hasn’t learned her lesson,” she jibed to Lewis.
“Fuck off.”
“What, every year you’ve been here you hit the deck.”
“This is only my second year,”
“That is every year you’ve been here.”
Lauren gave in and began pulling down their luggage and stacked their belonging.
