If she was being completely honest, Nia was still in awe about this whole magic-is-real, being-a-witch thing. She'd actually had to pinch herself a handful of times already, just to reassure herself- this was real. She wasn't dreaming.
She'd always known there was something different about her- well, aside from her general difference. How things would happen around her, with weird and inexplicable reasons. How her hair would grow inches overnight every time she was forced to cut it, how she would land feather-light no matter how high the fall, that sort of thing. It just never really occurred to her that the reason was that she was an actual honest-to-goodness witch!
Nia had only been there a day, but she had already fallen in love with the towering ceilings, the talking paintings, the huge house tables (and all that food!), the thought-provoking questions she had to answer to get into her dormitory. There were suits of armor all around the school, she'd heard rumors of a poltergeist, had actually seen the large, ghostly-white tentacle of the Giant Squid on her journey over the lake the previous night. Apparently there were even unicorns in the magical forest on the grounds! (Which, apparently, all students were forbidden from entering- really, what an unimaginative name, The Forbidden Forest. There was absoltely no way she was going to honor a lazy title like that. Plus, a far cry from her old school the teachers were cool, the classes awesome - there was even a class completely about how to turn things into other things!
(The only disappointment, honestly, was that students aren't allowed to use magic under-age when they were at home. There had been a fabulous five minutes where Nia had just disregarded it as another school rule there to be broken, until a senior Ravenclaw corrected her. It was actually an international law that could get her expelled- or worse, sent to prison!)
Which lead to Nia's second visit to the library today, hunting down a book on magical law, just to cover her bases. Imagining trying to explain why she had been arrested for sneezing and turning auntie Asri's tunic green! ....Again.
As she managed to locate and borrow the book that seemed correct, she overheard some faint mumbling. Stopping in her tracks, she leaned toward the source of the sound, wedging herself closer to the towering book-case to shield herself from view.
"...Hospital wing..." "...Study room...." " ...In Merlin's name..."
"S'cuse me!" She heard herself blurt, stepping out from behind the bookcase and locking eyes with the nearest speaker, who turned out to be a Ravenclaw, and at least two years older than her. "What's going on in the study room and something about the hospital wing?"
Slightly taken aback by her sudden appearance and loudness in the overall hush of the library, the boy she'd locked eyes with relaxed slightly when she put her hands behind her back and nodded to show that she had begun to listen.
"Some first-years are having a study group in the study room two floors below, on the other side of the castle. First years in any sort of numbers practicing spells are bound to get dangerous. I'd stay away from there for now if I were you."
"It's going on now?" She confirmed, barely waiting for him to nod before crowing "Thanks!" and bolting from the library, jewelry clanking, toward the staircase.
It had always been easy for her to make friends, even with her quick temper and her tendency to flit from subject to subject. Though for some reason, her roommates seemed to be annoyed by her- maybe she was too loud? Maybe they just weren't used to her yet. It was probably because they were shy, she reasoned, assuring herself they would warm up in time. Everyone eventually did.
In the meantime, however, Hogwarts was bound to get lonely once its newness wore off. So that meant she needed to make some friends. Naturally, this seemed to be the perfect opportunity - a study group would at least hint at other first-years that were as interested in learning as much about the magical world as quickly as possible as she was, and hopefully not a bunch of- well- nerds.
Her enduring enthrallment with Hogwarts had dimmed a little bit when she had learned that the house she had been sorted into was generally viewed as "the nerd house". True, she did love to read, and when something struck her interest, she wanted to know the subject inside and out immediately, but that didn't mean she was a nerd- a stuck-up, pretentious, condescending buttface. However she had bounced back when the third-year she had sat next to at breakfast had assured her that a sizeable portion of Ravenclaws were like her- and a few of them even had abysmal grades.
Mere feet from the study room, Nia found herself stopping short, as though an invisible hand had grabbed her by the braid and yanked her backward. "You only have one chance for a first impression," she remembered her mother saying vividly,"so make sure it's a good one!"
Quickly she patted herself down, ensuring her robes were not tucked into her underwear at the back, that her tie was straight, her skirt not riding up, that there was nothing in her teeth, or anything embarrassing like that!
Nia stepped through the already-open door, an excited smile spreading lopsidedly over her lips, and scanned the room.
There was an array of students in an almost-even assortment of different-colored ties - though counting her, there was a majority of blue ties. Not surprising, if she were to buy into House stereotypes! Mostly everyone seemed nice enough, however, time would certainly tell. But she was here to meet friends, not pass judgements on people who'd done her no wrong yet; the boy sprawled over a desk looking very contrived and self-possessed, or the blonde girl trying to shrink into the ground, or the- almost commanding squeaky redhead -why, any of them could be her next very best friend.
Hoping for tact and probably missing the mark, Nia stepped a few inches closer to the blonde girl, softening her smile to what she hoped was a warm, nurturing one before snapping back to her usual grin and waving energetically at the group at large, bangles jingling aggressively.
"Heard there's a study group! Room for one more-oops!" Magical Laws, Statutes and By-Laws, 1697 Edition, which she had been clutching in her waving hand, had slipped from her grasp and flown through the air. Vaulting a desk, she barely managed to catch it by the tips of her fingers- never mind the fact that she had slammed the back of her head into another desk. Seemingly unworried by the throbbing pain in the back of her head, she popped back up, tucking the book into her satchel. "Room for one more? I'm Nia, by the way!"
