arts magical

[occluminous]

Bella has been living in the dorms for two days when the term properly starts. The buses begin arriving and discharging the students who didn't need to arrive early just in time for them to join the early attendees for lunch. Bella is sitting at a half-full table, reading her Charms textbook and prodding at one of her notebooks with the hazel wand. The vine one is still in her hair; she uses it for most things (to the extent that there is a 'most things', but she's getting a jump on her assignments) but she's giving the hazel a try for this particular charm. It's supposed to make the notebook refuse to open for anyone but her. Poke. Poke. "Claudo!"

Her notebook snaps itself shut abruptly. She opens the cover, closes it, passes it to the girl on her right and gets her to try, observes that it does not open. She puts the hazel wand back in her sleeve.

Comments

[nobodyelse]

A pair of very nearly identical children walk in the door and stop, looking around. One is a girl with her long black hair in a ponytail; the other is a boy with his robes open over blue jeans and a white T-shirt.

The boy spots Bella. The twins confer. Then they head for her table.

[occluminous]

Bella waves in a friendly sort of way. She hasn't made particular friends with any of the other Muggleborns, and she's more interested in learning about the wizarding world (she has taken to calling it "Fantasia" in her head, after the musical film by the same name) than about commiserating over knowing what a television is.

[nobodyelse]

"Hello," says the boy in a crisp English accent. "I'm Sherlock. You're interesting."

[sparksflying]

His twin plops into a seat across from Bella and hooks the chair next to her with her leg, pulling it out for Sherlock.

[occluminous]

"Hi," says Bella. "I'm Bella. How can you tell I'm interesting?"

[nobodyelse]

"You have two wands," he says. "Vine and hazel. Introspection, self-control, clear-headedness, foresight."

[occluminous]

"I didn't realize they meant things," Bella says. "I just wanted two because it seems like they'd be easy to lose or break and inconvenient to do without."

[nobodyelse]

"Few people do," says Sherlock. "Mine's fir. It's for focused, stubborn people." He indicates his twin. "Tony's is blackthorn. It's rare. A warrior's wood."

[occluminous]

"And this isn't one of those things like astrological signs where people can just make up anything and it sounds right?"

[sparksflying]

"It partly is?" says Tony. "But wandlore's pretty serious. They do choose their owners, the good ones anyway. I wanna be a wandcrafter when I grow up," she adds proudly.

[occluminous]

"This one rattled around in its box when I walked by," Bella says, tapping the one in her hair. "The other one I found the regular way. The guy acted like it was weird to want two, but I don't see why. I don't know what I wanna do when I grow up at all," she adds to Tony.

[nobodyelse]

"Most people make do with the one until something happens to it," says Sherlock. He glances at his sister. "We should get a backup set."

[sparksflying]

"Yeah," she snorts, "'cause we had so much fun with the first ones."

[occluminous]

"Did you have a hard time finding them?" Bella asks.

[sparksflying]

"Sherlock took like half an hour, and I took three."

[nobodyelse]

"But perhaps next time it will be better," says Sherlock.

[occluminous]

"I don't know, my second one took a lot longer to find," Bella says. "Maybe if you go to a different shop with a different selection? I don't know how many there are, but there must be wizarding places besides the Bay Cauldron."

[nobodyelse]

"There are many. We will go to another one."

[occluminous]

Bella smiles. She's glad she had a useful idea. "Where do you guys live?"

[nobodyelse]

"New York, until recently," says Sherlock. "And yourself?"

[occluminous]

"Historically Phoenix during the school year, and a nowhere little town in Washington State otherwise, but they're going to have to work out how to divvy up my summers and vacations now that I'm boarding here, I guess," says Bella.

[nobodyelse]

"Which nowhere town would that be?"

[occluminous]

"It's called Forks, why?"

[nobodyelse]

"Because I wanted to know."

[occluminous]

Bella laughs. "I see. Hey, what kind of class schedules do you have?"