"Excuse me?" said a voice that cut into my losing myself in the thought process.

"Is this compartment full? Everywhere else is jam-packed."

"Uhm, sure" I responded automatically.

I looked up at my new fellow compartment resident. It was a girl, who like me was a first year. I could tell, due to the fact that the inside of her robes (which she had already changed into) were black and not any house's primary color. She was slightly pudgy, with hair that sloped down her back in the form of two, wrist-thick plaits of honey blond. She had narrow, almost-Asian-like powder-blue eyes (which in my honest, (yet not entirely polite) opinion) seemed to lack a proper balance of proportion to the rest of her face.

Her face itself maintained a roundness that I had only thought possible to exist in cartoon characters* and her cheeks were so round and puffy, that I was not entirely unconvinced that she had the Mumps** Her central top-teeth appeared to protrude outward in a very slightly, yet incredibly noticeable manner. Overall, her facial features resulted in her striking resemblance to a chipmunk.

"My name's Janey. Janey MacDuff What's yer's?" she asked. I had just finally begun to complete my analysis of her outer appearance (a rather inconsiderate trait in myself at the time) So therefore, I officially discovered that she had an Irish accent

"Oh my name is Lily...Luna. My name is Lily Luna."

"With a hyphen?"

"Er-no. Um...anyways, I-I suppose you're from Scotland"

"Born and bred in Glasgow meself. Accent gave me away. eh?"

"Yes. It sort of did. Are you excited? To go to Hogwarts I mean."

"Reckon you'd 'ave to be barkin mad not to be. I've been waitin' fer this moment fer' as long as I could remember. Really got used to it. It'll almost be kind of wierd not dreamin' about goin' to Hogwarts anymore, now that I'm finally goin'. It almost leaves a hole in me heart. Feels like it anyways. It's funny how when you get so used to something, even if it's not particularly a good thing, you miss it when it's gone."

And on and on Janey chattered, about how she had become so accustomed to yearning for the arrival of her Hogwarts letter, that she had almost no idea how to react when she got it. It's not a ridiculous theory that she would have gone on chattering about the subject until the end of time, provided that all the factors responsible for cutting off her little speech were removed from the equation.

I however, found that I could not wait for these factors to catch up with her, and halted her conversation by my own means.

"So, you said that you had been waiting your whole life for your Hogwarts letter. Does that mean that you're from a wizard family?"

"Not particularly. I mean, both of my parents were wizards, and so are a lot of people in my family. But I've got a fair amount of muggle relatives as well. I don't think anybody in my family who's a wizard is pureblood. Mostly we're all halfbloods and muggleborns. You'll find just as many muggles in my family tree as wizards, if not more. Family reunions are quite crazy" she grinned, fondly reminiscing the presumed bizarreness and hilarity ensuing when muggles and wizards combined.

Then, just as though somebody had flicked a light switch*** her fond grin was replaced by a defensive scowl.

"And I'm proud of having muggles in my family to. I wouldn't trade them for a billion galleons. You aren't from one of those stupid wizard families who think they're all that an' a bag of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans just because everyone in their familiy's a wizard. Do you?" She emitted a slight growl as she recited these last two words.

"No..not at all!" I said surprised. I assure you that it was not out of conceit that I was not upset that she didn't recognize me as Harry Potter's daughter, but I was just rather accusomed to it. But now was my chance to take advantage of the situation.

"I'm actually a half-blood myself. My Grandmum was a Muggleborn. And my best friend is a muggle too."

As I said this, I unbuttoned my sweater revealing a bubble-gum pink cardigan beneath it*.

Janey's hostile face quickly subsided back into it's naturally plump and cheerful one.

"OK good. Know yer house yet?"

"Oh, I'm going to be in Gryffindor. Everybody in my family is!"

"So was me Mam"

"What about you? Do you want to be in Gryffindor like your parents too?"

"Not really. Me Dad was a Hufflepuff. Mam was a Gryffindor"

"I guess you're not sure which Parent's footsteps you want to follow in then?"

"Nah. Don't want to be in neither"

"You don't?" I had rather taken for granted the typical desire for First Years like me to desire their parents house. The notion that a student might not want to do so was rather shocking to myself.

"Well, in me family it's not just one house. We got loads of Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs. Even got a couple Slytherins 'ere an' there. But as far as I can tell, we ain't got to Ravenclaws. That's the house I'm aimin' fer"

"Do you want to be the one who breaks the tradition?"

"Partly. It would be nice to be the first Ravenclaw in the family. Also..." For the first time since our meeting, Janey had trailed off in a sentence.

"Is everything alright?"

"Yeah it's just...will you promise not to laugh?"

"Of course"

"Well... nobody in my family-or my friends...think that I'm very clever. I don't blame them either. I'm really clumsy, I can't remember anything...and I don't think I have a knut's worth of common sense inside me skull! But...if I was put in Ravenclaw...maybe...just maybe, I might prove to everybody...that I've got a brain"

She sat staring at me for thirty seconds (a lengthy silence in her standards)

She turned red as a beet and hung her head.

"I know it's stupid but...I'm just tired of being the butt of all jokes in me family"

"I don't think it's stupid"

Janey's head elevated and a hint of brightness was detected creeping into her face.

"You don't?"

"No. I know what it's like to have a lot to prove. And I know what it's like to have it feel like everything is working against you too. I understand your need to prove yourself to your family. I'm the youngest in my family with two brothers. "

And for the rest of the train ride there, me and Janey talked about our future houses, gorged ourselves on chocolate frogs, and swapped embarrassing tales about our brothers. Janey had seven to my two. Goodness! And I thought I had it rough! And although we had only known each other for a meager handful of hours, I knew in my heart, that Janey and I would be friends for life.

* Growing up with muggles, we, like many other wizard familes decided to possess a few muggle electronics (a type of muggle magical artifact) in order to blend in with the Muggle community. One such artifact is a television, a sort of crystal ball in which we can view infinite realities, each one different from our world, sometimes slightly, sometimes drastically. We can also watch certain characters lives in these worlds (unbeknownst to them) at different periods in the day. One such type of reality is called cartoons. In which you view worlds in which the residents have a rather artificial, appearance about them. It really is quite fascinating, but be warned: it's dangereously addictive. My brothers and I could watch these different realities for hours on end.

**A muggle disease in which people's cheeks inflate.

*In the wizarding community, vivid pinks are sort of like rainbows to gay people. They basically convey rather punky, muggle-pride messages like"I've got a muggle for a father and I'm proud of it" or "Yes, I've got muggle blood and no I'm NOT ashamed of it at all" or simply muggle tolerance.