As Corby settled back into her seat in the compartment she had chosen (which housed a girl with long blond hair and glazed over blue eyes who was reading an upside-down magazine intently), she realized the flaw in her plan. Yes, she'd managed to catch the train, but the uproar she would cause amongst the wizards and witches was already playing in her head. She'd hop from the train, no luggage or clean clothing or magic school supplies whatsoever, and the other children would instantly realize that something was different about her. They'd realize that she was just an average, non-magical child. They'd probably kill her, Corby concluded, to hide their secret. Or even worse, send her home. Her mother would have a conniption. She could barely breath as she thought of it and nearly fell from her chair when the blond girl spoke to her.
"I'm Luna," she said dreamily, her voice low and soft and slightly hypnotic, as though she had just noticed Corby was there. "Luna Lovegood. I'm fourteen. A fourth year." She held up her hand in a lazy, dreamy kind of wave, and Corby noticed that it was twined around a necklace that seemed to be made entirely of bottle caps.
"Corby Winchecombe," Corby managed to squeak out, noticing that Luna was very pretty, in a dreamy kind of way. Even though impending death was probably barreling towards her, she couldn't control her excitement; she was actually talking to a witch! In all her days, Corby had never imagined that she would be this close to anyone who could do magic. She could have reached out and touched Luna's hand if she wanted to. "Fourth year, too," she added, taking note that they were the same age, and that being a fourth year (whatever that was) would probably not be something Luna would question.
Luna was quiet for a very long time, as though she had just drifted out of the conversation involuntarily. Rain started trickling down the windows as the train traveled steadily farther, past rolling green mountains and over bridges, and Corby noticed boys and girls gliding up and down the corridor in black robes, each displaying a different symbol; a red and gold lion, a black and yellow badger, a blue and bronze bird, and a silver and green snake, all of which made absolutely no sense to Corby. A sweet old woman passed by once, pushing a cart loaded down with the strangest candies Corby had ever seen; she hadn't any of the odd money the sweets called for, so Corby went without. Then, suddenly, Luna folded her magazine intently, climbed to her feet and said, "We'll be there soon. We should probably change into our robes."
Luna brushed her fluffy hair out of her face and her large, delicate blue eyes bore into Corby endlessly. They seemed to make Corby want to scream, "I'm a fake! Turn me in! Kill me!", they were so innocent and naive and undeserving of her lies. She didn't know how to say, "I don't have any robes," without giving her secret away. She racked her brain for a moment and simply came up with, "I couldn't afford robes this year."
Great, Corby thought. I'm posing as a poor witch who doesn't even have clothes to wear. What a wonderful way to stay under the radar.
This didn't seem to phase Luna, for she said. "I have a set I could loan you. Daddy always says,'Share with a stranger, or the Nargles will nibble on your toes.'" Corby didn't even bother to ask Luna what a Nargles was or why they were toe-nibblers; she'd need these robes so she didn't get killed, so there was no way she was going to give Luna a reason to change her mind. She honestly tried to resist hugging Luna she was so thankful.
Luna pulled a thin, wooden stick from her pants pocket, and Corby barely stopped herself from gasping as the tip glowed a faint purple and made a low, whirling sound. A worn old trunk from a luggage compartment above them opened as Luna muttered a foreign-sounding word under her breath, and two black robes emblazoned with the small blue and bronze raven floated out and into Luna's outstretched arms. She tucked the stick (which Corby guessed to be a magic wand, even though it looked nothing like the black and white plastic thing the magicians she had seen used) back into her pocket, and turned to hand Corby a set of robes.
"Where did you put your luggage?"
"Oh..." Corby thought quick on her feet; it was one of her better qualities. "My dad's flying it up himself. He doesn't trust me to get it there." The thought of her father frightened her, for he would surely be roaring made when he heard of what she had done, but she
tried not to let her fright play on her face.
Luna didn't seem to have anymore questions (or perhaps she had just forgotten what they were talking about), for she turned around and pulled her robe over her head. Corby did the same, adjusting it so that the raven was on the front. "Are you in Ravenclaw, too?" Luna asked, pointing to the badge. "I can change it if you're not."
"No, it's fine, I'm in Ravenclaw." Corby had absolutely no idea what she was saying, but she thought it would be better to go along with what Luna was saying instead of taking a chance and being wrong.
The train came to a sudden halt as Luna shut her luggage trunk, and made it float alongside her with her wand. The corridor swelled suddenly with students, big and small, all in black robes, as if the train was spitting them up from no where. There was much pushing and shoving, along with the scrapes of trunks bumping into walls, and the crowd made Corby surge forward, separating her from Luna, who, even though she'd been kind of spacey, could have guided Corby to where she was supposed to go.
Corby made her way to the front of the pack with many, "Excuse me!"s and lots of "Sorry, sorry!"s. She stepped off the train into a small station, and hurriedly got out of the way so as not to be trampled. She spun around, looking at the brilliant castle glowing from what had to be a thousand lights in its windows across a deep, black lake.
Some students were going towards little boats in the lake with the hugest man Corby had ever seen, and others were climbing into small, white carriages pulled by just thin air. She had no idea which way to go, and other students were bumping into her, starring at her, and giving her weird looks. She had to go somewhere; she knew that much, and breathed a sigh of relief when she spotted Luna climbing into a carriage. Corby sprinted a few feet and pulled herself in the carriage next to Luna just before it started off down a long, winding path that led to the castle.
Inside the carriage, Corby put her hands to her forehead, and as she was taken up the path, shadows sliding off and on her face from the moonlight, she cursed herself for ever going through that brick wall in the first place.
Corby Winchcombe: All Around Greatest Muggle by GobbledegookMuggle
Chapter Notes: Ha, the Lovable Loony Lovegood.