Piper realised she'd been standing in the doorway of the compartment Damian occupied for too long when someone pushed past her with force. Almost losing her balance, Piper put Barnaby as her priority, trying to not drop the caged owl who was looking a bit annoyed at the turbulance.
She didn't have the time to recover from the incident before she already heard her name shouted by a familiar voice.
"Jaxon!" Piper exclaimed with a friendly smirk, finally glad to encounter someone she considered a friend.
"...and Sandstorm, of course," Piper continued less enthusiastically, briefly meeting the cat's eye. The animal hissed at Piper, probably sensing her ineptedness on top of being already agitated by the crowded, hazardous aisle. Realising from the Ravenclaw prodigy's familiar greeting at Damian, Piper quickly realised the two were in friendly terms. Great, Piper thought, relieved.
Noticing Jaxon's near dodge of an elbow in the face from another passanger, Piper laughed, pulling the boy by the arm with her inside the compartment, into safety from more flying objects and swinging body parts. Barnaby tried to flap his wings inside the cage, clearly a bit out of it himself. Piper couldn't help but grin. She felt much better surrounded with people she knew.
"I don't know what I was thinking earlier, trying to sit with a bunch of Gryffindors. At least you Ravenclaws don't have it out for me," Piper sighed, feeling stupid. The Gryffindor-Slytherin rivalry was still very much a thing, and perhaps out of any houses, the Gryffindor house had the most prejudice against Slytherins. And vice versa, of course. Piper smiled despite herself, all the while she lifted her smaller luggage into the hat compartment. Barnaby hooted in his small cage, curious eyes fixated on Jaxon's cat.
"That said, I hope you're ready to get your arses kicked in Quidditch this year," Piper challenged playfully as she sat down, looking at Damian pointedly. Then she looked at Jaxon, her eyes twinkling with her usual bright energy as she continued:
"And will this be finally the year you convince me to join the Duelling Club?" Perhaps a little teasing, but all in good faith.
Member
Jerkchicken,
DojiBoy