Just here for the ride ((Dahlia & Anyone))

[Anna Monkshood R5]

Solzhenitsyn was right, there was something about the sound of a train drawing into the station that brought with it a warm feeling, a connection with the safety of early childhood. Or maybe it was just anticipation at going back to Hogwarts, the imposing, beautiful castle and grounds, a place of excitement and mental stimulation, always welcome after the summer holidays, which started to drag after repeating the cycle back and forth between mother and father’s custody enough times. Either way, Anna did experience a warm feeling as she watched the scarlet steam train inching its way towards the buffers, its steam sparkling against the black wrought iron pillars of Kings Cross. Finally it came to a complete stop, and Anna was the first to wrench open one of the carriage doors.

Her stepfather followed behind, carrying her trunk for her, whilst her mother wielded a cage with a large black rat in it. Anna turned round and relieved each of them of their burdens. “Thanks, Reg,” she said to her stepfather with a smile as she took her trunk from him. She disappeared inside the train for a few minutes, her curly red hair swinging behind her as she walked the length of the carriage with her heavy trunk. She shoved it inside a compartment and deposited the cage with the rat in on top of it. “I’ll be back!” she whispered to the rat, which stared at her unblinkingly, until she reached out to touch its nose and it retreated into its cage. Anna didn’t mind too much – of course it wasn’t going to be overly bold to start with, she hadn’t got it very long ago, and it would take a while for it to work out that she was harmless.

She stepped back outside onto the platform and went to say goodbye. She gave her stepfather a perfunctory hug, and then received a quick kiss and hug from her mother – Anna didn’t like exhibitionism. “Bye!” she said, trying and failing a little not to appear completely, insultingly unfazed by their leaving. Her mother asked again whether she didn’t want them to stay to wave her off on the train. “No, don’t worry,” Anna replied without the slightest trace of concern. “There isn’t any point anyway, you won’t be able to see me from the platform – I’m on the opposite side of the train. And you’ve got a long journey home. I’ll write to you once I’ve settled back in at school.” She gave her mum another hug and then boarded the train, waving at her mum and stepfather before they departed through the magical barrier.

There was someone else standing with their luggage outside the compartment Anna had chosen when she returned, a slightly younger girl with very long brown hair. “Oh sorry, were you wanting to get in there?” Anna asked. “I’ve left all my luggage in the doorway, that wasn’t very thoughtful of me. You’re welcome to sit here if you like, there’s just me so far as far as I know.” With this brisk offer made, she squeezed past the other girl and placed the cage with her pet rat in it on one of the seats. Next, she stowed her trunk in the luggage rack above the seat and sat down, opening up her satchel and pulling a library copy of Quidditch Through The Ages out. She looked up at her potential companion and allowed her a brief smile, before opening the Quidditch classic at a page marked by a handsome bookmark and turning her full attention to historical Chaser tactics…

[Dahlia Rain Keo G3]

" Its just school, I'll be back. I'm not going off to the the military" Dahlia told her dad irritably, who kept reminding her how much he would miss her, and to be careful and safe. Matt Keo laughed and ruffled his daughters long, wavy, brown hair and hugged her one last time before she stepped onto the Hogwarts Express.

Dahlia stepped into the train and gave a little sigh of relief as she heard the door shut behind her. She blew up her bangs and began to walk down the long aisle looking for a compartment to sit in. No one was there yet, just a lot of luggage everywhere.

Dahlia came to the last compartment and found a rat cage and a trunk sitting in the door way. Pattie, Dahlia's owl, began to squawk as it eyed the small rat. " No" Dahlia said to Pattie and carried the owl away from the rat.

The door from which Dahlia came in opened again as she could here the loud chattering of everyone out side. She didn't look up to see who had come in.

The compartment seemed to only have one luggage for one person so far, Dahlia stood debating whether to sit here, or continue onto another section of the train. Just then she heard a girls voice from beside her. She looked up to see a much older girl with Bright red hair standing there.

Dahlia looked up to the girl who had offered her a seat and smiled, " Thank you" she said and picked up her small owls cage and luggage. She set her snow white owl down beside her as she sat down across from the friendly girl. She was about a head taller than Dahlia, but then again Dahlia had never been that tall.

Dahlia's owl began to squawk repeatedly as it noticed the girl, someone who it had not seen before. " Oh hush up Pattie" Dahlia said to her frantic bird she had named after her brother. Pattie soon quited down and returned to normal, looking at the rat beside the red headed girl.

" I'm Dahlia, by the way" She said with a smile taking her attention off her bird, and pushing her over grown bangs out of her eyes. " Is that a Quidditch book I see?" She said shifting her eyes down to the book in the girls hands, " I've always been interested in Quidditch"

[Anna Monkshood R5]

((Is it okay with you if I open up the post for other people to join? I don’t mind either way, just thought I’d make the suggestion – chance to meet other characters!

Ignoring the squawking of the other girl’s owl (rats were so much quieter), Anna had just started to regain the thread of her book when she was interrupted by the girl talking to her. Generally, she hated it when strangers interrupted her reading, as if they were more interesting than her book. But she supposed it had been rather inevitable that the girl would assume that Anna would welcome social interaction – after all, she had told the girl that she could sit in the compartment. So fair enough, Anna had brought it upon herself. The girl hadn’t yet betrayed any signs of being exceptionally irritating, either, so perhaps Anna should count herself as fortunate. Well, that remained to be seen – there were many hours ahead in which to form a judgement of the girl’s character, many hours in which she could prove herself to be a tolerable, tedious or terrible companion. Anna held out hopes for the first, because the other two possibilities didn’t appeal.

She tore her attention away from a passage on the use of blatching in games, and why the move had been made a foul. In Anna’s personal opinion, intentionally colliding with other players was quite a good idea, and she thought it was rather a shame that it wasn’t a legal move. But now she would know to do it only when Madam Hooch wasn’t looking!
“Anna,” she introduced herself a little shortly. “It’s Quidditch Through The Ages,” she said, relaxing a little. She handed the book across to Dahlia. “I borrowed it from the school library – I’m thinking of auditioning for the Ravenclaw team, but I’m not very good. In fact, I’m a bit scared of heights! But it’s quite fun – I got roped into playing for one game last year, actually, but… well, we were beaten. Thoroughly – Ravenclaw didn’t score a single goal last year! You should try out for your house team too, if you’re interested in Quidditch.” She smiled encouragingly at the younger girl. “What house are you in?” she asked, curious. It was always fun to guess what house people were in. Probably not Ravenclaw – Anna didn’t pay a lot of attention to the people surrounding her, but still she didn’t think she’d ever seen Dahlia’s face before. She didn’t look like a Slytherin, so that left Gryffindor and Hufflepuff. Could be either…

“Your owl’s pretty,” Anna complimented Dahlia offhandedly, as her eyes came to rest on the snow-white predator. “But Pattie’s quite an unusual name for an owl?” she asked, her expression questioning.

[Dahlia Rain Keo G3]

( Thats fine, I would love for more people to come )

The girl seemed not to happy to be interrupted from her book, but was kind about. Most people had found Dahlia annoying, thus her wide independence, Dahlia didn't mind though. The girl introduced herself as Anna, Dahlia thought that it was a very pretty name.

When Anna handed her the book, Dahlia ran her fingers across the cover, listening as she told her of her Quidditch experience. " Oh yes, I heard how Ravenclaw was unlucky last year, quite odd indeed. I had always thought Ravenclaw was a house to beat, but all houses have their years" She said handing the book back to Anna. " I am actually hoping to audition this year, Chaser and Keeper positions have always interested me, but I might wait until next year, one more year of watching and practicing couldn't hurt" Dahlia said with a smile.

" I'm in Gryffindor," She told Anna answering her question of what house she was in. " And I'm assuming your in Ravenclaw?" She said with a slight laugh, looking out the window, a blur of various colors whipping by. Anna's attention had turned to Dahlia's owl, she could tell Anna didn't like loud animals. Even Dahlia was getting annoyed of her protective birds constant squawking lately. Anna noted that Pattie was an odd name for an owl. She wasn't the first to notice that, Dahlia had gotten many comments on her owls unusual name before.

" Well, your not the first to notice. I named patty after my little brother, Patrick, a squib. He died years ago" Many people wouldn't mention this to someone they had just met. Dahlia didn't mind, that was just part of her bluntness and openness. Secrets were for people who had something to hide, that was Dahlia's motto. She looked to Anna not sure how she would respond.

[Anna Monkshood R5]

“Well, it’s kind of you to say Ravenclaw are the house to beat,” Anna laughed, “but our glory days are some way in the past… I think we won the Quidditch Cup the year before I came to Hogwarts, and our team used to be pretty good, but the problem is some of our best players have grown up and left school now. Theo Darke used to be one of our Chasers, he was really good, but he’s left now. Our captains are good though – August’s the captain, and the Vice is really keen, some young Beater. Gryffindor’s the team to beat,” Anna admitted to Dahlia, smiling regretfully. “I think they’ve won for the past three years in a row, or something ridiculous like that. Your Beaters were legendary last year. But they’re definitely going to need new players, I think some of their team graduated last year, too. Maybe we’ll end up playing against each other,” Anna speculated, smiling at the younger Gryffindor. “I’m going to audition for the Chaser position too. And probably Keeper as my second position, though I’m a bit worried that I’d have too much time to freak out about the height issues if I played as Keeper – they spend a lot of the game just sitting around waiting…”

“Yeah, I’m in Ravenclaw,” she confirmed rather unnecessarily. “Bookworm and all that.” It was a stereotype of Ravenclaws, and was indeed true of many of her kind, as was often the case with stereotypes. Anna didn’t mind admitting to being a bookworm – it seemed perfectly logical to her that she would wish to spend much of her time reading. Those who didn’t just had short attention spans.

Anna pressed her lips together as Dahlia explained about naming her owl after her younger brother – she never quite knew what to say when people told her about sad things like that, and she didn’t want to say the wrong thing. “That’s a shame,” she said simply after a short pause, meaning it sincerely even if the words didn’t sound very sympathetic. She thought it was really tragic – she couldn’t imagine how she’d feel if she lost one of her younger siblings. “I have two younger half-sisters,” she added thoughtfully, and then gave Dahlia a half-smile. “The oldest one’s nine, she’ll start at Hogwarts when I’m in seventh year…”

[Dahlia Rain Keo G3]

" Yes, I'm not so fond of heights myself" Dahlia told Anna truthfully. " It does seem to get in the way of my passion for Quidditch"

Dahlia sat back and blew up her bangs for the tenth time since she had entered the train, it was a habit of hers, but she never noticed it. " Believe me, book worms are the best kind of people" Dahlia told Anna as she was describing how she was in Ravenclaw. " Gryffindors are, well, most of them are very cocky. Not that i don't love most of them, its just sometimes I wish I was with people who love to learn as much as I do" She said with a slight smile. It was true, Dahlia didn't seem to share as much of the same interest as her fellow Gryffindor's, but she did love them anyway.

Anna told Dahlia about her younger siblings. " That's nice, want to be in Raven claw to I suppose?" She said about Anna's half sister who would be coming to Hogwarts.

[Anna Monkshood R5]

Anna smiled sympathetically as Dahlia admitted to also being afraid of heights. “Nah, don’t let it get in your way,” she advised cheerily. “After all – there’s not much else to do in the way of sport at Hogwarts… Muggles are definitely have a better variety of sports. Or perhaps wizard ones are just a bit too extreme to be played at school?”

Anna laughed at Dahlia’s next comment. “Yes, certainly, there are plenty of cocky Gryffindors around. But believe me, there are plenty of Ravenclaws who think they’re the best thing since Sugar Quills. Brains and intelligence don’t necessarily imbue modesty or wisdom… for all that we’re supposed to be wise, I don’t think the Sorting Hat always bothers with that.” Anna grimaced. “Personally, I can’t claim to love many of my fellow human beings,” she admitted with a slightly amused smile. “Far too many flaws. I mean, I do love my family and all, and I suppose they’re flawed too, but… they get away with it because it’s unconditional with family. Friends… they don’t get away with nearly as much! - have to draw the line somewhere.” Anna grinned at Dahlia – she wasn’t being entirely serious, although perhaps more serious than Dahlia would realise. “I don’t have that many friends, unsurprisingly!” she admitted.

Anna pondered for a while at Dahlia’s suggestion that her younger sister would want to be in Ravenclaw. “I’m not sure,” she said in the end. “Her mother – my stepmother – would probably want her to be in Slytherin – but she’s a good kid, not sure where she’d want to be, really. She could well be put in Ravenclaw,” Anna conceded thoughtfully. “I think my youngest sister could well be headed for Slytherin, though – she’s so spoilt, poor thing. Slytherin’s a good place for knocking over confidence out of spoilt Purebloods, has a surplus of them…” Anna frowned, turning back to her book. She seemed to have become more talkative than usual, and she suspected that it wasn’t a good thing. Best to keep one’s secret thoughts about family and philosophies on life to oneself…

[Dahlia Rain Keo G3]

" That is true, I do wish there was more of a variety. You would think there would be more considering we are wizards" Dahlia said with a smile. " But then again, as you said maybe to dangerous with a bunch of underage wizards fooling around" She replied to Anna's comment.

" Join the club" Dahlia muttered looking to the ground as Anna told her she didn't have many friends. " More independent myself" Dahlia admitted looking up. " All I do is study and, well I guess you could call it exploring the grounds."


" Oh, yes I haven't had the best experience with slytherins" Dahlia said pulling out her Charms book, she always read ahead. She usually would have been halfway finished with the book by now, she hadn't noticed that she had been talking to Anna for so long. She bit her lip as she read, another bad habit of hers. She had felt she had maybe intruded too much, so she kept quite.

[Anna Monkshood R5]

Anna smiled at Dahlia as she too admitted to being a little short of friends. “Exploring the grounds, eh?” she asked, raising her eyebrows. “Not really my cauldron of fish, I’d be worried about getting into trouble – there’s a difference between being a bit of an outsider and being ostracised for losing house points… Ravenclaws are really competitive about the House Cup. But I do like swimming in the lake! Even in the autumn – I’m used to cold water, I live quite close to the north coast of Devon and I love surfing,” she informed Dahlia, her eyes alight with enthusiasm.

Anna hardly acknowledged Dahlia’s mention of a bad experience with Slytherins – it wasn’t exactly unusual, and the sooner people learnt to keep themselves to themselves and keep out of trouble, the better, in her opinion. They’d never really caused her any serious bother, but she had seen enough to form the opinion that a decent Slytherin was rare indeed. The conversation lapsed as both girls turned to their books. Anna was rather pleased that Dahlia had picked up on that cue so quickly: she was all right, this Gryffindor.

A good half hour must have passed while she read, pleasantly enough for Anna, who was engrossed in Quidditch Through the Ages again. It was the sweets trolley that disturbed the peace.
“Ah, time for lunch!” Anna said immediately, using her bookmark to save her page as she deposited the library book on the seat behind her and stood up, withdrawing a leather pouch and sorting through her coins. She purchased a box of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavoured Beans, some Chocolate Frogs and a few Cauldron Cakes, and then sat down while Dahlia made her choice. Putting the sweets to one side, Anna withdrew a box with sandwiches and fruit from her bag and started eating her sandwiches.
“Sweets are nice,” she said once the trolley had departed, “but they’re not much good without proper food as well…” She demonstrated her point by chewing her way through another mouthful. “How’s your book?” she asked, once she’d finished chewing. It seemed that the girl’s claim about loving to learn was true, not just reserved for conversations with Ravenclaws!

[Dahlia Rain Keo G3]

" Really? I love exploring the school, so many things that most students never could even dream of, but I do have my limits." Dahlia said a little too excitedly. " Surfing?" Dahlia asked, hearing of the word before, but not completely remembering. " Oh! yes my mom has mentioned that before, she's muggle born, it sounded quite fun. How do you like it?" Dahlia asked honestly wanting to know more about the sport.

As soon as Dahlia started reading her charms book, she had almost forgotten that the intelligent redhead was there too. So when she told her of the trolley at the door, Dahlia jumped a little and dropped her book. She just laughed and picked it up. She rummaged through her bag for her coin bag, not the most organized person you could say. She bought a cauldron cake and one chocolate frog.

Dahlia smiled at Anna's comment " Why of course, proper foods are a little essential" She said with a small laugh, pulling out some fruit from her bag. She quickly went back to her book. " Oh, just a third year charms book. Its my favorite subject I always read ahead' Dahlia told her slowly pulling her eyes away from the book.

[Anna Monkshood R5]

"I love it," Anna replied, but didn't expand on the conversation any more than that, biting back a retort as she had to repeat what she'd said about surfing before. It would be unfair, although the Gryffindor had become a bit too talkative for her liking. It was as well that they settled down to reading after that, the book having a calming effect on Anna's slightly-too-quick temper so that she was in a perfectly good mood again by the time the sweets trolley arrived. Anna happily polished off her sandwiches and started munching on an apple instead, contentedly staring out at the green countryside whipping by, the train, if anything, gathering speed. Muggle trains were not so efficient; it must take a good number of charms to keep the Hogwarts Express on the tracks.

"Oh, the Charms textbook," Anna repeated Dahlia's choice of reading material. She recognised the author's name now that she looked - she'd learnt from the same textbook. "I like Charms too," Anna said smilingly. "Flitwick's a good teacher." The corners of her mouth twitched with amusement at the fact that Dahlia was reading ahead. "You really are a closet Ravenclaw, aren't you?" she teased, smiling at the younger Gryffindor. "Reading ahead, that is. Mind you, it'll do you good. I've got my OWLs this year," Anna sighed. "The workload just gets more and more. But I suppose exams are a necessity, otherwise we won't be able to get a job when we leave..."

The rest of the journey passed in a very similar fashion, the two girls reading avidly and then relapsing into conversation from time to time. As the train began to slow, Anna disappeared for a while and returned dressed in her school uniform and robes, adding her neatly-folded Muggle attire to her trunk. Finally the train drew to a halt. Anna stood up and gathered her belongings together.
"Well, it's been a pleasure to make your acquaintance," she told Dahlia formally as they queued at the exit to their compartment. "Good luck with getting on your house team! And if you've got any spare time left, think about coming to Gobstones Club. We could use some new faces." She gave the younger girl a bit of an awkward smile. "Sorry, blatant recruiting, I know. Well, bye then!" She said these last words as they stepped off the train, and she spotted another fifth year Ravenclaw whom she was sort of friends with - she ought to go and say hello.

((Thought I'd end the post, since it's now the end of September! But it has been a pleasure to post with you. )