"Tusa!" 

It had taken a couple weeks to track down this 'Bridget.'  Half the school didn't seem to know her.  Most of the first years Mairead was actually on speaking terms with had no idea who she was talking about.  When it came to the upper years, some seemed to know, some gave Mairead the impression they were pretending not to know.  Or, at least, they didn't give Mairead a straight answer when she asked.  For once, Mairead got the impression it might not actually be just her that was prompting the lack of helpful behavior from her fellow Hogwartians. 

But, finally, finally someone had pointed out the funny looking girl.  The girl's appearance was a distinct advantage.  Once she'd been pointed out, it was hard to mistake her for anyone else. 

Even once identified, though, catching up with the girl hadn't been easy.  As soon as Mairead got close, she'd get distracted by some obnoxious Ravenclaw or a strange looking bug.  By the time she'd finished with whatever important, useless task she'd set herself to, this Bridget was gone. 

She'd seen the girl heading out onto the grounds just after dinner, though, and had hastened to catch up.  Hopping over (or in) the occasional snowmelt puddle had made the pursuit less than efficient but Mairead had managed to get close enough to call out. 

"Tusa!"  She scurried up to the girl.  "Ye've got one!  Yer Brighid.  I mean, Bridget, right?" 

Bridget liked the grounds at night. It was quiet, empty and peaceful. The cold and the chance of accidentally staying out to late and getting in trouble for missing curfew were minor inconveniences. Still, she'd be glad when spring arrived. Thermals were decent enough, but she didn't actually have any real heavy coats. Which was why bluebell flames were now hovering midair in front of her as she relaxed against a tree trunk. Maybe fire and a tree wasn't the best combination, but she had a wand and snow on the ground.

Tusa

Bridget's eyes snapped open only to find she had been joined by a midget. No, wait, that was a first year. Bridget stared at the girl with a bored expression. It was a good sign. She wasn't glaring (yet).

"Yeah, I'm Bridget," she said, "Who the hell are you and what is Tusa supposed to mean?"

Well she defiantly wasn't British, that was for sure. Irish by the sound of that accent. Reminded her a little of Deaglan's. Wasn't there supposed to be one of his type running around Hogwarts with another of his wands? Bridget thought the old man had mentioned it one time, but being the charmer that she was, had never don anything with that bit of information.

Of course it was Bridget.  Mairead would have needed to have her mind checked if she'd managed to get this one wrong.  The hair alone was as valuable as a government-issued picture ID.  That settled, they could move on to important matters.

Completely nonplussed by the somewhat curt response, Mairead shrugged as if the answer should be obvious.  "You."  Now, onto introductions.  It wasn't completely lost on Mairead that first years were a bit low on the social Hogwarts totem pole.  That fact alone could destroy Mairead's reputation sight unseen.  (Or, atleast, Mairead assumed as much.  That would have been and would likely be the case when she was no longer a first year.)

"Mairead ó Fearghail."  Year would be offered on a need-to-know basis.  "I heard, ye got one, too!"  Mairead fished in her pocket and tugged out her wand and held it towards the girl.  It was near impossible to mistake the thing for an Ollivander wand.  Though the engravings gave it some embellishment, it appeared as unrefined as it behaved.  "Ye got a McDonough wand.  At least he said ye had one.  Unless it was another Bridget." 

That, of course, was always a possibility.  "Yer Nilson, though, right?  Bridget Nilson?" 

Bridget arched an eyebrow at the girl's 'but of course' response. Tusa meant you. Right. Because everyone and their hag aunts knew that. Or at least they did where Mairead ó Fearghail- oh year, defiantly Irish- came from.

"Got one what?" Bridget asked, starting to get a little irked. Damn this kid jumped around a lot. No sooner had Bridget spoke the words, then the kid produced a crude looking wand and the name McDonough. Question answered.

"Yeah, I got one," Bridget said, holding up her own wand. Like Mairead's it was unrefined (and still had some of the original bark on it) though it did have some carvings to gussy the thing up or whatever. Her wand was one of the reasons she had taken ancient runes, she figured with carvings right on the thing, learning about runes might help her use the wand that could be as temperamental as her.

"McDonough's got a mouth on him," Bridget said. "He told me there was another kid running around with one of this wands. Probably threw out your name too but I forgot it. You got mine right, though. There's another Nilson running around with one of those wands, but he couldn't cast spells for shit, even if he had the world's top wand, so he doesn't count."

"What is it?" Mairead asked with a eager casual demeanor that made it apparent the girl's possession of a McDonough wand made her, instantly, a comrade.  If not friend-potential.  But, to Mairead, the presence of that wand spoke volumes about the other girl's social and economic status.  Volumes that meant she was closer to Mairead's level than most of her classmates.  "Mine's rowan and púca.  It was a little ill-tempered at first but I love it." 

"Oh.  What year's he in?  The other Nilson?"  Deaglan hadn't mentioned this other Nilson - his lackluster wand skills might have been the primary reason. 

"I tried to get me wand at Ollivander's since, ye know, they say they're the best.  But, I got banned from it because I punched too many purebloods.  But, I'm glad I did.  I don't think I could have afforded one of them and this one's better." 

They'd never actually gotten as far as discussing the cost of the wands at Ollivander's.  In both cases, she'd gotten thrown out long before it was even her turn to try the wands. out.  But, it had been worth it.  She only wished she'd had the guts to punch the adult there, too. 

"What are ye up to?  Where ye going?" 

Damn this kid was eager. Maybe it had to do with the whole midget thing. Cupcake was the most eager owl she'd ever seen, and also the smallest.

"Hawthorn and kelpie mane," Bridget finally said, holding it out so sh could see (but not touch). "Mine likes keeping things from me, but we're getting hang out each other. Or at least accepting the fact we need each other to make so much as a spark."

That was a little annoying to the girl who prided herself for being able to stand on her own to feet. Made early wand practices into lots of bangs and accidental fire-starting. At least she was still better than her brother. Not at first, but once she'd gotten used to her wand it was clear who had gotten all the talent in the family and who had gotten the social skills.

"He's a seventh year. Name's Lewis. Hufflepuff like me," Bridget said. "It's a miracle he passed any O.W.L.s at all- and not a single one in wandwork. But neither of us even went to Ollivanders. Too pricey. We traded Deaglan for our wands. Mine at least seems to work just fine."

This kid really was weirdly eager to stick around. Bridget hadn't got that since...well Cupcake this morning at breakfast, but from another human being not so much.

"What's it look like I'm doing?" she said. "Getting some fresh air. It's too stuffy in the castle."

She paused and considered the midget again. "Your one of them Traveler types aren't you? Like Deaglan"

"Still?"  Mairead's nose wrinkled as she regarded the hawthorn wand before shrugging her shoulders slightly.  The girl standing opposite her had to be a fourth year, at least.  Maybe even fifth.  If Bridget's wand was still acting up after four or five years, was Mairead's going to be equally as stubborn?  Though, considering the core...

"Kind of makes sense, don't it?  Kelpies are nasty, bloody tricksters, aren't they?  They live to trick humans, after all."  She had no idea of wands worked that way but it was how the whole business made sense to her.  "Have ye tried it under water?"  Could wands be submerged?  If the creature preferred the water, did that mean the wand preferred it, too? 

Mairead shrugged, finding little reason to comment on this Lewis' O.W.Ls or lack thereof.  Her own grades were hardly anything to write home about - other than flying.  It was a shame they couldn't continue that class throughout their seven years.  "We didn't know how much an Ollivander wand costed and me mentor witch was helping me buy one.  She used to teach here but she doesn't anymore." 

"Oh.  Cool."  Just getting fresh air, apparently, sounded cool to the young Gryffindor.  "Can I come with?" 

The midget grinned smugly and nodded her head, pleased that Bridget had gathered as much, even if she hadn't remembered Mairead's name.  "I am.  There are not a lot of us, apparently.  Ones that can do magic and everything.  I'm a mudblood so me parents are muggles.  I had an aunt that said she could read fortunes but I don't think she was a witch.  I think she just got creative when she was plastered."

Bridget shrugged at the midget's confusion. "It does what it needs to, it's more like I can tell it's holding back on me for the more advanced stuff, that's what I got from it after I started taking runes anyway," she said, glancing down at the rune-encrusted shaft of her wand. Yeah, there was still much more work to be done when it came to getting the full use from the thing. But for now, it did a decent job. She just wanted more than decent.

"It works okay underwater, I think it'll do better after I master nonverbals, but right now it's okay," Bridget said. She wasn't about to compliment the midget, but she was (slightly) impressed she had come up with the hypothesis on Kelpie cores. Bridget was no wandmaker, but their did seem a connection among wizards and the cores of their wands. The midget had a brain. Point for her.

Though apparently not enough to realize that Bridget hadn't and wasn't about to move from her seat. "You can sit down. I was just going to relax in front of a mini bonfire for a bit, unless you had a better idea."

Well if they were going to chat, might as well be something mildly interesting. Bridget didn't loathe Daeglan entirely, and was kind of intrigued about the whole concept of travelling people.

"That explains why I hardly ever hear of you lot," Bridget said. "I'm a rare breed, too. Pureblood, but we don't have anything even worth getting a Gringotts vault. My family got left out of one too many wills and long story short, a hag ended up being better suited to house my brother and me. She never gets creative or plastered. More's the pity."

"Oh," Mairead said, blankly, with a slight shrug.  Her knowledge of wandlore was restricted to what little tidbits she'd picked up from Deaglan over the winter break and the assumptions she made from what she knew of Irish legends and folklore.  What ancient runes were and how they could effect a wand's performance was way over her head.  But, she wasn't about to admit that.  "Cool."  That would have to do. 

"Oh?"  Mairead was, admittedly, less impressed that she had made a plausible guess about the wand's performance underwater and was more curious about the circumstances to the older student making this discovery.  "Do ye swim with yer wand or something?  I heard there's monsters in the lake.  I don't think that's true, though.  Rene wasn't eaten when I dumped- when she fell into the lake."  She hadn't even been nibbled.  Which was a shame.  Big bite-mark scars on the Ravenclaw's bicep could go a long way to making the know-it-all almost interesting. 

Entirely unperturbed by the lack of an offered seat, Mairead shrugged her coat off and plopped down on the ground on top of it.  "Yer gonna build a fire?" she asked, eagerly.  "Too bad we don't got any apples."  Had she known the plan ahead of time, she would have made sure to grab some. 

Mairead shrugged and shook her head.  "Deaglan explained it to me.  Something about how we're not, ye know, supposed to be magical.  Like, there aren't magical Traveller families or clans or nothin'.  We only really crop up if some wizard or witch runs off with a Gypsy and then stays with Travelling family or something like that.  And people don't run off with Gypsies like they used to, ye know.  It's not like in the old days anymore."  There were and could be no pureblood Pavee witches and wizards.  Ironically, in the same token, the only way a Pavee could have magical ability was if magical, non-Pavee blood joined the family.  Pavee wizards could neither be pureblood or have a purely Traveller heritage - the Pavees were just less concerned with things like blood status.

"Yer pureblood?" Mairead asked, making no attempts to hide her surprise and suspicion.  "Ye don't act like one."  So far, during the short course of Mairead's education, purebloods hadn't earned that much in the way of good reputations.  They were far too prone to being snide and arrogant.  Some could be downright cruel.  But, though she might be a little rough around the edges (and Mairead could hardly point fingers about that), Meredith hadn't been any of those things. 

"Well," she said with a shrug.  "Ye could have turned out like the other purebloods.  I'd rather be happy and free to be who I want to be then some rich arrogant snob."  Such was the motto of her life.  Be it those rich school girls that made fun of her back home or the rich purebloods here that did the same.  Mairead simply wanted as little to do with them as possible. 

"Sometimes," Bridget said with a shrug when asked about swimming. "Not for another few months. I'm not a wuss about a little cold, but I don't exactly fancy getting stuck on the wrong side of a five-inch sheet of ice. It's pretty boring in there, really. Anything interesting needs some serious swim skills and magical breath boosts. Just throwing someone in ain't gonna no much good unless you shove 'em down twenty feet or so. Prefer the forest myself."

Bridget arched an eyebrow when the midget just sat down next to her. The new batch of midgets were rather bold, weren't they?

Bridget waved her wand cast a simple summoning charm to get some twigs. Another flick and incantation and the branches were lit with bluebell flames.

"I don't like apples, anyway," Bridget said. "Too sugary. Plain fires just fine the way it is."

The fifth year listened with only mild interest as the midget (like Bridget cared if she already had the kid's real name). went on about gypsies and magical bloodlines. Well that explained why there wasn't many of them. Nature apparently wanted to keep the purebloods on the wealthy side of soci-economics. Gypsies weren't exactly known for their wealth, were they? And then you had the pureblooded Nilsons. Mother nature needed do do a freaking better job at pruning.

"Yeah, I'm a pureblood," Bridget said, shrugging. "What, just because I didn't call you mudblood and beat you away with a disdainful hiss you assumed I wasn't? I do use the word mudblood, by the way. If that bothers you or whatever, probably should leave now.

"And you don't have to be rich to be arrogant or a snob," she told the midget. "There ain't a lot of the church mice poor purebloods, but some of them, can be nastier than the rich ones. They don't have anything to make them special or important except their bloodlines, so they'll just shove it in your face all day long."

"So I noticed."  Mairead's response was thick with disappointment.  "I was hopin' Eirene's toes would at least get a little nibbled.  A slime from a tentacle.  Something."  But, no.  All the lake did was swallow a shoe.  "And, there wasn't time to shove her down or anything.  The boats were kind of going on their own." 

The young Gryffindor shrugged and nodded in agreement.  She preferred forest to the lake but, really, she wasn't picky.  "I just like being out.  The castle gets stuffy."  She glanced over her shoulder in the direction of the massive-spired castle before shrugging slightly.  Of course, she'd never outright admit to being homesick but, with a slight shrug she added: "never been in the same place this long." 

With pursed lips, Mairead watched as the older girl effortlessly gathered the wood and started the fire.  It almost seemed like cheating but Mairead wasn't going to voice that. 

But, as to not liking apples... "Too sugary?"  Candied apples, maybe.  Definitely those tangy sour apple rings.  But, regular, fruit, keep the doctor away apples?  This girl was weird and Mairead's nose, shifted to the side, articulated just that.  Weird in a tolerable way, though. 

"Yeah," Mairead answered simply.  She had, in fact, assumed just that.  All except for the one confusing detail.  "Hiss?  Why would ye hiss?  Do purebloods have lisps?" 

Mairead shrugged and shoved a stick into the fire she found lying nearby.  "I don't care."  Mairead said with a shrug when warned against Bridget's willingness to use the term mudblood.  "It don't bother me.  I'm proud to be a mudblood."   

"All the ones I've met have been awful," Mairead admitted, prodding the fire with a stick.  "But, rich non-magical stones are almost as bad.  This one woman I met at the wand shop was horrible - just horrible.  I wanted to punch her."