Naomi Foley
Island 278 Lough Corrib
County Galway, Ireland

Tracy Jones
The Maman Brigitte, Blind Lagoon (Bayou Sauvage)
New Orleans, LA
USA

• My Head of House has informed me that you are interested in writing to multiple pen pals for whatever reason, so he recommended that I write to you for the summer before the Tetra-Wizard Tournament and before my fourth year at Hogwarts. I'm sure we both agree that it's important to learn about other cultures as a social necessity, so I'm interested in learning about yours, because Europe is extremely boring in comparison to most anything. I'm also in Egypt for a month during a school trip so it's best not to bother with European nonsense right now anyway, but my parents will speedily forward me letters from home while I'm on this trip.
  
  So questions: Why do you live in a lagoon? Is it a lagoon or is it a swamp? Are there mermaids? What do you do for fun? What courses do you take at Salem? Is New York as boring as the London? What year are you in? I hear New Orleans has plenty of festivities, do you go to any? If not, is there something wrong with you?

Tracy Jones
The Maman Brigitte, Blind Lagoon (Bayou Sauvage)
New Orleans, LA
USA

Naomi Foley
Island 278 Lough Corrib
County Galway, Ireland

• Ha ha ha, so many questions! But I did ask for it, didn’t I? “Give me another,” I told them, and the teachers gave me a funny look but did anyway. . . but whatever! It’s more fun this way. Hopefully it’ll be for you, too.
  
  To answer your first question, I live in a lagoon because my nanna does and she keeps her boat in this one. She’s swampfolk, really one of the old old families, so the lagoon’s been home to her and her family for years. If my dad hadn’t married my ma, I would’ve grown up here all my life.
  
  The difference between a lagoon and a swamp is that a lagoon is an isolated part of the swamp, which itself is the whole of the area. And we have mermaids here, of course! New Orleans is pretty much the land of lagoons. There’s a tribe that passes by ours, actually—Nanna deals with them sometimes, for ingredients she can’t get for herself anymore and won’t let me get for her.
  
  For fun I cook, play sports, and. . . just hang out LOL. I play Quodpot (I’m captain of my Hall’s Quodpot team) and American football, though I’m pretty good at basketball, too. I guess you can say I’m a sports geek, heh. My friend Will does.
  
  We blend magical classes with, well, non-magical ones, so we’ve got lots of classes here at Salem. I took Herbology, Potions, Charms, Magizoology, Transmutation, Defense, Apparition, Astronomy, Earth Magic and Home Economics this year, and might drop Earth Magic and Astronomy next year (my seventh year, which we call Senior year over here). Home Ec is my favorite, though. : )
  
  New York City, you mean? Ha, I shouldn’t think so! The city’s so big that it’s divided into five boroughs and each one is like its own separate city. All of them have really great restaurants and nice parks, and movies, and malls, and landmarks—some historical, some cultural—and New Orleans is just like that, in a way. Otherwise, it’s really different compared to all the boroughs.
  
  It’s pretty special, New Orleans. It’s like this one, grand city stuck in time; a lot of the old buildings from back then are still up and running, and a lot of the old festivals are still held, like Mardi Gras. Which, I’m guessing, the only thing people’ll think is wrong with you is that you’re boring for not wanting to go.
  
  …Man, I haven’t celebrated Mardi Gras in a long time; it falls on a school day (February 21, “Fat Tuesday”) and I didn’t learned how to Apparate until this year. Next year, though, is gonna be a different story!
  
  And you? Year and Hall or whatever? What courses do you take at Hogwarts? What are your teachers like? I hear you guys play Quidditch instead of Quodpot. Is that all you guys play? And what kind of festivities do you celelbrate over there? Or have fun?
  
  
  P.S.- Egypt? Lucky! We rarely have trips that take us out of the country, much less the continent; the last major trip we had was to Laevenstrome’s Fundunct of Sorcery. : / What's it like? Are you still there?

Naomi Foley
Island 278 Lough Corrib
County Galway, Ireland

Tracy Jones
The Maman Brigitte, Blind Lagoon (Bayou Sauvage)
New Orleans, LA
USA

• Yes, you're just pretty weird.
  
  Ah, most of my family in the Caribbean live in a swamp, but they carry out most of their interactions in lagoons, even for writing, sending, and receiving letters. I have very distant cousins in Louisiana. I think they are called the Inkwoods or Zabinis? There are some Inkwoods here at Hogwarts, but I do not know them very well.
  
  Trusting wandering strangers doesn't sound healthy, unless your nanna knows them well then I suppose that's okay.
  
  For my mother can't get on her own, she usually gets from other parts of our family. Almost everyone in the family makes up for something another member may lack. My Uncle Bud once acquired Peruvian Viperteeth for one of my father's projects, and once brought down a Raider for my mother. I don't know if you get those in Louisiana, but they own the skies in the Caribbean.
  
  Home Economics? What on earth is that? Shouldn't you learn stuff you do at home at home?
  
  I don't know any normal wizarding family who doesn't have home chores, or any purebloods who don't at least have some weird household hobby. I have chores like cooking, cleaning, caring for pets, gardening, and anything else my parents want to make me do. They tell me it builds character and teaches life skills. Getting grades for something you should be learning at home seems silly.
  
  I'm also a fourth year Slytherin, I'm turning fourteen in August, and our teachers are very interesting. I think some try to kill us on purpose while others almost manage it on accident.
  
  Yes, we play Quidditch. It's the school sport and is a very popular national sport as well. My brother is the keeper for the Falmouth Falcons, if you want to bother with finding anything out about that. However, here at Hogwarts we sometimes make clubs or get together to play some other games. Someone organized a paintball game for the end of my 3rd year.
  
  Officially, Hogwarts celebrates Winter, Fall, and Spring holidays like Christmas, Halloween, and Eater. Although, we're a multi-faith school, so everyone does their own thing. My mother and father take me and my siblings to Jamaica to celebrate Winter, Summer, and Spring festivals, but I always miss the fall ones. Halloween is always fun in the jungle.
  
  I take Ancient Runes, Arithmancy, Astronomy, Charms, Care of Magical Creatures, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Divination, Herbology, History of Magic, Potions, Transfiguration, and whatever else my mother and father teaches me outside of schoolwork. 
  
  A city within a city still sounds too busy and too different from being around animal and plants that are suppose to be there instead of malls or cities or anything.
  
  Egypt is warm and has beaches, so I am happy. I surfed with my friends and my dad's falcon for most of the day today and we fell off a lot. Except the bird, because he cheats. Yes, I am still in Egypt.
  
  So there is something wrong with you? Apparating shouldn't stop you from going to festivals, nor should Fat Tuesdays, nor should school--they should only slow you down. You should get a broom or hippogriff next time and to go to Mardi Gras anyway.
  
  P.S - Do you talk this much in person?
   

Tracy Jones
The Maman Brigitte, Blind Lagoon (Bayou Sauvage)
New Orleans, LA
USA

Naomi Foley
Island 278 Lough Corrib
County Galway, Ireland

• You’ve got family in Louisiana? Sweet! Come to think of it, I think my ma or my nanna might’ve mentioned the name Inkwood before—probably about business, if they’re swamp folk, too. One or both of them; Ma used to do a fair amount of business with the other families and queens before she left the bayou.
  
  Nanna, on the other hand, knows everyone and they know her, so I’m pretty safe! And, yeah, she seems to have her own network for getting the things she needs, like lobalug sacs and shrake spines and other stuff I probably shouldn’t mention on paper, heh. For the most part, though, her network seems to be mostly made up of similar ladies from her knitting circle who she has a rum and tonic with and a lot of grandsons who owe her favors.
  
  Raiders, huh? Wow! We don’t get them here—the land’s not right, see? Most of the ground that aren’t inhabited are too marshy—unstable. And damp. All we’ve got are swamp dragons. They’re not real dragons—at least, not proper flying, fire-breathing ones, but they’ve got these wings, so. . . : P
  
  Home Economics? Home Economics? It’s- it’s HOME ECONOMICS. . . which is mainly cooking, and I’m guessing you guys don’t do that at Hogwarts? Eeesh- I love cooking. I could learn it at home, yeah, but the thing is I aready did. I’m pretty good at it, actually, even if I do say so myself, ha ha. And if I get credit for it then so be it!
  
  My Nanna says the same thing about chores and ‘character building,’ too, so she can’t be completely wrong? I guess it builds on a principle for hard work maybe, or order, or cleanliness, or. . .
  
  . . .Yeah, I’m still kind of making up my mind about this. There’s entirely too much of the boat to clean, in my opinion. =/
  
  Ha ha! Man, that sounds exciting—and dangerous, of course, but exciting. Sucks for you—ours don’t (even if it does feel like it sometimes, most of them are pretty cool but there’s always those one or two). Actually, what most of us seem to worry most about is our Headmaster’s pet gator, Boris who’s a gir- no wai- actually is- never mind, it’s pretty hard to tell (though I’m not, no way. C:) I lot of people blame it for some of the stuff that happens around here, like missing homework and pets. Personally I think that at least half of them aren’t true, but you never know with lizards, rights? Even if they are stuffed.
  
  Here we’re pretty big on sports, so aside from Quodpot we’ve got others—like equestrian sports (with winged horses, of course) and broom racing, and a wide range of Muggle sports like baseballs and American football. No paintball, though. Definitely an idea to consider.
  
  We celebrate all of those, but some other things, too. We’ve got Christmas and Halloween balls, and Spring Fling and Prom (which is held near the end of the year). The dances are organized by committee, and the student council has a hand in planning all of them. It’s a lot of work.
  
  Hey, a city’s got a lot of charm, too! But to be honest, I prefer New Orleans more. It’s more. . . I dunno, peaceful? Like, back in NY everything’s fast-paced; there’s rush hour, the ‘New York minute,’ and fast food. People get irritated if you walk too slowly in the streets and you aren’t old, injured, or handicapped, and they aren’t shy about using their car horns if you take too long to make a turn, whereas in New Orleans everyone takes everything more slowly. But to each their own, right? : )
  
  Egypt sounds really exciting! Have you gone on any tours yet? I’ve always thought seeing the pyramids and the Sphinx and the tombs would be awesome—all that amazing history in one place. I’ve always thought Egypt had its own magic, you know? Not magic magic like ours (though I know its got its own share, too), but like. . . myth. The romance of it. Like when you turn to the sun and shade your eyes at the horizon, and the wind’s starting to come in and there’s a couple of ruins right behind you, and you go, . . .Egypt. Like that.
  
  Anyways, I’d love to go there for the flora—like the Egyptian Mimbulus mimbletonia, the Samwa, and French Tamarisk, to name a few. There’s a whole bunch that we haven’t covered yet (and probably won’t because of the tournament), though maybe we might because the UK’s closer to Africa than N.A. I mean, we might’ve touched on a little bit on some of them in other classes like Potions and Magizoology, but that’s about it.
  
  Ha, no there isn’t anything wrong with me (Real funny). It’s just that I didn’t pass my Apparition test until a few months ago after the party was over, and there isn’t a good one near enough Salem for me to get there by broom (the school’s Floo network is watched, and only seniors—seventh years—have the privilege of using it more freely.)
  
  Hippogriffs, though. . . hmmm. I’ll have to ask my teacher!
  
  
  P.S.- YES. :'D

Naomi Foley
Island 278 Lough Corrib
County Galway, Ireland

Tracy Jones
The Maman Brigitte, Blind Lagoon (Bayou Sauvage)
New Orleans, LA
USA

• Your gram sounds smart. My mother still keeps in touch with plenty of people, and I can hardly keep up with her. She says I'll get use to it one day, but gram is always trying to drill it into my head.
  
  I have never actually seen a Raider land on anything before, so I think it's silly that you'd say that because they don't wander your lands doesn't mean they don't roam the skies. Although, I have never actually seen a Raider before. Just heard them when flying with my brothers, and we dive towards the waters before we look back and see where the lightning even flashes.
  
  I learn cooking at home and I learn technical subjects at Hogwarts, that's the end of that. No, no one really cooks at Hogwarts. Some people invade the kitchens to make snacks, or sometimes they just get stuff to make their own food with. There's elves at Hogwarts that are too excited to do anything anyone wants and are too naive to question anything.
  
  Prom? Is that just another fancy word for a ball? I think it's best if dances are just called dances. Giving them fancy names just makes them seem stuffy and dull.
  
  So Salem has creepy creature that causes some raucous around your halls? We have something similar. He's called Peeves. I don't actually recommend going near him. He's just a little twerp of a poltergeist, but he runs amok in the school. My family as a pet crocodile at home, but we don't usually take him anywhere because he'll eat almost anything that isn't us. Mother calls him Nidhogg. We call him Snickers.
  
  New York still sounds as gross.
  
  No. There is absolutely nothing romantic  about Egypt. It's educational, fun, and interesting. Nothing else.
  
  Why wouldn't you learn about foreign plants while at Hogwarts? We do it plenty enough through the years. My mother gave me a list of things to look for and find, as well. We have a ridiculous garden in our backyard and she's good at making hybrids. Snickers is a hybrid too, just not of the plant variety.
  
  You have too many excuses for not going to Mardi Gras. You should just go. Rules and regulations shouldn't always be followed when you should have fun.