Ricci’s oufit

Another year finished at Hogwarts. Ricci’s fifth year had been a bit hectic, with trying to make all of her classes and making good marks on her OWLs, all the while trying to balance her social life on top of that. She was very worried about some of her grades, because of her lack of excessive studying. She had constantly replayed each exam period in her head, trying to pick out which questions she answered right, and which she answered wrong and trying to determine the marks she would receive.  All of this was stressing her out. Thank goodness for the Gryffindor girls, though; the slumber party held last night had cheered her up immensely, even if she did stay up late, all the while knowing that she had to wake up early and throw all of her clothes, shoes, jewelry, and other worldly possessions messily into her trunk quite hurriedly the next morning.

The lucky thing about arriving on the train early was finding an empty compartment. Rich slid the door opened and shut it quickly, happy to have a compartment to herself. She knew, of course, there was a likelihood that many students would eventually need spots on the train, and her cart would be full, but for now, she just wanted to enjoy the quietness of it all. She let Price out of his carrier, and watched him stretch languidly on the floor of the compartment and saunter over to the windowsill. The girl followed him, taking a seat next to her companion, petting his small head lightly. Rich had received him as a kitten as a gift before her first year at Hogwarts. It had been like this for all of the de Luca children who had entered Hogwarts; Senna had received a Persian cat and Lancia a barn owl. Once Cappi received his letter of acceptance, she was quite sure that her younger brother would want a toad. He was the kind of child that would want something interesting and not helpful or cute at all.

Looking out of the rectangular window, she waited for the train to start moving, glancing at the talkative and weeping students that passed. She wished they would hurry. The faster the students boarded the great scarlet train, the faster Ricci would be in London, and from there, to Italy. Her parents, along with Cappi, were already at her grandparents’ villa in the countryside of Siena. Although she was ready to move along home, she would miss Hogwarts. It had that magical quality that no other place on Earth possessed. It was indeed a home away from home; but right now, she wanted to be at home in Italy.

Rich yawned a bit, trying to smooth down her messy hair. She hadn’t had much time to finish this morning, because of the hustle and bustle of the last day. Kicking her pointed flats from her feet, she tucked them underneath her bottom and rested her arms on the windowsill by her cat, leaning her head on them. The Italian was so focused on the bead of dew racing its companion down the window that she didn’t even hear the compartment door slide open.