{Flashback, April, Passover, the Goldstein's House}
The Goldstein family sat at the Passover seder table. They didn't do the full 'Seder' but there were matzos on the table and the rest of the holiday food. Something felt weird to Queenie. Her parents acting different. That was the first Passover with only the four of them because her grandfather who died few months ago. One time when they were much younger, they went to visit their relatives in Britain for Passover, but this year their parents decided that they celebrate only the four of them. Their parents even let them take a sip from the wine. Which that wasn't make sense at all, because they never agreed to this before.
"So, girls it's Afikoman time. Go look for it." Their mother said. Tina jumped from the table right away. She needed to start look for the Afikoman as soon as possible, because Queenie as always will cheat and read their parents thoughts to find where it is. Not that is actually matter, they always got the same amount of Dragots.
But Quennie didn't got up from her chair. She just stares at their parents. "I knew something isn't right." Queenie said.
"How many times we told you not to read our minds?" Their father asked, scolding.
"Queenie honey, listen-" Their mother started to say.
"You forgot about the fact that I can read your minds?! You really thought you can hide something from me?" She yelled at them with tears in her eyes.
"We just wanted to have ordinary Passover seder before we tell you." Their father told her.
"So, you preferred to lie to us and hide it from us with a spell?!" Queenie asked them, she was pretty upset.
"Hiding what from us? Queenie what going on?" Tina asked, she came back to the table with the Afikoman. By now, she understands that something is very wrong if Queenie didn't try to look it and got up from the table.
"They have Dragon Pox, to both of them." Queenie said crying.
"What?!" Tina asked, she was completely shocked.
Tina rolled in her bed. If it wasn't enough, she barely slept and thought about her last Passover, when they found out their parents sick, because she worried for Queenie, her roommates argued on something in the morning.
"Quodpot!" Evelyn called.
"Quidditch!" Nella called back.
"No way, Quodpot is much better!" Evelyn told her.
"No, no, no, Quidditch is the better of the two." Nella answered.
"Quodpot is much more interesting!" Evelyn said.
"How can you say that? You are from Texas! You have one of the best Quidditch teams, 'Sweetwater All-Stars'! They are amazing team!" Nella declared.
"So, because I'm from Texas that means I need to love Quidditch because there is a Quidditch team from there? I'm from Houston it's miles away from Sweetwater!" Evelyn declared back.
"Yes, but Sweetwater have big magical population, more there is in Houston." Nella said to her.
"Exactly. This is why I hate this town, because only in there we have magical stores in Texas." Evelyn groaned. "Besides, I love Quodpot because that part of my family history, there were so many Quodpot players in my family!"
"Girls, I need to talk to you, can you please stop argue?" Sadie told them; she heard the whole conversation. Both Nella and Evelyn blushed and nodded.
"Can you please explain to me about what they were arguing?" Hazel asked Sadie.
"Yes, they talked about magical sports. Quodpot it's like football and Quidditch is like soccer." Sadie explained to Hazel.
"You love sports!?" Hazel asked in surprise. The two other girls stared at her; they didn't understand why it's surprise her.
Sadie hurried to explain, "In the wizarding world the sports team mixed between boys and girls so it's not unusual that they love sport, Hazel."
"Wait, girls don't do sports in the non magic world?!" Nella asked, shocked.
"That so weird! so what exactly you do?" Evelyn asked her, shocked as well.
While Hazel explained to them about girls' hobbies in the non-majs world Sadie went to talk to Tina who was half sleep. "Are you okay?" She asked her.
"I couldn't fall asleep. I thought about Queenie and about our parents and it's so weird to wake up to an argument about sports and not to Qeenie's jumps on my bed." Tina muttered.
"I'll talk to Ms. Juniper, about you go to visit her in the weekends." Sadie told her and Tina nodded. "Wait, where is Regina?" Sadie asked the four girls. They shrugged, none of them had an answer.
"I'm here." Regina got inside their room with the red-blue robes.
"Where have you been?" Sadie asked her.
"In the bathroom." Regina answered and sat on her bed.
"Your bathroom time only starts in five minutes." Sadie told her.
"I know, but I wanted to be there alone, so I woke up early." Regina stated.
"Anyway, girls, you really should go to the bathroom to get dress and everything I'll explain to you about your timetables at breakfast, we'll eat together. Regina you'll wait here with me to them." Sadie said to them and Regina groaned and rolled her eyes.
"We need to wore specific robe?" Hazel asked and pointed at Regina.
"No, you can choose between the robes." Sadie answered to her.
"Yes, but this is the original robes the first students of Ilvermorny wore." Regina told the girls.
The four girls went to the bathroom. "So, what is your wand's wood? Mine is cedar." Evelyn asked them.
"I've got mahogany wood," Tina answered.
"Mine is hazel. This is so funny; my name is Hazel and I have a hazel wand wood." Hazel said and the four girls laughed.
"I have Cypress, which is really great because in Everglades, where I live, there are a lot of cypress trees." Nella said.
"You live in a place who has your last name?" Evelyn asked her.
"My family was the first there so they name the place after our family name. The no-majs heard it and decided to use in this name to the swamps." Nella said after she started to brush her teeth.
"Wait, I heard what you said correctly? You live in swamps?!" Hazel asked, surprisingly.
"Yes, I do, it's only my family and the nature there, it's really fun and quite." Nella told her with a smile.
They finished dress their robes; Nella and Hazel wore the red robes and Tina and Evelyn the blue ones. They went back to their room.
"So, Evelyn, there are even others students besides you from Houston?" Nella asked her.
"There are Lara Von, she is in third year at Wampus." Evelyn answered.
"You see there isn't a lot of magical population in there?" Nella asked her.
Evelyn rolled her eyes, "Shut up, swamp girl."
Nella burst out laughing, "Alright, Houston." Evelyn join her laugh.
"You don't care she called you 'swamp girl'?" Tina asked Nella.
"No, I'm a pure blood and I live in an unplottable house and we have full park on our name. I'm not shame about living in the swamps, I'm proud of it." Nella answered when they came back to the room, so Regina and Sadie heard the answer.
"Wait, you live in swamps?" Regina ask, disgusted.
"Yes." Nella answered shortly. She didn't want to explain it again.
"Wait, why are you saying that Houston is a small city? It's really big." Hazel asked puzzled.
"Exactly, it's a big city. I didn't say it's a small city but the magical population there is small. Wizards and witches prefer small towns to live in them so couple of families could live together. In Florida the magical community is in Orlando and in Texas it's in Sweetwater." Nella answered.
"So, girls, let's go to breakfast." Sadie told them and they got out from the room.
They were between the first students in the dinning room. Sadie sat with them in a random table. After they sat bunch of pancakes and waffles with syrups showed up on the table. "Wow," Hazel said, she was impressed, that was her first time she saw food appeared out of nowhere, "wait, why we don't have cereals?"
"Today is Monday. Monday and Thursday are pancakes and waffles days, Tuesday and Friday are cereals, Wednesday and Saturday are sandwiches and in Sunday there is all the food together. This is also right in your timetables." Sadie said and gave them their timetables. "You have seven mandatory classes: Defence Against the Dark Arts, Charms, Transfiguration, Potions, Arithmancy, Study of Ancient Runes and History of Magic. You need to elect another class, the options are: Herbology, Flying, Astronomy, Divination and Ancient Spells. In third year, you can choose another subject. You'll have double lessons in all the subjects." Sadie stopped her explanation for one moment to take pancakes.
"What about the sports teams?" Evelyn asked her.
"That was my next thing. You can only be part in one group, Quidditch or Quodpot you can't join both of the teams. You can go to the tryouts but first years never get to the teams it doesn't matter how good you are. The points in the House Cup come from the competitions: the sports cups, the Potions Cup, Arithmancy Achievement, Gobstone Goblet, the Charms Tournament, the Runes cup and the Transfiguration Tournament. In the study competitions each house chooses seven competitors, one from each year and the house who have the most wins is the winner. If you were chosen to represent our house in one of these competitions you cannot be in another one." Sadie finished to explain.
"Wait, so we can't be in the sports team and also in the school subject tournaments?" Nella asked, bit confused.
"It's barely happens, the sports teams can be in the competitions but there is a preference to give a chance to students who don't represent the house in something to participate in them." Sadie answered to her.
"So, the classes, it's only girls, right?" Hazel asked.
"There is separation between boys and girls in the no-majs world?" Regina asked with a sneer.
"The lessons are mixed-gender, Hazel, there two groups, you were divided according your rooms so all of you in the same class. Also, in the elective class there are students only from our house. You don't have much contact with the other house students. Yes Regina, in the no-majs world there is separation between boys and girls." Sadie answered to both of them. "Anyway, what class do you want to choose?"
"I'll go to flying lessons, if I want a career in Quodpot, I need to be expert on a broom," Evelyn answered.
"I'll take Herbology, I live in the nature so it's really interesting to me," Nella said.
"Divination sounds interesting," Hazel said, dreamily.
"I think I'll go to Herbology too," Tina said.
"I need to take that too, I want to be healer," Regina said and scolded, she didn't think two of her roommates also choose this subject.
"Why you are not in Pukwudgie if you want to be healer?" Evelyn asked.
"I'm a descendant of Thunderbird founder, you forgot that? Like another house was an option." Regina answered and rolled her eyes.
"Great so I'll register you to the subjects you wanted. Now that you all finished to eat, I'll show you where the Transfiguration classroom is." Sadie told them and they all got up from the table.
Sadie left them in the transfiguration class. They were first in the class. Regina sat in the front table and get out five colourful quills and ten ink bottles.
Nella smiled, "I bought the bigger package," she put her staff on the other table in line and took out six quills and twelve ink bottles in different colors. Regina groaned and rolled her eyes.
"I bought only three ink bottles." Evelyn said and sat in Nella's table and put the three bottles above it and took out cyan quill. "That the amount Voges allowed to order if you don't come to buy in the shop."
"Voges?" Hazel asked Tina in a whisper.
"Voges Quills of Distinction, it's quills network." Tina answered in a whisper.
"Evelyn, you could have come to Albuquerque, it's not too far," Regina told her.
"I barely go to Sweetwater so to Albuquerque I can't go at all it's even more far than Houston." Evelyn told her.
Nella looked at Tina and Hazel, "Mercy Lewis, I'm so sorry. I forgot you get your equipment from the MACUSA, you can use one of my inks." She said and put the light blue ink bottle on the table behind her.
Tina and Hazel sat in the table behind Nella and Evelyn. "You know I have my own ink; I don't need alms." Tina told Nella. She hates so much to get charity from people because she's orphan.
"Just use it I'm insist," Nella told her.
"We'll use it," Hazel said to Nella.
The rest of the kids came to the class. One boy sat next to Regina.
After couple of moments the professor got inside the class. His name was Silas Prott and he told them he was originally from Indiana. He was really strict and stern and he wasn't very nice. The teacher explained to them about the four branches of Transfiguration: transformation, untransfiguration, vanishment and conjuration. He gave them homework to find three spells from each branch. The students of course, were pretty upset to get homework on the first day.
Their next lesson was Charms. Regina started to talk about Chadwick because he wrote all the textbooks of that subject. All the students listen and where near her. "I think he's my great-great-great-great-great grandfather, he travelled a lot and wrote the charms textbooks. He came to Ilvermorny after he got married to help teaching the students charms and his wife was Ilvermorny's healer for some time." Regina explained.
"You're Theresa's niece I'm assume?" The teacher asked. The students ran to sit down very quickly.
"Yes, and why she is not teaching us? She's the Thunderbird Charms professor." Regina told her.
"Correct, but she can't teach her family and you know that," the professor said.
"Your aunt is a teacher at Ilvermorny?! You didn't tell us that!" Nella asked Regina.
"Yes, she is," Regina said with pride, "besides, my family is one of the big and prominent families in the US I couldn't mention what everyone doing."
"She is such a snob," Hazel whispered to Tina.
"I'm Concetta Drew, I'm from New Hampshire and I'm the Charms teacher of Pukwudgie, but because your house teacher is Regina's aunt, I'll teach you instead." The professor introduced herself. All the lesson she showed the students how to hold their wands correctly and how to move it in the hand, to their great dismay they didn't actually cast any spell or even saw one.
The last lesson was Arithmancy, which was pretty boring. The Professor, Isabelle Dots, just lectured about numbers.
"So, you want to do our homework together?" Hazel asked after the lesson was over.
"Yes, we should go to the library," Evelyn said.
"Houston, we have no idea where the library is!" Nella told her.
"We should find Sadie and ask her." Tina said really fast because she didn't want Nella and Evelyn start arguing again.
"Regina, are you coming with us?" Nella asked Regina.
"No, I'll do the homework with my aunt, I haven't met her yet." Regina answered and walked away.
The four girls went to the Thunderbirds living room to look for Sadie. She was there with some of her roommates. "Sadie, where is the library?" Tina asked her.
"The Transfiguration teacher gave us homework on the first day," Evelyn explained.
"Yeah, he could be annoying sometimes. Come, I'll show you." Sadie told the four girls and they got out back to the hallway. "Where is Regina?"
"With her aunt. Why didn't you tell us that her aunt is a professor?!" Nella asked Sadie.
"Well, she has the right to choose what to tell you, it's her decision. Anyway, who teaches you Charms instead?" Sadie asked them.
"Professor Drew, and she didn't teach us any spell yet we just hold are wands in the air all the lesson." Evelyn said and rolled her eyes.
"It's only your first day, you'll do magic soon, learning the basis is also important." Sadie told them. After five minutes they arrived to the library. Sadie walked with them to an empty table.
"Whoa, what is that?!" Hazel called and pointed on short grey creature with large eyes.
"That a pukwudgie, they provide security and maintenance to the school." Sadie explained.
"Like the house?" Hazel asked.
"Yes, the houses named after magical creatures." Sadie answered to Hazel, "Anyway you manage by your own right?"
"Yes, you can go," Tina told her. Sadie left the library. "Alright girls, we need three spells from each type of transfiguration magic, and there are four types and we are four so each one of us look the spells on one branch. So, I'll do transformation, Hazel you'll find untransfiguration, Evelyn you will work on vanishment and Nella on conjuration. how that sounds to you?"
"Great," Hazel said.
"I love that plan," Evelyn told her.
"Let's start working!" Nella called.
After an hour they all finished. "So, who's start?" Tina asked them.
"I'll start," Nella said, "I found Incendio which produces fire, Aguamenti which creates water and Avis which makes birds."
"That's good. I think the right word is conjures and not creates or makes but whatever," Tina told her, "anyway, now I'll say what I found. There is Duro which transforms things to stone, there is vera verto which transforms animals to goblet and a spell that transforms matches to needles."
"I'm next," Hazel decided, "In untransfiguration there is Reparifarge for objects and Revelio for people. I'm not sure but maybe also Vipera Evanesca here?"
"No. Vipera Evanesca is vanishing spell, though I don't get it, Evanesco is the only spell in this branch besides it. According the book you use in Evanesco to vanish everything so why you need a specific spell to vanish snakes? It's doesn't make sense!" Evelyn called.
"Calm down Houston, we'll ask Sadie in the house." Nella told her.
"No, swamp girl, we need to figure this out now, we haven't finished our homework, we can't leave!" Evelyn called.
"So, you want to ask someone?" Nella asked, "You see someone to ask?"
Evelyn looked around on the kids in the library, "Actually I do. Lara can you come here?" Evelyn yelled. A girl turned around to look at Evelyn, from the old papers she read and then came to their table.
"Hey Evelyn, how was your first day in Ilvermorny? They are your roommates? What do you need?" The girl asked.
"Girls, this is Lara Von, she is also from Houston. Lara this are my roommates-Tina, Hazel and Nella. We got homework on our first day in transfiguration and we need to know we answered correctly," Evelyn explained.
"Who's your Transfiguration professor? and what was your assignment?" Lara asked them.
"Professor Prott, and we needed to find three spells from each transfiguration branch but in untransfiguration we found only two spells, Reparifarge and Revelio and in vanishment we found only Evanecso and well I guess Vipera Evanesca also count? We are not sure." Evelyn explained.
"This is exactly the only spells in these branches it's a trick question Professor Prott do it every year that what the Thunderbirds in my year said. I hope I helped you, bye girls it was nice to meet you, bye Evelyn." Lara said and went back to the table she sat before.
"Well now can we go, Houston?" Nella asked Evelyn.
"Yes, we can, that was pretty exhausting, I didn't believe we got homework on the first day," Evelyn said.
"Right, but that was also very interesting, I can't wait to start learning how to do magic!" Hazel called.
All the girls got up besides Tina. "Tina aren't you come with us?" Nella asked her.
"No, I want to stay here and read something but you should get ahead to our room." She told them. The girls nodded and left Tina alone. Tina looked books about Legilimency, it's took her some time until she found one.
"There is American Society of Legilimens?" Tina asked herself after she saw who the author was. "That's cool. Queenie should join them one day." Tina didn't notice the time passes. She just sat in the library and read there for hours. That was her first time she had access to books about Legilimency.
"Tina? What's going on? It's dinner time." Sadie showed up from nowhere. Tina jumped; Sadie frighten her. "I'm sorry I didn't mean to startle you." She sat next to Tina and noticed what the book is about. "You miss Queenie?"
"Yes, but also no..." Tina answered honestly, "It's the first time I can think whatever I want, I finally feel free, my thoughts supposed to be private but it's never the case when you live with Queenie. but I learned how to feel Queenie in my brain it's like tickling, and it's really weird not to feel it now."
"Why didn't you learn Occlumency?" Sadie asked her.
"My parents promised me to take me to learn it after I'll be twelve, it's something pretty dangerous to learn in young age. That why they never allow me to read books in the subject so I won't try to learn it myself. They also told Queenie they'll find someone who teach her how to control her Legilimency but none of these things will ever happen because they are dead." Tina said and sighed, tear fell from her eye.
"How did you find out she is Legilimens?" Sadie asked Tina.
"Well, that is a cute story," Tina said with small smile.
Author Note: You'll get the story of how they found out Queenie is Legilimens in the next chapter in another flashback. Lara Von Sigg is a reporter from Houston, her name was on one of the papers at the beginning of Fantastic Beasts and Where to find them so I just used her. I also really glad I succeeded to post this chapter before Passover start, I wanted it to be close to the flashback date.