Ellie wasn't surprised when Julian told her what he'd found after the class. As if expecting it, her response was simply, 'of course she is.'

'How can she get away with that?' he sat down for dinner in the common room. All the other first years filling the spots next to him. 'We played fair.'

'Well… you did attack him without a wand.' Janet Simpkin annoyingly pointed out.

'Only because they cheated first!' complained Julian. He growled and started wolfing down roast potatoes. Hoping his favourite meal would calm him down, it didn't.

This whole situation was wrong, it turned out nothing he could have done in that fight would help, if he hadn't have gone physical on Peckering they definitely wouldn't have won. But not doing so would just be giving up. At least he had a chance of winning with what he did, how was he supposed to know Halliday would punish the house for it.

'I say it's unfair' Elie said, coming to Julian's defence, Connor Xu and Nick Henderson nodding along with her. 'You can't just help out your house just cause you're the head, we shouldn't be losing points for trying to win.'

'But we wouldn't have lost if Ju… Juli…' Yuko started from across Julian, growling in frustration when unable to pronounce his name without it sound wrong. It seemed she knew English well enough. He guessed she mustn't have been using it long or maybe just too focused on getting it perfect. 'If he hadn't… attacked like a muggle, we would have won.'

'And you won fair and square huh?' Julian stood, starting to feel annoyed. Why was she getting on him for that? What he did in the moment wasn't that bad as long as they won.

'I could have.' She stood as well, staring him down. Ellie was getting ready to pull on Julian's robe.

'Oi.' James the prefect called from further down the table. 'Not in here, people are eating.'

Yuko sneered at Julian before finishing her food and storming off. Julian sat back down and continued eating in a huff.

James walked over towards the first years. He put on a friendly smile, but it looked like he'd rather be eating. 'What happened?' He asked the group. It seemed no one wanted to speak up.

'We lost a contest in Defensive Magic.' Piped up Cassius. 'We lost a lot of points.'

'That was you?'. James scanned the first years before settling on Julian, his eyes narrowed in a stare that made Julian feel uncomfortable, 'what did you do?'

Even if James could understand what happened from context, it was unnerving that he had been called out so quickly. 'I attacked a boy from Defanon during a duel.'

'Obviously, and?' James drew the last word out. He wasn't letting Julian get off for free, he was going to have to admit it.

'I twisted his arm.' Julian said, defeated.

'Twist? Like a Chinese burn?' James asked, a stupid smile on his face. He looked like he was just about to laugh. It was an older term, not really used anymore. He must have been muggle-born. 'How old are you?'

Julian sighed. Not happy about James' reaction, 'It's not like I punched him.'

'True, definitely could have gotten it worse.' He nodded. 'Halliday, right?'

'Yeah, how'd you know?' Elie asked.

'Same thing happened to me.' James replied, glancing at his fellow prefect Emily. 'I got sick of her giving Defanon a free pass. When it came time for one of her regular contests, I went at the other guy. Only difference was I punched him, got a Wednesday and a Friday detention.' James stopped, Emily glared at him from down the table, she must've known exactly what he was talking about. 'Not very fun, if you ask me,' he added louder, hiding a sheepish grin from Emily.

'Look, I'll let you off for arguing, it's your first day. But if I see you starting it again, I'm docking points. If you have problems like this again, maybe ask our head of house about it.' James left to sit down with his friends.

Julian stewed about that; he hadn't thought it could be worse. He felt like James's story must have been a warning to them not to step out of line. But something about it made him mad, the fact that Halliday had been acting that way for five years, possibly more, made him feel sick. But there was nothing to do, what could he do to stop that teacher? He sat in silence along with the other first years as they put an end to their sour first day.

Julian woke up the next day a little earlier than usual. Despite the bed being much more comfortable than his old one, he couldn't help but miss his old room. He knew he couldn't get back to sleep so was left with the task of moving quietly through the dorm room, finding the small pockets of free space uncovered by clothes left by his dormmates as he moved to the bathroom.

Once showered and dressed in casual clothes, he went down to breakfast in the common room, hoping his jeans and t-shirt were not out of place on a Saturday. Once again admiring the ocean through the glass walls. He was about to sit down when he noticed Yuko sitting in her school robe on the table.

Before he could even react, she got up and walked away back to the dorms a blank unreadable expression on her face. Julian tried his best to give a light smile as she passed, for all the good it would do, but she ignored him.

As he ate his breakfast, more and more people appeared in the common room. Ellie had come by as well, talking about how keen she was for scrambled eggs. He had even begun reading the Standard Book of Spells Grade 1, hoping he could learn a little more for defensive magic, when he heard someone enter the common room. He looked over, only noticing that their robe was a teacher's black instead of Terrascale blue.

She had a kind smile framed by shorter black hair that went to her chin that somehow managed to not have a hair out of place. For a second, he could have sworn she eyed him up, making Julian wish he'd been wearing a robe.

Judging by the inner lining of the robe being the same as his house colour he guessed she might be his head of house. He brushed breadcrumbs off his clothes quickly, he didn't need another teacher mad at him. He elbowed Ellie, interrupting her from her breakfast. The two of them walked over to the gathering crowd around the teacher, it looked like the whole house was there now.

'Good morning.' She announced. 'I am Janice Silverstem, your head of house. For those new to us at Terrascale, I believe it is important to teach and restate,' she paused, looking around the room. 'What our values are and what it means to be a part of this house.'

'If there is one idea that I want you all to leave today with, it is community.' She began, pacing as she talked. 'This mean that we foster relations between others, both within and without our house. To this end I want a front of a closeknit community present when the other houses look at us. Any disagreement is to be solved through peaceful means.' She stared across the common room. The other students keeping a silent vigil while listening. The older students most likely familiar with this speech. Julian noticed James the prefect on his right, giving a slight grimace as he heard these words.

Ellie whispered to Julian, 'you should ask her about yesterday. Get the points back.'

'Yeah, say something, Julian.' Connor Xu said from Julian's right.

'No way, I'm not talking in front of everyone.' This was a lie, the possibility did cross his mind, but for some reason the more he listened to Silverstem's speech the less likely that it would be possible.

'Your loss.' Ellie shrugged.

They turned their attention back to Silverstem.

'Achievements made will be accepted with modesty and value the group's contribution. Lying in any forms is discouraged to give others the benefit of trust. Insight must be shared with the greater whole in order to keep people on the same page.' She continued, somehow managing to keep her smile the entire time, it was unnerving.

'You should remember that it is Defanon house that fights.' Silverstem's eyes flitted in Julian's direction briefly.

'It is left to the Lioncrowns to lead based on its contributions. Imphorn can dress their lies as jokes as much as they want, Owlsight uses its insight in ways that they see fit.'

'But us, here in Terrascale are here to advise, to reduce, to make sure that the houses are able to coexist in harmony. It is by following these rules that all of you can create the best community possible in our school.'

'If you are in need of any help to accomplish these principles, the fastest way will be to ask a portrait on any floor of this castle. Though we do not have as many as I would like.' She laughed. Of which none of the students responded to.

After a brief pause, 'If there are no questions then I believe I've made my point. I hope you all have a wonderful year here. Thank you.'

The prefects stared clapping, eventually rippling through the whole house. Even though he was unsure if it was worthy of clapping for, it sounded like a load of rules, and Julian couldn't help feeling that Silverstem's constant smile would be able to rip you apart if you broke them.

As much as he felt unnerved by it, he noticed Ellie didn't mind the speech, maybe he was the weird one for thinking any different. 'Ok, she's done, not in front of everyone now. They'll start leaving in a sec.'

'She's gonna leave too.'

'That's why you should say something. Come on, as if you don't want to.'

Julian paused, 'I mean, I do but…'

Suddenly, a cheeky grin on her face. She had all the justification she needed. 'Look, sorry about this. But you did just admit it.'

Ellie reached behind him and pushed him forward into the empty space between the whole house and Silverstem. The clapping slowly petered out when they saw him.

Julian tried to push back into crowd, if he got back in quickly no one would comment. But with complete silence, it was impossible not to hear the teacher.

'Mr…?'

Julian turned back to face her, not ready for this. But maybe Ellie was right, this would be the way to fix it.

'Julian Vital, miss.'

He wished that Ellie had waited a minute. Some people had started filing out but apparently, the sudden interaction between a first year and Silverstem was worth sticking around for. As soon as she'd asked for his name, all eyes in the common room were only interested in one thing.

'Did you have something you wanted to say, Mr Vital?' SIlverstem had a cautious look to her, eyes flitting to his muggle clothes and runners.

His face went red, he hadn't prepared for this at all.

'Miss,' He stammered. 'I had to ask about yesterday… something with Ms Halliday.'

The crowd of students started whispering, Silverstem's eyebrows furrowed. 'Go on.'

'Well, we had duels in her class yesterday and she took too many points away from us, it was unfair.'

SIlverstem sighed, putting her hands on her hips, 'Are you the one who fought with your hands?'

Julian's hands were sweating, 'Yes… But that's not the point.'

'But it is, Mr Vital. Engaging in a duel with anything other than your wand is prohibited at this school, outside of certain… disciplines.' She deliberately gestured to his muggle clothes as she said it. Not elaborating anymore on what that meant.

Julian was taken aback, his mouth dropped open, the other first years equally shocked, Ellie had her head in her hands. Even Yuko looked on in disbelief. His muggle clothes suddenly felt more

'I believe Halliday is right for penalising you for it. Hopefully, you will know better for next time. Is that all?'

Julian was silent for a moment. 'No, miss.'

'No?'

'Halliday was teaching the Defanon first years to deflect spells, but not us.'

The whispers continued. He saw several other students cringed upon hearing this. It almost seemed like this was something they were very familiar with. He caught the eye of James the prefect, who was shaking his head.

Silverstem, held her hands out, quickly quieting the house down.

'Mr Vital, I don't believe you can accuse a teacher of that on your first day.'

'But she did!' Julian's voice grew louder, he could feel where this was going. She was trying to make him look like a liar. 'It was our first day, how did all the Defanon first years know it?'

'What students decide to learn in their own time is not indicative of what your accusing Ms Halliday of.'

Julian's anger flared more, 'Tha- '

'Thank you, Ms SIlverstem.' James the prefect stepped in front of him.

Julian tried to speak again, when James grabbed his hand tightly 'I'm sure he understands now.'

Silverstem's smile reappeared, speaking again. 'Once again, I have to emphasise community. We can't let every problem we face spread out of control. I hope to see you all resolve problems peacefully in the future.'

'Thank you for listening, have a good weekend, students.'

With that, she left as abruptly as she came. The crowd of students began to filter out of the common room. Ellie rushed over to Julian.

James let go of his hand. 'Vital, why did you bring it up with her?'

'Didn't you tell me to talk to her?' Julian retorted.

'Not like that. In front of everyone, of course she's going to say that.'

'But it's unfair.'

'I know. But you're better off just leaving it.'

Julian had cooled down, it wasn't right but hearing that James understood did make him feel a bit better. Although deep down, the whole thing unsettled him.

'You're not gonna punch me, are you?' James joked.

Julian looked up at him. 'Of course not.'

'Good. Come meet us at the notice board, Emily and I have some stuff to tell you all.'

With that James left.

'Sorry Julian.' Ellie said after a silence. 'I didn't think it'd go like that.'

'It's fine.' He wasn't mad at her really. He had wanted to do it himself; she just gave him to push he needed to get through his nerves. After all, it was impossible to know that Silverstem would react that way. But still, hearing what Silversteam said he couldn't help himself from digging his nails into his palms.

After Ms Silverstem left, the first years were given another rundown of the layout of the castle by the prefects in the common room. From the highest floor to the basement, the prefects made sure that they knew where everything was. Along with other information, they were free to walk across most parts of the islands before dark. He'd even learned that the owl coop was in one of the towers in the south block, though Julian could already feel his legs aching once he'd heard it was nine floors up.

'It may seem like a lot but if you can just keep in mind which section of the castle that you're in you'll be able to find your way. I'll teach you all the point me spell, so you'll be able to know where north is anytime.'

As James went on about some of the different departments across the castle, Julian couldn't help but notice one thing he wasn't explaining. He raised his hand.

'What about the maze below us?' Julian asked. 'Is there anything down there?'

James stopped on the middle of his speech and sighed.

'As I said on the first night, the maze is pretty much off-limits, to everyone except teachers.' He answered. 'Moving on-'

'Why?' asked Olivia Phan, raising her hand. She must also have been interested.

'It just is,' he said.

'But do you know why?' she pressed.

'Cause you could get lost down there. It's not called a maze for nothing you know.' James said.

'But is there something there?' Yuko asked, not putting her hand up.

The other prefect Emily, who up until this point had stayed silent, decided to step in.

'Guys, there's nothing in the maze, it's just something the castle was built on top of. The only time that we're allowed near it is when we need to get to the common room and after we're sorted.'

The other first years including Julian raised their voices in protest. Before she continued even louder.

'Guys, it could be huge down there, you could get lost in there for days, maybe weeks. If that happens, we'll be the ones who have to take time out of their lives to find you. Drop it, please.'

The first years fell into silence.

'Okay, now that's done.' James took over, 'the library is located on the fifth floor…'

The next Monday, Julian and Ellie were enjoying the only walk to a class that didn't involve running, potions. Being in the south block, where the Terrascale common room also was, meant that if they ate quickly, Julian and Ellie could make it to the Potion's classrooms with plenty of time to spare.

It may have been the leisurely morning, but Julian was looking forward to potions, based on the book it followed a precise set of instructions and was similar to cooking, which Julian enjoyed. He sat on the ground against the wall, giving his potions textbook a quick once over while listening to Nick Henderson talking about Quidditch.

'That's why the Thunderers suck. Jenkins has butter fingers, can't keep his fingers on the Quaffle for longer than a second.' Nick Henderson was saying to another boy from Terrascale, Connor Xu silently nodding beside him.

As they continued Ellie groaned next to Julian, her eyes closed as sat against the wall. 'It's morning and I want just two seconds…' She trailed off.

Julian smiled, he felt that aside from teaching him some wizarding games, she had spent the whole weekend sleeping. Leaving Julian to explore the south block of the castle on his own, he didn't want to have to be caught out lost by a teacher too late one night. He hadn't gone that far outside of the block, but he knew he'd have to go further eventually.

He was just wondering to himself if there were any shortcuts to the potions classrooms that would let him get some more time in for breakfast when he noticed the gold creeping into his vision from his right. He stared for a moment wondering what it was before his eyes widened.

He quickly zipped open his bag, rifling through it to find his timetable, hoping that they were just passing through. Unfortunately, those hopes were dashed when he saw that potions would be shared with Lioncrown house.

But more importantly, it would be shared with Hannah.

He quickly looked up to notice Hannah and Ben Winde walking together. Ben's face lit up when he saw Julian and Ellie giving a wave, giving Julian a chance to smile lightly in return. Hannah however, looked unreadable, she gave Julian and Ellie a once-over with her eyes and then looked away, laughing at some joke another girl from the house told.

A few moments later, the first year Lioncrowns had settled on the opposite side of the wall to Julian, a prefect from their house walking away. Julian questioned to himself why they had a prefect escort them to their class when Terrascale's just gave him a piece of paper with directions.

The two houses waited in silence, none of the people from either side sure if they should interact. Julian thought it might be a good idea to at least say hello to Ben and Hannah. He briefly considered what he could bribe Ellie with to get her to back him up. But before he could, some of the people from Lioncrown continued their conversation from earlier, prompting the Terrascales to talk amongst themselves. Right as he was working up the courage to cross the hallway, the door to the potions class opened, revealing Ms Silverstem.

'Good morning, students, come in now.' She announced, gesturing into the classroom. Following her lead, the whole class filed in through the door into the Potions classroom.

For some reason, Julian had been expecting a dingy room, filled with smoke and completely devoid of any light whatsoever. But to his surprise the potions classroom was quite clean and even had windows letting in a good amount of light on the right side of the room.

'Is that a problem for ingredients?' He asked out loud, pointing at the windows.

'Nah,' Ellie replied, somehow, she immediately understood what he meant. 'They use magic on the windows to prevent the light from affecting the potion ingredients. Besides, we probably won't use anything volatile in this class.'

Immediately, the two houses split into separate halves, the Lioncrowns taking up all the tables on the bright side of the room, leaving the leftover seats for Terrascale. Julian and Ellie took the table closest to the Lioncrowns, hoping to get a seat closest to the sun. Unfortunately, this had placed them on the table right next to Ben and Hannah's.

'My name is Ms Silverstem and welcome to potions.' Came the voice from the front of the classroom. 'This might be one of the more unique classes that you'll be doing at your time here. There's not really much spellwork here, but that doesn't mean potions is not just as important, if not more so than your other subjects. If you disagree, then you can be rest assured that the first time you go to sick bay you will appreciate the potions made here. Think of any illness and there is a potion treatment, they can make you stronger faster and have just about any use you can think of.' Her mouth opened in her customary smile, Julian noticed that at least this time, it seemed genuine.

'But before going to great heights, you must begin your journey with one of the simple potions and one I'm sure you all will use at some point, the cure for pimples, or boils.' She waved her wand, and with that a list of ingredients marked with a location appeared on the blackboard behind her. 'Your instructions are in your books and the ingredients required will be in the stores a few doors down the hallway. You will work in groups of two, the person on your table will be your partner.'

She gave initial run through of the instructions for the potion, and instructions for lighting a small fire under their cauldrons. After this, Ms Silverstem selected two of the groups from Lioncrown and sent them to get their ingredients from the storeroom down the hallway. Once, they returned she picked another two groups from Lioncrown.

Once the third golden group left for the storeroom, Julian frowned. The only thing that his group or the rest of the Terrascales could do was set up their cauldrons and sit in silence after Silverstem told them to keep quiet.

'Why all of them first?' Ellie whispered to Julian.

'You tell me.'

Julian guessed after ten minutes that Silverstem had finished sending the Lioncrowns over and began bouncing his leg on the ground in anticipation, he was starting to feel antsy.

She then pointed to the golden group on the table next to her and then straight at Julian, 'You two groups are next.' A statement that made Julian take a breath in frustration.

Julian and Ellie stood up and walked out of the classroom followed by Ben and Hannah. Once they were out in the hallway an awkward silence fell over. Julian didn't know what to say to either, after what happened in the water two days earlier, he didn't want to talk to Hannah at all, not after what she did.

Sure, they were all supposed to lose consciousness and talk to whatever the sorter was, but it wasn't as if she knew that when she kicked him down. But more than that was her rejecting his apology from back then.

Not to mention that she didn't value his and John's friendship enough keep in touch with muggles.

'Hey, Julian.' Came Ben's voice breaking him out of his thoughts, 'how've you been?' he asked earnestly as they walked. Despite not knowing what to say to him, maybe Ben seemed alright.

'Been good,' he started thinking of what to say. 'Bit strange, but I think I'm getting used to, all this.' He gestured all around.

'Yeah, must not be used to magic yet, being muggle-born and all.' Ben said, not noticing Julian rolling his eyes at the term. 'But no big deal, we'll all be around the same sooner or later.' They passed a classroom.

'True, but I don't think I'll get used to having to rush every morning.' Ellie commented next to Julian.

Ben raised his eyebrows.

'That's just cause you sleep all the time.' Julian retorted, with a laugh. Quickly glancing behind at Hannah, she looked completely stone-faced. 'But jokes aside, we are pretty far from almost every class.'

'Sounds annoying.' Ben agreed.

'We're pretty close to everything where we are.' Hannah spoke for the first time, avoiding looking at Julian. 'You sure that you're not just slow?'

'No, we're just pretty far down, we're even right next to the maze.' Julian said irritated at her remark, trying not to let it show. Ben and Ellie looked on, sharing the same half-smile.

'Sounds hard, I hope you don't get lost down there.' She smirked. 'I've heard there's all sorts of stuff down there.'

'Like what?' Julian asked, despite her abrasiveness, he was curious what she knew about it.

'I've heard that is full of monsters, better be careful on your way back. You might run into something you shouldn't.' She said calmly, as if she wasn't imagining him getting mauled by a monster or worse.

Julian didn't even know how to respond to that, what was her problem? He had ignored her on the train, but he had no idea what he had done to deserve this. He had even tried to apologise during the sorting, and she even hadn't listened. He was starting to think there wasn't much he could say to her without her turning it back on him.

But he couldn't help but wonder at what she'd said however, no one told him there were monsters in the maze, surely that should be something everyone should know, Terrascale especially. Though he considered that she must be lying to scare him, he couldn't help but wonder if there was some truth to it. He filed a mental note to talk to an older student later.

'Right…' Julian replied awkwardly, this was the only thing he could think to say. Causing the four of them to continue in complete silence.

Ellie coughed, 'Here's the storeroom.' They' d made it. Opening the door, Julian saw a dark room filled with rows and rows of shelves, holding many types of different ingredients, some of them so high Julian would've needed a ladder. He wasn't even sure he could see an edge or the ceiling of the room.

Thankfully, Ben pointed out the closest shelf to the door, which was labelled First Year ingredients. The four of them gathered the amount they needed for the potion and walked back to the class in silence. Julian was glad, he didn't want to know what else Hannah wanted to say.

Soon after Julian and Ellie were underway with the potion, it seemed simple, just adding the ingredients in order and changing the temperature. Since it was a practical, they were free to talk between their groups and even across tables, assuming the noise wasn't too loud.

After completing most of the steps, all they had to do was wait for the cauldron to simmer for a few minutes. Not sure what to do, Julian's eyes started wandering. He saw some of the Terrascale boys arguing over how to cut certain ingredients. Yuko had managed to finish her potion early and was working on some homework. He was looking at the Lioncrown side and noticed Ben and Hannah were just completing their potion. Right as he looked though, Hannah glared daggers at him. Maybe it would be best to just focus on the potion, Julian thought.

As the bell rang for recess, Julian left the class and was walking down the hallway when he felt someone collided with his shoulder, knocking his bag to the floor. He looked up, expecting someone to yell at him, but amidst the crowd all he could see was a gold robe with short brown hair.

Ellie caught up to him and helped him pick his bag up. 'You good?'

'Fine.' He said simply, not wanting to elaborate.

'Come on, let's go outside for a bit.' She led the way out of the castle and into a large open courtyard the size of a football oval situated in within the castle, the blocks rising up all around them. Several other students seemed to have had the same idea as Ellie, many of the seating areas had been taken up already. The two of them made do with just sitting in the middle of the grass. The heat from the sun beating down on them made his robes feel heavy but after meeting Silverstem, Julian felt taking his robe off might be bad. Especially when he noticed a teacher watching from a while away.

'Enjoy potions?' Ellie sat her chin on her hand.

'Sure. It was sort of like cooking.' He evaded the question, knowing what she wanted to talk about. It wasn't a lie though, Julian had helped his mother cook a lot around the house, she had to do a lot on her own, so to him it was easy.

'You mean Muggle cooking?' She asked.

'As opposed to Wizard cooking?' He replied, leaning back and looking up at the sky, observing a few bridges that crossed between the buildings.

'You know what I mean. Besides, I doubt muggles use any meat from magical creatures.'

'Then sure, I guess it was like that.' Julian wondered how wizards even cooked, did they use magic to float everything around? He couldn't help but wonder how much easier mixing ingredients together was when you could use magic. 'I'm guessing you've never done it?' He asked her.

'Potions? No.'

'I meant cooking.'

'Well that too I guess.' Ellie started picking at the grass. 'My parents would mostly make stuff, we have a house elf, Tabby. She does a lot of cooking and cleaning at mine; I've known her for years.'

Julian frowned.

'I actually don't know what a house elf is.' He annoyingly admitted. Thankfully, she explained it almost immediately. But, in all honesty, it sounded weird to Julian, he was sure the elf was nice and all, but it seemed her family had a servant.

'But yeah, I'm not so good at that sort of stuff with potions.' She said, now fidgeting with her wand. She looked a little sad as she said. 'It doesn't really come naturally to me.'

'Anyway, when I asked about the class, I was talking about that girl from Lioncrown. You know, Hannah?'

He groaned, lying with his back flat on the grass.

'That sounds about right.' She said, 'What's up with you two?'

Julian didn't want to talk about it at all. But considering that Ellie had been a good friend the last few days, he had no reason not to.

'I know her, from before school.'

'I guessed that. But what happened?'

Julian sighed before explaining what had happened in the last few weeks, it seemed so long ago to Julian considering where he was now. He told her about the trip to the Guild, John losing his memory and finally his talk with Hannah the night before school started.

'She basically admitted that without magic, we didn't mean anything to her.' He said finally.

'Oh… right.' Ellie was struggling to find something to say. But Julian continued.

'It just seems wrong to me. Besides, you can be friends with muggles, right?' He asked. 'I know John lost his memory and all but how could you throw that all away?'

They sat in silence for a moment.

Ellie took a breath 'Look, Julian, don't take this the wrong way. There are reasons we don't mingle with muggles.'

'I know, magic's supposed to be a secret right? I understand that.' To himself, he honestly didn't. It felt like someone holding all the secrets of the world and refusing to tell you because they said so. What made that right to do? What about potions, even those could help someone in the muggle world if they were sick. There were plenty of diseases and injuries that were impossible to cure with muggle means. Magic could help those people, maybe even cure them completely.

Maybe it could've saved his dad.

Ellie eyed Julian carefully, 'it's not that Julian, I mean it was back in the day. Wizards and Witches were being hunted, burnt at the stake and all that.'

'Couldn't they use magic to save themselves?'

She paused for a second, thinking. 'They did actually, using the Flamefreezing charm.' She shook her head, realising she was off topic. 'The people now though, there's loads of problems. People have argued that muggleborns shouldn't even be allowed to go to some schools, or work in some countries. A war even happened in the UK not that long ago, over… blood purity.'

Julian felt disgusted. 'So, the world hates Muggleborns?'

'Not exactly,' She groaned, Ellie looked as if she hated talking about this. 'People just don't know how to handle them, not all of them choose to follow our traditions and some people really don't like that.'

Julian didn't even know what some of these traditions were, but in her defence, it was proving her right. Maybe he should learn about them at some point. Even though what she was saying didn't seem right to him, she didn't seem malicious.

'Is Australia alright? We haven't had any wars here that I didn't know about?' Sighing as he asked.

'Nah we're not so bad here, based off what my dad says anyway. Down here, we don't have as much baggage as those older countries. We're a bit like America that way. But there's still a lot being debated in our Wizengamot, our government. And so, unfortunately, we're also a bit like the UK, too. From what I've heard, if some people had their way, we wouldn't accept muggleborns or even be allowed to marry them.' She finished.

Julian was impressed, he didn't even know so much about politics in the muggle world. 'How come you know so much about this?'

'My dad's works in the Wizengamot.' She smiled, 'He wishes they'd do a bit more for muggles. But…'

'But what?' Julian asked.

Ellie grabbed the side of her head and sighed, 'never mind… it's kind of a lot.'

What did she mean? It must have been a sore spot. But at least he had someone on his side, who was to say that it couldn't get better.

'You never finished telling me about Hannah by the way. I don't see why she'd hate you.'

He fidgeted; he wasn't too proud of this part.

'So, cause of that argument that happened the night before the train, I kind of… avoided her on the first day.'

Ellie's eyes widened, 'Oh.'

'Yeah'

She fidgeted with her hair, curling the ends in her fingers. 'So, she's angry cause of that?'

Julian nodded again. Telling her about his and Hannah's exchange in the cave during the sorting.

'She's pretty mad, isn't she?' Ellie asked. 'What she said earlier was pretty rough.'

'Yep' Julian replied.

At that moment the bell rang, signalling the next class. The two of them groaned as they got up.

When they were walking back inside the castle, trying to get through the congestion of other students. Ellie made a squeak, like she'd just remembered something.

'You leave something back there?' Julian asked.

'No, that's fine. It's just… I thought about that guy John. You sure it wasn't a memory charm?'

'No, Hannah said it was because he walked through the archway to the Guild, it did something to him. I don't know enough to say why though.'

'It just sounds like it might've been a memory charm, that's all.'

Julian shrugged. 'Couldn't say.'

'Anyway, look, she might come around eventually.' Ellie continued. 'But in the meantime. At least you've got us in Terrascale.' She said tapping him on the shoulder.

Strangely, this one action cheered him up.

'Community.' Julian said in his best impression of Silverstem.

Ellie laughed, 'that was awful. It's more like this-'