Closed Math Isn't Real

[Freya Song]

Books had never been Freya's first option for entertainment, but that wasn't to say she didn't like them. She just happened to prefer poetry or fantasy novels, though the latter was a little too raw for her these days. She was slowly getting used to having to carry a wand with her and knowing she had the ability to do magic but it still made her head spin if she thought about it too hard. Freya suspected she was overdue to freak out over her newfound magical abilities, but that particular train of thought would have to wait for another day. Or week. Or just hold off until she graduated.

She had borrowed An Intuitive and Physical Approach to Calculus from her brother's tower of textbooks for an indefinite amount of time, and without his knowledge, figuring it was only stealing if he noticed. He hadn't written to her, and Freya decided that meant he didn't mind. She couldn't remember if she'd actually told her brother about Hogwarts, or if she'd been too busy pretending he didn't exist to have the whole "magic is real" conversation before she disappeared off to school. Someone would probably let him know, eventually.

Freya needed something mind-numbingly boring to distract herself from her spinning thoughts, and math was her favourite choice for that. Some fresh air couldn't hurt, either, and Freya settled under a shady tree to commit herself to the highly important task of colouring in diagrams with sparkly gel pen.

 

[Emma van Houten]

From all the stories Fleur had told Emma about Hogwarts, she had learned quickly that the best part of Hogwarts was the grounds. Fleur had told her all about it, the forest and the lake and the lawn, the Quidditch pitch too. Emma wanted to explore it all! She would have preferred to explore it with her twin sister Iris, but hadn't been able to find her all morning. She guessed Iris was distracted with a book or with her tarot cards somewhere in the Ravenclaw tower, and she didn't feel like climbing all the way up there now. Especially because she couldn't actually get inside to look for her. It all sounded like a lot of trouble, and she wanted to go explore now. She would just have to tell Iris all about it later and make her jealous, that would teach her not to stay in Ravenclaw all day.

Emma hadn't dared to go into the forest by herself, telling herself she should do that with friends because it would be more fun. She was running in the direction of the lake, when she suddenly noticed a girl sitting under a tree. She stopped in her tracks, taking a few steps back to look at the girl. She looked familiar, and Emma figured she was in her year. "Hi!" She said, wondering if she had found someone to explore with. But the girl was reading, no... coloring? Emma looked at the book, tilting her head as she tried to understand what she was seeing on the page. "What's that? That's not a schoolbook." She was pretty sure there was no math at Hogwarts, which was really one of the best things about Hogwarts.

 

[Freya Song]

Freya was perfecting the ancient art of colouring inside the lines when another girl approached her and pointed out her book. That was one of the problems with Hogwarts: people kept coming out of nowhere to remind Freya that she was at Hogwarts. She was already perfectly aware of this, hence the boring textbook and glittery ink that kept rubbing off onto her fingertips like some sort of misguided nail polish.

"We're at school. This is a book. Therefore, I'm fairly sure it qualifies as a schoolbook," she said slowly, blinking owlishly at the new girl and squinting in the light. "Or I messed up transfiguring my cat, and making the best of it." Freya shrugged and twirled a pink pen between her fingers. She was glad she didn't really have a cat, and was even more confident in her decision not to bring a pet to school after discovering that transfiguration on animals could be possible. That would have been an additional thing for Freya to worry about - and she already had her plate full enough without adding magical mystery desserts.

 

[Emma van Houten]

Emma frowned at the girl's logic, then shook her head. "That's not true. If I bring a copy of Beedle the Bard with me to Hogwarts, doesn't mean it becomes a school book." She pointed out. "Then its just a book at school. And this isn't for one of our classes, anyway." She leaned closer to look at it. The girl made a comment about transfiguring her cat, and Emma narrowed her eyes at her. She put her hands on her hips. "We haven't even learned the small transfiguration yet. My sister said we don't learn to transfigure animals until our third year. Stop saying things that aren't true." She demanded, frowning at the girl. "You're coloring in a math textbook. Why do you even have that?" Nothing about this girl made sense, and it irritated her immensely. She wanted the girl to just tell her what she was doing. She rather liked the glittery gel pen the girl was using, and actually thought the coloring looked really nice with it. But until the girl started making sense, Emma wasn't going to compliment her on it. No matter how sparkly and pretty it was!

 

[Freya Song]

Freya snorted and rolled her eyes at the girl's reaction. A book at school was a school book, and her textbook was for a school. Just not the one she currently attended. She didn't appreciate this nosy stranger who couldn't take a joke. She just wanted to sit under a tree and "learn" calculus. If her nerd brother could do it, it probably wasn't rocket science.

If this girl had a sister who knew about magic, it was likely she came from a magical family and Freya resented her immediately. "For wizard math, obviously," Freya said, calmly. "Did you sister forget to tell you about that? What about the end-of-year gladiatorial battle? You're not in my house, so I'll probably have to fight you and you might want to prepare for that."

Magic wasn't a truth of Freya's world several months ago, but her reality had taken a sharp dive into the absurdity that was an entirely new curriculum with subjects Freya hadn't even dreamed about. She could hardly be blamed for trying to distract herself, but it looked like this other girl wasn't about to let her and Freya wasn't happy about it.

 

[Emma van Houten]

Emma scoffed at the girl as she started trying to trick her. She wondered if this sort of thing worked on gullible muggleborn students, and immediately felt even more angry with the girl. What if she had been telling tales to more timid students around her and had scared them? Emma was frustrated by the thought. "That's not real, 'wizards math' would be called Arithmancy and we don't get to choose that until third year." Emma said with a slight air of superiority from knowing this. "And the rest is just nonsense. You're such a liar." She scowled. "You better not be scaring others with your stupid stories. That's not nice. And I bet I could beat you in any fight." She added, putting her hands on her hips. "You don't look very strong. And all you seem to be able to do is make up stupid fake things."

 

[Freya Song]

Freya stood up, colouring forgotten, and faced the girl. She balled her fists up at her sides and willed herself not to get angry. This know-it-all was getting on her nerves and Freya wished she'd just turn into a leaf and flutter away. She could hear her social worker's condescending tone in her head - Freya, stop lying and tell the truth - when her homework had somehow been set on fire and Freya couldn't explain that she hadn't meant to do it. "So what if I am?" A wide smile stretched Freya's face at the girl's accusation. At least she didn't go up and start harassing strangers for no reason. "You're the one making up stupid names for things! Arithmancy, sure," Freya scoffed and narrowed her eyes. "And you want to beat me up? I think you're just a bully!"

 

[Emma van Houten]

It surprised Emma that the girl got to her feet and seemed actually angry. So far, nothing she had said seemed to affect the other girl. But Emma stood her ground, glaring at the girl. "Then you should stop!" She said to her. "And I'm NOT making it up. Arithmancy is real! You're the one who doesn't know anything, is that why you're just making stuff up? You could ASK." She said, stepping closer. "You're the one who started talking about a battle! Just because you're scared I'd beat you doesn't mean you can say I'm a bully. I'm not. You're the bully." She glared at the girl. "Lying and making things up are things bullies do!" She crossed her arms. "I bet you think it's funny think your stupid lies are real." She added.

 

[Freya Song]

Freya wasn't scared of this girl, even if she did try to beat her up. She'd fought girls twice her size before. She may not have won those fights, but Freya could be annoyingly persistent when didn't think through the consequences of getting punched in the face. "Go ahead, then," Freya taunted. "If you really think you could beat me. Or hex me, since you know so much about magic!" she spat out the last word as though it tasted bad. "It's not my problem that you're going around accusing people of being bullies because you don't have any actual friends," Freya wrinkled her nose in annoyance. She liked the way words twisted themselves around her brain and came out as stories, and didn't understand why this girl wouldn't just leave if it bothered her. If Freya could sharpen her words enough to sting, then maybe she'd finally be left alone to colour in peace.

 

[Emma van Houten]

Sorry that this took so long!

Emma shook her head as the other girl tried to taunt her into hexing or hitting her. "Don't be jealous because I know more. I'm not going to hex you." She told the girl with a frown. "And I DO have friends! More than you!" She yelled, though she didn't actually know that for a fact. "You're the one making things up!" She repeated, wondering how the girl was now trying to turn it around on her. She huffed out a breath. "You're weird." She announced. "I'm going to leave now, but if I hear you make stuff up again and try to make other people believe it I'll tell my sister, and she's a prefect." She raised her chin at that, looking down her nose at the girl. She was sure she had no comeback for that.

 

[Freya Song]

Freya wasn't jealous of this girl's supposed knowledge of magical things. She was resentful, certainly, and maybe sneaking into the territory of envious - but certainly not jealous! She tilted her head and stared blankly as the other girl raised her voice. Freya had always been told that the quantity of friends didn't matter, but she was on speaking terms with several enchanted paintings around the castle and considered that close enough.
"Aw, you're going to go snitch on me to a prefect? That's not very friendly," she said, adopting a tone of faux-concern and then smirking. "Guess you don't know any hexes." Freya didn't think this girl was very tough if she had to run to her sister every time she had a problem. "Go ahead, door's that way," Freya gestured to an empty spot of air on the lawn and waited.

 

[Emma van Houten]

Emma scowled as Freya didn't seem as impressed as she had wanted her to be. Instead, she mocked Emma for going to tell a prefect, which annoyed her even more. "Well, sometimes that's what you have to do." She snapped at her. "And I do know hexes, but I'm not stupid enough to use them." She knew the girl would get her in trouble the moment she did something that broke a rule. "No it's NOT." She said as Freya mentioned the door being that way. She understood it was probably a joke, but everything the girl said that wasn't true was frustrating her more and more. "Ugh!" She turned around and stomped off in the direction of the castle.

 

[Freya Song]

Freya had come to the conclusion that this girl might be physically incapable of understanding jokes, and wondered if she should feel sorry for her. Still, it looked like she would be finally leaving Freya in peace and she was pleased about that, and definitely not at all shaken by the encounter. She waved cheerfully as the redhead walked away and then glanced down at the book in her hands. Freya couldn't exactly just storm off somewhere else to calm down - she didn't want to risk running into the girl's ire again. She resigned herself to hiding back under the tree and continuing her very important "wizard math".