”Are you sure you have everything you need?”

“Yes mom, I’m sure.”

Almira is at King’s Cross Station with her mother, waiting to board the Hogwarts Express as her mother once again asks to check if Almira has remembered everything.

“Really mom, that was the 5^th time you asked if I packed everything.”

She couldn’t help but laugh at how worried her mother seemed to be on if Almira forgot to bring enough toothpaste to last the whole schoolyear.

“I know sweetie, it’s just… I can’t help but be worried about you. You’ve never been away from home for such a long span of time.”

“Don’t worry mom. I’ll make sure to remember to send you a letter every weekend. And if I do need anything, I can have Monthy here bring it for to me.”

Almira scratches the chin of the grey Eastern screech-owl perched on her shoulder. Yes, it was Almira’s owl.

When Almira and her mother came home from their shopping trip, they realized that, with meeting Hermione and her parents, they had completely forgotten to buy Almira her owl. As there really was no reason to hurry, with them having 10 months of time to go back and buy it, it was only a month later that they went back to Diagon Alley, to both buy Almira’s owl and to sell her mother’s latest batch of potions.

It really wasn’t hard to choose which owl to pick, as when they got to Eeylops Owls Emporium, almost all the owls in the shop fell silent and shivered in their cages. Only Monthy was brave, or stupid, enough to make some noises to attract Almira’s attention.

“Mom, I really have to go now if I want to get a seat in the train.”

“Fine. Remember to take care of yourself in there, and stay away from Slytherins, nothing good ever comes from association with them. And you have to come back for Christmas holidays.”

“I will mom.”

Almira says as she hugs her mother one last time before stepping onto the train, Monthy still perched on her shoulder and carrying her suitcase with her.

It doesn’t take long for her to find a totally empty cabin and decides that it’s as good as any. She puts her stuff under the seat next to the window and sits down.

Five minutes after Almira had sat down, the door to the cabin opens, and a girl the same age as her stands in the doorway.

“Hi, are these seats free?”

“Yeah, go ahead.”

Almira answers the girl, and the latter steps inside. The girl has blue eyes, freckles on her face and her long red hair comes down her back in a plait. She sits down on the seat opposite to Almira and puts her luggage under her seat.

“My name’s Susan Bones, what’s yours?”

The girl introduces herself.

“Mine’s Almira Marlson, but you can call me Mira.”

Almira happily returns the greeting.

 “Mira, are you also a first-year?”

“Yeah, you too?”

“Me too!”

Both of the girls smile as they hear that they are on the same year.

“Which house do you want to be put in to?”

“Hufflepuff!”

Almira yells excitedly her answer to Susan’s question.

“Why Hufflepuff?”

Susan is perplexed at hearing Almira’s answer as almost everyone wants to be either in Gryffindor of Slytherin.

“Well, because, it sounds so funny. I mean there’s all these house-names that sound so serious like Gryffindor, Slytherin and Ravenclaw, and then there’s Hufflepuff! I mean, doesn’t it sound funny? Hufflepuff!”

Even Susan can’t help but giggle as she listens to Almira’s explanation on her reason for choosing her favorite house.

“Now that you mentioned, it does sound funny.”

“So, what house do you want to be in?”

This time it’s Almira’s turn to ask the same question that Susan asked from her.

“I wanted to be in Gryffindor, but now Hufflepuff sounds way more fun.”

“I know right! It would be super fun if both of us got put into Hufflepuff.”

The girls continue to talk about what they hope their year will be like and what all the houses are like. Susan tells Almira all these things her aunt told her about Hogwarts and Almira also tells Susan what her mother told her. When Susan let it slip that almost all of her family died 10 years prior, only leaving her and her aunt, Almira’s reaction was:

“We are the same! I mean not the same, but I also only have my mother.”

Susan was visibly relieved at Almira’s reaction as it was not the same consolations and pitying looks that she usually was subjected to when people heard that she only had her aunt left, as she never felt bad about the fact cause she never even knew her dead relatives. After that they continued to talk about all the things in their life, Almira’s life with her mom and Susan’s life with her aunt. There however were times when Susan wasn’t quite on the same page of understanding as Almira.

“What do you mean by chasing animals in the forest? And how do you even chase a squirrel from tree to tree?”

Susan really couldn’t understand Almira’s answer to her asking what Almira liked to do in her free time.

“You climb into the tree the squirrel is in and when it jumps to another tree, you jump after it. It's super fun!  Though you have to be careful on choosing what branch you jump onto. It hurts when you fall because the branch snapped under you.”

Almira gives a quite a self-explanatory answer, as if it’s perfectly normal for a 11 year-old to jump from tree to tree while chasing a squirrel. Just as Susan is about to ask for deeper explanation, they hear an announcement sounding throughout the whole train.

“5 minutes until Hogsmeade Station! All the first-year students are asked put on their uniforms and to leave their luggage on the train!”