Awe and Amazement

[Lucinda Dalton]

Lucy pulled her jacket closer around her - the New Zealand weather was just that bit colder than the weather in Brisbane. This was one thing that would take some getting used to, she figured. Of course, getting used to the actual magic part was going to be much harder. A lot of other people seemed to know everything, having magical parents and such. Lucy was behind in that respect. Her mother wasn't a witch and her father wasn't a wizard - and even if he was, it wouldn't do her much good. The last time she saw him was in the Christmas holidays, even then it had only been for a couple of days, and she'd spent most of that time looking after her half-brothers and half-sisters - if you could call them that. Lucy barely knew them and they barely knew her. In fact, she didn't even think her father knew about Hogwarts. She supposed it wasn't something you could just say in conversation normally: "oh, by the way, Lucy's a witch, she's going off to magic school." That wouldn't work. She wondered when her mother would tell her father, though, it wasn't something you could keep hidden forever. The fact that she was going to a boarding school in New Zealand was bad enough - you didn't do that unless you had very, very good reason. Besides, Lucy's name had been down at St Mary's since birth.
But the point was, Lucy was amazed and awe-struck by everything she saw. The book shop looked incredible, the wand shop nearly took her breath away - even the school uniforms in the clothes shop looked amazing. Magical, even. Leaning against a lamp post, Lucy looked out over the harbour, wondering how difficult it would be for her to fit in to the magical world. She had enough trouble fitting in at school in the non-magical world, how hard would it be now?

 

[Wiremu Hunter]

Hogwarts was starting soon, and Wiremu had a lot of things to buy. On little money, he hoped that the shopkeepers took kindly to hagglers. After wandering aimlessly for quite a while, he decided to ask for directions. It wouldn't bruise his ego, but he would find it rather embarassing if the shop he was looking, for was right behind him. Wiremu tried asking a few funny-looking adults in long dress-like outfits, but they weren't much help. Either his muggle clothing or the way he wore it was off-putting to them. He hoped they didn't think he was a certain stereotype; that would be sad.

About to give up and head home, Wiremu noticed a young girl leaning on a lamp post, not too far from him. She looked about the same age, too. Maybe she'll help.. he thought, heading in her direction. "Hey, mate, you wouldn't happen to know where.. uh," Wiremu paused to look down at his shopping list. "the Apothecary is, do you?" he finished, his Kiwi accent obvious with each word.

 

[Lucinda Dalton]

Lucy cocked her head to the side sligtly, as she heard a boy with a very obvious Kiwi accent ask her a question. "The Apothecary?" Lucy repeated, thinking for a moment. "Oh, that's the one that sells stuff for making potions, right?" she questioned, her Australian accent, while not the strongest of accents, evident in her speech. "The one that smells kinda weird? I think it's over there," she said, pointing over to some shops across the road. "These shops are odd. I'm still working out where everything is," Lucy admitted, guessing that this boy had the same problem as her. "Hey, you're going in to your first year at Hogwarts too, right?"

 

[Wiremu Hunter]

"Oh.. the Apothecary smells weird?" Wiremu laughed, slightly disappointed. He had expected the shop to be amazingly magical like the others, not weird-smelling. "What a joyous visit I have to look forward too, then!" he smiled, noticing the girl's Australian accent. His father could at times be a bit racist to the neighbours across the ditch, but Wiremu liked them. "I notice an accent, cuz. Where abouts in Australia are you from?" he asked, having been there once for a holiday. "And yeah bro, I'm going to Hogwarts. I'm one of those.. what do youse call it? Muggleborn? Yeaah, I'm going to straight up fail every class," he laughed again, hoping the girl wasn't a Muggle-hater like he'd heard about.

 

[Lucinda Dalton]

Lucy smirked at the boy's response. He seemed to have a good sense of humour, and while Lucy's sense of humour wasn't the best (her jokes, she had been told, were terrible), she appreciated people who had good senses of humour. She smiled when he picked up on her accent. "Thanks mate, I'm from Brisbane, hey," she replied, playing up the accent. "Where in New Zealand are you from?" she asked, having picked up on the accent quickly. "Awesome!" Lucy responded, happy to meet someone else who was going to Hogwarts. "Muggles are the non magical people, right?" she asked, hoping she had her facts straight. "In that case, I'm muggleborn too. At least I'm not the only person who's going to fail!" she laughed, still nervous about that fact but glad she wasn't alone. "Name's Lucy, by the way. Well, Lucinda, really, but everyone calls me Lucy. What's your name?"

 

[River Dallas]

All morning River had stayed outside in her lawn looking up at the sky watching each cloud go by imagining each shape of the fluffy whiteness. Each cloud, in her mind, had a story. one story was most interesting and probably the most detailed was the one about the flower shaped cloud that was missing a petal. How the story went was way to long to run through this Irish redhead's mind once more, but it was summarized by how a small rabbit had been dying of hunger and begged the flower for something to eat. Of coarse in stories made by the mind of this eleven year old, the flowers could speak with ease. This flower offered a petal for the straving rabbit, and the story went from there.

Yet as the hours passed, River decided that she had created too many stories for one day. Upon realizing this, River got up and brushed the grass out of her long fire red hair. Smiling slightly as this lanky young girl stood up and walked right out of her lawn yelling to the house that she would be back soon enough.

As River walked she almost had a very graceful skip in her step. Upon walking she came upon two people one boy and one girl. Both who River didn't remember meeting, yet her memory did fail her at times. "Hello" She said brightly her Irish accent not as profoundly sticking out as it would have been if this conversation progressed."I'm not interupting anything am I?" She asked flashing both children a smile.

 

[Wiremu Hunter]

(( Agh, so sorry! I totally forgot about thiiiss!! ))

Wiremu laughed when he realised that the girl seemed to know as much about magic as he did. At least he wouldn't be alone when it came to being clueless. "Yep, muggles are the non-magical people.. i think," he said, racking his brain. He had such a bad memory when it came to all this magic jargon. When she asked him where abouts in NZ he was from, he looked down at his shoes quickly. Sometimes he was a wee bit embarassed of home, although he knew that there was nothing he could do to change where he was from. "South Auckland.." he laughed. "South side repriZINT!" Wiremu joked, overexaggerating the stereotpical gangsta's that came from there. He smiled again when she told him her name. "Nice to meet you Lucy, I'm Wiremu."

Then, as he was going to say something else, he heard yet another unique accent come from behind him. Turning about, he found that it belonged to a girl with very red hair. Luckily he wasn't like a lot of people he knew, who would make fun of 'gingas'. Instead, he greeted her with a friendly smile. "Heey, bro! Nah nah, you ain't interupting nothing," Wiremu laughed, looking over at Lucy. Hopefully he wasn't incorrect in speaking for both of them.