Maple followed the prefect through the revealed doorway, peering her head around to inspect the painting on the way through. One of the red-jacketed hunters waved from his horse. She grinned back, and stepped inside the Felixor common room.
The room was round and cozy: the walls lined with desks, cozy chairs around a roaring fire. The House crest hung on the wall above the mantelpiece. Several flights of stairs led away to the dormitories. Maple made her way upstairs, looking around for her luggage when she reached the room. As she began to unpack, a purple-headed girl jumped up on the next bed over.
"Hi, I’m Elain," said the girl.
Maple eyed her, then stuck out a hand. "Pleased to meet you. I’m Maple Longwand."
"Longwand? What kind of a name is Longwand?" Elain giggled.
Maple blinked, not sure how to respond. After a pause, she turned back to her unpacking, calling over her shoulder, "Well, what’s your last name?"
"Bruckman," said Elain.
"Lovely. Longwand, as a matter of fact, is a very old wizarding name. I don’t recall ever having heard of Bruckman."
"Well, Bruckman is...my name, so there."
Maple snickered in spite of herself, and turned around. "Oh. Well, um... want a bean?" She held out a handful of colored Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor bean, recently unearthed from her bags.
"Are those jelly beans?" Elain asked.
"Better... These are Bertie Bott’s. Don’t tell me you’ve never had them!"
"I’ve never even heard of them... And I’ve never heard of a wizarding family, either."
"What?? Oh... are you Muggle-born?"
"I don’t think so... Is it contagious?"
Maple burst out laughing, and sorted a few beans out of her handful, passing them over. "These should be relatively safe. I think they’re all good... Sometimes you get some really gross stuff in here. Like frog legs, or vomit, or something. Muggles are people who can’t do magic. I take it your parents were Muggles?"
"Oh, Muggles. Of course I know what Muggles are. It’s just, um, the way you said it. My father is a wizard."
"How did your hair get that color?" Maple lost interest and changed the subject abruptly, peering at Elain’s grape-soda head.
"I dyed it."
"You did what?! How do you kill hair? And I’ve never heard of anybody’s hair turning purple when it died. Not even Muggles."
"Well. You put chemicals in your hair, and it changes its color. When you dye something, it changes color. It’s what dying is all about."
"You’re the weirdest person I’ve ever met. Is ‘changing color’ a euphemism for something? Because you can just say it. I won’t be offended."
Elain finally took the beans, and popped one in her mouth. "Mmm. Strawberry."
There was another long moment of silence. Maple shrugged, and looked back at her bed and shelves. They were, by now, filled with various personal items, neatly arranged. In a book strap on the bed were the required reading books for first-years. Her eye falling on those, Maple asked, "Did you read the books?"
Elain looked at her own various suitcases, strewn open across the bed. She started digging out her schoolbooks. "I haven’t had a chance to look at them, yet. I only got them a couple of days ago. It took a while to track down my dad to figure out where I could get them."
Maple nodded, as if she understood. "They’re very interesting. Except for the Dark Forces one. That one was stupid. I bet half those things Trimble made up. My mother doesn’t have a very high opinion of Trimble."
Elain’s eyes had started to glaze. "But...Wait...isn’t the Defense Against Dark Arts teacher the one that looks like...yummy?" Maple shrugged.
"I guess so. My father just adores Professor Kennedy. He said he’s the smartest wizard to teach at Plymdale since Windermere became headmistress."
"I bet..." Elain gushed.
Maple laughed and headed for the common room. Elain followed.