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At first glance, the Aderyn looks like a drifting cloud banded with brass. For indeed, the ship's envelope was charmed to appear like a large cloud to aid in concealing the flying vehicle as it transports students to and from Penwick. Three tall white sails extend from the top. Beneath hangs a compact brass-and-glass gondola, small outside but expanded within by powerful enchantments.
Inside, the gondola opens into the Grand Saloon, a wide, bright hall lined with tall windows. Older students crowd the best seats to catch up with friends, while first-years press eagerly to the glass for their first view of the castle. At the center stands a rounded concessions counter where a brass automaton sells cocoa, tea, butterbeer, endless plates of biscuits and pasties, and other wizarding sweets. Stools, tables, and couches fill the room, which is never quiet for those too late to snag a seat at the concession counter's circular bar.
A grand oak staircase leads to the lower deck, lined with private compartments, and to the upper deck, a quiet glass-domed promenade where students lean against curved railings to watch the world fall away beneath them.
JUNE SELWYN
*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧ Date: September 1, 2025 | @Maggie Hawkins | Dialogue: X
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The zeppelin put the Hogwarts Express to shame. A whole counter for not just sweets, but pastries and drinks as well. Multiple decks, windows that would surely showcase a beautiful sky as they travelled. Tables were already filled with students, either gabbing about their summers, trading chocolate frogs, or pulling out pieces for games to play. I should have brought something to pass the time...
When was the last time June read a novel? Merlin, she couldn't remember. A mental note filed, the first chance she got, she’d explore Penwick’s library. Surely there’d be something worth pulling from the shelves that she hadn't seen before.
The clock struck nine, and the zeppelin swayed softly beneath her feet. The Aderyn’s great enchanted engines rumbled to life, the hum quiet but present. Students pressed closer to the windows, craning for a last glimpse of their families below.
June found herself among them, pressing her palm against the glass as her father tilted his head back from the ground. He lifted a hand in farewell. Steady, firm, the same way he always did, as though they weren’t about to be separated by miles of sky and land. June gave a small wave back, then turned and began searching for the one person she knew inside the giant vessel.
She and Maggie had been exchanging owls over the summer, planning and stressing about the transition together. It had felt like eons since they'd been together, even though it had only been a couple of months. While researching the school and learning about its houses, a feeling that the two would be separated began to bubble up. June had been diligently pushing it down, only briefly mentioning it to Maggie in a paragraph filled with the report of an eight-year-old who had asked her on a date. Her father said to take it as flattery, but it was mortifying more than anything.
Then she spotted it, the familiar head of curly brown hair and the twitch of a black cat's tail (unless Maggie tells me she's leaving Benvolio behind or he died in which case ignore me). "Maggie!" June abandoned her things and ran, wrapping her friend in a tight hug.
The ceilings were ten miles high and even though the zeppelin's journey skyward was bound to be smooth sailing, Maggie couldn't help the thought that her heart might jump out of her ass at any second. One might think, if they didn't know her well enough, that Maggie was acclimated to all types of high-flying transport. Her time spent on a broomstick was extensive, after all, and she was no stranger to risky maneuvers and risky tricks.
The difference, though, came in the control. Here, on the unfamiliar zeppelin to Penwick, Maggie couldn't steer them right or ensure that the structural integrity of the vehicle was sound. Since when had she cared about structural integrity?
Perhaps it was the fear of the unknown. Moving from one school to another with very little preamble, leaving behind the place she knew best in favor of... what? A singular friend? A shoddy excuse, an "I swear I'll make better grades this year"? Whatever the reason, Maggie had felt an unfamiliar anxiety, unlike the anxieties and stressors that more commonly haunted her body, in the prickles on the back of her neck and the twisting in her tummy, for months.
Benvolio (decidedly not dead) perched on her shoulders, claws digging into the frilly pink blouse she'd selected for today. "I know you don't like heights," Maggie grumbled, reaching up to try and pry little black paws off of her shoulder, "but maybe we aim to not knock me out from blood loss?"
Benvolio meowed, a real smoker's meow, as if to say whatever.
Maggie'd barely caught a glimpse at that familiar flash of golden hair, gilded in the sunlight, before she heard the familiar, lovely voice of June Selwyn. Their owl correspondence over the summer had provided little respite from the stress of, well, everything. The glaring issue of house placement was an ever-present worry. In her heart, Maggie knew that the odds of making it into the same house were low, but why think about that when she could delude herself into believing that she'd be in the same house as June here, too?
As the blonde's arms squeezed around her, Maggie sank into it. This was where she belonged. Not to a school or a house, but to her friend. Where things were still sunshine and rainbows and hamburger clowns, where the sun never set and the clouds never covered it. "Oh!" She grunted, giving June a good squeeze and stuffing her face into the other girl's shirtsleeve. She smelled of herbs, a sprouting garden. Something distinctly spring. "This stupid zeppelin's already got me nauseous."
JUNE SELWYN
*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧ Date: September 1, 2025 | @Maggie Hawkins | Dialogue: X
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June squeezed Maggie tighter, enough to make her own satchel dig awkwardly into her hip, but she didn’t care. Maggie was here, and that made everything brighter. Better. Correct.
She laughed softly into her friend’s shoulder before pulling back just enough to see her face. “You’re in luck," June ran back toward her luggage, lugging it over to a table beside the two and rummaging around for something. "Aha!" She produced two bags of sweets with a triumphant flourish. “Ginger Newts and Peppermint Toads, both help with nausea.” Since last year, June has had a habit of carrying sweets on her at all times. Perhaps a bit childish, but you never knew when you'd need the medicinal properties of their ingredients, or to offer one to someone to make a friend, or simply eat them all in one sitting and then feel guilty about it.
...
June took a seat at the table, apparently having now claimed it for the ride. Benvolio hopped into her lap, purring. His black fur had decidedly more white in it than the first time she met him. "Yes, hello to you, too, pretty kitty." She scritched around his neck, the cat purring and rubbing against her arm.
She rested her chin in her other hand, looking around. "This is mental," she muttered. "Can you believe we're actually doing this?" Her tone was part excitement, part worry. Was she actually doing this? "Hopefully it'll all be worth it."
The city beneath them had already shrunk into toy houses, soon to be too small to see. Something about it made June's stomach lurch, and she quickly popped a peppermint toad into her mouth. “I've heard some folklore says mint wards off both nausea and existential dread.” She tilted her head, studying her friend, golden hair catching the zeppelin’s lamplight. “Either way, at least now if you’re going to be sick, you’ll smell nice.” A smile to show no harm meant.
June twisted the empty wrapper mindlessly, "Didn't feel like this when going to Hogwarts for the first time. Think I was more worried then than I am now, honestly. At least I know I actually have a friend going into it. How on earth did I survive about the whole of first year without you?"
It was just like June to bring with her bags of candies that had medicinal purposes. Maggie would never think to ensure her candy had a dual purpose. If the Fizzing Whizzbees she ate had her stomach turning and bubbling later on, a side effect of her overactive sweet tooth and midnight cravings, that was between herself and those Fizzing Whizzbees.
Maggie took her place across from June, focused on the sweets in her hands while Benvolio wound himself around June. He'd always harbored an affinity for her. The wrapper of her Peppermint Toads crinkled as she unwrapped it, and she popped one of the little sweets into her mouth. It rolled around in her cheek like a marble on the floor, flicked up against the wall's trim in a fit of boredom. "Existential dread," she mused, raising a brow and twisting her lips into a tight 'o' shape. "That's awfully encouraging. What, d'you think there are big creepy crawlies roaming Penwick? Gobble us up at breakfast?"
Knowing what she already knew about magic schools, that really didn't seem so far outside the realm of possibility.
"Whatcha think, though? My breath smell good?" Maggie teasingly blew a stream of air into June's face, minty (with a hint of the barbecue pork sandwich she'd had for lunch).
She settled back into her seat easily and tilted her head, grabbing another sweet and flicking it into her mouth with her thumb. Bullseye.
Maggie remembered her first year. She'd felt so excited to be a witch, so special, back then. Everything was brand new and tinged with promise. It seemed fated that one day she'd be something incredible, someone that everyone should know. Of course, eleven-year-olds couldn't make those decisions for themselves, because what eleven year old didn't dream of fame and glory somewhere far away?
"I know. It's, like, first year, everyone's eleven and stupid, but now? We're going in with people who've gone here for five years. Starting fresh and all that," Maggie agreed, propping her cheek up on a balled fist, "least I've got you. Never would've tried to transfer if it weren't for you."
She didn't have the good sense to wonder if that was a mistake.
