fandomhigh | BWI Airport Portalocity Lounge, Saturday morning

Malia had never been out of California before. Or Beacon County, for that matter. She'd barely been out of Beacon Hills proper, and that was mostly as a coyote hunting for food.

So this was new and exciting! Or, you know, new at least. She was going to school. One that didn't, as far as she could tell, require her to learn math. So right there it had one up over BHHS. It also didn't have Scott or Stiles, which was not a point in its favor, but in the end, she'd decided that not having to struggle through eleventh grade math beat out getting to have the few people she knew around, especially when Scott agreed he could try to teach her control over the internet.

So here she was. Her ears still felt stuffed full of cotton from the plane, and the whole airport smelled like cleaning fluid and anxiety, and she was managing to claw tiny holes in the upholstery with claws that didn't want to stay hidden away like they were supposed to, but hey. At least she was having an adventure?

[IT'S NEWBIE SHUTTLE TIME! Up early-ish because work has been dumb this week and I might be slow.]

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Malia nodded. "They're good hunters," she said, as if that meant it made sense to keep them as pets. (As far as she was concerned, it did. Made way more sense than people who kept rodents and didn't eat them, like that one girl from group back at Eichen House.) "I'm Malia."

Malia had very little idea what this short blonde girl had said, but she could recognize someone struggling with something heavy when she saw them, so she got up (making sure she wasn't actively showing claws or anything) and came to over to wordlessly pick up the bag she seemed to be struggling more with.

Malia would manage it like she was picking up a teddy bear.

"It's the right spot," she said, mostly to avoid tears. "If you're going to Fandom High, anyway."

"Harry. Do you, uh, know anything about this place?"

He didn't. Not even a little.

"Fandom?" Harry guessed. He was pretty used to deciphering accents by now.

"Fandom?" Malia asked, then shrugged. "They don't teach math."

"I am," Clare said. "My friends back home are terribly jealous. Hello," she stuck out her hand to shake. "I'm Clare."

Well, she was a bit like an over-excited female Seamus, if that would help at all. "Fandom!" she confirmed, smiling. "I didn't know it was co-ed!"

Oooh.

"Oh. Why wouldn't they teach math? Not that I'm complaining."

He hadn't missed math, but he'd been counting on having to fail it this year. Because you know what Hogwarts didn't teach?

Malia got most of that. At least enough to work out that there was a name in it, and also some reference to other people.

She shifted the heavy bag to her other hand (still holding it up like it was stuffed with feathers) and shook Clare's.

"Malia. My friends back home are . . . probably fighting something evil that wants to eat them."

And thus maybe a little jealous, as well.

Harry looked around, noted that he seemed to be the only boy so far.

"If it's not this is probably going to go badly for me," he realized.

"I don't know, because math is hard and stupid?"

She'd never needed math as a coyote, after all!

"That's all the explanation I need," Harry decided immediately.

"Maybe it's a new trend," Clare mused. "My school back home had just the one English boy too. Are you called James?"

"...something evil that wants to eat them?" Clare repeated. "Metaphorically?"

She'd spent a lot of time only half paying attention in Mass.

"No, that's my dad," he told her. "I'm Harry."

He'd feel better when he heard more English accents there.

Now Clare was under the impression that James was just a hugely popular name in Great Britain. "I'm Clare. Hullo."

Malia nodded, deciding this guy was reasonably clever.

"You're British," she observed. Much in the same way she'd pointed out his bird. She wasn't the best at small talk.

Right, that was one of those things normal people didn't say out loud, wasn't it.

"Sure," she said, shrugging. "Where are you from? You sound like a character from a fantasy movie."

They watched those sometimes, back at Eichen House. Someone had had the idea that people who didn't always have the best grip on reality would enjoy movies that didn't resemble reality much at all.

"Hedwig," Sakaki repeated, and you were about to be completely invisible again, Harry, because her wide, bright shining eyes were entirely on the owl again, and, oh, that was perfect, of course, and her grip had tightened on the sides of her open phrase book so tightly they might tear, just to keep her hands from moving up to bury her face, the heat of a blush already rising terribly with the urge to die in a completely different way than a moment ago, and she needed a moment over here.

"Yeah," he said, nodding. "You're not."

Both a brilliant observation and him wondering what she'd say to that.

Harry gave her a moment.

And then felt the need to ask, "What's your name?"

"So what brings you to Fandom?" he asked, immediately realizing he was going to have to come up with an answer to that question himself.

"I'm from California," Malia said.

And then had absolutely no idea what she was supposed to say next. She found herself making fists in the seat cushions again. And probably clawing more holes in it while she was at it.

"What's that like?" Harry wondered. "I've never been to America."

"Uh. There are trees?" Malia said. "And people really like lacrosse. I've never been anywhere else."

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BWI Airport Portalocity Lounge, Saturday morning

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