Nyssa hated Quidditch with a passion. It was (usually) a bunch of boys flying around on broomsticks trying to look important. And there was a lot of mud and rain, and it was often very cold. It was the worst. But she attended, mostly so she could tell her brother that she was having a life outside of her textbooks at her father's request. Her brother, Adric, was likely to bury himself in learning when he got here if she didn't tell him how 'exciting' the social events were. The social events were the opposite of exciting. Everything was dull so far except the feasts and the occasional prank from Frobisher that went even better than the poltergeist could expect (like the one when every male in the school was supposed to end up with a moustache but instead the potion went wrong and everyone got a long flowing stereotypical wizard's beard, and spent three days getting them cut off by Magical Mishaps Volunteers).
This time, she was sitting alone in the Ravenclaw stands, in the wet and cold, wrapped up in her coat and her scarf all the way up to her eyes, which was mildly uncomfortable with all the breathing into it, but it was far better than being cold. The game was so boring that she didn't even mind when that Slytherin boy showed up to flirt with Peter again. Tracking the different shades of red flushing over the boy's face was more stimulating than watching people fake dive after the snitch (it was obvious when that was happening, she didn't know how anyone fell for it). She minded even less when a cute Gryffindor girl decided to come and 'keep an eye' on her 'friend' (Nyssa could tell that they were not friends at all, and this girl did not glance once at Anthony (Nyssa managed to learn his name after Peter said it happily whilst blushing when he arrived (that boy had such a massive crush on the Slytherin, it was painful to watch))).
"Hey." Nyssa said quietly after five minutes of watching the back of Peter's neck get redder and redder. It wasn't as interesting as the girl sitting next to her, she was sure. Besides, the girl was cute. Nyssa wasn't much for going after people and asking them on dates or such, but she wasn't averse to getting to know random cute girls who sat next to her in Quidditch.
"Hi." The girl said back, glancing at her. Her eyes were brown. Brown and sweet like melted chocolate and-nope. Stop, Nyssa, she thought to herself. "I'm Tegan." Her accent was Australian. She thought. Nyssa wasn't good with accents.
"I'm Nyssa." She said, smiling back.
"Is that a weird wizarding name or something?" Tegan asked immediately.
Nyssa laughed. She hadn't really thought about it before. "I suppose so. It's better than Adric, though. That's my brother's name." Any chance to pick on Adric was a good enough chance for her. Adric was a terrible name. It screamed nerdy, and Adric lived up to that nerdy name, despite being ten.
"That is worse." She said. "Though I've heard some ridiculous names in the muggle world. There's some cricketer who named his kid Tabula."
"That is a bit of a silly sounding name." She said. "Muggles can be very silly people, though."
"They really can." Tegan said. "One of my neighbours thought that my aunt was sending me to a posh boarding school to 'sort out my silly notions'!"
Nyssa laughed. "Are your relatives muggles, then?"
"I think so." She said. "They all live over in Australia, sent me over to live with my aunt so I could get a different education to my siblings. They never got the letter from me telling them about Hogwarts, and I never felt comfortable sending another one."
Nyssa nodded. "My father adopted me and my brother, so I don't really know. I was sort of adopted into the magical world when I was little, but I'll never know if my parents were muggles or not. My brother was thought to be a squib, I think, but he was adopted by my father before I started showing magic." She wasn't sure why she was telling Tegan all of this. She didn't really talk about it that much, even with her father or her brother, not since she and her father had had a bit of an argument about why he had adopted two children who weren't magical (or supposedly weren't). But Tegan seemed pretty upset about her family and she wasn't really sure what else she could say.
"That's interesting." Tegan said. "You seem really nice, Nyssa."
Nyssa laughed. "I don't talk to people that much. Everyone thinks I'm hostile."
Tegan smiled at her. "You're not hostile. I bet they don't look past that pile of books you're always carrying."
Nyssa scoffed. "How do you know about the books?"
Tegan laughed so loud that Peter turned around (his face was STILL bright red). "You walk around the corridors all day, and to all of your classes, with a bag that's completely full and another armful of books. I've seen you drop them at least twice. I can't miss those monstrous things."
Nyssa smiled. "Fair enough." She kept staring into Tegan's eyes when they fell silent, both of them still smiling. She would have missed the snitch being caught if everyone hadn't stood up cheering. Ravenclaw caught the snitch, but they just about missed winning, somehow. Gryffindor must be quite a good team.
"Well done." She said to Tegan. "You win, I think."
Tegan nudged her in the ribs. "You're not meant to be pleased."
"Tough." Nyssa teased, trying her hardest not to blush. She liked Tegan. She was nice and funny. But this would probably end now and they'd hardly speak to each other ever again.
Both girls left the Quidditch pitch desperately hoping that that would not be the case.