Wonder By Wonder (Hyacinth/Jory)

[Jory Addison]

By the time they got to the train, it was almost time for it to depart, and there was little time for explanations of the magical barrier and how the train had been acquired. "Come on," Jory said, helping Hyacinth heave the trunk onto the train. "It shouldn't be hard to find a compartment. At the beginning of school it's a nightmare, though."

[Hyacinth Duprel]

"There are not many magic people, are there?" Hyacinth asked, maneuvering his trunk down a corridor. The train was large, but it seemed that everything in the magical world was large and showy, and there had really been few people walking around Diagon Alley. He had given up on trying to predict anything at this point, and had fallen back on asking Jory questions instead.

[Jory Addison]

"Not compared to muggles," Jory said, peeking into compartments. "At the beginning of the school year, though, this train is packed full. Hogwarts is the best wizarding school in the UK." He found one that was completely empty and slipped into it. "Here, let me..." He brought out his wand once inside to put the trunk in the overhead compartment, figuring that safer than trying to pull it over their heads.

[Hyacinth Duprel]

Hyacinth watched open-mouthed as his heavy trunk hovered as though weightless, then settled itself in the bin. "I can do these things?" he asked. "It is okay if I do magic?" There were very few things that he could make happen which weren't accidents, and even those weren't guaranteed to work.

[Jory Addison]

"Yes," Jory said carefully, folding his legs beneath him to sit on one side of the compartment. "I mean, you need to be careful right now because sometimes things can go wrong if you haven't been trained. Is there stuff you can control now?" Typically first years were unable to control their magic, but just the fact that Hyacinth was older was enough to make it likely he could control more than most untrained wizards.

[Hyacinth Duprel]

"If I try very hard," Hyacinth said, "I can change my hair color." He sat down beside Jory and pulled the kitten out of his pocket, setting it on the seat between them to move around. He was obviously thinking about whether or not to say more, and his hand gravitated to the cross hanging against his shirt. "I can do many things," he said at last, "but I try very much not to." It made confession difficult when every little thing frightened the priest as much as it frightened him.

[Jory Addison]

"I've heard it's scary for muggleborns, because all of the sudden they're just doing things. I mean, I grew up around it, my mum would set the dishes to washing with her wand while she finished cooking or whatever. But you know, now you'll be around hundreds, almost a thousand most of the time, students that can do magic, too, not counting the professors," Jory said.

[Hyacinth Duprel]

"Yes, scary," Hyacinth said. "The priest, and my parents, and others believe that I am possessed by a demon. I am not sure, and a teacher from my school said that it is not true. He said that it is good magic and Hogwarts will teach me to control the magic so that when I go home, strange things will not happen." Perhaps then he could begin to stand on his own as so many of his older siblings had.

[Jory Addison]

"Yeah, you're not possessed," Jory said. "That's one of the reasons we hide, because muggles don't understand. Like I said, Hogwarts is the best school, you'll learn everything you need to know. How did your teacher know?" There were a number of ways a muggle teacher could know, from being a squib to being related to someone with magic.

[Hyacinth Duprel]

"He said that his parents had good magic," Hyacinth said. "He does not have magic, but he knew much about it. He said that Hogwarts was a good school. I should have gone to the school in France, but my parents knew the name and thought it was a bad school." He made a sound of mild frustration, and his hair began to shift back toward red. "It is difficult speaking these things in English. I hope that I make sense."

[Jory Addison]

"Yeah, you're doing fine. The only French school I know of is Beaubatons, they must not send someone out to muggle families like Hogwarts does. Your teacher must have been a squib, then. A squib is someone born to magic parents but they don't have magic themselves, kind if like how you were born with magic to muggle parents. My little brother is a squib, he goes to a muggle school and everything," Jory said.

[Hyacinth Duprel]

"How many brothers and sisters do you have?" Hyacinth asked. He knew that not all families were as large as his own, but his family had many blessings to counteract what they had for so long believed was his weakness.

Hyacinth looked down at his kitten, and after a moment pulled off his hoodie, laying it haphazardly across his lap to dangle one of the pull-strings. Beneath was a sleeveless sweater from an old school uniform and a white button-down shirt which was thin from repeated washings and bleachings. His mother had insisted that he dress nicely for his new school, and, if not for a last-minute accident with his youngest sister, he'd have been wearing pressed slacks as well.

[Jory Addison]

"Just one, his name's Anthony and he's ten," Jory said. "He wants to come to Hogwarts with me so bad, I wish he had magic." It was a shame sometimes that so many muggleborns were given the gift and people like his little brother didn't have it. "Um, how many do you have?"

[Hyacinth Duprel]

"Eight," Hyacinth answered, then shook his head. "No, it is nine now, with Odile." He did some quick counting in his mind, his lips moving slightly as he did so. "There is six boys with me, and four girls. Ten together." Peter had been gone so long that he sometimes forgot to count him. "Well, five girls with my oldest brother's wife."

[Jory Addison]

Jory's eyes widened. "Wow, that's a lot of people in a house," he said. "So do you guys have like a huge place?" He couldn't imagine having that many people in his family, he barely kept up with that family members even outside his immediate family. Hyacinth came from a very interesting background.