To Stress, The Unknown, And The Future

Pansy smirked as she poured glasses of champagne for all three girls, accompanied by a plate stacked high with chocolates and other treats. Astoria's apartment was decked out in decorations- balloons and streamers- and Pansy was ready to talk away the night until morning. It was Hermione's bachelorette party after all; there was no need for sleep tonight. The wedding was in two nights, and this one (well, afternoon really) would be spent getting drunk, and the next would be spent probably reassuring Hermione that there was not a thing to be worried about (even though Draco was absolutely the world's biggest prat). 

The short-haired witch set the plate and drinks (as well as the bottle) down on the pristine coffee table in the living room, where Astoria was finishing up tying the rest of the balloons to various surfaces around her apartment. Streamers had been hung up on the walls, and a banner saying 'party time' had been strung up on the farthest wall. Pansy nodded in satisfaction as there was a knock on the door; the brunette swung the door open, Astoria behind her throwing confetti into the air. Hermione slapped a hand over her mouth and giggled; the view of a usually serious Pansy with confetti in her hair was something she would never forget.

"All this for me?" The words were an echo of what had been said before, another similar setup. 

"Of course! You deserve more, but there wasn't time-"

"You guys." Hermione brought the pair in for a hug, dropping her bags on the floor. Astoria bit her lip nervously, hoping Hermione wouldn't mind what she was about to say.

"Hey, 'Mione, is it okay if we meet Liana for coffee in ten? She just sent me a Patronus maybe five minutes ago." Hermione beamed. 

"Of course!"

"Even though this is technically your bachelorette party?"

"Yes! Now let me just change from this ratty thing-" She tugged on the front of her rather battered t-shirt, "-to something more appropriate."

She ducked into the washroom, pulling a sweater from her bag. Hermione threw the shirt over her head, and pulled her arms through the sleeves of the oversized caramel sweater that matched her eyes and hair (so she'd been told by Draco). Her black jeans would do; her hair, however, was a mess. A third of a bottle of Sleekeazy's tamed it; the brunette was too lazy to wrangle it into something easy to manage without magic.

She toed open the door as she picked up her bag, tossing it unceremoniously onto the couch. "Are we ready to go?"

"How do you always look good no matter what you wear?" Astoria lamented, as she took in her own appearance in the mirror by the entrance hall. Hermione sighed.

"You look great, Astoria. Here, let me just-" She reached over and brushed a hair back, pinning it in place with a summoned bobby pin that she charmed to match Astoria's hair. 

"There. Now, let's go meet your girlfriend?"

***

Liana fiddled with the handle of her coffee mug; Astoria had just told her that her friends, Pansy and Hermione (neither of whom she'd met), would both be coming- and that it was Hermione's bachelorette party night (even though Astoria had reassured Liana that Hermione didn't mind). 

The glint of the sunlight on Astoria's blonde hair alerted the witch to the arrival of her girlfriend and her friends. There were two brunettes with her; one in a bronzey-caramel sweater and black jeans, her hair let loose around her shoulders. She waved to Liana, who waved back. 

The other had hair that was much darker and shorter, in a tight cropped sweater and black skirt. The corners of her lips curled up in a smile- but the glint in her eyes was a bit terrifying.

Astoria pulled out a chair for herself and the other two seated themselves, waving over the waitress and ordering coffee.

"Hey babe." Astoria leaned over and pecked the Chinese girl on the cheek. "How are you?"

"Doing not to bad. What about you?"

"Tired. But not too bad. Lia, this is Hermione; and this is Pansy. Don't mind her glares. Her bark is worse than her bite."

"Astoria, you know I have to check if she's up to scratch." Pansy pouted.

"Yes, but she's my baby and I she's up to scratch."

"Oh, alright."

"Pans, drop the glare." Hermione admonished with a stern wave a finger. 

Pansy sighed, but rearranged her features to portray a more kindly and inviting expression. Hermione nodded.

"There ya go."

"How are you?" The curly-haired brunette smiled genuinely, leaning forward with interest.

"Doing.. alright, I guess."

Hermione frowned, turning to the other dark-haired girl- Pansy, Liana thought.

"Pans, tone it down."

"Am I doing it again?" Pansy sighed.

"Yes, you are."

"Sorry, I have a habit of.. pretending, I guess. Life has not been kind." Liana nodded; she'd heard about the war. Who hadn't? It had been broadcast all over the world, and wizarding communities as far away as America and Australia had been ready to fight. She remembered clinging to her mother's skirts as the radio (her muggle father's) tuned carefully by her mother to the wizarding world's Potterwatch station crackled and kept them up-to-date, her mother keeping attentive watch of every step of what was happening.

And now she was in front of the heroines of the war itself- that didn't help her nervousness one bit.

"Anyways, how is America? I've been once or twice, but never long enough to learn as much as I'd like." Astoria rolled her eyes.

"Knowing you, you would have to live there for at least a year before 'learning as much as you'd like.'"

"Oh, hush." Hermione swatted away Astoria's hand. The familiarity of the gesture made Liana go tense; however, Astoria had made her privy to the fact that the curly-haired brunette and Draco Malfoy, another survivor of the war, were seeing each other and were engaged. She knew that Pansy was also engaged to another wizard named Theodore Nott; she hoped that someday she and Astoria could do the same.

"It's- different, a lot different from here. Ilvermony is also a castle, but instead of the four houses you all know it's the Thunderbird, the Horned Serpent, the Pukwudgie, and the Wampus. The founders of the school are Isolt Sayre and her husband, James Steward. It's located in the American state of Massachusetts, on Mount Greylock. I'm a Thunderbird, incidentally." She carried on, recounting the story of how a young Isolt Sayre escaped from her aunt (a practitioner of the Dark Arts, Slytherin, and her parent's murderer) at around seventeen years old and escaped to the New World- or what's now known as America. 

There, she met a man- James Steward, and they had four children; that was when Ilvermony was founded- one house for each child, the idea taken from Hogwarts (a place Isolt had heard about as a child, as her aunt was a Slytherin, but never attended) . Each new wizarding world child that the school took in caused the small granite house that Isolt and James lived in to grow; eventually, it became the size of a castle.