"Hi," Emma says shyly. "I'm Emma. I, um, I wanted to say sorry about earlier."

"It's not your fault. I'm Miranda," adds, apparently, Miranda.

"Nice to meet you," Emma says. "No luck yet?" She eyes the piles next to Miranda.

"Not yet, but it's worth a try." Miranda picks up another wand; nothing. "Do you want a second one too?"

"My mum is unpacking the new apartment," Miranda says. "She said I could get my things myself if I liked, so I did."

"You're allowed to come here by yourself?" Emma asks enviously. Eleven is, in her parents' opinion, definitely not old enough for solo excursions. "Alone but we're nearby" is, obviously, fine; "entirely alone on a shopping trip" is out, no question.

"The new apartment is just down Plur Alley, I can run home if I need her," says Miranda. "But I don't see why I would. I know not to go into Knockturn and I know how much my things are supposed to cost and we moved back in the first place because You-Know-Who is properly gone again so it should be pretty safe."

"It's okay. My mum is very excited that I'm going to Hogwarts instead of the Owly." Miranda tries another wand; nope.

Emma nods in understanding. She has heard the Owly called the 'Hogwarts of Australia,' and the fact that Miranda got into both confirms her opinion of the other girl as Extremely Impressive. On the other hand, she has spent two weeks being cooed over incessantly; parents who prefer Hogwarts are no mystery to her. "Well, you know. Hogwarts. Obviously we're just that cool?" she jokes. Then flushes. She doesn't actually know this girl that well. "And, uh, Australia, wow, that's cool, how was it?"

"Mum went to Hogwarts so she prefers it but I would have been fine staying in Australia, too. Except it's very far from my dad. Also it gets beastly hot in summertime."

"Okay, so maybe not actually cool," Emma says with a (mostly) straight face. "What about your dad, was he Hogwarts too?"

Emma sneaks closer to watch. One of her parents' French friends has a Veela hair in their wand, but other than that she's only ever seen Ollivander's standard dragon, unicorn and phoenix wands.

"See you then!" agrees Miranda.

Does the girl with two wands crossed in her hair, leading a trunk on wheels by a sort of leash, and accompanied by her mother and a caged owl, look wizardy?

"Oh, are you looking for nine and three-quarters?" says the girl's mother.

"...My hair? Mum braids it for me," says Miranda. "Well, has done. I can do the spell myself at school though. Can metamorphmagi braid their hair by magic or is it only color and length and so on?"

"Unicorn face?"

"Yep! For reading unicorn stories to my little sister." Costumes are very important for bedtime stories, after all. "Sparkly pink horn and silver hair. I am an Extremely Pretty Unicorn!"

"Awwww!"

"Well, it's a good thing you found us, then," says Miranda, "or you probably would have been very lost. What all do you already know about Hogwarts?"

"Not much," Jenny admits. "I mean, I figured out why they admitted me, that one wasn't hard. It's a school? It has magic people? I did get directions to that alley place, I got my stuff there, I picked up a couple things there I guess. Like Muggle! I knew that one!" She thinks. "Oh! And the letter mentioned broomsticks, I think? I really really want to see that!"

"Well, we don't get to have our own broomsticks, first year, but we can learn to ride them on school brooms. Hogwarts is a really old school. Also there was a war at it last year but now it's over and that's why I'm going to it instead of the school in Australia."

As Jenny has no expectation of ever owning a broomstick, she is undeterred. The idea that flying lessons exist, and she can take part in them, is, in fact, far better than expected. However, she is distracted by more pressing concerns. "...er. War?"

"I'd rather know," Jenny assures her. "I- it's over now, though, right? I won't, like, step on a magic land mine on my way to class, anything like that...?"

"...did I skip that? Wow, I did. Sorry! I'm Jenny. Genevieve, actually, but," wince, "please, Jenny. And I think I heard you're Miranda?"

"Yeah, I am. And I understand, Miranda's actually my middle name," says Miranda.

"Nice to officially meet you, fellow name-adjuster!"

"Friends are the best!" Jenny agrees, smiling at Miranda's mum. "Of course, friends with Unicorn Faces are the very best." Nothing self-serving here, not at all, carry on. "Let's go say hi? Is that okay- er, Mrs. Miranda's Mum, can I borrow Miranda for a Greeting Expedition? If you want to, Miranda."

Jenny follows cheerfully. People to meet! Magical people! Who are her own age, even!

"I'm Jenny! Nice to meet you too!" She laughs. "I am Miranda's rescue, actually. I got totally lost on the way in, she took pity on me. But she said you were nice, so I followed her to say hi. Therefore: hi, Emma-who-is-nice!"

Emma blushes and fails to come up with a response to that, so she looks back at Miranda. "A rescue? That was nice of you."

"She was lost," says Miranda. "She's a metamorphmagus! So we could tell it would be okay to show her the platform."

Miranda notices him looking at her wands. "He wouldn't sell me a spare," she says. "So I had to go somewhere else for a backup wand."

"I see," he says. (He does not. A spare? Whatever for?) "You do seem to have succeeded admirably in your hunt for... a spare."

"Yes. Thank you," says Miranda politely.

"Sure, go ahead," says Miranda.

"Real unicorn horns aren't pink," says Miranda.

"They're really hard to find! But you can take Care of Magical Creatures later and there might be some you could meet."

"My books are kinda buried, but if either of you can get to yours I bet Fantastic Beasts has a unicorn section?" Emma suggests.

Miranda goes for her trunk and opens it up. It is neatly organized. She finds Fantastic Beasts and opens it up to the page on unicorns, which is illustrated with a moving photograph.

"Wizard photographs are pretty good," agrees Miranda. "Well, for this kind of thing. My mum thinks Muggle photographs are better for artistic shots because you can line things up just one way."

"You can make paintings do it," says Miranda. "But it doesn't happen by itself, you have to make the painting special. The photographs have to be developed in a potion, too, to do it right."

"Uh, hey guys?" Emma breaks in nervously. "I think the train's about to leave, you should probably say goodbye to your parents?" She looks enviously at Jenny's glittering hair. "We could sit together on the train though. Um, if you want to."

"Oh, yeah, let's all get a compartment," agrees Miranda, and she walks back to her mum, and hugs her, and gets kissed on the forehead, and goes onto the train.

"I'm in!" Jenny agrees immediately. "My parents are at work, so I'll get us seats I guess? Nice to meet you all!" She fetches her stuff, calling an extra thank you back to Miranda's mother in the process. (Imagine if she'd run into Emma's parents first? Emma was nice, but her parents were... well, Jenny's now extra glad she met the Swans first.) And onto the train she goes to find a free compartment.

"We ran late because Mum wanted to walk as it's a nice day, and it wasn't making us late enough that I could argue her into taking the Underground." Most of the compartments are occupied; they have to duck around the snack cart to get past lots of full ones. Eventually there is an empty one. Miranda ducks in to claim it.

"The Underground?" Emma asks curiously. "Oh, uh, that's that Muggle train, right?"

"Yes. Renée - that's my mum - doesn't like the Floo. She has a broom but I don't fit on it so even if she Disillusions us it doesn't mean we can fly around in the middle of London."

"I haven't taken the Floo much," Emma admits, "but I kinda see her point? It's, um, not the most comfortable thing in the world. Mother found us a Portkey to the station; that's kinda why we were so early."

"Okay, is there, like, a cheat sheet or something?" Jenny asks plaintively. "Magic to Muggle dictionaries? Wizarding Gobbledigook 101? Help, someone, take pity on the confused Muggle please!"

"Sorry," says Miranda. "The Floo is a way to go from one fireplace to another by magic, but it makes my mum dizzy and it's also very hard to land on your feet. A Portkey is a thing that is enchanted so if you touch it, it puts you somewhere else. Brooms fly. And there's this train, which is somewhat magical but mostly only a train, and in other countries there are are magic carpets but not so much here, and apart from, like, things like sitting on magical animals and special-purpose-built things that aren't any of them very common, that's most of the wizard methods of getting around."

"I think it's just Metamorphmagus for boys or girls. But if you want to say 'witch or wizard' without it taking all day you can say 'wix', and like - at least the sort of person Renée hangs around with will know what you mean." She supervises the braiding process with fascination.

"That was pretty much my best idea... ummmm... can you do a beak?"

"How many siblings do you have? ...I'm not going to pull them but if you make feathers and someone pulls them out do they stay feathers after?"

"It must be nice having siblings," Emma says somewhat wistfully. "Even that many."

"I don't have any. I don't know if I would like them but I don't think I particularly want them. Jenny, do you want me to see if I can Vanish the extra hair? I don't know if I can, but we're allowed to do magic once we're on the train so I can try."

"Sure! I haven't actually seen anyone use a wand- well, except the whole 'my wand turned into a sparkler when I picked it up' thing- so I am totally on board. Also, y'know, thanks."

"Ev-an-es-co," says Miranda. "Vanishing Spell. When it works, anyway."

"Whoops! ...at least nothing exploded?"

"You might think you're joking, but that can happen."

"It was about half a joke? I mean, I've seen my wand go all sparkler, it seemed like maybe a thing."

"The neighbor's kids blew up a tree one time," Emma volunteers. "It knocked a branch onto the house. My mother made them come help her with the repair spells."

"When Renée was substitute teaching in Australia one of the kids in her class blew up the time-out corner when she was about to get sent to it."

Emma laughs. "Was that even an accident?"

"She was five, so it's technically accidental magic anyway, but maybe not!"

"Patrick would absolutely do that," Jenny says fondly. "Probably Michael and Thomas too, if they thought of it, but- Patrick would so do that. Your mum's a teacher?"

"Yes, she teaches - basically wix nursery school. The one she worked at before we went to Australia took her right back when she asked, she's very good. Are your siblings magic too? I didn't think it was usual to have more than one in an otherwise Muggle family."

"Awww, that's cute. Kiddies are the best! Well. When not being small demons. And I don't think so? I haven't seen any of them do anything magic, anyway. It's just- what he would do, if he could. It's probably good he can't. He is fiendishly creative about his pranks already, I could tell stories all day."

"Are you the oldest?"

"That's me! Or, when I'm feeling whiny, 'slave labour babysitter', take your pick."

"I've gone with Renée to work a couple of times and I can take or leave small children, really."

"Leave," Emma contributes. "Mostly since I have no idea what to do, and freeze up." Pause. "Worse than normal, I mean."

"Awwww, but kids are easy! I mean, Unicorn Face makes it super easy, but they're easy! Find a park and a football and you're set for hours."

"Quidditch?" asks Miranda. "I've never played it, I'm very clumsy just walking around and Renée doesn't want me on a broom until I'm somewhere there's a qualified healer just around the corner. I don't really watch it either but occasionally she does."

"My parents don't care much, but my dad goes to matches sometimes. I think mostly to be social, though. I don't care much about the game itself, but I had a broomstick when I was younger. I wasn't spectacular at flying or anything but it's so much fun. Are you excited for flying lessons?" She grins. "Since there will in fact be qualified healer just around the corner."

"I'm really excited! I'm hoping Renée is wrong and I'll be able to fly just fine."

"Well, school brooms are pretty basic, but there are some pretty fancy stabilizing spells out there now? You could cover for clumsy pretty well, I bet."

"Yeah. Or it just won't matter because there isn't anything to trip on, who knows?"

Jenny cracks up. When she recovers her breath, she manages, "Picturing you- heee- tripping on a gargoyle. Or a fairy! Or... or..." and back to cackling.

"Fairies are really small, I don't think running into one on a broom would be a big deal," laughs Miranda.

"Imagine if they were pixies though," Emma shudders.

"Help?"

"Oh. Um, fairies are sort of like butterflies? Pixies are larger and smarter and really obnoxious."

"And there's doxies, which are like fairies, but they bite, and they're venomous."

"So... basically there will be small magical creatures of various amounts of friendliness coming out of my ears?"

"I wouldn't expect them to nest in your ears unless you never bathe."

"But I'm a witch! If I shower, I'll melt!"

"Be careful around girls with fancy silver shoes..."

Green goes her skin! She can't do anything about her shoes, so she turns her hair silver instead. (Unicorn Face has lots of practice with silver hair.) "Best of both worlds!"

Miranda giggles. "Auntie Em! Auntie Em!"

Hair goes black. "I'll get you, my pretty, and your little owl too!"

"I haven't named my owl yet. Do you want to help me name her?" asks Miranda.

"...I would! But I'm not really gonna be that helpful. I mean, I look at her face and think 'Pancake.'"

"She looks kinda like a jewel tone? Amber, or tiger's eye, I don't know. Ambera? Ambara? In Latin it's Chryselectra or Glaesa, I think. No idea about tiger's eye. But... um. Pancake? Where's that from?"

"The circle on her face looks like pancake batter! It was the first thing I thought of!"

"I helped!"

"Yeah. Do you want to pet her? She's very soft."

"Sure!"

"Ooh yes please!"

Miranda opens the cage and takes Amber out of it. Amber sits docilely on her fist and permits petting.

Jenny is extremely excited. This is her petting an owl! For the very first time! She scoots over and pets Amber very, very carefully.

Amber is very, very soft.

"She's so fluffy! If she was not an owl, I would cuddle her. So many cuddles. How did you pick her?"

"I went into the store with the owls to see if any of them seemed to like me, and she seemed to like me, and was not too expensive."

"That seems pretty sensible, and yet also disappointing. Not enough magic fireworks involved."

"Not everything can be as fancy as choosing a wand!"

"Wand-choosing was definitely the flashiest thing. I liked the potions ingredients store, though, even if all I was getting was the first-year student kit."

"My wand was pretty cute about it," Emma volunteers. "The sparkles looked like they were laughing."

"Awww! I don't think I can pick? I mean, everything was so neat! Er. Except no, I lied, it was the candy shop. Oh my Lord was it ever the candy shop."

"The trolley should be here eventually. What candy did you like? I think wizard sweets are more fun but Muggle sweets are on average tastier. None of them try to melt through your tongue or trick you into eating ear-wax."

"I didn't get to actually try any, but everything looked delicious. But, er, earwax? Really? I maaaay rethink this. Even the floating sherbert?"

"Bertie Botts' Every Flavor Beans are every flavor, which sometimes means strawberry and sometimes means grass and sometimes means earwax. Renée gets them sometimes but I don't like them at all. The sherbert isn't earwax-flavored, probably."

"Ooooooh, so I can just focus on things with consistent flavors. Neat! Cause really, earwax, ewww."

"Careful, the jellybeans might hear you."

"The jellybeans can't hear you," Miranda corrects for Jenny's benefit, just in case.

"You," points at Miranda, "thank you. You are a kind and gentle soul, taking pity on me in my ignorance. You," and at Emma, "are a bum."

"What, me? Never!"

Jenny eyes the trolley curiously, particularly the Chocolate Frogs (moving things are hard to ignore), but she doesn't purchase anything.

Emma waits for Jenny to order. When she fails to do so, Emma watches her consideringly for a moment. Then she orders three Cauldron Cakes and three Licorice Wands. When she's been handed her pastries, she offers one of each to the other girls. "Wands and cauldrons for brand new students! Candy-style cheers? Before we're deeply, deeply tired of anything that looks like school?"

"Cheers," says Miranda. She gives each other girl one of the Chocolate Frogs as well.

Miranda is munching her licorice wand. "Yeah, Jenny, it's fine. Do you collect the cards, Emma? I just like the chocolate, you can have my cards if you want them after I eat the frogs."

"Only sort of, um, accidentally? I don't really care or anything, but I like to read them, so I would ask for cards to read the backs and people just kind of...assumed."

"I usually throw them out," says Miranda, "unless I get rare-ish ones that I can let Renée take to work for the little kids."

"I used to, after I'd read them, but then my aunt would save them specially for me and I felt bad throwing them out, so. Collecting by accident."

"Aw. I don't have any aunts or uncles."

"I just have the one. She's nice, but, um, in an easily distracted, kinda forgetful way? Still sweet, though."

"Are you jealous or sorry for us?"

"Yes!"

Miranda giggles.

Emma's card is Dumbledore. She's read his a million times before, so she skips the back, but she stares at the picture sadly for a second before tucking it away in her bag. "What about you, Miranda, what card did you get?"

"I wasn't going to open the other four yet, but I guess I can open one." She takes out a frog and unwraps it and bites its head off and collects the card. "I got Harry Potter."

"...I wonder if they've updated the back? I mean, he did kinda a lot, kinda recently."

"Let's see -" Miranda turns over the card. "The first and only known wizard to survive the Killing Curse, earning the title "The Boy Who Lived." Youngest Quidditch player in the last century after gaining the spot of Seeker in the Gryffindor Quidditch Team in his first year at Hogwarts in 1991. Also known for having found Salazar Slytherin's Chamber of Secrets and defeating the monster within, which was a basilisk, in his second year at Hogwarts. Only known Gryffindor student able to speak Parseltongue. Youngest competitor of the Triwizard Tournament and winner of said Tournament at the age of 14 in 1995. The last master of death for having gained true possession of all three Deathly Hallows. Most famous for the defeat of the most dangerous dark wizard of all time, Lord Voldemort, in 1998. So, yes, they updated it."

"Oh, he was in that war you mentioned?" Jenny asks, peering over Miranda to try and see the picture. "He sounds like a biiiig deal. But, er, translations. Like, Killing Curse I can guess, Quidditch you mentioned- Parseltongue? That tournament thing? The Deathly Hollows?"

"Oh, of course - the killing curse is exactly what it sounds like, yeah - Parseltongue is snake language, he can talk to snakes. The tournament is a competition sort of thing between Hogwarts and two other European magic schools, Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, there were dragons and a maze and an underwater rescue thing and stuff. The Deathly Hallows - I don't actually know much about those, by the time they were involved in anything we were in Australia."

"Oooh! Is there a horse language too? Can I learn it?"

"I think it's just snakes, and you have to be born with the snake one."

"That is sorta weird! Why snakes, I wonder? Also, boo, I wanted to talk to horses. But I already got my neat born-with-it power, I guess!"

"Being a metamorphmagus is way better than being a Parselmouth. They're kinda not trusted. At all." Pause. "Except for Harry Potter, obviously."

"Being a metamorphmagus is much better," Miranda agrees. "Even if it weren't for the part where Parselmouths are kind of - oh, has anybody told you about the Houses, Jenny?"

"I know that there are Houses! That's, like, a thing for boarding schools, I think. And er, I think someone said the names, but I forget. Is there more?"

"Yeah. Gryffindor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff are the four of them. In Muggle schools I think you get a random House? Or something like that? It's not like that at Hogwarts. I got Renée to tell me how it worked when it looked like I'd be going to the Owly so it wouldn't matter if it was a surprise, but it would usually be a surprise, do you want to know how the sorting works anyway?"

"Yes please!"

"I got the whole speech from my parents already, they're both Ravenclaw, but thanks."

"Renée was Ravenclaw too - they just told you? Renée seemed to think it would be better if it was a surprise but I never saw why. Anyway, Jenny, there's a magic hat, you put it on your head and it figures out what sort of person you are and each sort of person goes to a different house. It's more complicated than this but basically Ravenclaw is for smart kids and Gryffindor is for brave ones and Hufflepuff is for hard-working ones and - Slytherin is supposed to be for ambitious ones, but it was full of all the kids from the evil families in the war, so - if the hat tries to put me there I will just go to the Owly after all, it doesn't start classes for another two weeks."

"I think some of our neighbor's kids didn't know? My parents said not to talk about it with the other kids, at least. But I was worrying about getting put in Slytherin and they were reassuring me I could ask for Ravenclaw."

"Oooh, those sound like good traits, finding out which I am will be fun! But I guess not Slytherin. Ambition is fine and all, but wars are bad. I hope it does not put you there either! Then you would leave, and who would protect me from Emma when she is being a bum?"

"I'm going to try to get Ravenclaw too," says Miranda. "I think I can talk it into Ravenclaw probably."

"I wonder if it's going to be able to put anyone voluntarily into Slytherin, this year," frets Miranda. "Maybe it usually listens but this year it will have to stop to keep the numbers even."

"Are there, like, Magical Reasons the numbers need to be even? Or just so everyone has a place to sleep?"

"I don't actually know."

"Here's to it being bed related!" She holds up her Cauldron Cake for a candy-toast. "Since then we can just move the beds."

Miranda toasts with her still-kicking headless Chocolate Frog, and then deprives it of its forelegs for good measure. "Let's hope."

Miranda nips over to the Headmistress where she is awaiting the students, to have a quick word about her name. "Excuse me, Professor?"

"Can I help you, Miss Swan?" the Headmistress asks.

"Yes, Professor. When you call out names, can you use my middle name instead of my first name, or at least let me tell you how to pronounce my first name?"

"As you like, Miss Swan. Will that be all? We have rather a lot to do here still," McGonagall says with a slight smile.

Jenny waves at her from the Hufflepuff table, grinning with delight. From a distance, she mouths, "No Owly!"

Miranda waves back, smiling, relieved. She didn't really relish the conversation with her mum about wanting to storm off to Australia, even if she thought she could finesse it.

He stands and waves, then sits back down.

Ignoring the whispers, Professor Reed follows her colleague's lead: stand, wave, sit. Her smile's rather more enigmatic than his, but at least she doesn't look threatening (at least she's not Umbridge) (at least she's not a Carrow).

"Please welcome them both. And now, I'll let you return to your meals. A very good night night to all of you," McGonagall finishes.

Miranda sets about collecting details on what she missed from her vantage point in Australia about recent events in wizarding Britain, and what she missed by being as young as she is and therefore not having encountered either Umbridge or Carrow. Also eating, she does that too. And she writes down the teachers' names that she has, so she won't forget them, and receives her class schedule from a prefect, and tucks that into her notebook, and fields questions about her duplicate wand, and generally integrates herself as best she can into her new House, because she had to threaten a hat to get it and she had better like it.