"Dunno. Make new things, find out more stuff, I guess?"

She hums, sticking her tongue out a bit as she thinks, then: "Invention and discovery both mean finding stuff out - like, creating things to find out versus finding out stuff that's already there... And they actually sound neat even in English."

"That's kind of neat. Hmm..." She taps the fir wand. "Invention." Black walnut. "Discovery."

She grins. "Now I need a name for my wand..."

"What kinds of things do you want to do?"

Serious hum. "I... Wanna be myself. Always. Not what anyone else says I should be. And I wanna find stuff out, and have people I love and can take care of, and change the stupid ways things are done..."

"Hmm. Tricky."

"Maybe it should reference Discovery's name, too, since our wands are brothers..."

"Curiosity? Intrepid?"

"Oh, I like those both a lot..." She hums. "Intrepid, I think."

"Nice."

Giggle. "They'll become the most famous wands ever, I bet."

"Definitely."

She laughs, bouncing and wiggling a bit. "I like you! We should be friends at Hogwarts, too. Learn all the things. Together!"

"Sounds good to me."

Wiggle!

And then there's a whistle, and then an apparently sourceless voice telling everyone that they'll be arriving at Hogsmeade Station in fifteen minutes, and students should be wearing their uniforms before debarking. Baggage, including familiars, should be left on the train.

"Guess we're just about there."

"Yeah. We don't gotta get changed... Still, I should at least make sure my trunk's locked..." She does so.

Ellie checks hers as well after tucking her wands away again.

She stows her wand last, then stretches. "Figure we should try to get to the door early, or wait for the crowds to go down and leave last?"

"Door. Trying to shove onto the train was a pain."

"Fair."

Off to get first in line, then!

(This doesn't seem to have occurred to anyone else, actually, so they really are first. And magical trains don't jerk around like muggle ones, so it's safe to be standing by the door.)

And, as the train comes around one final bend...

Hogwarts comes into view. It's a massive castle, grand, its architecture strange in subtle ways - nothing's quite floating, but a lot of its turrets are mildly implausible. It's similar stylistically, maybe, to some older Scottish castles, but... There's a lot more innovation. A high stone wall with towers - circular at the edges, square in the middle of stretches - rings the castle at a distance. It's getting dark already, so a lot of the details are hard to make out - though that does mean they can see little globes of light bobbing merrily around the castle's heights. There's some outbuildings, too, but none of them are as big or impressive as the main castle.

"Wow. Big place."

"I know! Looks way too big for just a couple hundred students..."

"It was a fort too, when it was built."