Magical Hogwarts

18th July 2005

Amandine had made a big mistake. That had become obvious several days earlier, when she'd actually paid attention to the equipment and clothing list for the summer school. She'd signed up for the whole summer so she could avoid in-depth conversations with her parents about...well, about why that horrible professor had turned out to be her biological father, but she had been so keen to avoid difficult situations she hadn't considered what she was signing up for. Assuming it was going to be in Greece or Hawaii or somewhere lovely, she had realised too late that she was in fact going to be spending the summer in Antarctica.

Not even an Antarctic summer, either. It was winter there, so it was going to be dark by teatime.

She had no intention of backing out though, her pride wouldn't allow that, and even a month of winter felt like a better prospect that those awkward conversations. So she had pretended to be interested in ski suits and hiking boots, and told herself that at least she would be decently equipped for it, and new clothes were new clothes after all. It still wasn't a thrilling prospect.

Amandine had lingered around the welcome igloo for longer than most of the newcomers, trying to decide which of the offered activities sounded the least unbearable. Ice-fishing and survival training were out of the question, but whale watching at least sounded interesting, and stargazing at least didn't involve anything where she might fall over and break an ankle, so she signed up for those, as well as everything that looked like it might be indoors. In an igloo. Whatever. When she finally headed out to her assigned dormitory, which was, surprise surprise, another igloo, she remembered with a sinking feeling who she was sharing with. Her si... Mathilde. It had seemed like a good idea when they'd discussed it at the end of term feast, but now she was there, it felt weird and daunting. What if they hated each other?

She lingered at the entrance until the cold drove her inside, where her bags had already been brought as soon as she'd arrived. She stared at her gloved hands, currently holding her schedule and descriptions of some of the other activities she might yet sign up for.

"Hi..." she said, uncertainly.

@Mathilde Wagner

Summer school in a winter scenery.

It was almost funny how this contrast matched Mathilde’s feelings for the holidays. She liked school, of course, but she was a teenager and which teenager didn’t prefer holidays to school? Well, this year Mathilde would have gladly skipped the summer holidays and gone straight for the beginning of term in September.

She had signed up for summer school to avoid her family, but she couldn’t even avoid them here, thousands of kilometres away from home. Her cousins, who, as she knew by now, weren’t really her cousins, were here, too. However, Mathilde had refused to share an igloo with the girls she usually spent her holidays with. Instead she had agreed to share an igloo with her sister who was still pretty much a stranger to her, given that she had only weeks ago found out that they were actually related.

The activities on Heard and McDonald Islands seemed pretty interesting to the Bellefeuille even though she couldn’t deny that she’d rather explore the flora and fauna in a slightly warmer climate. However, she wasn’t going to complain. Any activity here was better than facing her parents who claimed that they wanted to explain everything to her but who weren’t able to actually answer her questions in a satisfactory way. She had quickly signed up for almost everything on the list and then headed for the igloo.

It was more spacious and less cold than she had expected. Maybe they could make this a comparably cosy place - for an igloo anyway.

Then Amandine stepped over the threshold and Mathilde felt strangely nervous. The other girl whom she had barely exchanged a word with in the past years at Beauxbatons was her sister. Did that mean that they had to feel some kind of connection? Would they soon develop a sibling relationship? Or was this all nonsense and they had nothing more in common than a few genes?

“Hey,” she said, putting her gloved hands in the pockets of her jacket because she didn’t know what to do with them. Was she supposed to hug Amandine as a kind of welcoming gesture? She didn’t know where to look, so she glanced around, suddenly awfully aware that the igloo was not big enough that they could avoid each other should they ever feel like doing so.

“Which side would you like to take?” she asked to break the silence and gestured towards the sleeping area.

Well this was uncomfortable. Also way more awkward than she´d imagined, and in her imagination things had been pretty bad. If only Lettie was here, or she´d gone to watch the European championships instead...they could have gossiped about the Artistic flyers and maybe Amandine would even have got up the courage to ask for some autographs.

But she was here. And while part of her wanted to wallow in self-pity for the entire summer that wasn´t going to be much fun when there was nobody here to feel sorry for her. Besides, there might be some cute boys or girls to talk to... Okay. Amandine realised she´d been standing there, saying nothing. She attempted a smile.

"That one" she said at last, pointing to the left side simply because Mathilde was standing slightly closer to the other one already. Then, because to do anything else would have been pointless she crossed the short distance and sat on the edge of the bed, clasping her hands tightly against the tops of her legs in a gesture that felt as awkward as it probably looked. Amandine nibbled her lower lip and looked around the igloo, aware that the silence had already lasted several long centuries.

"What did you sign up for?" she managed. Maybe if they talked about neutral things for a while the situation would start to feel more normal.

This was so awkward and somehow the seconds since Amandine had stepped into the igloo felt like minutes already. Mathilde nodded as her sister chose her side of their cold summer home. Amandine sat down and somehow she looked about as tense as Mathilde felt herself which was at the same a relief and a reason to freak out some more. Hopefully they wouldn’t behave like this around each other the entire time they were here.

“Whale watching,” Mathilde responded, “and some expeditions, but I’m considering to sign up for other things as well. Maybe not ice-fishing, though.” She felt how her cheeks reddened. She was talking like Trudy her not-cousin now. How could she go fishing? The poor fish. She could already imagine how the Hogwarts student would react to people signing up for it.

“Have you already made your choices?” She asked and decided to sit down on her bed now that she knew which one would be hers.

"Yeah. Whale watching. That was the first thing I picked" she said, and managed a sort of half-smile, which widened and then turned into a snort of amusement. Amandine looked across at the other girl and to her horror realised she was having to bite the inside of her cheek to stop herself from laughing out loud. Nothing about this was funny, but at the same time...

Her face betrayed her and she blushed scarlet. Mathilde would think she was laughing at her, and it really wasn't that at all, just some sort of relief that they were actually here and she didn't have to worry about those awkward first minutes because they were happening right now, and surely things would get better after today.

"Sorry..." she managed "Not you... just..." It's just that we picked the same main activity and we both said a huge nope to ice-fishing, so we've already got two things in common, and "maybe things are going to be okay?" It was the first time she'd considered the possibility, and it felt like the sun coming out after a month of cloudy skies. Like the sun was going to bother to shine here.

"I chose some of the lectures because they're indoors" she admitted, deciding not to dwell too long on the subject of their recently-discovered history "but maybe we should pick some other stuff together? I mean, only if you want to?" she added quickly.

Mathilde smiled. Whale watching had been the first thing she had wanted to pick as well. In fact, already when she had read the brochure for the summer school she had wanted to sign up for whale watching. It felt like one of these amazing once in a lifetime chances.

Then, all of a sudden, Amandine snorted with laughter and Mathilde felt quite taken aback. What was going on here? Her eyes widened but then Amandine already explained herself. Mathilde offered a shy smile and shrugged. “Well… I hope so?”

It was so odd. They hadn’t really interacted much in their early years at Beauxbatons, hadn’t known that they were related and now they were here, sharing an igloo as sisters. Usually she spent the summer months with her cousins but now they weren’t her cousins anymore but she had a half-sister (and actually some more half siblings) instead. Her life was totally messed up but maybe Amandine was right and it wasn’t a bad thing.

“I think some of the lectures are really interesting. I mean, there are some really knowledgeable magizoologists here. I’m definitely going to their lectures as well.” Again she thought of Trudy and M.A.R.S. and she shivered a little. She’d run into her ex-cousin there although she felt like avoiding her for the time being.

“Yes,” Mathilde nodded, “I’d really like to pick some things together. Anything in particular that you’d like to do?”

This wasn't totally horrible so far. That was actually enough of a positive for Amandine to relax a little. She had been afraid she was going to be miserable for the whole summer and not find anything in common with her half-sister, but even independently picking the same activity felt like a good sign for now. Amandine had almost decided that she was going fill the rest of her timetable with options she'd picked at random, or not pick anything else at all and feign illness, but Mathilde's response made her feel like...she wanted to be kind. Nice, even.

"I hope they'll be interesting. It would be really embarrassing if we fell asleep and started snoring!" she said with a small grin, but then another thought struck her "Wait. We haven't got to write assignments or anything, have we?" Her eyes widened, and suddenly the possibility of doing more outdoor activities seemed an appealing option. Just in case.

She'd dropped her schedule and the leaflets next to her on the bed, and now she reached for them. The top one on the pile was ice climbing, with a picture of a warmly-clad wizard clinging precariously to the side of a sheer, slippery cliff. Amandine gave a little shudder and held it out to the other girl.

"The penguin safari might be fun? I'm not sure what else...but please tell me you don't want to sign up for this!" she said, waving the leaflet between thumb and forefinger for Mathilde to take.