It is finally September 1st and Lea can't hold still to say goodbye to her parents. She is so excited. As she gets on the train she starts looking for a compartment to go to, as she walks she comes across a compartment with another first year in it. This other first year happened to have blond hair and seems to be reading a magazine upside down, Lea has decided to sit here.
"Hey, do you mind if I sit here?" Lea asked the other girls. "My name is Azalea by the way you can call me Lea though."
"Luna, and of course you can sit here, you don't seem to be too infested with wrackspurts," she said. Lea looked very confused by the mentions of the new creatures that she has never heard of before.
"Thank you," she said with a smile. After she got settled she decided to ask the girl what a wrackspurt was and how does she know I am not infested with them. As they were talking another girl that seemed to know Luna came in to sit with them.
"Hi, my name is Ginny Weasley. I am neighbors and friends with Luna," the new girl stated.
"Nice to meet you Ginny, my name is Azlea but you can call me Lea." The girls continued talking as the train started moving and two new people joined their group.
"Hey Ginny have you seen Ron and Harry, I can't seem to find them." The newest person who looked to be wearing red stated. The little boy behind them seemed to be a first year student just following the older student around.
"No I have not. I was too busy talking with my new friend and Luna to look for my idiotic brother," Ginny said with an eye roll not really wanting to look for her idiotic brother. As they were discussing where the boys could possibly be, Lea looked out the window because of a strange feeling.
"Hey look, is that a flying car with a boy hanging out of it?" Lea asked this question startled by the sight before her.
"Oh my Merlin, what have those boys done now? Yup that would be them honestly I don't know what I expect from them it is so idiotic," the girl who has yet to introduce herself said with a tired sigh. "Oh I am sorry I have yet to introduce myself, the name is Hermione Granger and this is Colin Creevey. I met him while I was looking for my friends."
"It is nice to meet you Hermione, my name is Azalea but you can call me Lea everyone does, or at least I am trying to get everyone to call me Lea," she responded with a smile on her face.
"It is a pleasure, are you excited to see Hogwarts or all you already wishing we were home for Christmas break. I know Ron wishes Christmas comes earlier," Hermione asked. This caused a confused look to cross Lea's face, 'why say Christmas instead of Yule?' This thought ran through her head and she decided to voice it out loud.
"Why did you say Christmas instead of Yule?" As she said this everyone froze even the older students outside of the door.
"Yule, what is Yule?" Asked Hermione.
"Well it is a winter festival that was adapted by the christians to make Christmas. Actually Christian's did this with a lot of pagan holidays. I am surprised the wizarding community even celebrates Christian and muggle holidays." Said Lea.
"Oh yeah, Ginny, do you know why we celebrate muggle and Christian holidays at Hogwarts. It makes no sense when I think about it," Hermione questioned.
"I don't know, my family has always referred to Yule as Christmas and such maybe we should ask an older student. With that statement the older students that were eavesdropping and growing in number opened the door to answer.
"Well that would be because the old holidays were marked as 'dark' because the traditional families are the ones that follow the holidays. These families are also known as purebloods and during the last two wars have been seen as only 'dark' in everything they do," this was answered by a Slytherin student with a prefect badge on.
"Why are they marked as 'dark', it makes no sense when you think about it," Lea decided to input.
"That is because the 'light' side has decided that we should cater to muggles so that way they feel more welcomed in our society and that is causing a big rift because many raised in the muggle world do not learn of the old holidays until after Hogwarts and even then they believe that they are the majority and it is not a holiday the wizarding world as a whole celebrates," this was said by an older Ravenclaw student.
"Doing so would create a bigger rift though, do those that were raised in muggle England not understand that there is such a thing as a different culture within their own country. Not every person in the whole world is Christian and why would they be when Christians have literally created a holiday to try and hunt down those with magic called Halloween. Why would anyone with magic want to celebrate any of those holidays it sounds like torture. I mean come on celebrating the birth of the son of god, who can do everything we can as a first year. That is just ridiculous, it sounds like someone just wanted to make the rift between us bigger than it needs to be," Lea ranted, shocking herself that she could be that outgoing when confronted with others her age. Everyone however was just as shocked by the end of that tirade and couldn't disagree with her no matter how hard they tried to.
After that even the ones who thought that every pureblood was a bigot started to think of the perspective once more and really got to thinking. As they were discussing the holidays, the conversation had spread to the rest of the train and everyone was discussing how much they disagree with celebrating the muggle holidays.
By the time the train arrived at the Hogsmeade station every single muggle raised kid had agreed that they would no longer celebrate their traditional holidays but instead celebrate the pagan holidays because they made more sense and were the holidays that the magical community celebrated.
Word Count: 1,076 words