Bella waves in a friendly sort of way. She hasn't made particular friends with any of the other Muggleborns, and she's more interested in learning about the wizarding world (she has taken to calling it "Fantasia" in her head, after the musical film by the same name) than about commiserating over knowing what a television is.

"Hello," says the boy in a crisp English accent. "I'm Sherlock. You're interesting."

His twin plops into a seat across from Bella and hooks the chair next to her with her leg, pulling it out for Sherlock.

"Hi," says Bella. "I'm Bella. How can you tell I'm interesting?"

"You have two wands," he says. "Vine and hazel. Introspection, self-control, clear-headedness, foresight."

"I didn't realize they meant things," Bella says. "I just wanted two because it seems like they'd be easy to lose or break and inconvenient to do without."

"Few people do," says Sherlock. "Mine's fir. It's for focused, stubborn people." He indicates his twin. "Tony's is blackthorn. It's rare. A warrior's wood."

"And this isn't one of those things like astrological signs where people can just make up anything and it sounds right?"

"It partly is?" says Tony. "But wandlore's pretty serious. They do choose their owners, the good ones anyway. I wanna be a wandcrafter when I grow up," she adds proudly.

"This one rattled around in its box when I walked by," Bella says, tapping the one in her hair. "The other one I found the regular way. The guy acted like it was weird to want two, but I don't see why. I don't know what I wanna do when I grow up at all," she adds to Tony.

"Most people make do with the one until something happens to it," says Sherlock. He glances at his sister. "We should get a backup set."

"Yeah," she snorts, "'cause we had so much fun with the first ones."

"Did you have a hard time finding them?" Bella asks.

"Sherlock took like half an hour, and I took three."

"But perhaps next time it will be better," says Sherlock.

"I don't know, my second one took a lot longer to find," Bella says. "Maybe if you go to a different shop with a different selection? I don't know how many there are, but there must be wizarding places besides the Bay Cauldron."

"There are many. We will go to another one."

Bella smiles. She's glad she had a useful idea. "Where do you guys live?"

"New York, until recently," says Sherlock. "And yourself?"

"Historically Phoenix during the school year, and a nowhere little town in Washington State otherwise, but they're going to have to work out how to divvy up my summers and vacations now that I'm boarding here, I guess," says Bella.

"Which nowhere town would that be?"

"It's called Forks, why?"

"Because I wanted to know."

Bella laughs. "I see. Hey, what kind of class schedules do you have?"

Sherlock recites them from memory, and add with a smile, "Why do you ask?"

"'Cause I have Charms and Potions with you guys," she says.

"Fun!" says Tony.

"I'm looking forward to Charms especially. All the cool things seem to be Charms."

"Hey, don't you talk any crap about Potions," snorts Tony. "Potions are awesome."

"There are some very cool looking potions," acknowledges Bella. "But they mostly seem to be really advanced, and they all take forever to make. Even complicated charms don't take that long. I'm kind of impatient."

"I can't think of anyone else with that particular flaw," Sherlock deadpans.

"If I thought it was a flaw plain and simple I'd get rid of it," says Bella, waving a hand.

"He's talking about me," says Tony. "What do you mean, get rid of it?"

"I mean I'd make it go away, or at least not make me do things anymore," says Bella. "I'd have to really believe it was all bad before I'd try, though, or I'd just be hacking at my personality for no good reason."

"No but I mean like how," says Tony.

"I - what, could you not do that? If you really really wanted?"

"Nooooo?"

"But it's not even magic."

"I'm still stuck on the 'how', here."

"I'd just have to figure out where it was and where it came from and how it was making me do stuff, and then dig it out, like a plant," says Bella.

"Fascinating," says Sherlock.

"Is it? You really don't know how?" Pause. "Are people just how they are because they don't know how to be different, then? They don't all just like being who they wound up being?"

"That is nearly always the case," says Sherlock.

"That explains a lot," says Bella thoughtfully.

"Like what?"

"Like why so many people still have all kinds of traits that I can't see why anybody would want to have," Bella laughs, "even when they've had a long time to get rid of them."

"Such as?"

"Oh, like people who are really mean, not even in a catty way that makes their friends like them but just plain mean so they don't even have any friends, there's no reason I can think of to want to do that," says Bella. "I thought maybe I was just missing something but maybe they don't know how to stop."

"Nope," says Tony, "turns out they actually can't!"

Sherlock grins.

"So you guys have magical parents, since you arrived today instead of on Friday, right?"

"We have," says Tony, "a magical parent."

"Well, you probably still know more about how all this stuff is going to work than me," says Bella. "My parents are both Muggles. I'm just lucky they weren't totally surprised since I've been doing little poem spells since I was eight."

"You have?" says Tony, interested. "Cool. I've mostly been running into walls."

"...Magically?"

"She can levitate at speed," Sherlock puts in, "but she hasn't got the hang of stopping."

"Oh. Well, maybe we can learn that here," says Bella. "My poems can only do little things. They don't work on anything like flying, I tried a lot."

"I don't really fly," says Tony. "I can't get any higher than I can jump. But I can zoom pretty good, except, like he said, I tend to crash."

"It still sounds like fun! I crash plenty even just walking around, it'd be a better deal if I got to be airborne first."

"When you're airborne first," says the voice of experience, "you crash harder."

"I fell down the stairs and broke my arm once," offers Bella.

"I've never broken any of my parts!" says Tony. "I've broken furniture."

"But how do you do it? Is there a poem or can you just do it whenever?"

"I just... do," she shrugs. "And sometimes it doesn't work and I fall flat on my face."

"Sometimes a poem doesn't work. Especially if I try to use the same one more than once," Bella says.

"I think you can't repeat them or something?" says Tony. "I'm bad at rhyming on the spot, I never use 'em myself."

"Well, yeah, making them up on the spot would be really hard, that's why mine all have spots in them for the date," says Bella.

"...Genius," declares Tony.

"Thanks!"

She beams.

"Because my orientation packet says my roommate's name is Antoinette," explains Bella.

"Well now you know better."

"I'm informed," Bella agrees. "And yours probably says I'm Isabella, which is true, and I won't really care if you use it, but I prefer Bella."

"Okay," says Tony. "I forget stuff all the time, so just keep reminding me of the right one and we're good."

"Sure," says Bella. "Do you guys know any wanded magic yet? I'm trying to teach myself some things. I didn't do that well on the SPAWN - it doesn't really seem designed to measure aptitude, just whether you've met lots of wizards before, it's kinda stupid. I want to advance quick."

"I don't," says Tony.

"I may have picked up one or two things," says Sherlock.

"Like what?" Bella asks Sherlock, bouncing in her chair.

Bella frowns. "But you're allowed to do magic, here. I just did some. Why don't you try it and see right now?"

"Because I don't know if I have it right," he reiterates.

"But - that's why you'd need to try it. If you don't have it right it won't work and then you'll know you have to change something."

He says nothing.

"We'd rather not do our experimenting in the lunchroom," says Tony.

"Why?"

"What if something blows up?"

Bella frowns. "Is that likely?"

"Around me? Yes."

"Oh. So I shouldn't try the other things on my list of things to try while you're around? That's going to be awkward if we're roommates," muses Bella.

"Well, okay, not quite," says Tony. "It's more like, when I do experiments, it's on the kind of stuff that likes to blow up or catch fire or whatever, so we picked up the habit of not doing any experimenting on anything even vaguely dangerous without proper safety protocols, and it's still a good idea even if you're trying to do mostly-harmless magic because even mostly-harmless magic can set something on fire if you screw it up bad enough."

"I should learn the safety protocols," says Bella promptly. "What are they?"

"Probably too complicated to tell you about over lunch," says Tony. "But if we're rooming together, you're gonna see 'em anyway."

"I wonder why there wasn't anything about it in the orientation packet. They just told us that we're allowed to use magic here but not at home anymore, and that we shouldn't hex each other."

"Most people never screw it up that bad."

"Are you trying especially hazardous experiments or are you just really accident-prone?"

"I'm used to experimenting with electronics, not magic," she explains. "That stuff catches fire regularly when you don't know what you're doing. But Mom says it's a good idea to get in the habit of being safe about stuff, even when it's less dangerous."

"That does make sense," agrees Bella. "They did go an awfully long way to reassure us about how competent the school healer is..."

"...huh," says Tony, "you know, I didn't realize until just now, but Muggles are way more concerned about people getting hurt than magic people are."

"The reassurances about the healer did sound very, um, magical," says Bella. "I guess he can do a lot better and a lot faster than a Muggle doctor, so that makes sense."

"Yeah, exactly. But I mean, from the point of view of the experimenter, it makes a lot more sense to try not to get hurt in the first place."

"Right. Otherwise your experiment's ruined and also you spend some time being hurt."

"Exactly!" she repeats.

"So I will stop casting unfamiliar spells over lunch, I think, even if the ones I tried so far worked okay without exploding or anything," Bella nods to herself.

"I mean, probably nothing's going to explode even if you get it wrong," says Tony, "but there are spells that do, and you don't always know which ones are which without trying it."

"You'd think they'd annotate the textbooks. Little symbols. 'May explode if done wrong'. 'Type A blood types allergic to this spell'. Whatever."

"There should be safety data sheets," Tony agrees. "But there's not. 'Cause that's a Muggle thing. Around here they just send you to the healers if you accidentally melt your face off."

"Because that's a Muggle thing? I sorta got that wizards and witches are weird about Muggles, but so weird that they won't take good ideas from them even?"

"According to most magic people you'll meet, who aren't actually married to one, and sometimes not even then, there's no such thing as a good idea from a Muggle. And then they don't think of stuff like SDS because the healers are so much better it doesn't even really look like a concern. At least, I'm pretty sure that's what's going on. It makes sense, right?"

"I don't know. I've only had a couple days to look at the culture, and almost all the other kids who came before today were raised by all Muggles like me. That sounds bad, though, if magic people are rejecting good Muggle ideas just because of where they came from and not anything about the idea."

"That's life," shrugs Tony.

"But it's bad. Well, maybe that's what I'll do when I grow up, is find all the ideas that magic people are dumb not to use and dress them up so they can look at them right? And I'm a witch, not a Muggle, so maybe people will listen to me, when I'm grown up."

"You're Muggle-born," says Sherlock. "Unfortunately, that seems to make a difference."

"...That's just racist."

"Yes," says Sherlock.

"I probably need to know more about that, I guess. What kind of difference? To who, everybody?"

"...I have conclusions but I can't articulate them," he admits after a moment.

"Can you turn the conclusions directly into advice?" asks Bella. "I mean, I'd also like articulation but I'll take what I can get."

He hesitates again, then says, "Pointing out the obvious prejudice that everyone displays and denies is usually counterproductive."

"...That's going to be hard," muses Bella, "leaving it be."

"It is not universally counterproductive. But often."

"What are the signs for when it's worth saying something? Besides, like, somebody telling me useful things like you are doing now, not that there's anything to say something about in your case."

"Nothing I am confident describing."

"Keep me posted as you think on it?" asks Bella.

"I will tell you of solid conclusions when I have any."

"I can use tentative conclusions, too," Bella points out. "They'll at least give me something to go on even if I can't - trust my weight to them."

He shakes his head.

"Nothing you can put in words?" sighs Bella.

He nods.

"Oh well." Bella finished eating a while ago. "After lunch do you want to see our room?" she asks Tony. "I took the bottom bunk, I hope that's okay."

"Sure," says Tony.

"I didn't bring any decorations or anything, or a lot of stuff besides school supplies, but I have an owl so her stuff is in there. Do you guys have familiars?"

"I've got an eagle," says Tony. "Her name's Nike."

"An eagle, ooh," says Bella. "Does she do letters or is she just a pet? My owl's called Euterpe."

"She'll do letters if she feels like it."

"Is that usually?"

"I haven't had her that long."

"Has she ever done a letter or do you just figure she would if she were in the mood since that's what being in the mood means?" laughs Bella.

"I asked."

"...Do magic eagles talk? Euterpe's pretty clever but she can't exactly answer questions."

"She doesn't use words, but she can make herself pretty well understood."

"How? Maybe I need to pay closer attention to Euterpe."

"...I dunno, she just... does stuff," says Tony.

"Maybe she'll show me sometime," says Bella.

Tony shrugs.

"Euterpe makes musical little noises. It's why I named her that. I thought owls just hooted till I was in a shopful of them."

"I wanted a raven," says Sherlock, "because ravens speak, but the shop was out and there hasn't been time to go back."

"That's a pity they were out," says Bella. "Are you going to go back later? Can you mail-order them? I wonder how mail-ordering a mail-delivering bird would work. Maybe you borrow somebody's owl and then later you get two owls back, with a receipt on your new owl's leg. How much do ravens know how to say? Is it like parrots or are they really smart?"

"...The way that they speak is similar to the way that parrots speak."

"That's an awfully complete sentence," observes Bella. "Did I say something insensitive about parrots? Are parrots smart?"

"I have no idea how smart parrots are. I have never spoken to one. Nor to a raven."

Sherlock shrugs.

"I bet there is a book on it in the library." Bella writes down that she should check this out.

"It's weird that everybody's not vegetarian, though," says Tony. "If chickens are as smart as owls."

"I don't think it's that weird. There used to be, like, slavery, with slaves who were actually humans," says Bella. "If chickens are smart as magic owls, then it's bad for people to eat them, but not weird."

Sherlock nods.

"But I don't care about whether I'm weird or not if being weird would make me better," says Bella. "I mean, I might care a little, if people made fun of me, but I think being a vegetarian is probably not strange enough to be a big deal there."

"...No?"

"They are a species of magical creature with humanlike intelligence, significant magical ability, and an obsessive need to act as servants."

"What more do you want to know?"

"How did they get that way? Are there lots? Do they like it or just have to like some people have to wash their hands and stuff?"

"I have never met an elf," says Sherlock.

"They're a lot rarer than humans, but not that rare," says Tony. "A lot of the old pureblood families have a few around, and some big institutions like schools or the wizard rail."

"So there might be some here," says Bella.

"Probably," says Tony. "If food appears in front of you at meals, that's elves."

"...Yeah, it does. I should meet some elves and find out if they're okay and if they need help and if they need help I'll learn how to help them," says Bella, writing this down in her notebook too.

"Good luck," says Tony.

"Thanks! D'you want to help, if I find something that needs doing?"

"...I guess? I mean, I don't really know how. Or even what I'd be helping with."

"Well, me either, that's why I'm going to find out," says Bella.

"Okay. So if you come up with something I actually can help with, and there's no good reason not to, I will."

"Cool!" says Bella. "What about you?" she adds to Sherlock.

"Oh, as Tony, of course."

"Awesome," Bella grins. "Tony, you done eating? I can show you where we live."

"Sure!"

Through the halls they go! "Our hall is called Analisa Hall," Bella says. "Which one is Sherlock in? Maybe he's close by."

"I forget," laughs Tony.

Tony immediately opens the window, but no eagle swoops in to greet her. She shrugs.

"The little info sheet I got with Euterpe says she should be able to find me even if I go someplace and don't tell her," says Bella. "Are eagles the same?"

"Yeah," says Tony. "Nike's kind of in and out - she sleeps on her perch maybe two nights in three. But she always finds me when she wants to."

"When did you get her?"

"Two weeks ago?" she hazards. "Ish?"

"Say, if you live in New York, how come you're going to school here? I got the idea it was geographical. My letters said because of dual residence I could pick between here and Texarcana. I picked here because I didn't have much to go on but it sounded more my speed."

"Yeah, that's a... yeah," says Tony. "It's complicated. But the short answer is my mom's rich and she wants us to go here so we do."

"How come she wanted you to go here?"

"Because... of things," Tony says vaguely. "Look, sorry, it's just that it's not entirely my story."

"Oh. Okay." Bella shuffles the orientation papers that are stuck into her notebook till she finds her schedule. "Do you happen to know what Brooms is, is there going to be some kinda chore rotation?"

"Brooms," Tony says cheerfully, "are for flying."

Bella blinks. "Flying? Really, I get to learn to fly?"

"Really really!"

"Wow. If I knew 'athletics' might mean 'flying' I would've more strongly considered Texarcana," marvels Bella. "Of course with my luck I'm probably just as clumsy in the air as I am on the ground, but maybe not!"

"Only one way to find out," Tony says cheerfully. "Mom won't let me get a broom until I learn how to fly one in school, because she says I'm going to crash for sure and the school's got faster access to healers."

"So they're generally dangerous, or she just knows you and flying?" Bella asks.

"Um... yes," says Tony. "I think 'yes' is the answer to that question."

"Heh. Still. Flying. That's gonna be awesome. ...Are brooms really expensive? Do you think we'll be allowed to use school ones outside classes?"

"Brooms are kinda like... bicycles," says Tony. "Good ones are expensive, crappy ones not so much."

"And crappy ones have one speed and look dorky but they still work?"

"Yep!"

"Awesome. I know what I want for Christmas. Probably not enough notice for it to be a birthday present, since that's in less than two weeks."

"Aww, your birthday's in two weeks?" says Tony. "I should get you a present. I'll get you a broom!"

Bella blinks. "Uh, really?"

"...Sure, why not?"

"A, um, bicycle-sized present is kind of big, isn't it?"

"Oh, they're not as big as bikes," Tony assures her brightly. "Well, some of 'em are a little longer, but they're not as tall, they're pretty much one-dimensional. Mom's eagle owl could carry one no problem."

"I mean - sized as in significance? ...Price?"

"Oh," says Tony. "Right. Yeah. I mentioned we're super rich, right?"

"And that means you're allowed to buy your brand new roommate a flying broomstick for her birthday in a week and a half?"

"Sure," says Tony.

"...Okay, I won't owl my parents about it then," laughs Bella. "When's your birthday?"

"April twelfth!"

"No-o," says Tony. "Wizards do name their kids all kinds of weird shit, though."

"Like what?"

"Lots of Latin and Greek and constellations and stuff like that," she says. "I dunno, I can't think of any examples, you'll see what I mean."

"I did notice some weird names on the hall doors but I thought it might be a coincidence," says Bella. "Clytemnestra and Libra and Prima and stuff."

"Yeah, see?" says Tony.

"I wonder why. Your name's relatively normal."

"Yeah, my mom's family is pretty modern that way, her name's Maria."

"The funny names are an old-fashioned thing, not just a magical person thing?"

"They're a 'magical people are old-fashioned' thing. Kind of."

"Whereabouts besides names?" asks Bella curiously.

"...You've noticed the clothes, right?" she says. "And, like, the architecture? And the cars? Oh, man, the cars."

"I don't pay a lot of attention to people's clothes, but now that you mention it... I didn't know if the architecture was old-fashioned or just elaborate and not compromising for things like air conditioning. I wasn't paying a lot of attention to car models on the Automagicka."

"Magic people's cars tend to be old," says Tony. "And not even, like, vintage. The crappy kind of old. I mean, once in a while you get a classy old 'Vette or something, but most of the time it's sixty-year-old crapmobiles."

"I know almost nothing about cars," shrugs Bella. "My mom has a station wagon and what I know about it is it's white. My dad just drives his police car."

"I know lots about cars," Tony says proudly.

"Are cars interesting? Compared to magic?" asks Bella skeptically.

"...Uh..."

"Well, maybe they are, I wouldn't know," says Bella, "but you have a magic mom, if my mom was magic I don't think I'd know a single other thing, I'd just spend all my time reading about it and asking questions about it."

Tony is now frowning.

"What?"

"...Nothing," she sighs. "I don't know."

"I didn't, like, offend you, did I? I don't want to go around offending people just because I was raised by Muggles and don't know what's okay to say."

"That's the weird thing," says Tony, "you were raised by Muggles but you're talking like a clueless pureblood. I shouldn't have to tell you that Muggles are capable of inventing some cool stuff that magic can't handle as well, that should be something you already know. You've seen a computer before, right?"

"Computers are cool, sure," says Bella. "But magic - magic is just cheating at cool."

"Sure," says Tony. "To you. To me they're both ordinary levels of cool."

"I guess that's fair," agrees Bella. "Maybe I'll get all used to magic and then it'll only be about like computers." Pause. "I think that would be sad, though."

"In no way would that be sad," Tony says definitively. "You just think that because you don't appreciate how cool computers are."

"No, I mean - I don't feel amazed about computers. If I got less amazed about magic, that would be sad. Maybe it would be okay if I got more amazed about computers instead."

"I'm amazed about both of them!" says Tony. "But only a little, 'cause I'm used to them both."

"I want there to be, like, more and more coolness in my life, and more and more feeling amazed about it, not less."

"The trick is, it takes cooler and cooler things to get the feeling, but all you have to do is keep learning how to do cooler stuff all the time."

"Exactly. And now I'm going to magic school and I get to, and, I mean, I could have learned computers, too, but I'd have to spend a long time just getting to be able to understand stuff that isn't new to me as a finished thing even if I didn't already know how to put it together. All magic is new to me except my little poems which they don't even teach here because they're too trivial, so it starts sort of at full speed, you know?"

"Yeah," she says, nodding, "I get what you mean."

"Tomorrow I get to learn to fly," says Bella, squirming with joy.

Tony giggles. "You're really cute!"

"Well, I'm excited! I didn't know people could fly. Why did I have to take a bus here, anyway, why didn't we all go on a - a train of broomsticks or something?"

"...Because that would be hilariously impractical?" she suggests.

"Not so good for mass transit?"

"The latest in flying mass transit is still Thestral-drawn carriages," says Tony. "Those're flying winged horses you can only see if you've seen somebody die."

"Why can you only see them if you've seen somebody die?"

"I dunno," she says, "because they're magic and that's how they work?"

"Is there nobody who figures this stuff out?"

"Sure," says Tony, "but I am not that person."

"Oh. I'm going to have to spend a lot of time in the library, I think. Can thestrals see each other? Can animals see them?"

"I'm pretty sure they can see each other or I have a hard time imagining how you'd get new Thestrals," she says. "No idea about other animals."

"But you have to see a person die to get to see them, not, like, a spider."

"Yeah."

"That is weird. Do people who aren't humans count?"

Tony shrugs helplessly.

"Sorry," laughs Bella. "Just, you're there, and the librarian isn't back from vacation till tomorrow morning so I can't go look it up in the library right now."

"It's cool," she laughs.

Bella writes all of her questions down for later. "It would be only fair if you interrogated me, but I suppose I don't even maybe know anything you really want to know."

"I don't really have that many pressing questions about, like, stuff," Tony admits.

"Well, if you think of any, you can ask me," Bella says.

"Deal."

"I'm going to go to the kitchen and see if there are house-elves in it, as long as I can't go to the library," says Bella. "You want to come?"

"I'm Bella," Bella tells the elves. "I don't need a snack, I just wanted to meet some elves. I've never met any before, you see, and I only found out about you a little while ago." She peers at the human, but doesn't address him.

"I helped with the gingersnaps," says the human, not looking up from his washing but smiling down at the dishes. The elf who's helping him gives an exaggerated sniff of disapproval, then looks up at him with a smile, as though sharing some private joke.

Bella accepts the offered snacks in their little Chinese takeout style boxes. "You just like to cook?" she guesses. She eats a gingersnap. "They're yummy."

"...Feral Orphan?"

"Yep," says the human. "You can call me Feral."

"Is this just another case of magic people naming their kids funny things, because that doesn't sound Greek or old-fashioned."

"Nope," says Feral. "Muggle-born. The name says it all."

"It... really doesn't," Bella says.

"Does too," he snorts, and goes back to his dishes.

"Well, I mean, it's a phrase, it means a thing, but it doesn't explain why you'd be named that."

"'Cause I am one," he says. "No name, no parents, gotta have something to write on the forms."

"And they didn't just call you the wizard equivalent of John Doe? Seriously?"

He grins. "Well, they could've. But Feral Orphan's what they wrote down first, and I like it better."

"You've got funny taste, Feral," laughs Bella.

"You are not the first person to say that!" says Feral, grinning. "Now scram or start helping with dinner, we've got sh—stuff to do around here."

Bella laughs, and she thanks the nearest elf for the snacks, and she scrams.