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

[occluminous]

"Huh. Okay. That's not what I was expecting to learn at magic school but it's still interesting!"

And she opens up her notebook and writes it down and then closes it again.

[nobodyelse]

Sherlock grins.

[occluminous]

"So you guys have magical parents, since you arrived today instead of on Friday, right?"

[sparksflying]

"We have," says Tony, "a magical parent."

[occluminous]

"Well, you probably still know more about how all this stuff is going to work than me," says Bella. "My parents are both Muggles. I'm just lucky they weren't totally surprised since I've been doing little poem spells since I was eight."

[sparksflying]

"You have?" says Tony, interested. "Cool. I've mostly been running into walls."

[occluminous]

"...Magically?"

[nobodyelse]

"She can levitate at speed," Sherlock puts in, "but she hasn't got the hang of stopping."

[occluminous]

"Oh. Well, maybe we can learn that here," says Bella. "My poems can only do little things. They don't work on anything like flying, I tried a lot."

[sparksflying]

"I don't really fly," says Tony. "I can't get any higher than I can jump. But I can zoom pretty good, except, like he said, I tend to crash."

[occluminous]

"It still sounds like fun! I crash plenty even just walking around, it'd be a better deal if I got to be airborne first."

[sparksflying]

"When you're airborne first," says the voice of experience, "you crash harder."

[occluminous]

"I fell down the stairs and broke my arm once," offers Bella.

[sparksflying]

"I've never broken any of my parts!" says Tony. "I've broken furniture."

[occluminous]

"But how do you do it? Is there a poem or can you just do it whenever?"

[sparksflying]

"I just... do," she shrugs. "And sometimes it doesn't work and I fall flat on my face."

[occluminous]

"Sometimes a poem doesn't work. Especially if I try to use the same one more than once," Bella says.

[sparksflying]

"I think you can't repeat them or something?" says Tony. "I'm bad at rhyming on the spot, I never use 'em myself."

[occluminous]

"Well, yeah, making them up on the spot would be really hard, that's why mine all have spots in them for the date," says Bella.

[sparksflying]

"...Genius," declares Tony.

[occluminous]

"Thanks!"

[sparksflying]

She beams.

[occluminous]

Something occurs to Bella.

"Is Tony short for something?" she asks.

[sparksflying]

Tony rolls her eyes.

"Antoinette," she says, "and don't ever let me catch you using it. Why?"

[occluminous]

"Because my orientation packet says my roommate's name is Antoinette," explains Bella.