Room 308, Wednesday night

[smartestone]

To be completely honest, Hermione didn't really want to come back to Fandom. She didn't really say that while she was staying at Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, but when everyone else went back to Hogwarts, she really wanted to be going back with them. She of course had the invitation to stay at Grimmauld Place until it was time for school, but she declined in order to return to America and subsequently decided that wizarding travel was much easier than the Muggle way.

At least 308 is familiar, and Hermione wants to just curl up into bed with a book, but she knows to unpack first. So she sets Crookshanks down for him to readjust to his surroundings, and starts on the necessary boring stuff before getting to the relaxing.


[Door's open. I'm around but should be doing what Hermione is right now, so might sometimes be slow.]

Comments

[smartestone]

"I know," she says with a nod. "Where did you come in from?"

[the_merriest]

"I'm from Spira!" Rikku bounces while she talks. "We weren't sure if Pops' airship could go like that, across different worlds and all, but hey, you'll never know if you don't try, right?"

She stops suddenly. "Hope he doesn't get lost on the way back."

Rikku shakes herself and drops her bag on the unoccupied bed. "How about you? Are you new here, too?"

[smartestone]

"No, I've been here since the summer session," she says. "Spira... So you're from a different planet?" Not too weird, since her last roommate had spent so much time in space, but it's still interesting.

[the_merriest]

"Yup!" Rikku plops down onto the bed but keeps fidgeting. "I didn't know there were places like this out here. Different planets, you know? I only met somebody from a different world once, and that was kind of ..." She trails off, not entirely sure how to explain Tidus's Zanarkand. "Not the same thing."

She hugs her knees to her chest, wondering if Yuna's okay. Maybe I shouldn't have come.

She clears her throat and nods to the other girl. "So ... what's it like here? Are the people nice? Did you learn useful stuff?"

[smartestone]

Hermione gives a nod. "The people have been very nice, most of them," she says. "And the classes are for the most part fantastic. They aren't the kind of courses you would find in most schools, but they have a lot of useful things. They taught us how to hunt ghosts last semester and I got to read a lot of good literature." She really likes that last part.

[the_merriest]

"Oooh, they have Ghosts here?" She shivers. She doesn't remember if Ghosts or Wraiths were more powerful, but either way, those things were definitely scary to go up against. Way creepy, too.

"I'm not good with literature," she says. "Most of them time I get jealous. Why can't I be having adventures, instead of reading about other people having them? Might as well get out there and make something happen, you know?"

She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. It falls back out of place as soon as she starts talking. "I'm really hoping someone here can teach me about machina."

[smartestone]

"Machina," she repeats. "What does that mean where you come from?"

[the_merriest]

Rikku looks up, startled. They have to have machina here, right? What if she came all this way and they didn't?

"Machina is, well." She bites her lip. "They're things that you build, with bits and gears, and then they go and do things on their own. Or not just do things, but they can work and run if you give them power. Like Pops' airship, or little ones that can fix other ones when they break, or ..."

She looks up. "Making things work without magic."

[smartestone]

"It seems like just about everything is a machine here," she assures her. "...Do you usually have things that work with magic?"

[the_merriest]

Machines. Rikku takes note of the new word, filing it away.

"Lots of them? Really?" She smiles, excited, then considers the other girl's question. "Not really with magic, I guess. It's more like, if you can't do it magically or just by yourself, then Yevon said you shouldn't do it at all. So most people didn't." She shrugs.

"Do they have ... machines where you're from?"

[smartestone]

"I'm from here," she says. "Well, mostly. I'm from nine years ago, technically, but this planet. But I used to go to school someplace where electronic machines didn't work and everything had to be done the old-fashioned way or by magic."

[the_merriest]

"You're from the past?" Rikku bounces a bit. "Does that mean you can look things up now and then go back and tell people their futures? But wait, what if they did something different instead? Wouldn't that change things, and then if it did, would that ..."

Ow. Her head starts to throb.

"How do you get there? And back?" Much safer question.

[smartestone]

Hermione almost laughs, because she's had to avoid thinking about that.

"Once I leave Fandom, I seem to be in my own time," she answers. "When I first left England, it was September. When I first arrived here, it was May nine years later. I haven't figured it out yet, but it's on my list."

[the_merriest]

"Whoa." Rikku stares at her roommate for a second. "This place is kinda ... weird, isn't it?"

She crosses her legs under her. "You've got a list? Like, a real one?"

[smartestone]

"I do," she says, piling a couple pieces of clothing on her bed. "It's only in my head, but I still need to find out about the time differences and that whole thing about whether I can tell people in the past what happens later will bend the time-space continuum and why people just can't see that the gremlins aren't so bad."