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Jenny has nightmares all night. Everything from she vanished all of her clothing by accident to she can't do anything except change form and everyone laughs at the stupid Muggle, and every other version of mucking up her first class that her sleepy brain can manufacture. She wakes up looking like she's been run over by a very sleep-deprived train, and her hair is curling in panicked ringlets of pure white.

But now she has Potions class to go to. She should probably get up and do that. Not going to class counts as mucking up, so she makes herself get up and get dressed. Can't muck up. If you do, you can't be a witch.

That thought turns the rest of her hair white.
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Emma has not known Jenny very long, it is true. But she hasn't ever seen Jenny's hair change color unintentionally, and this- doesn't look all that intentional. Not to mention the "I slept on a bed made of nails, nettles and hot coals" look she is currently sporting.

"Jenny. Jenny? Jenny. Hey. Um. You okay...? Breathe? Please?"

Emma is not very good at hugs, but she attempts an awkward one anyway.
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Jenny breathes. And leans into the hug. After a minute, she smiles weakly at Emma and, slowly, fixes her hair. "Sorry. Sorry, just sorta stressed. I promise! First day, so on, so forth." She sighs at herself. "I have been dealing with first-day-of-school sibling stress for years, now I get it?"

She is very good at being organized while stressed, apparently; she's already ready to go.
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"Maybe you caught it from them, then," Emma teases gently. "But, um, seriously, please don't worry? Everyone will do something stupid at least once today. I promise. Magic is cool and all, but it's hard."

She is not quite as organized as Jenny, but she manages to catch up reasonably quickly. Potions?
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"Ugh, ugh ugh ugh I feel so silly and whingy. Okay, okay, I'll try not to worry. Try! I make no promises!"

But she's smiling a little now, at least. Off to Potions they go.





The Hufflepuffs are the first ones there. Jenny's looking forward to the others arriving- the schedule said they share this class with Ravenclaw- but seeing Miranda will have to wait at least a little bit longer. So instead she drags Emma to the middle of the room; the Hufflepuffs are congregating towards the back (partially out of shyness and partially in the expectation that the Ravenclaws will want the front) so hopefully the middle will be near Miranda. Table located, she plops into her seat and starts spreading out ingredients in piles next to her cauldron.

(Focus on your hair, don't let it turn white again, it will be okay Emma said it would.)
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Here is Miranda! She has apparently made a Ravenclaw friend.

"Hi, Emma, hi, Jenny, this is Karen! Karen, that one's Emma and that one's Jenny."
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"Hi, Emma and Jenny, I'm guaranteed to mix you up at least once!"

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"Hi Karen," Jenny says with a smile. She is not as bubbly as usual still, but she managed the smile! And her hair is not white! Baby steps.

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"Uh, hi, nice to meet you," Emma says. "Don't worry, I'll forget your name at least twice. So, um. Call it even?"

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"Sure, that's fair," agrees Karen. "What kind of wands do you have? I got a book on wandlore for my birthday and I'm trying to ask everybody. Mine is walnut and unicorn hair."

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"Karen doesn't believe me about the chimera wand, but that's fair since I only have the shop lady to go by," says Miranda.

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"I- er. Is it weird that I have trouble remembering? It seems like I'm not supposed to," Jenny sighs. "Rowan and dragon something, I think? Twelve inches, I know that one."

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"Willow and unicorn hair, ten inches," Emma provides. "Um, I can vouch that she said chimera? Not that it makes her more reliable, but."

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"...isn't there a way to test? It seems like there should be a way to tell!"

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"If there's a way to test I don't know it," says Karen, shaking her head. "But chimaeras are really dangerous, and they're less common and less well understood than dragons, so I don't think it would really be a chimaera hair. It's probably just unicorn."

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"Maybe. My other one has a phoenix feather core. Pine and phoenix, eleven inches, hazel and who knows what, eleven and a quarter."

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"Soooo, what do they mean?"

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"The woods or the cores?"

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"Either? Both?"

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"Um, walnut is supposed to mean intelligence and innovation - I'm not just complimenting myself, they all mean things like that - and hazel means self-control and understanding your own feelings, and pine means independence and introversion and being going to live a really long time, and rowan is for being pure of heart and supposedly rowan wand owners never go Dark, and willow means potential. And I don't know what chimaera or whatever Miranda has would mean, but unicorn hair is supposed to be consistent and hard to turn Dark and doesn't like to change owners, and phoenix feather is the least common of the Ollivander kinds and it sometimes does useful things on its own, and dragon heartstring is powerful and quick to learn how you do magic and of the Ollivander kinds it's easiest to turn Dark."

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"So I'll never go Dark, but I'm also the easiest to turn Dark!"

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"Potential and reliability, I guess? Huh. I'll take it," she says with a smile. "Do wand lengths mean anything?"

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"People think longer wands might mean stronger personalities? I'm not sure if there's anything to it and anyway it's not consistent, if you break a wand you can get one of a really different length that likes you just fine. I think it's a coincidence Miranda's are both almost the same."

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"I have more personality than yooooou," Jenny beams at Emma.

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"Uh. You spontaneously grow glittery pink unicorn horns. I lose by default."

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"Potions is the weirdest class to be having this conversation in," observes Miranda. "How do we want to pair? I think we're supposed to pair. I wonder where Professor Slughorn is."

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"What makes it weird?"

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"Potions doesn't use wands. So, uh, strange place to talk about wands. For pairs... I dunno, mix up the houses, maybe? Miranda, want to pair?"

Jenny seems to have perked up while talking, and Emma's hoping having a new person to chat with will distract her, but she's hardly going to say that out loud, in front of Jenny.

(Why no, Emma's shyness around New Person is not at all a factor. Nope.)
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"Works for me."

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"Sure. Hi, partner, remind me which one you are."

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"Hi partner! Karen, right? I'm Jenny."

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"Cool. Um, I got the time right, right? Professor Slughorn should be here soon? Now? Ish?"

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"Yeah, Karen - and I don't think we were early? -"

And with that, Professor Slughorn appears with a sunny smile on his walrusy face. They will be making a simple potion today, which does nothing but smell very different from any of its ingredients, as an introduction to some basic potions principles. He makes no issue about inter-House pairing.
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Emma quietly begins assembling ingredients per instructions. They're not the most thorough instructions she's ever seen, but it's not exactly a complicated recipe.

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Jenny makes a couple piles, but starts to panic rather quickly. She looks at Karen with a meek, for her, expression. "Er, am I doing this right?"

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"It's my first day too! Let's just - go slow," says Karen, and she starts narrating what she's doing, reading aloud the labels on things and the instructions on the board and assembling more piles and starting to chop up the lily petals.

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Miranda, meanwhile, helps Emma some, but seems more interested in reading their textbook about the theories they're illustrating than actually making the potion. It's not like it's going to do anything useful.

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"Thanks," Jenny says weakly. She starts measuring out Standard Ingredient into a phial. "Sorry, I'm sorta new to magic. Like, all of it."

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Emma's unbothered by this. Potions is just following directions. She is very good at that. As she grinds up some mistletoe, she peers over Miranda's shoulder. "Anything interesting?"

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"Yeah, actually. There's an entire little appendix about potion smells and why they smell like things. Apparently most potions don't smell like their ingredients, which... is good, because some of them you have to drink and most potions ingredients aren't that tasty."

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"Muggleborn?" asks Karen. "That's okay, you'll catch up. We know stuff from our parents, but we've none of us got to try things before."

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"Is this one in there? Why it smells differently, I mean?"

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"Yep, Muggle," Jenny agrees. 'Muggleborn' is new to her and she files it away. "It's... there's just a lot, you know? There's all this general stuff I don't know. Like Potions being wandless! If Potions is wandless, where's the magic come from?"

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"Nothing about this specific potion. But apparently mistletoe is in a lot of potions that wind up smelling funny -" Miranda starts shredding something that needs shredding. "It also does other things, but this is one of them."

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"You're not a Muggle," corrects Karen. "Just your parents, so you're Muggleborn. Or if you want to be very polite to yourself you can say you're a first-generation witch. And we're still magic, even if we aren't poking our wands at things. So we can make potions, but we couldn't teach Muggles how to do it, it wouldn't work."

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"See? Stuff I don't know! Muggle, Muggleborn, Muggleconfused."

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"Well, I dub this potion 'So Boring the Textbook Skipped It', then," Emma says mournfully. "At least this is straightforward."

As if on cue, something in the back of the room starts smoking. Emma successfully suppresses a giggle, but her eyes are laughing.
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"Miranda says her mum is Muggleborn, so I bet she knows some things," says Karen. "That's probably why they went to Australia."

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Professor Slughorn swoops down on the owners of the smoking potion, diagnoses the problem, and warns everyone not to drop their dry ingredients directly onto the burners.

"I mean, it's suppose to smell nice if you do it right. I guess you could dunk sachets in it?" says Miranda dubiously.
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"...I would say but who has those but I bet you if I look, my mum packed me some," Emma says, halfway between fondly and rolling her eyes. "We could check later."

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"Er, do witches not normally go to Australia? Is 'avoid war zones' just a Muggle thing? ...please tell me if it is, that sounds unsafe."

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"I don't think we're allowed in each other's dorms, are we? Do you mean a we that doesn't have me in it?"

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"No, I mean, some people left, but the war was especially bad for Muggleborns, because You-Know-Who didn't like them. Uh, you might want to watch out for Slytherins, Slytherins also mostly don't like Muggleborns. Or Muggles."

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"Er. You-Know-Who? I do not in fact know who! Is this that Vole guy Miranda mentioned?"

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"Yeeeah, I forgot that part. But, uh, no, that was a lie, um, I totally meant Jenny the whole time. Really!"

(Nope.)
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"Uh, that's him, but that wasn't his name, but people don't like saying it, did Miranda say it?"

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"I read it off Harry Potter's Chocolate Frog card," Miranda says to the neighboring table. "It's not dangerous anymore to say it. Or it wouldn't be on the card, would it?"

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"It's not," Emma confirms. "I think my parents mentioned? But, um, it's still- strange. I haven't, yet."

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"It was dangerous to say his name?"

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"People were afraid to say it even before that, but for a while it was actually dangerous, there was a spell on it and if you said it bad people would come find you."

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"Ugh. You can get arrested for saying a name. I feel sorta like everything magical is out to get me! "





"...everything except unicorns. Unicorns are perfect."
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"Not everything magical is out to get you. There are plenty of harmless spells and creatures and stuff. This potion is totally harmless, for example."

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"There is a smoking burner somewhere behind us which disagrees!"

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"That's not the potion's fault!"

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"Yeah, that would happen if you dropped food on a Muggle stove just the same."

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"I am a very good cook," Jenny says loftily. "Stoves are safe near me! Buuuut no comment on the MiniMearas."

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"On the who?" asks Karen, starting to stir their potion clockwise.

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"Sisters and brothers?" Emma guesses.

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"Yup! Mini O'Mearas was just so condensable. And 'unruly misbehaving hooligans' was too long."

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"Well, at any rate, magic things are mostly not out to get you, but you're already used to the ways Muggle things are dangerous so the magic ones are surprising and different."

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"I guess. It's just sorta sad. All I knew before was fun magic!" The ends of her hair all turn a particularly vivid shade of purple as emphasis.

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"Sorry to disappoint."

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"Not your fault! I'll live. (I hope!)"

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"Please do, I'm sure the Headmistress would rather not preside over any deaths."

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"Uh, all things considered- we should probably not joke about that?" Emma says quietly.

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"Okay."
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Awkward silence abounds!





"I, um. Sorry. I didn't mean to kill the conversation," Emma mumbles.
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"Professor Slughorn would probably have told us off for talking about things beside the potion eventually anyway," says Miranda, though Slughorn is across the room helping a pair of Hufflepuffs understand the book's described difference between chopping and mincing. Miranda minces the things that need mincing.

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"I don't know how I feel about that. That might make this like a normal class. It's supposed to just be Awesome Magic!"

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"Uh, this is a normal class. First Year Potions is a - a pretty normal class."

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"Er, normal for a Muggleborn?"

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"Normal doesn't mean nonmagical, Jenny."

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"I know, I didn't mean it like that! Really, I didn't. But- it's normal to me, and I wasn't thinking about it, so I said normal!"

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"What would Muggles be learning instead of Potions, anyway?" wonders Karen. "Is it just like more primary school, forever?"

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"Well, they learn different things even in primary school, but I think it's more like that than Hogwarts, anyway." Miranda powders something that needs powdering and sprinkles it into her and Emma's potion, then looks up other uses of the powder in the index.

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"It's more like primary school," Jenny agrees. "But with calculators instead of cauldrons."

Cauldrons are definitely better.
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"Well, in wizard and witch primary school like Renée teaches they still teach about magic, they just can't have the kids actually doing it," Miranda says.

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"Speaking of school... what class do you have next? Are we in the same one again?" Emma asks, consulting her schedule.

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"We have Charms after this. And Astronomy tonight."

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"We've got Charms with you, but Astronomy isn't for a couple days," Emma reports.

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"Well, we can't have everything together - and tomorrow we have Transfiguration and brooms and that new lecture that they're doing this year on - relatively more current events than the kind Binns teaches."

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"Yes! Flying broomsticks this is going to be the best!"

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"Yeah, I love flying."

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"What's it like? I can't wait!"

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"I mean, it's like sitting on a flying broomstick? It's kind of hard to describe. But it's great."

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Her response is not a comment, but a excited mini-squeal. It winds up sounding more like a squeak, but Jenny doesn't care a bit. Flying broomsticks.

Dumping the last pile of powder into the cauldron yields a puff of purple smoke and a charming lavender smell. "Oooh, oooh, we did it!" Jenny says excitedly.

(So much for mucking up. Lavender happened!)
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Emma and Miranda's potion is finished soon after. Theirs comes out pumpkin spice scented, well within acceptable parameters.

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"I have no idea how we got pumpkin out of this," Emma says contemplatively, "but it smells tasty, so, good enough!"

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"It's making me hungry."

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"Is there a Charm to make food?"






"...is there a charm to make ice cream, please say yes, pleeeease."
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"You can't just make food out of nothing," says Miranda, waving Slughorn over to sniff their potion and award them their excellent grade for the day. "For some reason, there's a magical principle, I forget."

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"If unicorns did not exist I would be very disappointed in magic right now."

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"How many disappointing things can unicorns cover for? If you tell me I'll know when to pull out the winged horses."

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"Too laaaaaaaaate," Jenny cackles. "Yes! Magic is the best again!"

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"Is it only magical creatures that are part horse that you like so much?"

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"I mean, fairies would have been neat, except for the part where they are apparently sorta dumb and pretty much just insects?"

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"They're still pretty."

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"I gueeeeeess that is okay then! ...I wonder if I can grow fairy wings?"

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"I'm going to bet not, but you could try? Not in the middle of class, now, you could rip your uniform."

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"I sorta bet not too! But that's okay. It's just to look pretty anyway. They wouldn't work. I mean, my unicorn horn doesn't do anything either. Except sparkle, obviously."

The sparkling is important.
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"How do you know they wouldn't work? Couldn't they be big if you could make them at all? And flap, and stuff?"

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"Well, nothing I've made is magic? I mean, other than happening. And being maybe the wrong color. And no way would normal fairy wings lift me without magic, so. Just a guess, but- no magic, no flying, I bet."

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"Maybe bird wings would work."

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"Huh. Can you make bird bones too? Do you only do visible things?"

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"I don't know but now I want to try all of it. How dare school steal my precious wing growing time with class!"

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"Aren't you happy with your potion?"

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"If I successfully grow wings, I will perfume them purple," Jenny decides. "Best of both!"

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"I'm not sure if this is supposed to go on people. Professor?"

The professor says that while it will not do serious harm to a person it is not intended for topical use.
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"Noooo, my dreams are crushed! I guess I have to make more potions now."

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"Except that Potions is over," Emma points out with a grin. "And now we both have Ch-"

Schedule.

"Nooo, no, we don't." Sigh. "I thought we had Charms together. Ours is today but not next. You probably have it with Gryffindor or Slytherin. Sorry, I'm dumb, don't mind me. Um, I guess we'll see you tomorrow at flying?"
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"Okay, see you then," says Miranda, and off she goes with Karen and the other Ravenclaws to Charms.