Children of the Gods

by inwardtransience

When the message came, there was little left of Cassiopeia Black in her — soon she would move on, shed her face and her name for another. But, at the last possible moment, she found a reason to carry on, the smouldering embers of her identity sparking to new life. Unfortunately, adopting the Boy Who Lived came with complications. (metamorphs, fairies, AU and very weird)

12. Violet Black — II

Violet was awake late the night before her first day at her new school, laying in bed and failing to get to sleep. She was nervous.

Her feelings about her primary school back in Little Winging were...mixed. It was always a bit of a relief to be away from Vernon and Petunia, no matter what the reason was — that was why she never really complained about being left with Mrs Figg while the Dursleys went out to dinner or a trip somewhere or whatever. Of course, Violet still had to do her chores when she got back, and there weren't really less chores on school days — she often didn't have time for homework and stuff, looking back she thought Petunia did that on purpose — but having a break for half of the day every day was nice.

And learning things could be fun! Teachers mostly just ignored her (quiet and out of the way), but the school had a library, and Violet would spend a lot of time reading. The books were mostly for the higher years, but she could read them fine, it wasn't a big deal. How very slow the other kids at her class were learning to read was always very strange to her, she thought they were being slow on purpose for some reason, until she learned over Christmas that she was just good at reading? somehow? Whatever. Sometimes she'd have chapter books and stuff, stories, but sometimes also these maths books — she thought her normal one was for year four or five, geometry, lots of drawings with angles and stuff sketched over them — and there were art books, big glossy pages covered with super-detailed copies of paintings and stuff, very pretty. Maps! She also liked maps, there were atlases in there, very neat. She tried not to spend too much time with the art books or atlases, though — if Dudley picked on her when she had one of those the pictures might get ruined and that would be sad.

(Also, she'd probably get in trouble for ruining school property, even if it was really Dudley's fault, but mostly it would be sad.)

Class itself was usually pretty boring though. After talking to Mum and Aunt Andi about it, and looking over some of Dora's old homeschooling things, she...thought it was just too slow for her? Like, she had been doing not bad and not good but just kind of average on purpose (quiet and out of the way), so she hadn't really been trying very hard, but she did listen, and a lot of subjects were boring and hard to pay attention to, would end up just drawing and not really paying attention, because they were slow. The thought that she might actually be smart wasn't something that would have come to her before, for Dursley reasons, but now she thought she might actually be? Like, she wasn't great at everything or anything like that, but yeah, maybe she was actually good at things.

Reading and English stuff, yeah, and maths — she didn't really like maths as much as some other things, but it was really easy (and she did like the click of things coming together right) — but history was so boring, and so was science — it was mostly all, like, naming kinds of plants and how seasons changing worked, none of the fun stuff (like space) — and art stuff was fun, as long as she could keep Dudley away from her things. So, it was a mix.

And the kids were sort of a mix too. Dudley was mean, and so were his friends, but most of the other kids were okay...and then Dudley started picking on people for talking to her, until she was mostly ignored all the time. But that wasn't so bad, then she just had more reading time. She didn't know how to talk to other kids anyway, she was always super awkward about it. She never had friends before, or really talked to very many kids her own age before starting at school — Dudley did, Petunia and some other mums around made sure their boys had playmates, but Violet had never talked much to any other kids besides Dudley before school started. She didn't know how, and she didn't know any of the games and toys and stuff people talked about, she didn't know...

It was really really awkward for a while, until people mostly started ignoring her so Dudley would leave them alone. That was a little bit of a relief, honestly — she'd been fine just reading on her own instead.

But everything was different now. She actually liked being at home, so she didn't need a break. And she did talk to kids her age, but she wasn't sure she was really very good at it? She meant, she still thought she was super awkward, and sometimes people would point it out, but she didn't think it was so awkward it was a problem? Mostly the other kids just thought she was a little weird, which was okay, Violet thought, since she was weird.

And she even already had friends she'd be going to school with! That was new. Both the having friends thing, and already knowing people at school thing. There were a lot of kids in their block, but they weren't all the same age — but Lasairín, Damhnait, Síomha, and Éimhín were, they'd all be in the same class. (Different Síomha, obviously, Cassie's sex friend was Síomha Ní Sirideáin, and the girl Violet's age was Síomha Nic Mhathúna. One of the mums in their block was also named Síomha, it was a super common name.) And Susan would be there, and so would her friend Hannah, who Violet had met a few times.

Hannah wouldn't be in the Gaelic class with them, though. They were all given a Gaelic test — just talking to someone at the school for a little bit, and reading something out loud (Violet stammered so much), nothing really hard — and Violet and Susan passed, but Hannah didn't. There was going to be a special little thing for people who were going to be in their year at Hogwarts, so they'd see Hannah there, but they wouldn't have most of their lessons with her. Susan was a little sad about that, but their friendship had been hard ever since her Seer stuff started.

(Susan couldn't touch Hannah without it hurting, and Hannah was really touchy and huggy. She wasn't taking it very well.)

(Violet had kind of stolen Hannah's best friend, which she did feel a little guilty about. But Hannah was super friendly, she'd make more, it'd be fine.)

And also the classes were different, but she was looking forward to that, honestly. Because the classes would include magic, and magic was so cool! Violet hadn't really done any magic yet, because Mum knew she'd be going to school, and didn't want her to be so far ahead that she'd just be bored, and she was kind of excited about that. No wand stuff, just, basic potions and enchanting, but still! Not that they'd be doing much, Mum said they'd take it slow, the basics of different things they did in the magical world, they'd be focussing on other normal subjects more, it was still exciting anyway.

The classes were all exciting, she wasn't really worried about that; she was more worried about the other kids. Violet never got on with other kids her own age very well...at least, that was what she felt, without thinking about it, even though she knew that wasn't really true? Like, it'd been super awkward the first time at school, but it was fine, until Dudley started scaring everyone off. And she got along fine with the other kids on their block. Not with everyone, and some of the older kids were mean, and some of them thought she was super weird and awkward, but it wasn't a big deal. They were even friends! Well, Lasairín and Damhnait were, at least.

Sometimes, that Violet had friends now still felt weird. She wasn't used to the idea of having friends. And also she didn't think she was very good at it, didn't know what she was doing, but she was trying...

Her feeling was that it would go badly, all the other kids would pick on her and they'd find out she was a freak and everything would be terrible (the kids yelling and laughing at her that day she got pantsed ringing in her ears), but she knew that was bad brain stuff. With how things went with other kids here in their square, and visiting the Starlighters, she had every reason to think it would be fine. But just because she knew that didn't mean she would stop feeling the way she did just like that, so, nervous, couldn't sleep.

(Sometimes she wondered if other people just liked Violet Black better than Harry Potter. But that was silly, she was still the same person...)

When Violet woke up, the sky was light — it was after sunrise, but her alarm hadn't gone off yet. She remembered it was the first day of school, and got all excited and jittery, so there was no point in trying to go back to sleep, she just turned off her alarm and got up. An Ollscoil didn't really have a uniform, but they did have rules about what you were and were not supposed to wear. They weren't hard to follow, though, Violet already had clothes that worked just fine — last night she already set out a deep purple dress with pretty flower-looking shapes stitched into it in white, plus a bright pink button-up jumper and a pair of blue and yellow chequered socks. She padded over to the pile of clothes on the table, scooped them up...

She paused, frowning down at the fuzzy wool of the jumper. Would this outfit look funny? Violet didn't like matching colours, she thought that was boring — her Cousin Dora's way of slapping together a bunch of different bright colours she thought was way more interesting — but she was really bad at telling when things clashed. (The colours she wore sometimes was another reason the neighbours thought she was weird.) She really liked this shade of purple, though, and the pink was nice too, even if part of her still felt a little funny saying she liked pink.

...Oh well. People were going to think she was weird anyway, she might as well wear something she liked while she was at it.

Violet stepped out into the hall, glancing around — she thought Mum was downstairs already, but Susan's door was still closed. She padded over to the bathroom, hung the dress up but let everything else fall to the floor — the fabric of the dress was nice, it might get wrinkly, but the floor was clean, so — her nightdress and pants going right into the laundry bin. It wasn't until she was done using the toilet and was about to start getting dressed when she realised she'd forgotten to put fresh underpants in with her pile of clothes — she had an under-shirt, but. Oops?

She pulled on everything else, then brushed her teeth and her hair quick. Since she changed her hair, she could actually do stuff with it now, but she mostly didn't, just let it fall all loose and curly all over the place (like Mum's). She spent a little longer in front of the full-length mirror, tugging her dress to make sure the seams were straight, adjusting the jumper — squirming a little at the undershirt thing brushing around her sides, that felt weird. Right, she thought that was fine? She didn't know, the neighbour kids gave her the feeling that her fashion sense was weird. Whatever. She went back to her bedroom to put on fresh pants — which was awkward to do under her skirt, but she got it — slipped her necklace over her head (floofing her hair back out) and pulled bracelets around her wrists and her ring onto her finger, and then left again. She had to remind herself to go slowly, and not hop her way down the stairs, she'd slipped and fallen wearing socks on the stairs before.

It smelled like breakfast in here, which wasn't really a surprise; she thought she heard Mum talking to someone, which was a surprise, she didn't think there was anyone else in the house. The voices got clearer as she got low enough to pass the ceiling level, and oh, that was Nola, okay. Nola was sitting on the edge of the island, a newspaper spread out next to him, Mum and Nola lowly muttering about something — neither of them sounded very happy about whatever it was.

"Morning."

Mum twitched a little, surprised, looked up. "Oh, Violet! Good morning, darling. You're up early, excited for your first day?"

"Uh-huh!" Violet jumped off the last step, the rug keeping her feet from sliding. Skipping over into the kitchen, "What's g-g-g-going on—" She cut off as her heel slipped, her feet tried to slide out from under her but she leaned forward hard, her hands slamming against the edge of the island counter, caught herself. "Oops."

Letting out a sigh, Mum put her wand away — she'd drawn it in a blink, ready to catch Violet, she guessed. "You know, this isn't the first time I've told you to either take the socks off or put shoes on if you want to go jumping around in the house."

"I know, wasn't thinking, sorry. Is something wr-wrong?" she asked, pointing at the paper.

"Oh, nothing, just boring grown-up stuff. Politics." Well, if it was politics Violet probably didn't want to know, then, she didn't really know enough about anything to follow that stuff. "I was going to wait for you to get up before starting breakfast, we can do that now."

"Okay. There is a food smell in here, d-d-did you make something already? Um, honey and luh-l-lemon, maybe..."

"That's a surprise," Mum said — and then winked, like a silly person. "I was thinking the usual, pancakes with mushroom gravy. Sausages?"

Violet shook her head. "Bacon. The c-c-c—" She snuck a quick breath. "—casings are funny."

"Oh right, of course, I'm sorry. It's Lasairín who keeps eating all our sausages, isn't it."

"Yeah, she and D-D-D-D— They have them when they come over, for tea."

"Right, right. Anyway, did you want to help? You can do the pancakes again, if you like..."

After deciding what they were doing, Violet quick went to put on her shoes, plopping down onto the bench to tie them. Their rules about shoes were, you know, just to have them, and when they were in a muggle store looking around for things Violet found a pair of black Mary Janes, but, instead of having a strap that buckled or velcroed on, there was a sharp dark red ribbon that was supposed to go through this thing and around her heel and through this other thing, and be tied into a bow at the top of her foot right there, Violet thought they were super cute! And going around her ankle like that made it harder to lose one running around or climbing trees or something. But she hadn't thought at the time how annoying it would be to have to tie the ribbon every time, and getting the bow to settle right, ugh...

It took a few minutes to tie them right — getting the bow not to scrunch up funny was hard — and she went skipping back into the kitchen. By the time she got back Nola was already gone. Nola hung around sometimes, helped with more complicated stuff, but he never stayed to eat? She didn't know what elves ate, actually. Did elves eat human food? She should remember to ask sometime, they should make Nola something, like as a thank you, for all the stuff he did to help out, that seemed like a thing. Maybe for his birthday. When was his birthday? Did elves have birthdays? (Well, he had been born at some point, but she meant did elves keep track of that and care and do stuff for it.) Nola had helped Mum make a cake for Violet's birthday, so that only seemed fair. Or, if elves didn't do birthdays, it might be his first birthday cake, and the one he made for Violet was her first birthday cake too, so that was almost even better! That would really be paying him back then, you know. Could elves eat cake? She should ask.

While Violet did the pancakes, she asked Mum about elves and food and birthdays and cakes. It turned out elves didn't do birthdays, really — Mum had known Nola forever, and she didn't even know when his was — and they couldn't eat cake at all. They were carnivores, Mum said, only ate meat and eggs and dairy and sometimes nuts, and sometimes a little bit of bread, for digestive reasons (Violet didn't know what that meant). And they couldn't have much sugar, at all — Mum said if Nola had a slice of Violet's birthday cake, he would get very very sick, like dangerous sick, it was very bad for them. (Like diabetes, Mum said, but Violet didn't know what that was, exactly.)

Well, poo. She'd have to think of something else, then.

Before too long, Violet had the pancakes all done. Mum needed a little more time with the gravy and bacon, it was a little more complicated when cooking for Susan too. They fixed the batter and the gravy recipe so Susan could have it, but she couldn't eat bacon anymore — Mum used to just cook the mushrooms for the gravy in the bacon grease, but she couldn't do that anymore, needed two pans. (Violet thought the gravy was slightly less good without the bacon grease, but it was a small difference, Susan being able to eat it too was more important.) So, Violet was done before Mum was, while she finished up Violet went to go get Susan.

The door was still closed when Violet got there, she gently eased it open and poked her head inside. The smaller room next to Mum's had been a little office thing, with a desk and some bookshelves and a little potions table and stuff, but that was all moved into the attic or to Ancient House to make room for Susan to stay over sometimes. It was pretty new, the room was still very basic, but she guessed that was fine, guest bedrooms were usually pretty plain she thought? There was a dresser and some shelves and a reading chair and stuff, but. Violet was surprised and a little relieved that Susan was somehow still asleep — looking like kind of a mess, her sheets all rumpled and her pillow over her head, but asleep.

She had a lot of trouble sleeping lately, ever since her Seer stuff switched on. Apparently dead people talked to her in her dreams? Sounded super super creepy to Violet, but Susan said it was mostly fine, it was only a problem when she was visited by someone who died in battle or something like that...and there were multiple battles that had happened where her house stood now, so, that kind of happened a lot.

(Violet was still trying not to feel guilty about all that, but it helped that Susan was actually kind of happy. Tired, yes, and eating could be hard, but she said she felt like a real Bones for basically the first time ever now, which Violet got was a big deal? So, yeah, trying not to feel guilty about it, still.)

(And Violet was pretty much the only person Susan could touch now without feeling them die, so she guessed she'd be the hugging person if that was what she could do to help, she could do that.)

"Susan?" She didn't move or make a sound, so yeah, still asleep. Violet slipped into the room, climbed up to sit on the edge of the bed. Silently apologising in her head — she knew she was supposed to, but she still felt like waking someone up on purpose was rude — she gently nudged Susan on the shoulder. "Hey, t-time to wake up. Heeeyyy..."

After a few nudges, Susan let out a low groan. The sheets shifting, the pillow slid off her head, Susan pushed herself up to her knees, hugging the sheets around herself. She turned to sleepily blink at Violet — she bit her lip to stop herself from laughing at the big mess of red-blonde hair making a fuzzy blob around Susan's head, it looked funny. "Ugh. Morning already?"

"Mhmm. Sleep well?"

"Yeah. Sheets are nice." Mum ordered special linen from all the way in Egypt, which was really nice for Seers for some reason — the sheets and the pillow-cases on Susan's bed were made with the stuff, both here and at her house. Violet heard they were super expensive, but Susan had to sleep somehow. "First day of school?"

"Yep! There's b-b-breakfast, when you're r-r-r-rrr—" Violet cut herself off with a scoff, stupid...

"Hey," Susan said, one hand coming up to Violet's back — and then jerked away again, like she'd been burned, this jumper was bad for Seer stuff seemed like. "It's okay. I'll be down in a couple minutes." Not trusting herself to not stammer again, Violet just nodded, and left so Susan could get changed and stuff.

By the time Susan got down to the kitchen, breakfast was sitting on plates on the counter, waiting laid out in front of the stools, Mum finishing up with the drinks. It took a little longer than normal, because she had to make the tea for her and Violet and Susan's special thing separate. Susan's thing was made just like tea, little bags and steeping and everything, but it didn't have any tea in it, and it was kind of like a medicine? Not a really strong one, but Violet wasn't supposed to have it anyway. (The one time she tried some, it just made her feel all calm and cool and relaxed, which Susan said was what it was supposed to do.) There were also two potion bottles next to Susan's plate, a sort of blueish-greenish grounding potion — that was a special Seer thing, to block some of the Seer stuff (which only sort of worked) — and also a vivid orange brightening potion — that one was for the side-effects of the grounding potion, Mum said, kind of made people magically happier and gave them a bit more energy, but combined with the grounding potion mostly just made Susan normal.

The potions were new — Susan and Aunt Amy had been trying to find a grounding potion to cut off the worst of the Seer stuff, had only settled on these two in the last week. Susan had to take them twice a day, once with breakfast and again with afternoon tea, and they seemed to be helping? As long as Susan didn't touch anything that really bothered her, she could mostly get through a day like normal now. Which was good, Violet had been a little worried about her going to school...

"Good morning, Aunt Cassie," Susan said, as she hung her baggy black robe over the back of her stool before climbing up to sit. The robe and the gloves were actually against the dress rules at an Ollscoil, but Susan almost always wore those when out of the house anyway — Mum said that was fine when she asked, Violet got the feeling it was something like a Seer uniform, so people knew not to touch her.

"Good morning, Susan. You slept in this morning."

"It's nice here. Oh, thank you," she said, to Mum setting her not-tea down in front of her. Susan picked up the little bottle of her grounding potion, twisted off the camp and swallowed it one gulp. And then made a very funny face — apparently it tasted bad. Once she had the potion down she picked up her not-tea, to wish out the taste.

"I expect the Hill being held by the priests for centuries is to thank for that. Is orange honey good today, darling?" Mum asked Violet. She nodded, muttered a thanks — their tea didn't really need a lot of sweetener, but it was also good with the hint of orange...

Susan let out a hum, working at chewing her mouthful of pancake so she could talk again. As soon as she'd gotten a single gulp of not-tea down she'd gotten right into eating. This was normal too, since she needed the grounding potion to make sure the food didn't make her feel ill (even when it was the nice stuff from the Greenwood), but the brightening potion made her sick if she took it on an empty stomach, but the grounding potion without the brightening potion made her feel really slow and tired and distracted. She had to take the grounding potion, a mouthful of something to drink to get the taste out, then quickly eat a few big mouthfuls of food as fast as possible, and then take the brightening potion before the side-effects of the grounding potion kicked in — it meant Susan's table manners at the start of breakfast and afternoon tea were really really bad, but that wasn't a big deal, so.

(Violet was kind of taking mental notes about the things Susan had to do for Seer reasons, so she could remember everything in case something happened. It was kind of her fault, so she wanted to help if she could, and also it just seemed like a good friend thing to do.)

"Might be. The Refuge was kept out of the fighting in Cromwell's war, and the Hill is really nice." (Wait, Cromwell like Oliver Cromwell? That bloke from that whole Commonwealth thing?) "When I went up there for my Gaelic test it was...quiet, you know. So, maybe the priests are why."

The town Violet and Mum lived in, spread out between a shallow hill and a long narrow lake — called Caoimhe's Refuge or just the Refuge in English, or an t-Anacal na Caoimhe in Gaelic — was founded a long long time ago by a super famous super powerful mage called Caoimhe Ní Bhláithín. Her house had been on the hill — Caoimhe's Rise or just the Hill in English, an t-Ard Chaoimhe in Gaelic — and people came all over for advice or for healing or to study magic under her or just protection from vikings and stuff, a little village slowly growing around her house on the hill and spreading down toward the lake. That was a long time ago, but Caoimhe was super important to Gaelic mages now (almost like a saint or something?), over time the Hill started to be thought of as a holy place, taken over bit by bit by priests for temples and special gardens or whatever. Her family still owned part of the Hill, and the stories said an Ollscoil was now on the same spot her house had been a long time ago (the school was named after her), but the rest of the Hill belonged to priesthoods now — there were, like, temples and a magic-Catholic church and living space for the priests (monasteries?) and a hospital and an orphanage... Just, you know, the super important stuff was up on the Hill, everyone else lived around it, or spread out between the Hill and the lake.

They lived pretty close to the Hill — not right against the bottom, but they were only a few blocks away. Leave their neighbourhood going uphill, and you got to a neighbourhood that was more business stuff, a big open market square and a shop street where they sold all kinds of stuff, and the keyport and public floo for the town, some offices for guilds or whatever. (Violet didn't know very much about that sort of thing.) And on the other side of that neighbourhood you went right into the gardens covering the Hill, very close. Violet knew the way there, Mum would be walking them up but she already made sure Violet knew how to get to an Ollscoil and how to get back anyway just in case.

The Hill was very pretty, Violet thought, and calm and quiet and, just, nice. She saw why it might be easy on Susan's Seer stuff.

Breakfast felt like it lasted forever. Well, not really, but Violet was excited, and she could hardly sit still, her feet kicking against the island (thump thump thump), making her sway in her seat a little bit, her fingers tapping at the counter. Susan twitched a little at the first thump of Violet's shoe hitting the island, surprised, Violet tried to stop, but it was too much, she felt like her chest was bubbling and her blood was fizzing (almost like fizzy pop), it was completely impossible to sit still. Her food disappeared, ate it all with hardly tasting it, distracted, but then there was still so much time left. Sitting here waiting was painful...

Apparently she was being annoying, because Mum cast a spell with a wave of her hand, and her tile puzzle box came flying into the room. Mum dumped the pieces out onto the counter, flipped the book open to a random page, and left Violet to it. The pieces were little wood blocks, coming in a few different shapes (triangles and squares and diamonds and stuff), and the pages of the books were just black outlines, some big regular shapes and others lopsided or snowflake-like designs — she was supposed to use the pieces to cover the outline, precisely, leaving no spaces uncovered and not covering any of the white parts of the page. (The margins would flash green if she did it right.) When Mum first found the puzzle for her, at the same shop she got the space puzzles at, Violet had thought it would be really easy...but there were only so many of each block, and the outlines seemed designed to be frustrating, being just too small or too big to do the easy obvious thing, they were harder than they looked.

Mum and Susan were talking about something — um, the different priesthoods up on the Hill, she thought — but Violet wasn't really listening, focussing on her puzzle instead. She got the first one pretty quickly, only got stumped for a couple minutes at one spot before getting it (click), so she brushed the blocks away and flipped to another random page. This one, she thought she had it, but then ran out of the orange diamond shapes right at the end, oops, she couldn't see any way to fix it so she just swept them all off and started over. So, if she started with a square here and built out this way...no no no, this wasn't working, start over again. Fill in this narrow bit sticking out over here with a triangle and a diamond and then another triangle there, and...

(That Mum sometimes had to distract her with a puzzle or something when she was being a pain was a little embarrassing, but Mum did that instead of yelling at her to be quiet or behave or whatever, which wasn't so bad really. Besides, Violet liked puzzles.)

Violet was on her fourth puzzle when there was a knock at the door, she jumped — nudging her half-completed puzzle, ruining it, oops. The door was flung open, Lasairín leaning halfway into the kitchen. "Good morning!" she chirped in Gaelic. "It's almost time to go!"

"It is getting there, isn't it?" Mum said, a laugh at the edge of her voice. "Go on girls, I'll be out in a minute."

Violet ran downstairs to use the toilet quick first, but Susan still had to put her robe and shoes and gloves on anyway, by the time Violet caught up she was just stepping out the back door, she quick grabbed her school bag and followed. The open space between the houses of their square was a little crowded, a few families around, some younger kids playing over under one of the trees. Pretty close by were a pack of kids their age — Lasairín, Damhnait, Síomha, and Éimhín (the only boy), all of them in Violet and Susan's year. "Willow! Susan!" Lasairín shouted (using the name Mum gave her in Gaelic for some reason), waving her hand and bouncing on her toes, "It's time for school! Come on come on, let's go!"

Well, at least someone was about as excited as Violet was, she didn't feel quite so weird about it now. Éimhín was also eager to get going, but Violet couldn't tell if that was because he was excited about their first day of school or if he was just bored waiting around.

Violet didn't know this right away, but most of the other families in their square were related. They were mostly branches off the Caoimhes, or had apprenticeships with them or something — the super big important magical family in Ireland, Caoimhes, the same ones who owned a chunk of the Hill and the school was named after the founder of their family and everything. Not everyone in the square, but most of them. The square was actually owned by the Caoimhes, for them to put new married couples or people working for them in, but sometimes they sold one off to someone else if they didn't need it...but the Caoimhes still owned the land, even though Mum bought the house? Violet wasn't sure how that worked. There were a couple exceptions, like Mum and Violet, but most of their neighbours all had the same handful of last names, because they were cousins and stuff.

Lasairín's full name was Lasairfhíona Róisín Ní Cheithearnaigh — Róisín was her mum's name, which people sometimes added because there were two people named Lasairfhíona Ní Cheithearnaigh in the neighbourhood, the other was a teenage girl one block over — and then in their group they had Damhnait Ní Mhaoilriain, and Síomha Ómra Nic Mhathúna (with her mum's name again), and Éimhín Ó Ceithearnaigh. So, Lasairín and Éimhín had the same last name, which wasn't a surprise, because they were first cousins, and Damhnait was a little bit more distant cousin, and Síomha was also related to them somehow, but Violet forgot exactly. Which made sense, because Lasairín and Damhnait and Éimhín all looked kind of similar, with curly black hair and super pale skin and round pinkish cheeks, the biggest difference that Damhnait was a little shorter and squatter than the other two — Lasairín and Éimhín looked like they could be twins, just a girl and a boy version of the same person, and both were pretty tall for their age — and Síomha looked sort of alike, with the same round cheeks, but her hair was a lighter brownish colour, eyes a bit more blueish-greyish. If Violet had been paying attention, she might have guessed they were all related before she was told.

So, since they were all related, there were kind of a lot people hanging out to say goodbye, parents and aunts and uncles and cousins and stuff. Everyone was having their first day today, but the academy students — the same level Violet was going to Hogwarts for — left earlier in the morning, and the primary students — just basic reading and maths and stuff, mostly four to seven years old — were leaving later. Since a lot of the other parents here had younger kids, or had work and stuff, Mum volunteered to take the kids going to their first day of craft school — between primary and academy, same as the second half of primary school in non-magical England, but it could also go longer and do more advanced stuff if you weren't going to academy. (You needed a wand to do academy, and wands were expensive.) The kids who'd been going already for a year or two or whatever were leaving like a half hour after them, and then the primary kids after that, it was a whole timetable they had going on here.

Violet and Susan just waited while everyone else said their goodbyes and good-lucks, trying not to be impatient (Violet all but bouncing on her toes), but thankfully it didn't last very long. They did most of their goodbyes already, and everyone's parents were either busy getting baby siblings ready to leave later, or were already gone to work or something. When they were finally ready to go, Mum led them through one of the alleys out of their square onto a street and they were going.

The whole way up to the Hill, Violet and Lasairín and Éimhín were running around like silly people — she couldn't help it, they were going, and she was so excited. They were skipping ahead of the rest of the group, and then turning back around the other way because they were getting too far ahead, hopping to avoid the cracks in the street. Or, Violet was doing that, anyway, but once Lasairín noticed all three of them were avoiding the cracks, which was a little hard to do while skipping. Once there was a little bit of yelling, because a carriage was going by and they were kind of in the way — sometimes people moved stuff around in the town with carriages, sometimes pulled by winged horses, because the magical world was so cool sometimes — and after that they stayed a little closer to Mum and the others, but were still playing around avoiding the cracks. Lasairín nearly ran right into a bloke she didn't see coming making a funny jump, sorry sorry...

They left their neighbourhood for the more businessy one. It was nosier here, conversation and the clanking and clunking of people making stuff leaking out of this building or that one, and more people walking around. Mum took them on a path that avoided the main street and the keyport and stuff, so it wasn't crowded, but it was still a little harder to keep their game of not stepping on cracks going. And even more harder, because the street here was brick-paved, and not all with the same shapes and sizes, using different colours to make funny curving patterns, like a really big mosaic (or like Violet's block puzzle), it was very awkward. But Violet wasn't going to give up, at least not first, so she hopped from one brick to the next to the next, oops missed, stepped on a crack, keep going anyway, hop hop hop, oh no Éimhín fell over!

He was okay, just a little embarrassed, but Mum said they should stop the game anyway — there were more people around here, they didn't want to run into anyone. So they did, the three of them slowing down to walk with the group like normal...but now that they had Violet paying attention to it she couldn't stop. She mostly walked normal, but she was placing her feet on the bricks, which made her pace a little awkward, but mostly nobody noticed.

Or, Lasairín did, but she just started doing the same thing right next to Violet without a word, giggling now and then when they made a funny step. Violet didn't know why this was so entertaining, she must just be in a silly mood...

It started to get quieter as they left the more businessy neighbourhood, the street sloping uphill. Before too long it started to level off again, low brick walls at either side of the street about knee-high — knee-high for Violet, not actually hiding anything — past them trees and gardens all green and flowering, long low old-looking wooden buildings spread out here and there, windows and doors opened to the wind. They were on the Hill.

All of their voices dropped to whispers, without being told, just doing it by themselves. It was quiet here, without the bustle of the rest of the town, but it just felt like the thing to do? Violet didn't know why, it was hard to put the feeling in words. Like, sometimes when they went out somewhere with the Starlighter kids in the middle of the night, and it was deep and dark and still and pretty, and you didn't want to talk too loud, worried you would break it somehow — not because you'd get in trouble, but just because it was pretty, and you didn't want to ruin it. It was also maybe the respectful thing to do, since this was all religious stuff and Violet was told (back when she was Harry) that you were supposed to be quiet at church, same thing, but there was also the funny feeling, she'd probably keep her voice down even if she didn't know what this place was.

She assumed it was a magic thing — magic could be funny like that sometimes. Susan looked all calm and relaxed, with a soft little smile, so it must not be bad magic, at least.

An Ollscoil was toward the middle of the Hill, which did make sense, if it was where the famous Caoimhe's house used to be. The wall next to the road here was a little higher, a little over Violet's waist — this was close to the private parts of the Hill, the Caoimhes owned everything on the other three sides of the school — most of the inside hidden by a line of trees all the way around. You could tell they were at the private parts of the Hill, because the opening in the wall had an iron gate hanging open (none of the priests' stuff had that, just kept open for anyone to come in), next to the entrance a sign on the door with the name of the school in three languages — Gaelic on top, then English, and on the bottom Violet thought was that Cambrian thing she heard mentioned now and then, Mum's first language.

She thought it was Welsh, but she didn't know for sure. She knew it was called an Bhreatnais in Gaelic, but she was pretty sure that just meant British? Was there even a language called British? Confusing.

Anyway, a narrow brick path led through the gate and the wall of trees, and a little bit further through some gardens, until they got to the biiiig courtyard in the middle of the school. Most of it was just grass, with bunches of bushes or flowers and a few trees here and there, but there were paved walkpaths stitching across it this way and that, a couple places had squares with benches, a big spot over there with tables and stuff she thought was like a picnic area or something? The school had several buildings, on all sides of the courtyard. They were kind of big, most of them three or four levels, some made out of wood and others of old stone or brick, vines crawling all over the place — some of the vines had flowers dotted all over, very pretty.

The school was way bigger than her primary school back in Little Whinging, but that made sense when she thought about it? It was supposed to be for all the mages in Ireland (and also the Gaelic-speaking parts of Scotland), and it wasn't just a primary school, but also a secondary school and kind of a university too? Most of the university-level stuff didn't have a lot of classes here — Síomha had classes and stuff here sometimes, but she only went here like maybe once or twice a week — but still. So it made sense there was a lot going on here, there must be a lot of students put all together.

And there were a little of people standing around. The last times Violet had been here the courtyard was mostly empty — some people walking this way or that, a few little clumps of teenagers hanging around talking, but other than that. But this time there were a bunch of kids Violet's age around, with some grown-ups she assumed must be teachers? There was a table not so far away, a couple ladies sitting there talking to a couple parents with kids who got here just before them, they must be splitting them up into their classes.

"All right, everyone," Mum called, coming to a stop. Crouching down as low as she could, shuffling in her bag, "I've brought a surprise for all of you. When you have tea between classes you're allowed to bring a snack from home — they will give you something if you don't bring anything, but I thought I'd be nice. Let's see...Susan, this one's yours." She pulled out a little pastry of some kind, fit in the palm of her hand, wrapped in some thin crinkly paper — Susan's had a big black line drawn across it. A little bit of shuffling around, and Mum pulled out another one with a red line. "Ah, Síomha, you're the one with the nut allergy, right?"

"Oh! I am, thank you, Auntie," Síomha said, taking the marked package. Of course, Mum wasn't really Síomha's aunt, Violet noticed a lot of the kids in their square called her that — she thought because they were just used to calling all the adults there aunt or uncle or whatever, since they were mostly all related somehow, it was just habit.

"Of course, sweetheart. And I've got one for the rest of you too, here you go, and you..."

Violet was last, not wanting to get in the way, turned the little thing in her hand. "Oh, it's one of the little m-meruh-m-meringue things!" She'd switched into English, didn't know how to say meringue in Gaelic — she was pretty sure it was already French in the first place. "That's what you and Nola made this morning! These are g-guh-great, thanks, Mum."

"My pleasure, darling." Mum's hand quick went to Violet's hair, tucking a curl behind her ear, leaned forward a little to drop a light kiss on the top of her head. (Violet felt herself smiling, fiddling with the wrapping to keep herself from bouncing.) "Go on, then," Mum said, standing up again. "They'll point you where you need to go at that table just there. Have fun, I'll be back to pick you up in the afternoon."

With a mix of goodbyes and thank you Aunties, they all turned and headed toward the table nearby — Lasairín and Damhnait broke into a run, racing, they were going to get there first. After a little bit, Violet glanced over her shoulder, not really surprised to see Mum hadn't left yet, still standing there watching them. Mum noticed her looking, lips twitched into a smile and her fingers wiggled in a little wave — Violet waved back before turning around again, skipping along after the other kids.

On the table were some folders and papers and junk, and some little cards in stacks. Standing toward the back with Susan, Violet watched the ladies at the table deal with Éimhín and Síomha — they asked for their names, the ladies flipped through the papers, and then handed them one of the cards and a folder, and then said to go join their class. Éimhín and Síomha went to stand with Lasairín and Damhnait nearby, waiting to see if any of them were in the same class, maybe. The ladies found Violet and Susan's stacks very quickly, she thought the English names were separate and sorted differently, not as much flipping around to do. The card was just a little thing, had Violet's name, a symbol she knew was for girls, there was also Cassie's and Lord Arcturus's names (in smaller print, maybe adults to call if something went wrong?), and also said she was in class A5.

"I'm in A.-Five," Susan said, turning her card toward Violet. "You?"

"A.-Five!" Violet grinned, felt herself bouncing on her toes a little, couldn't help it — she'd been hoping she and Susan would be in the same class, she didn't know very many kids here...

Susan grinned back at her. "Good." Turning to the other kids and switching to Gaelic, "How about you, are any of you in A.-Five?"

Lasairín was also in A5! None of the rest of them, though, they were all in different classes. (Éimhín and Síomha in A4 and Damhnait in A7, Violet thought the A-classes must be the ones in Gaelic.) There was a bit of pouting between the cousins at the news that they'd be in different classes, but they split up quickly, walking onto the grass where all the little clumps of people were spread out. Now that Violet was closer she saw there were little signs sticking out of the grass, labels on them — this was B1, and next to it was A6, they must be this way...

As they picked through the grass, Lasairín slid up next to Violet, both arms wrapping around Violet's, her head leaning over to bonk against Violet's a little. "I'm happy we're in the same class."

Violet was too, honestly — Lasairín had been super friendly from the second Mum and Violet moved in, and she was, like, one of Violet's first friends ever? And she was fun, and super nice! Violet had been really hoping Susan was in her class, in case she needed help with Seer stuff (which Violet still kind of felt like was her fault), and she knew even fewer people here than Violet did (she did see Susan wave at Hannah in one of the B-classes), but if she got to pick she would have wanted Lasairín in her class too, definitely.

Of course, when she tried to say something about that, her throat immediately locked on the first letter. All she got out were funny gulpy oh sounds. She cut herself off with a sigh and tried again, speaking slowly and carefully. "I'm happy too. There, stupid..." She'd been trying to say just ormsa freisin, but that stupid invisible consonant that was actually at the start of words starting with vowels caught her again — she hated that one — but for some reason she got tá'thas orm freisin out just fine. Stammering was so annoying...

Lasairín just squeezed her arm for a second before letting go again.

By the sign for A5 there were a few girls and boys around a woman — older than Mum's Síomha but way younger than Julie, probably around the same age as a lot of the mums in their square — with bright orange-red hair and freckles dotting her face. Her hair was long, but held in a couple of plaits with glittery green ribbons run through them, very pretty! Smiling up at them, she asked, "Are you girls looking for A.-Five?"

"Yep!" Lasairín chirped, skipping the last couple steps to the clump of kids before plonking right down to a seat. "Violet, Susan, come over here — this is Órlaith, she was in my class in primary..."

Violet and Susan came and sat with Lasairín, said hi to Órlaith — she had very pretty shiny blonde hair, which Violet guessed was why her parents called her Órlaith (it meant "golden princess"). Their teacher lady, Éimhear, said they would do proper introductions when everyone was here, they were still missing a couple people in their class. In the meantime, there were some papers in their folder, if they could fill those out quick. Éimhear picked up some lap-desks for them off of a stack, and handed out pencils. Not the normal kind, they were little round things made out of ceramic, Violet thought? There was a dial you could turn to make the lead come out, so, it was sort of like a magical mechanical pencil — she saw them before, some of the older kids back home used them for drawing and rune practice and stuff.

The papers were super basic stuff, like, what you did for school, and how much you did in this or that subject — Violet had to admit that she knew very little about geography on the magical side (just what she picked up from her globe puzzle) and nothing about magical history or Gaelic stories or religion or anything like that — but also things, like, what they did for fun, if they did any art stuff, what their parents did for work, if they had any ideas what they wanted to do when they grow up, all kinds of random things. There were also things, like, special magic things, or if they had medical stuff, their favourite foods and foods they really didn't like, you know. Violet was pretty sure she knew what all the questions meant, but Susan asked their teacher about a couple — Éimhear didn't translate them into English, but just explained in Gaelic, using more words and talking about it making it more obvious. She went through them, writing very carefully, both to make sure her handwriting came out nice on the lapdesk thing and that she was getting the Gaelic right, now and then leaning over to ask Lasairín how to spell a word.

(Gaelic spelling was hard.)

Violet was through most of the pages when the last of their class showed up. There were twelve of them, split evenly with six girls (including Violet) and six boys. Now that they were all here, their teacher said hello properly, all smiling and warm and nice (like the teachers back at Little Whinging who weren't secretly mean). She was Éimhear Uí Ailbhe — the Ailbhes were one of the important magical Gaelic families, Violet knew, the uí meant she'd married in — and she was their main teacher for this year. They'd have extra teachers for craft stuff, like potions and enchanting and art and the like, but Éimhear would do all the classroom, book stuff. They would also have tea and lunch together, she would explain how that's going to work later.

But first let's have everyone introduce themselves. They were going to be together for the whole year, and they didn't have to be really good friends just because, but let's at least all try to get along, okay? For now, let's go with your name, where you live, what you like to do for fun, and anything else special that's important to know about you. So, who's first?

Lasairín was first, of course, excitedly waving her hand for attention. They went around, Violet paying close attention — Gaelic names were still kind of hard to remember sometimes, and she didn't want to forget anyone. Susan went second to last — Violet thought she was doing the same thing, didn't decide to go until all the Irish kids were done (well, a few lived in Scotland, Gaelic anyway) — which got a little interrupted with people asking if she was a Bones like those Boneses. The family was one of the founders of magic parliament and they had Merlin and Susan's mum was in charge of all the police in the country right now, so, kind of a big deal. Susan's special thing was that she was a death prophet, which was why she was dressed funny. Please nobody touch her, ever — she feels people die every time they touch her, it's not fun.

Éimhear took over for a little bit at that point, talking about Seers, and how they worked and stuff. Some of the other kids had Seers in their family, it wasn't super rare, but none of them were death Seers, which was kind of its own special thing. There was a time long ago that they were super super important, because they could talk to the dead, which could be useful to solve murders or to find lost stuff or even just if you missed someone. There used to be death priests who'd talk to people if they were asked, it was a whole thing, but it slowly went out of fashion over time, since Christians could sometimes be kind of funny about that sort of thing, and also as they just kind of died out from wars and stuff. Could anyone name a death prophet? There's one you all would have heard of...

That's right, Merlin, that Merlin, he was the high priest of the cult that eventually became the House of Bones. So, it's a really cool thing to be able to do, but it can also be really hard on the Seer sometimes — everyone try not to bother Susan too much, okay?

And then it was finally Violet's turn. She got through her name without too much trouble, except she stammered on Black, because of course — and she was asked if she was one of those Blacks, yep, tugging at her necklace to make the little crow dangle in the air...though she didn't know if the other kids knew enough about the Blacks to get what it meant. Whatever. Anyway, she lived here at the Refuge, in the same block with Lasairín, and, um, she liked drawing, and puzzles! puzzles were fun. And she was a metamorph — she copied the pretty bright orange of their teacher lady's hair (but keeping the long curliness she'd copied from Mum), just to make the point.

Éimhear took a minute to explain what that meant for anyone who didn't know already, though it didn't take nearly as long as Susan's thing. (As weird and confusing as being a metamorph was, it wasn't that hard of an idea for people to get.) The House of Black kind of got a lot of metamorphs, the super famous Nymphadora Black was one — Violet knew Nymphadora Black was a metamorph, her great-great-great-several-times-more-great-grandmother, that her cousin Dora had been named after her, but didn't really know anything about her. She was a little surprised that Éimhear and the other kids knew about her too, she must have been important?

Anyway, now that they all knew each other, Éimhear got started with stuff. Today was a special day, they didn't usually meet out here, when they came up they should just go straight to their classroom. So everyone get up, let's go see their classroom. They weren't the first group to get up, like half of the other classes were already gone or moving, a stream of kids walking across the green space toward one of the buildings — one of the newer ones, mostly made out of wood with lots and lots of windows, surrounded by trees. This side of the grounds had craft school stuff, the first three years all had their classes in this building — you can see it's three levels, the first year (them) on the bottom, and then the second in the middle, and the third on top — with labs and workshops and stuff attached to it, but you couldn't see those from here, they were behind the classrooms. For those of them were continuing craft school after the first three years, those classes were in that older brick building right over there, their labs and stuff over there too, though they shared some of them with the academy programme...

Through the door was a cloakroom, where they could hang up jackets and stash their shoes and stuff — they didn't have to, but if they wanted to. (Violet went ahead and took off her jumper, if only because it looked like it hurt Susan a lot for Seer reasons.) The hallway was really bright and pretty — it felt like sunlight somehow, but there weren't even any windows, must be magic — and before long they reached a door with a sign next to it with Éimhear's name and A-5. Éimhear said they could change the class name if they wanted to, or just take that bit off, as long as they remembered which room was theirs.

Violet hadn't seen the classrooms yet — when she did her Gaelic test, it was on the other side of the courtyard, in the academy part. She kind of expected, just, a normal classroom? Like back at Little Whinging, you know, with the tables for students and the teacher's desk and the blackboard at the front. She maybe should have expected that mages would do things different, since they could be so very weird about things sometimes. Also, mages went into hiding like three hundred years ago, and she didn't know how long schools had been around? Violet was pretty sure the UK didn't even start having primary schooling for everyone until, like, the 1860s or 1870s or something...she knew it was after the Industrial Revolution...

Anyway, the classroom was actually really nice! One wall was all windows, patches of sun and shadows cast by trees, the room bright and open and colourful. The walls were all covered in bookshelves and posters and stuff, and there was carpet, in a sort of blocky crosshatch design in red and yellow and blue. There were chairs and desks, but they were stacked up against a wall, a big chunk of the floor open, and there were also stacks of pillows and blankets and stuff, Violet wasn't sure what those were for. Besides the desks, there was also a big circular table, which also had chairs — thirteen, Violet counted, one for each of the class and one for Éimhear. Maybe they normally sat at the big table for classes, and the desks and stuff were only for, like, quizzes maybe? That was a little funny, but she guessed that was fine...

Everyone go ahead and pick a seat at the table, wherever you want. Violet sat down between Lasairín and Susan, Órlaith on Lasairín's other side. A boy, um, Eoghan, that one was Eoghan, he asked if it was okay if he sat next to Susan, which was fine. You didn't have to be that careful about not touching her, that's what the robe and the gloves were for.

Éimhear sat down last — she went to the bookshelves first, emptying a whole couple shelves, picking up stacks of books and moving them to the table. (It took a couple trips, there were kind of a lot.) They all brought bags with them today, right? Good, good. In the three years here, they'd be learning some basic craft stuff — potions and enchanting, yes, but also things that went into all kinds of other crafts, like making clothes and ceramic and glass and wood-working and painting and music and whatever else — but also book-learning stuff, like reading and maths and history and literature and so on. This was the classroom they were doing the book stuff in this year. They'd have morning class in here, and then they'd have tea, and then most days they'd go to have a session of a craft thing, and then they'd have lunch, and then they'd have afternoon class, and then they'd have another craft thing or clubs or whatever, and then after that they went home.

Sometimes they got to choose the last thing in the afternoon, they'd find out more about how that worked later, but some days they had English class. Except if they were going to Hogwarts (just Violet and Susan in their class), they had a special thing with the other future Hogwarts students instead. The craft things weren't the same every day, they had to share the workshops and stuff with the other classes so they took turns, and they didn't do every book subject every day either, Éimhear would cycle through stuff on a schedule. She would tell them when they were doing which thing, but most of their books and stuff were going to be kept here in their classroom, so they didn't have to worry about it too much.

Right then, let's look at their books okay? Éimhear split a stack of books in half, passed one half to her left and the other to her right, take one and pass them on — it was a paperback workbook, but the cover was stiffer and almost, like, halfway between cardstock and paperboard. (Reminding Violet of Dora's old primary school workbooks, but newer and nicer-looking.) The cover was colourful, mostly white but with a swirly green and violet design splashed across it, with a title and stuff done in a curly, handwriting-looking font (in Gaelic, of course). This was their workbook for history, geography, and also some basic stuff about how the government and the law worked. This year they were mostly just talking about a few big important history stories, like the founding of the Refuge and the founding of the Ministry and the start of Secrecy (in broad strokes, not super specific, the fine details were mostly for academy students), and geography stuff was mostly just about their country — on the magical side, Great Britain and Ireland and also that bit sticking out into the sea off of France and a bunch of islands in the north were all one country — the mountains and rivers and stuff but also where the magical communities were, how everything was laid out. By the end of the year, they should have a basic idea of how Secrecy happened and what the Ministry did and what the general shape of their country was like. Which kind of sounded a lot when Éimhear said it all like that, but Violet guessed it wasn't that much stuff, really.

The workbooks right here actually had all of their homework for the autumn term in them — they could work ahead if they wanted, but they might not have gotten to the books that had the answers yet, and a lot of the "homework" would actually be done in class anyway, where they could ask for help, so it was maybe better to just follow along. Éimhear would be looking over their work now and then, but there wasn't a grading system like Violet was used to from muggle school, it was just to make sure they were keeping up. Violet asked a question (the Gaelic making her stammer badly again), and Éimhear said the whole point was to learn things, they didn't really get scored on the stuff in their workbooks at all. Being told they had something wrong and just moving on didn't really help, did it? If Éimhear noticed something was wrong, or they were falling behind, that just meant they needed help, and they'd talk about it until they learned the thing. If they got to the end of the term and they were having trouble keeping up, well, they'd have a talk with their parents about what to do about that, but other than that they weren't keeping score or anything. This was school, not a competition.

That was...odd. Violet had no idea how to feel about that.

After that was a maths workbook, which alongside basic arithmetic had some geometry and some word problems and stuff — this was also for the whole term, all of their workbooks were going to be like that, same advice about working ahead. Their Gaelic workbook had some grammar and vocabulary and spelling stuff, but it was also their literature book. A lot of the questions in there were going to be about things they'd be reading in class, so working ahead might actually be impossible if they didn't have the stories or poems at home. And the last workbook was their craft book, which were all put in the same book for first year, because most of the craft stuff was going to be hands-on so there wasn't much writing to do.

They got through all the book stuff and the explanations about classes with some time left, so let's read a thing for fun. Éimhear grabbed another stack of books off a shelf — a lot of books over there had thirteen copies, looked like — a copy handed around for each of them, hmm, let's do this one, turn to this page, let's take turns reading. It was a poem, for kids, Violet thought it was supposed to be funny, the other kids kept giggling, but she didn't get most of the jokes? Some of them were kind of funny, she guessed...

(Violet's turns reading were really hard — for some reason, reading out loud made her stammer even worse than it already was trying to speak Gaelic. It didn't help that it was sometimes hard to tell how a word she didn't know was supposed to sound, very annoying.)

After finishing the thing, they talked about it a little bit, but before long it was tea time. How many people brought something with them? Most of them, okay. (Most of them had family who'd done craft school here, so they already knew how it worked.) There were snacks that they gave out, so they didn't have to bring something from home if they didn't want to — nothing big, of course, didn't want to ruin their lunch. Anyone have any allergies to worry about? Oh no, Alastar was allergic to strawberries! That was so sad, Violet loved strawberries. Apparently he was also allergic to raspberries and roses — not the flowers, the little berries rose plants made — but not blackberries for some reason? That was funny, raspberries and blackberries were really similar...

Éimhear stepped out into the hallway, Violet heard some voices — she leaned a little to the side to look, and, she thought there was a lady with a trolley or something out there? After a little bit Éimhear stepped back inside, a big tray floating over her shoulder. With one finger against the rim, she guided it down to settle in the middle of the table. (Violet didn't see her use a wand, the tray must be enchanted.) There was a big pot and a bunch of cups and some biscuits for kids who hadn't brought anything with...um, that was probably preserves of some kind? And there was a second, much smaller pot, that one was special for Susan — it was something the priests up on the Hill grew, the school got it for Seer students. The stuff was still there in the pot, though, Éimhear warned her as she set it down in front of Susan, the longer she let it sit the stronger it would get.

The tea was a little on the bland side — Mum and Síomha both tended to brew things really strong, Violet was used to it by now — but it was fine, she guessed. And the little meringue thing, um... She completely forgot what the proper name was. Anyway, a little cup made of butter biscuit with bits of almond in it, holding a dollop of strawberry preserves, covered in a layer of hardened meringue, slightly smokey from firing it a little, it was very very good. But of course it was, Mum was good at making things, she'd been practising for ages. Mum made Susan something different — meringue had eggs, which could be a problem — some kind of layered thing with some honey candy Violet knew they made at the Greenwood and, um...she didn't know what the other layers were. Susan was eating it just fine though, so it must be good...

There was a lot of chattering through tea, mostly talking about, like, where they lived and what their families were like and stuff, what they did for school before. Most of them when to an Ollscoil's primary thing, but a few of them had never been to school before, like Susan. Violet was the only one who'd spent any time at all in the muggle world, she was the only person in the class who'd ever actually spoken to a non-magical person before — that seemed weird at first, but the more Violet thought about it she guessed that most of them would never really have to? Because they could get everything they needed without needing to leave magical places, so, yeah, she guessed that wasn't so surprising, really.

It only took a couple questions about where she was living before Mum found her for Éimhear to jump in and change the subject — probably picked up on the Dursleys being terrible and Violet not wanting to talk about it.

After their snack, there was a quick bathroom break, and then it was time to take a tour of the craft workshops and labs and stuff. They were taking a look with multiple different classes, so everyone please try to pay attention and stick together. There were a few different workshops for each craft, but they did have to share them with other classes — sometimes there would be partly-completed projects sitting around, be nice and don't ruin anyone else's stuff. They ran into another class in the hallway — one of the English classes, but not Hannah's — after going past they got to their first stop.

Violet was kind of surprised by how much different stuff there was here, seemed like a lot of set-up for primary-school-age kids to basically just play around with stuff. It seemed odd, so later she would ask Síomha about it — sure, it might seem like they were just being let to play around with a lot of the stuff, but there was actually a reason for that. Violet and some of the other kids were going into an academy programme, but academy was expensive, not everyone could do that; the secondary craft school was easier to afford, though. They didn't go up to exams and stuff, instead the point of the craft programme was to go into apprenticeships for, like, working-class kind of magical jobs, mostly making things. At the workshops in the secondary craft programme, they would learn some of the more advanced stuff, but there would also be people from guilds hanging around keeping an eye on people — a good thing to happen there was for a guild person to notice how good you were at a thing and recruit you for an apprenticeship, which could make it much easier to get a good job and stuff, you were basically trying to get noticed. But a lot of these crafts were hard, because making things could be really complicated, so it was something you wanted to start practising early.

Which was the point of these workshops in the primary craft programme: the kids were basically playing around, yes, but they could also see what they liked and might be good at, and start picking up some of the basic stuff, get some practice in ahead of time so they were ready to start the more advanced stuff later. Éimhear didn't spell it out for them at the time, but the grown-ups running the workshops and stuff were mostly guild people, whose job it was to spot kids who might be good at a thing, encourage them to work on stuff, and in special cases sometimes even get them straight into an apprenticeship super early. (A little kid being recruited out of the first three years of craft school was super rare, but it did happen now and then.) So, while it often looked like just playing around, there was actually a point to it.

That first day, Violet didn't know all that, just thought it seemed way bigger and nicer than she'd expected from a primary school thing. The first workshop they went into was for ceramics and glass — there were big furnaces and ovens and such to fire things, though they weren't running now, the very tanned-looking man here said it'd be much warmer when they were. So there was nothing dangerous in here, they were let loose to wander around the room and poke around with another class. (Not a class Violet knew anyone in, but Lasairín did, kids she knew from primary.) There were a couple adults around, showing them things and answering questions. There were cabinets full of tools and supplies — some of the bins were clay/ceramic mix (just add water) and some were sand for glass, Violet couldn't really tell the difference — there were wheels to make pots and stuff, mostly they'd be working with clay and ceramic, because they were safer, but they could do stuff with glass if they asked an adult to help them with it (but not on their own, it was very very hot), and they could make beads and stuff, one of them showed Violet a little belt someone made, dozens and dozens of glittery colourful beads strung together, soooo pretty...

After that they went to the enchanting workshop, which was similar, with bins of mix and tools to shape clay and stuff, but more...bookish. Like, there were posters with diagrammes and stuff, and bookshelves with big dictionary-looking things, and big blackboards all along two walls. There were slabs of slate, like mini-blackboards, and sticks of chalk for writing, to plan out the runes for a thing before putting it in anything more permanent, which was what the clay and stuff was for. They'd only be doing very basic enchanting here, they were told, because enchanting could be very dangerous if you weren't careful — like, things explode in your face dangerous, and also do funny magic while they blew up, it could be bad. They weren't to carve any runes on anything until after one of the adults thought the practice version on slate looked good, and there were lots of other rules, they'd talk more about that when they had their first lesson later.

And after that there was a workshop for textiles, was the proper word. This one was pretty spread out and complicated, there was a section with, like, spinning wheels and stuff, for turning raw stuff into thread and yarn or whatever, and then there was another section with looms and frames and whatever for turning thread or yarn into fabric, and then another section for cutting and sewing together fabric into things you'd actually wear. (There was also a dye thing somewhere for making stuff the right colour, but it wasn't in here.) Which, it was kind of a lot, and some of the yarn was all fluffy, and some of the rolls of cloth along one wall were super super pretty, deep vivid colours, and there was special shiny metal thread and beads and stuff for doing embroidery, which were neat, Violet kind of wanted to play with those. And she would, this year — their first year they mostly did basic sewing stuff, to make repairs, and also some basic embroidery, doing decoration on stuff.

Violet was learning just now that making their own clothes was sort of normal for magic people? Like, there were tailors and stuff, but they could be kind of expensive for people who didn't have too much money to throw around, since they had to be made just for you. (Which, again, made sense when Violet thought about it.) Weavers just pumped out rolls and rolls of cloth, though, so people would buy the cloth and make stuff themselves. Often you'd have just a couple people doing it for everyone in an extended family, not everyone had to do it themselves, but it was pretty common for most people to know how to do repairs or minor alterations if they wanted to. You could repair things with magic, but repair charms weren't perfect, it only worked so many times...and of course a lot of poor people couldn't afford wands, so. They would play with the other stuff in later years, but the one thing that was super important to make sure everyone knew coming out of the programme was how to do basic repairs and stuff, so that was most of what they'd do, especially their first year here.

Honestly, Violet thought it was kind of neat that people all made their own stuff, and adding decorations to her clothes sounded fun! Like, a little bit of colourful stitching along the hems at least, why not.

Susan pointed out (in a whisper, in English) that this wasn't the sort of thing nobles learned, most of their classmates at Hogwarts wouldn't know much of this at all. Which, again, made sense when she thought about it — they could afford tailors and stuff, so they didn't need to learn. Okay then, still neat.

There was also a wood-working workshop, which Violet didn't think was as cool. Like, they started doing basic carpentry stuff in the secondary craft programme, like making furniture and the like, here they mostly just did little decorative stuff, like making little figurines she guessed? It seemed dumb to Violet. If she was going to make something like that she'd prefer doing it in ceramic anyway, it didn't feel as gritty and bad in her hands and the colours of the paint came through better...

After that was the potions lab, which was in the middle of the big spread-out building, no windows — when you were making a potion, sunlight counted as an ingredient, and you might not want that getting in there. This one was also going to be super strict about rules you were supposed to follow, because potions could be sensitive...and also there were hot things, because a lot of them had to be made over a fire? Most of the ones they'd be doing in their first year didn't need the fire at all, though, Violet didn't even know you could make potions at room temperature, you just had to mix things the right way, that was neat! The room kind of smelled bad, though, like, really bad, all the funny smells of the potion ingredients mixed up. It was bothering Violet bad enough, her skin crawling and her mouth itching and her head buzzing, that it was a little hard to pay attention — she was pretty sure she missed like half of the talking, honestly, trying to follow the Gaelic not making it easier. She was very relieved when they finally left, Violet taking a few big breaths of clean air.

(She was going to see if Mum could enchant her something to take care of the smell, because she didn't know if she could focus on making a potion properly with that going on.)

After that was the music room, which was kind of neat! This was also a really bookish one, with posters of stuff and bookshelves full of things, and all kinds of instruments all over the place, Violet only even knew what some of them were. They were all going to learn to play the flute, but they wouldn't start on that until second year — first year they'd mostly be learning how to read music and some basic stuff about how music worked, and what the different instruments were called and stuff. Violet thought that was kind of neat, she hadn't even known they were going to be learning music, nobody had mentioned that...

The art room was very cool. There were different kinds of things, like, pencils and pastels and ink — both with pens and brushes, Violet didn't know using brushes to paint with ink was a thing — and charcoal (plain black but also dyed all kinds of colours somehow) and of course multiple different kinds of paint. And the colours were all super pretty! There'd be lessons in basic how to draw stuff, of course, but if they weren't interested in those they could also just play around and make whatever they liked, whichever. (It's not like there were scores or anything.) Violet asked if she could skip the pastels, she didn't like the wax and the colour not coming out consistently always bothered her, and yes, she didn't have to use a thing if she didn't want to, but also "pastels" meant more than one thing! and the other one wasn't waxy and gross! It did look kind of...dusty, which might make a mess, but the thing she was handed didn't feel too gritty at least, so this might be fine, they'd see.

Violet was actually kind of excited about the art workshop days, actually — she liked drawing, and it was pretty in here! It even smelled good, like paper and pencils and charcoal and also flowers, for some reason. It was hard to stop herself from bouncing on her toes, honestly, she didn't realise she was humming out loud until Susan pointed it out...

(Yes, Violet realised she was weird sometimes, they didn't have to look at her like that...)

After that it was lunch time. Except, there wasn't just a cafeteria were they were all given food, like at her old school in Little Winging — instead they were led to a big kitchen. Or, one big room that had multiple kitchens in it? Like, walk in the door, and on the left and the right was a kitchen area, with counters and appliances and cabinets and everything, but then past those was another kitchen area, about exactly the same, and then another, and... Ten, there were ten total, five on each side. Some classes got here before them, bustling about, and...

Apparently they made their own lunch here? That was weird. Wasn't that weird? Violet thought it was weird. Not that she minded, of course, she liked cooking just fine, just, she hadn't expected it was all.

There were little cards on the counters, the different classes each assigned to a kitchen — some of the kids had food allergies and stuff to keep track of, so. Éimhear led them over to the one for A5, a tingle of magic as they passed through wards, the noise and chatter from the other kitchens cutting out. (So they could hear each other and not get distracted while trying to do something, Violet guessed.) Most days, unless there was a special thing going on or something came up, they would be making their lunch together. Though they didn't always have to do all of it themselves — if something needed especially long it might be done for them ahead of time, or they might prepare something during their tea break and stick it in the oven or let it simmer while they were doing their craft thing, depends on what they were making. The basic idea was planned out for them — though after getting used to how it worked they would start to be in on the planning a little — but there was room to tweak things as they liked, have fun with it, you know.

The things they had to be careful about were Alastar's fruit allergy, and of course Susan's stuff — Susan's lunch would often (but not always) need to be kept separate from the rest of theirs, and it was best if nobody else touched her food, just in case. Except Violet, she could. Éimhear was a little taken aback when Violet said she could handle Susan's stuff if they needed her to, Susan said Violet was an exception to the no touching rule. She's a metamorph, you know, her death was too far away for Susan to feel it. Just to prove it (also she would need to to make lunch anyway), Susan pulled off a glove and grabbed Violet's hand — see?

Éimhear made a very funny face, clearly thought that was weird, but she didn't say anything and just moved on.

Their lunch was to be pretty simple this time, since they were still finding their way around. There were discs of a kind of flatbread — the name the locals used meant "fired oats" in Gaelic, a bit chewy with a few harder bits of not-fully-ground oats now and then, not Violet's favourite but it was fine — and cheeses, some dried meats, and a few different kinds of relish (ew, pickled vegetables, blech). They were to fix up their flatbread the way they liked it, and they would be warmed in the oven until the cheese got all melty, and then they'd fold them in half and broil them until they were nice and toasty, flipping partway through to get both sides. Which sounded fine to Violet, she guessed, as long as the bread wasn't burned too bad. Sort of like a pasty, she guessed, but with a different kind of bread...

The other kids were a little surprised that Violet didn't already know what this was — apparently it was a really common quick lunch thing, or for like lazy meals when it was a cold rainy day and they didn't feel like doing anything? Like, Violet knew the oat bread was a thing, and they had a lot of cheese (Violet got the feeling magical Irish people liked cheese), but she didn't know this specific thing, new to her. But then, Mum was English...or technically Cambrian, which she still thought was just the magic way of saying Welsh, and she normally made more modern muggle stuff, so it wasn't a surprise Violet was still missing some of the normal stuff the people here ate all the time. Whatever.

The food was good, anyway, so who cares. The beef she put in hers was flavoured with, like, herbs and honey and stuff before drying, apparently? It was really good, she had to see if they could get some of it at home. The apple cider was kind of bleh though, she thought they might have done something funny to it to take the alcohol out, but Éimhear let her have more tea instead — one of those not-tea tisane things, no caffeine, but it was better than the cider stuff, tasted like flowers.

They sat eating and talking for a while, hanging around for a bit after the food was gone just because. (Violet thought they were probably ahead of schedule, so had some time to not really do anything.) Or, everyone else was talking, she didn't much. She didn't like talking over meals anyway — she would if someone talked at her, she just didn't like to, made her feel funny — and she just didn't feel like it at the moment, she guessed. She'd done a lot of talking today already, and it was mostly gossipy stuff about their families she didn't have much of an opinion on anyway.

Of course, Susan mentioned that Violet's mum was a professional duellist now and then she had to talk about that for a little bit. Ugh.

After a bit they cleaned up their little kitchen area — done by hand, because not everyone was gonna have cleaning charms when they grew up — and then went back to their classroom. Éimhear clapped her hands, and said what must be an enchantment key, and the desks and chairs stacked up in the back lifted off the floor, unstacking themselves, settling into rows all by themselves. That was neat! Since Éimhear and Violet guessed probably a lot of the other teachers didn't have wands (at least she hadn't seen Éimhear use one yet), they enchanted the classroom to do big things for them instead — there were probably other special things Éimhear could do with the room, Violet would have to pay attention to that...

Éimhear said they'd be doing a few little tests this afternoon, which half of the class immediately whined about. Since there was such a mix of the education they had before coming here, they would have a mix of skills with different things, so Éimhear just needed to know where everyone was. The scores they got weren't a big deal or anything, just so Éimhear could plan lessons better — if everyone knew a thing she might even be able to skip lessons altogether, so, it was really best they get this out of the way right away, so they didn't waste time and could do more fun things instead. Some of the other kids were still grumbling about it, moving toward the desks, but Violet didn't really mind, she was always good with exams and stuff.

Honestly, she didn't understand how someone could not be? Like, either you knew a thing or you didn't? Violet was always confused how slow some of the other kids at Little Whinging were doing maths problems. But she kind of got now that her brain just didn't work like other people's, so she guessed that was fine...

It looked like there was one test for each of their workbooks, which made sense, only one sheet of paper each — kind of a lot to do all in one afternoon, she guessed, but it wasn't a super big deal. First up was maths. There were a few basic addition and subtraction problems at the top, but most of the page was filled with multiplication and division problems — Violet guessed they assumed you knew how to add and subtract things before starting here — the numbers getting bigger and bigger as they went. Some of the ones at the end took Violet a moment to figure out, but they weren't that hard. At the bottom were a couple exponent things, and finding the perimeter and the area of an example rectangle and a triangle, and then a word problem which she was a little confused by at first. After staring at it for a minute, her fingers idly tapping at the desk, she figured out it was asking her to figure out the average — five kids gathered different numbers of bilberries, split it up so each kid got the same number of berries. She didn't quite understand the Gaelic, was the problem, but she figured it out from context. There ended up being three berries left over, and you can't really give someone three-fifths of a berry, but that was close enough, leave those for the birds or something.

Oh, there were three berries specifically left, that was interesting. Was there some religious thing Violet didn't know about, that you were supposed to leave a few for some reason? That would make a kind of sense. Right, she was just going with that, then...

Violet set her pencil down and leaned back, Éimhear noticing almost right away she was done. She came up to Violet's desk and...asked if Violet was having trouble reading something. Um, no, she was done, see? While Éimhear looked over her paper, she glanced around at the other desks, seeing nobody else was done yet — well, Violet already knew she was good with tests, so, no real surprise, she guessed.

...Um, she did write her scratch-work, look, right over here? By these ones, and the word problem. The other problems just had the answer written by itself because she did it in her head. Obviously?

Éimhear raised one eyebrow at her, but she kept whatever she was thinking to herself, just asked Violet to wait for everyone else to finish. Violet didn't think she'd done anything that weird — the biggest multiplication problem just had four-digit numbers, was that not something everyone could do in their head? — but okay, she guessed. She kind of wished Éimhear hadn't taken her paper, her bag with her workbooks was back by the table, she had nothing to doodle on. Sitting still not doing anything was kind of hard, she caught herself tapping her fingers multiple times, trying to not be annoying...

Everyone else finished eventually (she still didn't get why maths took other people so long), and the next test was for Gaelic. This one was shorter, in the number of blanks you had to fill, but was also a lot harder — or it was for Violet, anyway. Some of them weren't so bad, like, there'd be a sentence, with a blank in it, and they had to fill in the right word. Sometimes it gave them a word, but they had to give it the right ending, but sometimes it was just an or léi or something like that which you could guess from context. Violet's spelling still wasn't perfect, and she was still learning, it was a little hard for her to tell what a sentence meant with words missing, and grammar stuff still confused her sometimes, especially verbs, verbs were hard. She tried her best, but she was pretty sure she got things wrong, only guessing in places.

When she made a spelling mistake, she found out these magic pencils were really cool — the eraser worked perfect and instantly, just rub it against the thing she wanted to get rid of once and it was gone, just like that. Good, the partial erasings always bothered her...

The bottom section of the test was complete nonsense to her. There were a couple words in the instructions she didn't know, which made it very confusing, she wasn't sure what she was supposed to do. There would be a couple lines of text, and it gave her a box of four words that... Violet thought she was maybe being asked to pick a word that rhymed? maybe? She couldn't think of anything else, but for some of them none of the words in the boxes rhymed, and the blank wasn't always at the end of a line, making it really hard to tell what they were even supposed to be rhyming with. She carefully read out the lines (whispered, as quiet as she could), trying it with each word in the boxes, and for the first and second problem she found a word that kind of felt right, but she wasn't sure about the rest...

Oh, well, pick her best guess and just go with it. Considering she never even heard any of this language before last Hallowe'en, she thought she did pretty good, if anyone cared what she thought.

The next sheet was for geography and history — or, just geography, apparently they weren't expected to know any history yet. There were two maps, one of Europe and one of Britain (plus Ireland and that bit off of France); the Europe map was split up into countries, and the Britain one had a bunch of dots with blank labels, cities. Both maps had a box with all the options in them, which helped. But also, they were in Gaelic, which didn't help. Violet might be able to fill most of these maps in English, but she didn't think she knew the names in Gaelic...

Oh well, let's just full in the obvious ones, and see where that got her. Some of them were similar enough to the English name that it was easy to guess. Like an Spáinn, obvious, an Fhrainc — just the northern half of the country, she remembered — and also an Phortaingéil, and an Ghearmáin — just the southern half this time — and, er...an Acatáin — that was Aquitania, the southern half of France, where they went to see Chloé — and, um...an Úcráin and an Rúis were stacked on top of each other over here in the east, and an Pholainn and an Fhionlainn were probably Poland and Finland, um...maybe an Ollainn was Holland? Maybe...

Well, that was eleven, all the obvious ones. Only...twenty-four left. Um.

Violet went down the list, whispering to herself, trying to guess— Oh, an Ghréig was Greece, obviously, and an Bhulgáir and an Ungáir were probably Bulgaria and Hungary...um, Hungary was on top of Bulgaria, right? She thought so. Wait no no, that wasn't Hungary that was Romania, which should be between Bulgaria and Hungary, um... There was an an Rómáin, but if that was Romania then what about the middle part of Italy, the one that had Rome in it? Oh, there was an an Tuscáin, like Tuscany, that went in the middle of Italy, so an Rómáin goes here, and Veneto was probably Venice, which went on the...east side, the west side was...Genoa? maybe? Was there, um...an Phoblacht Ghenova, was that it? Sure, why not. And the south part of Italy should be Sicily, Sicily, Sicily...oh, an Phoblacht na Sicile, that was probably it, then...

At that point she was kind of running out. She was missing a strip through the middle of the Continent, from Yugoslavia, Austria and Switzerland, Czechoslovakia, the northern half of Germany, and all the way up to Scandinavia, plus a few between not-Russia and the Baltic Sea. An tSacsain might be the north of Germany? Wait a second, an Lochlann, were't vikings called Lochlannach? So that one was probably the blob that was most of Norway and Denmark and Sweden, then. At that point she still had fourteen that she had no idea what to do with, so she just guessed, dropped the rest of the names in places. Maybe she got a few of them right, no idea.

Oh wait! She was stupid, an Ostair was probably Austria and an Chrimé was Crimea, which was what this bit over here was called (part of the Soviet Union on the muggle side), which was its own little country on the magical side for some reason? Swap a few around, and now she was done, that was the best she had.

The map of their country was honestly much harder, since the Gaelic name only sometimes sounded like the English name. And also there were kind of a lot of them — all the names were numbered, there wasn't enough room to copy the whole names into the blanks. She could probably get most of the ones in England, at least, but there were way more in Scotland and Ireland than she knew. Let's just do the Irish and Scottish cities she knew of quick, since that shouldn't take long. The list was alphabetical, easy to find stuff, Belfast should probably be obvious...

Um, she didn't see anything that looked like Belfast? There was a Beannchar — wasn't there a big town called Bangor near Belfast? Looking closer, the dot wasn't actually at the point of the bit sticking into the island, where she thought Belfast was, a bit to the east instead. Maybe that was Bangor. Copy in the number, fine, and Dublin went about here on the coast, um...Dúilinn was probably it. Cork was on the south coast about here, she was pretty sure that should be Corcaigh...yep, there was a Corcaigh, good, and Galway, G, G, G... Didn't see something that might be Galway. How about Limerick, was Luimneach Limerick? Except she wasn't super sure where Limerick was, maybe this dot on the west coast here...um, which one of these was Limerick and which one was Galway? Limerick was the one on the south, maybe? She didn't know what Galway was called in Gaelic anyway, but she thought Limerick was the southern one...maybe...

That was all she was going to get for Ireland, unfortunately. Scotland, she knew Edinburgh was Dún Éideann, which— Oh! Dún Gaillimhe! That must be Galway! And there was a Dún Phárlain which sounded like Dunferline — she remembered that used to be where the King of Scotland lived, she thought it was right across the Firth of Forth from Edinburgh — and Dún Phris sounded like Dumfries, which was in this bit sticking out down here, maybe, west of Carlisle. Speaking of, Carlisle, C-names, Cathair Luail, maybe? Why not. Glaschú was Glasgow, she'd heard that one before, Inverness sounded vaguely Celtic...Inbhir Nis, perfect. There was an Inbhir Áir, wasn't there a town in Scotland called Ayr? Didn't know where it was though. Um...

Yeah, that was about all she had for Ireland and Scotland, which left, like, four out of five of the blanks empty. She knew what some of them were supposed to be, in English, but none of the names were jumping out at her... Right, just, give up then, she guessed.

Not that she was going to do much better with England. London was easy, um...Luindén was the only one that made sense. (The way Mum sometimes slipped and mispronounced London sounded a little like that, must be Cambrian.) The one in Kent was Canterbury or maybe Maidstone, um...there was a Cathair Ceinn, which was maybe supposed to be Kent. Oxford was here...but nothing looked like Oxford. This was Exeter, but she wasn't seeing a good option for that either. This dot was maybe Coventry, how about— Oh, well, that was just Coventry, but spelled with an I at the end, okay, weird. This was maybe Wells, which didn't seem guessable, maybe it was Glastonbury instead...er...oh, there was a Cathair Ghlas, maybe that was it?

Violet slowly crawled through the dots in England and Wales, just completely guessing. She got...maybe one in five? She ended up leaving most of the blanks empty, she just— She had no idea. It was making her very very stupid, she could feel the heat on her face, she was English, she knew she could do this in the proper language, but she didn't know any of the Gaelic...and of course she didn't know the stuff in the France bit at all...

She had to give up after a while, leaving the rest of the map blank, and feeling like an idiot. It was so frustrating, she actually felt tears prickle at her eyes, focussed on taking a couple deep breaths, trying to calm down. If she started crying in the middle of the class that'd just be super embarrassing, especially over something that was really not that important. Her score didn't even count for anything...

It must have been obvious how frustrated she was getting, because suddenly Éimhear was here, crouching down next to her desk. "Hey now, what is it, sweetheart?"

"I just can't..." Violet could feel herself about to stutter, so she just stopped, waved vaguely at the page instead. "It's stupid."

Éimhear turned the page more toward herself. "Oh, this isn't so bad! How long have you been learning Gaelic?"

"Um...since November?" Time was weird, it wasn't even a year since Mum found her. It felt like it should be longer and also shorter than that, somehow. "I d-d-don't think I even heard G-G-G– it at all before Samhain Night."

"Well then, that's nothing to be embarrassed about. Do you think you could fill all this in English?"

"...Some of it. Muggle things are d-different." She thought some of the dots were only magical towns — she wasn't even sure where the town she lived in was, exactly. Somewhere in Ireland, but...

"No wonder you don't know all of it already then. Most of your classmates aren't going to fill the whole map anyway, it's perfectly fine you don't know all of it yet." Her eyes tipping up, Éimhear's head tilted a little. "Maybe... Do you like maps?"

That was a silly question, maps were cool. "Yes?"

"I'll be right back." Éimhear stood up, said something to the rest of the class about their time being up in a few minutes. She walked to one of the bookshelves, poked around in it for a little bit, before pulling out a pamphlet-sized thing and starting back toward Violet. Crouching down again, she opened up the pamphlet, unfolding again and again — oh, it was a road map! Or not really a road map, since mages didn't use roads, but. It was the whole country, Great Britain and Ireland and the islands in the north and that bit sticking out of France, the towns all labelled and stitched together with lines...

This was a map of the floo network, Éimhear explained — it showed all the public floo points, and how they connected to each other. Not only were all the magical places (that had a public floo) in the entire country labelled, but it also had all the passwords you needed to go there and everything, and insets showing the stuff in the bigger cities, like the Refuge or London or Edinburgh or Glasgow. Even some of the private stuff, families' lands, that were connected to the public points were listed, but they didn't have any passwords you could use to get there, just showing a basic idea of where important people lived. It was really neat! And it was all in Gaelic and English, all the names and the instructions in both languages, so she could read the whole thing!

Violet had to tear herself from looking over the map when Éimhear started talking again. "You can go ahead and keep this if you like — we have plenty of copies around. Most people don't remember where everything is in the whole country, if they need to get around they'll have a map like this. You can find some for sale at any newsstand, or bookstore, or café, they're all over the place. So, if you feel like you need to check the map sometimes, well, so does everyone else. Okay?"

She nodded. "It's really pretty, I l-like it. Thank you." She couldn't even say why she liked it, exactly. It kind of looked like it was hand drawn, edged in ink and lightly shaded with coloured pencil, but kind of a lot of things in the magical world did, when she thought about it. Just, the way the lines branched across the country, it just looked neat, she couldn't explain it.

Éimhear let out a low little chuckle, smiling at her all nice. "You're welcome, Willow. I'll just take this..." She slipped Violet's test out from under the map, and got up and walked away again — leaving Violet looking over the map, her finger following lines from one town to the next to the next...

Ah ha, she had gotten Limerick and Galway the right way around! And that was Bangor at the northeast end of the island — there was a public floo in Belfast, but it wasn't a big one, without the little ring around it of a "primary node" (whatever that meant). It looked like, if you flooed across from Scotland, you landed on Ireland at Bangor and passed through somewhere called Ard Mhacha — Armagh in English, which she thought was maybe a town in Northern Ireland? — to reach Ard Caoimhe. It looked like they were probably south of the border, but it wasn't marked on the map (it didn't exist on the magical side), so she couldn't really tell for sure...

Violet blinked when she noticed, in the list of private places connected to a public floo in Wales, Rock-on-Clyde (HLCN Potter) — she knew that was what the Potter's big manor house, like the Black's Ancient House, was called, Mum mentioned it before. She's been there plenty of times, since the lady of the house was her baby sister, but she couldn't get there anymore, the floo was out and there were wards. The town was named Ruthun, which wasn't familiar, but it was in the north of Wales...maybe Denbighshire? Around there. After more looking around, she found a label for Ancient House ( HLCN Black) connected to a place called Claybrooke she didn't know, in the middle of England between Birmingham and Leicester, and a Ravenhome ( HLCN Black) a little further north, near Lincoln. There was a label for HLCN Bones in the box for the same floo as the Wizengamot Hall, on Anglesey — she thought the Wizengamot, magic Parliament, was actually on Bones land — but it didn't come with a name for the place or anything...

Why did some of the noble families (she thought that's what the HLCN meant) have a star next to their name, but other ones didn't? That was weird...

Violet was pulled out of pouring over the map when the test ended, and they started the final one. This was less a test and more just a questionnaire, about craft stuff — for the different crafts, they were asked if they had family in a trade related to it, if they learned a little bit at home, and a little empty space left to explain what experience they had with it, if any. Most of them she didn't have much to say. Violet knew Síomha was getting a Mastery (which was like a university degree) in alchemy, which was related to potions? but she didn't know if that counted, since Síomha was Mum's sex friend and not really family and also they never talked about potions at all. She did do a lot of playing around drawing and cooking at home, and there were sections for those, and there was also a section for gardening — well, not gardening, but growing things in general, so if you grew up on a farm that would count — she babbled on about her little garden patch for probably longer than she needed to, when she caught herself went back to check for spelling mistakes...

(Gaelic spelling was hard — she could normally tell how something was said from how it was spelled, but the other way around was impossible.)

And after that they were done! Éimhear had quick flipped through the tests while they were working on the next one — she said they were a little bit ahead, which was good, they would have more time to spend on the fun stuff. Violet was a little disappointed they weren't getting their papers back, she kind of wanted to know what she'd gotten right. Not really in the maths one, she knew that was all good, but the Gaelic one, if only to try to figure out how the rhyming questions were supposed to work. Oh well.

They had a little bit of time left in this class hour, but Éimhear didn't have anything planned. They could play a game, or read a story, or just go outside to get to the last part of the day early. Éimhear actually let them vote on it — which was odd, Violet couldn't ever remember doing something like this at Little Whinging — and they decided to do the last one. Violet thought most of her class just didn't feel like sitting around in here anymore, and wanted to go outside instead.

This last section of the day was for extra craft time, or for English class — as in learning English, Violet and Susan were excused from that one — or for something Éimhear called clubs. They were mostly active stuff, from the sound of it, games and sports or whatever. They were "clubs" in that they were groups of kids doing a thing, but you didn't really have to join them or anything, you could just decide you wanted to play around doing that thing today — some of them did need supplies or permission from parents though, depends.

They were a little bit early, one of the first classes to come out, but not the first — they were all just doing the same quizzes and stuff, so everyone was probably going to be early. Out in the courtyard again, some other staff here had started setting stuff up for the different things, so they could see what there was to do and play around. Violet did look around for a bit, but she didn't end up staying very long. Someone came by looking for Violet and Susan: there was a special club for people going into Hogwarts, and apparently that one wasn't optional, just come when you feel like it, but they actually had to go, and they were having their first meeting now.

The meeting was going to be inside — not in the craft school, but across the courtyard, where the offices and stuff were — which was a little sad, it was so nice out! Oh well. The helper person leading them on said there would be tea and stuff, so she guessed she could settle for tiny cakes.

The room was nice, at least, with lots of big windows letting in sunlight and big poofy chairs and sofas. It was also very colourful, lots of reds and yellows and greens and blues — Hogwarts colours. She didn't recognise them right away, but there was a banner over the fireplace with the four-part shield thing, with the snake and the bird and stuff, which gave it away. It was a pretty big room, actually, with enough seating to fit a couple dozen people, but apparently this was a kind of club room for all of the students going to Hogwarts, so she guessed that made sense.

"Hello there!" someone called from nearby, in English, startling Violet a little. "Come over and have a seat." There was a low round table in the middle of the room, an older teenage boy and a couple kids Violet's age around it. The helper person disappeared, so they went ahead and did that. "My name is Niall Ingham, I'll be looking after the club this year. Can I get your names quick? I've got a list here..."

Violet was taking a slow breath to try to avoid stammering, so Susan got there first. "I'm Susan Bones, this is Violet Black."

"Ah yes, I heard there was a new Black," the boy muttered as he wrote something on a notebook on the table in front of him. Switching to Gaelic, "The roster says you're in the Gealic course, but I heard a rumour you were found in the muggle world — I didn't think they spoke much Gaelic over there these days." Despite his English-sounding last name, Niall spoke Gaelic perfect and smooth, like it was his first language...though, his first name was Gaelic, so maybe it was his first language, Violet didn't know...

"Um...there are some who do, b-b-but I d-don't think it's very many? Everyone speaks English now." Niall stared at her for a second, one eyebrow curving up, and Violet noticed she didn't answer the question. "Oh! Um, I started learning in November."

"I see. Not bad, you sound quite good for someone who hasn't even been practising the language for a year."

Before Violet could figure out what to say, a boy at the table said (in English), "I'm sorry, what are you saying? Hey mate," nudging the boy next to him, "what are they saying?"

Niall took that as a cue to have them introduce themselves. The boy who interrupted was Anthony Goldstein — he said to just call him Tony — and the boy next to him was Áirneas Mac Maoláin — Ernest MacMillan in English. Ernest had a pretty obvious Gaelic accent, but he wasn't stumbling at all, so. Both boys were blond, Tony a little taller and Ernest a little rounder, and Ernest talked just a little too loud, but they both seemed nice. There was also a girl here, called Lisa Turpin — pretty normal-looking, except she had really long brown hair, in a tight twisty plait, it was neat. Lisa was quieter than the boys, Violet got the feeling she was shy.

Violet took back her feeling that the boys both seemed nice when, as soon as the introductions were done, Ernest asked a very nosey question about where Violet came from. (She thought he was maybe being magic racist, but she wasn't sure, he didn't come out and say that.) At least she didn't have to answer it, Niall jumped in and changed the subject, but still. After a couple minutes, Tony mentioned that he and Violet had met before, but only for a few seconds, he didn't want to—

Oh yeah! he was at the Malfoys' holiday party back in the spring, she forgot! She tried to apologise for forgetting, but Tony just brushed it off, they didn't talk at all — he'd spent the party staying as far away from Draco as he could without being super rude. Which, yeah, Violet guessed that was fair. Draco was nice to her, mostly, but he was kind of a mean boy, honestly, he was only nice to her because they were cousins now, and his mother told him to. (Violet did like Aunt Narcissa, she was nice, but Uncle Lucius was cold, and she didn't like the way he watched her.) Tony turned it around, and tried to apologise for calling Draco a jerk, since he was her cousin and all, but no that was fine, Draco was a jerk.

Apparently the first time he met Draco he was rude about Tony being Jewish, which, Violet didn't think she'd actually ever met a Jew before. Hey, wait a second, weren't those holiday party things supposed to be for that funny not-really-Roman religion? If Tony's family were Jewish, why were they even there in the first place? Violet was curious, but she kept it to herself, not sure whether it would be rude to ask. She guessed it was probably politics anyway, so.

(Mum did believe in that funny not-really-Roman religion, or at least she grew up with it, but she never did any religious stuff with Violet? or even really talk about it, ever? She'd been around more Gaelic religious stuff with Síomha and the neighbours, honestly, she didn't know what was up with that...)

Over the next little bit, a few more kids turned up. Fay Dunbar and Olivie Rivers came together — they were in the same class, one of the English ones. Violet did remember Olivie from the spring holiday party at the Malfoys, she and Tracey and...Megan? She thought it was Megan. Anyway, Tracey left the group because everyone was being racist about her mum being muggleborn, and Violet thought that was stupid, so she went to sit with her, and then Olivie and Megan joined them later, talking and petting the ferret Violet brought with her. Olivie was blonde, pretty pale blue chicory flowers stick into her plait every few inches, her skin a bit tan from the sun, and she was always all smiling and sweet, she was nice. Fay was a bit taller, her hair loose curls of an auburn-looking brown, and she had a very obvious accent — it sounded kind of Scottish, maybe?

And then Hannah showed up — tall for their age, very yellow blonde hair kept in a stupid long plait (Violet wasn't sure she ever cut it), so pale the pink in her cheeks was super obvious — there was a little shuffling, people moving around to open up the seat on Susan's other side. Last to get here was Mórag Nic Dhubhghaill, a tall girl with very orange hair and heavy eyebrows, making it kind of look like she was glaring at everyone. Like Ernest, Mórag also had a Gaelic accent, but hers was way more obvious, even had trouble thinking of a word now and then. Honestly, her English was bad enough Violet thought she'd have a hard time keeping up with class, but they had a few years before they'd be starting at Hogwarts, she should be fine.

Now that they were all here, Niall started the meeting proper, beginning with a little bit about himself and what this club thing actually was. Niall went here for primary and craft school, and then went to Hogwarts, and now he was back at an Ollscoil for their Charms Mastery programme. This club thing always had one Mastery student who'd gone to Hogwarts — or a few taking turns, if they needed to for scheduling reasons — to help make sure everything runs smoothly, and to make sure they would be ready to go to Hogwarts in time. Some of that meant helping people who didn't speak English as a first language get the practice to catch up — for their year, Ernest and Mórag's first language was Gaelic, and Fay and Olivie's was Cambrian (though Olivie's English was fine, Violet wouldn't have guessed) — but he would also just answer whatever questions they had about the school, and what they studied there and everything.

Normally on club days, just their group would meet up, since they would all be in the same year at Hogwarts. He was told there would be forty kids in their year — forty-one with Violet, he thought (because he didn't know Violet was also Harry Potter, so he was counting her twice), and it was possible that another muggleborn might be found (or move into Britain between now and then), but it wasn't very likely — which meant this was about one-fourth of their whole Hogwarts class. So, when they did start Hogwarts in '91, they would already know about a quarter of the kids in their year, which was neat. Though, Violet would know more than that, because she was going to have to go to tea parties and stuff with the other noble kids, but still. Also, some of their meetings would be with all three years at the craft school, so they would also know some of the kids in the year above them and the year above that (plus the two years that came after them), so there would be older kids they already knew if they needed help with something, which was also a good idea.

Violet remembered Hogwarts was big, and you couldn't make maps of it for magic reasons, she would probably get lost...

And then they went around and all introduced themselves, for the second time today, which was kind of annoying, but at least they would break to talk about whatever thing the person just said between, sometimes going off about whatever, so it wasn't just doing the same thing over and over right in a row. Of course, that meant people asking her questions and Violet having to talk about her things more, which wasn't a good thing, but there were tiny cakes! And also tea, but the tiny cakes were better, Violet loved tiny cakes...

(Though she was a little sad Susan couldn't have any — Violet tried not to feel guilty about that.)

There was a lot of talk about their families and where they lived and stuff, and Olivie and Fay's sounded really neat! Olivie's family was really really big — the House of Tugwood was huge, big enough that they split up into multiple groups, so Olivie kind of had two last names, because there were Rivers Tugwoods and also lots of other Tugwoods, it sounded complicated — and they lived on a super big farm, basically, growing food and potions ingredients and there were whole orchards of fruit trees too, it sounded so pretty! Fay's was the same kind of thing, except, they kind of had a few different tiny little villages with different families and stuff, and they all lived on Fay's family's land, but it was basically the same idea. From the way they talked about stuff there, it seemed very...not-private, you know, everyone very close, which that was probably really nice most of the time, but some days Violet just wanted to be alone for a bit, and it sounded like that'd be harder to do there...

The more things Olivie and Fay mentioned, the more Violet was reminded of the Bones's place (Aunt Amy just called it the Sanctuary) and the Greenwood. The people there were Mistwalkers, Violet was told, but she wasn't really sure what that meant? She kind of assumed it was some religious thing, and also they had a really old-fashioned rural lifestyle, farming and stuff, but she didn't know much more than that. Like, super nice and friendly and peaceful, she assumed, because Susan could (mostly) eat food grown at the Greenwood. She didn't think Olivie and Fay were also Mistwalkers? Mum said they were mostly in Anglesey — Inis Món in Gaelic, which didn't quite sound like Gaelic because it was actually Cambrian — or on the shore right there in Wales, and the Tugwoods and Dunbars sounded like they were both further north. Still, interesting to think about.

Violet didn't know that much about what magic people in this country lived like. Being reminded of that was making her feel a little funny, but she couldn't really say why.

(Though, she was going to guess probably no one else had ever even met any Starlighters before, so she knew more about their lives than anyone here. She guessed that was something.)

A couple funny things came up in the talk, like, Hannah was from the Common House of Abbott, who were vassals of the Noble House of Abbott, which sounded very confusing, and Olivie normally took baths in a little river that went through their lands? Like, outside and everything, that was just normal there. Okay then. (It came up because Lisa asked if there were private baths at Hogwarts, and Olivie needed the idea explained to her, because she'd never seen a bathing space meant for just one person before — there weren't any when Mum was a student there, but there were now.) People were a little bit nosey about Susan being a Seer, but they were familiar with the idea, because Olivie, Tony, Mórag, Fay, and Ernest were all from noble families, and the death prophet stuff showed up in old stories sometimes, and it was kind of normal for the Boneses to have it, so.

And they were very nosey about Violet, of course, especially the noble kids. The kids from noble families at least knew of each other growing up, and mostly actually met at some point, so Violet appearing out of nowhere was kind of surprising. Niall tried to cover for her at first, change the subject, but it was fine, Violet didn't mind — if she didn't get it out of the way they would just bother her about it later anyway. So yeah, Mum — Cassiopeia Black, Violet meant, she adopted her — found Violet only last year. She said her brother was a squib, and he was Violet's...grandfather or great-grandfather or something. Obviously Violet didn't remember him at all, he died before Violet was born, but she must have gotten the metamorph thing from the Blacks, and the magic at Ancient House welcomed her like one of theirs, and Lord Arcturus had, like, signed papers and stuff to acknowledge her as part of the family — he gave her this little raven necklace for Christmas, isn't it pretty? She wasn't going to talk about the aunt and uncle she grew up with, they were muggles so none of you would know who they are anyway and they didn't like that she was magic and weird and they were mean, and she didn't live with them anymore so they didn't matter, and that was all she was going to say about it. So, yeah, Violet Black, hello.

(And all of that was true, even if it made the other kids think a thing that wasn't — not-lying wasn't that hard, she just had to think about what she was saying for a couple seconds, which she did anyway trying not to stammer. She didn't know why Mum was so worried about it.)

Oh yeah, she was so a metamorph! This morning her hair was— She did turn her hair red earlier today, but it went back to blonde on its own, Violet didn't notice. How about, um, Violet looked over Susan quick, closed her eyes so she could focus, imagining what she wanted very carefully, and then she pushed — like warm smooth bath water flowing over and through her skin, Violet squirmed in her chair, but it only took a second. Her hand didn't really look very different, did it work?

Before anyone could answer, Susan let out a giggle, leaned over into her seat to grab onto Violet's arm with a chirp of "Twins!" — oh good, she did get it right then. She'd been trying to get more comfortable with playing with stuff sometimes, she still didn't do big changes very often. Olivie agreed that that was very cool, but she hadn't gotten the hair right — what, she hadn't? That would be sad, she really liked Susan's hair, wasn't it pretty, the red and everything. Violet set down her teacup so she could pull out a handful of her hair (Susan had her other arm), frowning at it.

Yeah, Olivie was right, she hadn't gotten it quite. Susan's hair was very neat, like a dirty blonde but tinted red, more auburn in the dark parts and almost pinkish in the lighter parts, but this looked...kind of fake. Like, patches of plain red — like red red, not human hair red — and a sort of dried blood reddish-brown and bright, almost neon pink, and the patches were separate, not blending together like in real hair. Definitely not right, not even close, blended hair colours were hard for her for some reason. (She could get Mum's blonde right, but just because she saw it all the time, she knew it well enough.) Susan said it was still pretty, even if she didn't get it quite right, and she guessed it was, if a bit weird-looking and definitely not a normal human hair colour. But, you know, normal human people couldn't change what they looked like (or turn into a boy) whenever they wanted, so Violet guessed that was fine.

She did remember the funny hair colours and other stuff Dora liked to do — metamorphs were kind of just allowed to look funny, if they felt like it. They were freaks, after all, so why not? The other kids weren't getting all creeped out by the freak doing freakish stuff, just seemed to think the metamorph thing was very cool, so...

(It was okay if she was kind of freakish sometimes, because they were all magic, so everyone was kind of freakish anyway. They liked freaks here.)

They sat around drinking tea and chatting about things for a long time...or at least it felt like a long time. Violet was starting to feel kind of tired? It felt like it'd been a long day, even though it could only be, like, two in the afternoon or something? She wasn't sure exactly, there wasn't a clock in here. It must be getting on, because Niall got their attention eventually. They would be told when they were supposed to have a club day — starting tomorrow there would be a calendar posted on the wall in their classroom that said what they would be doing, Hogwarts club days would be marked on there — but when they didn't they could do stuff with other clubs if they wanted, just remember not to miss their meetings. On Friday they'd have a thing with all three years, which sounded like kind of a lot of people, and everybody was going to be weird about the Black appearing out of nowhere again...

But anyway, it was the end of the school day, they could go home now. Violet and Susan left their bags in their classroom though, Niall led their group outside, their building was, um, that way. The big green space in the middle of the school was kind of messy at the moment, a lot of children and adults walking around or just standing talking. Susan spotted Mum and some of the kids from their block, but they still had to go get their things, be right back. They got back to the primary craft school building, and— Oh, she left her jumper hung up in the entryway! Oops, forgot. Éimhear was standing in the hall talking with a couple other teachers, when she noticed them she twitched, blinked for a second before asking if they needed something — that was kind of a funny reaction, didn't know what that was about. No, they were just looking for their bags, their classroom was right here...

It wasn't until Violet was checking to make sure everything was in her bag, leaning over it, and a bit of funny-coloured hair flopped in front of her face, that she remembered she looked like Susan right now. That must have been why Éimhear gave them a funny look earlier. Though, she did figure it out quick and call them both by name — Violet was the only metamorph in the class, so — just took her a second.

Violet stared at the badly-copied red-pink hair, an odd feeling dropping through her, leaving her chest feeling all cool and...echoey. Like it'd gone emptier than usual, she could almost feel her own breath echo...

"Willow?" Susan asked (Gaelic name), coming up to her. "Is something wrong?"

It took a second, breathing, to loosen her throat so she could talk proper. "I feel funny."

"...Do you want me to go get Auntie?"

"No, I'm okay. I just..." A flash of old fear shivering through her, she forced herself to breathe, she was fine, Cassie didn't care if she was a freak, she was fine. "I forgot m-my face."

"What?"

"I c-c-can't remember what I l-look like."

There was a short pause, Susan just standing there, while Violet tried to...she didn't know. She didn't feel bad, exactly — except for that short bit of fear, anyway, but she hadn't even seen the Dursleys for almost a year, she was fine — just, she didn't know, really really weird. It was weird that she didn't remember what she looked like. Her hair was just copied from Mum's, it was hard to imagine very well without looking at it, but as soon as she saw Mum she'd be able to get it back. Her body she never changed that much, just made sure everything clicked together right, and it was mostly covered by clothes all the time, so she didn't pay that much attention? As long as it felt right, it didn't really matter what all that looked like. But her face, she completely forgot what her face looked like. And she didn't even have pictures, Mum didn't own a camera...

She was getting so used to not really paying that much attention, just glancing in the mirror to make sure everything looked even and wasn't, like, shaped really weird or anything — maybe fiddle with something a little, until she was like, yeah, that's me today, and... She was sure her face had been slowly shifting, as she accidentally did stuff and didn't fix it right, or changed in her sleep. Mum said that just happened, even at her age if she wanted to look exactly the same for some reason she had to use a photo to compare with. But Violet never changed a lot, just little bits here and there, and she was paying so little attention, she just forgot, she forgot what she looked like.

This was weird, she felt so weird. She couldn't say how, what feeling this was, just.

Finally, Susan said, "Isn't that okay, though?" English now for some reason, Violet noticed. "I mean, you are a metamorph — isn't what you look like...what you look like? You're not transfigured or anything, this is you. You know? Am I making sense?"

"...Yeah." Mum said, other people, they were only supposed to look like one thing, even if magic changed them their fundamental identity (special term) stayed the same, so when the magic wore off they went back to looking like themselves. But metamorphs, their magic did a thing where, when magic changed what they looked like they changed their fundamental identity to match without even trying to, so the magic never wore off. (Mum tried to explain that when they changed themselves they were actually changing their fundamental identity, which made the universe think they were under a spell that changed what they looked like, so then it wore off to make them what their fundamental identity said they should be, so changing themselves looked like de-transfiguration to magic, but Violet didn't really get that part, it was very confusing.) So, she looked like Susan right now, but that wasn't fake or anything, it was just...what she looked like. At the moment.

Because there was no one way she was supposed to look. Like how other people could wear different clothes or put on makeup or do their hair different and were still the same person, Violet could just do bigger changes — whatever she looked like was what Violet Black was supposed to look like. Because she was a metamorph, and they were just like that.

(Which was super weird and freakish, but Violet was used to the idea that she wasn't a normal person by this point.)

She pushed out a breath, picked her bag up and slung it over her shoulder. "Yeah, you're right. I'm okay now, let's g-g-go." Not looking at Susan's face, embarrassed, Violet started for the door without waiting for an answer.

Before Violet got to the hallway Susan already caught up, the soft warm leather of her glove slipping between Violet's fingers.

They got a couple funny looks from the people out in the courtyard, which did make sense, since Violet still looked like Susan. It took a couple minutes to find Mum and the neighbour kids, it looked like the primary school had been let out too, it was busy in here. But when they did, Mum looked up and found Violet right away, smiling all warm and nice — she didn't even glance at Susan, she knew it was Violet with hardly looking. Which did make Violet feel a little better.

Actually, kind of a lot better, there were tears prickling in her eyes, and uugghhhh why were her feelings all over the place, what was happening...

"Hello, Willow, Susan, there you are. You two about ready to get going?"

Violet just hummed, nodding. She tugged her hand out of Susan's, and walked right up to Mum. An arm coming around her, she pressed her head against Mum's middle, grabbing at Mum's skirt without really meaning to — at least partly, if she was being honest, because her eyes were being dumb and she didn't want the other kids to see her start crying for no reason like a baby.

"Now, there. Rough first day?"

She shook her head — it'd been pretty good actually, she thought she was going to like going here way more than her old primary school. But, "Long, I'm tired. I'm g-g-going to t-take a nap, if that's okay."

"Of course, darling. Here..." A tingle of magic swept over Violet, and before she could do anything she was being picked up off her feet, held against Mum's side with one arm under her bum. Oh, well, okay then — settling her arms around Mum's neck, Violet rested her head against her shoulder, at least partly to keep hiding her face from the other kids. This was kind of embarrassing, but Mum was all soft and warm, so she didn't really care. "There we go. All right, everyone, let's get you home."

"Auntie? What's wrong with Willow?" Damhnait asked.

"Nothing, sweetheart, she's just tired. I'm guessing some of you too will be going down for a nap as soon as we get back, with all the excitement of the day." There was a mix of some in their group agreeing a nap sounded nice and some (especially Éimhín) insisting they definitely didn't need a nap, but Mum just ignored them and started walking. Violet could hear the neighbour kids all trotting along in their wake, shouting goodbyes to people they knew, chatting about some club thing...

Violet hadn't just been trying to hide her face so nobody made fun of her for almost crying for no reason, she really was tired. At this rate, she might fall asleep before they even got home. Mum was all warm and she smelled nice, and this was really comfortable...

"How about magic pizza for dinner? I already went by Fortescue's while you were at school." Well, she wasn't hungry right now, obviously, but she did love the magic pizza, and magic ice cream was amazing. She hummed, and nodded against Mum's shoulder. "The usual on yours, steak and mushrooms?"

"Yes, please. Thanks, Mum."

"Of course, darling. Oh, Lasairín — leave that alone, girl, that doesn't belong to you. Come on, now..."

---

I had way too much fun thinking about how schooling would actually work in this setting, and now I've made it your problem. Mwahaha.