Girls Just Wanna Have Fun [Era]

[Amelia Fitzgerald]

While Amelia had been friends with Astrit for most of his time at Hogwarts, she'd actually befriended Astrit's sister Era first. Era was a year older than her, but they were in the same house. It was a few years before, in Amelia's first year and Era's second, when Amelia came upon Era in the midst of an argument with a professor. Despite only being a first year, Amelia immediately found that she agreed with Era and joined in with her. Needless to say, both girls wound up with points taken away from Gryffindor for mouthing off to a professor, but there was a silver lining to all of this - It ensured that Amelia and Era had something to bond over, and the two became friendly soon afterward. They even morphed into full blown friends after enough time passed.

She was planning on spending some time with Era. Though many thought of Amelia and her twin sister Maddie as practically inseparable (and they could be at times), they did do things apart from each other as well. Maddie was busy with something else, while Amelia planned on hanging out with Era. "Maybe we can..nah, let's not work on homework unless we have to. There are more important things in life! Maybe some Exploding Snap?" Amelia asked the other girl after the two gathered in the Gryffindor Common Room. Of course, Exploding Snap was a lot less important in the whole scheme of things than homework was, but..how did that saying go? 'All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy?' Well, Amelia didn't know about Jack, but all work and no play made Amelia a dull girl!

And a bored one too. She didn't want this whole hang out sesh with Era to be the two of them working on homework. That wasn't to say that they couldn't work on homework together, but why not do something fun first and then they could tackle the more difficult parts later on? It was at that point that an attractive upperclassman came walking by though, and it distracted Amelia from her planning. "Damn, I haven't seen her around before. She's kinda cute." Amelia smiled, though she doubted she'd have a chance with an older year.

Her eyes widened a little as she realized what she'd just said, but then her expression shifted from mildly concerned to almost defiant. She realized that she'd just outed herself as being attracted to girls with her big mouth..and yet she dared Era or anyone else who might have overheard to say anything about it. She was just as up for standing up for what she thought was right in her fourth year as she was in her first year, though thankfully she wouldn't have much to worry about as it turned out

[Era Kastrati]

One of the things that Era liked most about Hogwarts was that she didn't stick out quite as badly here as she did among Muggles, and her friendship with Amelia Fitzgerald was in some ways emblematic of the reasons why this was.

For the most obvious one, Era wasn't the only student in any of her classes here to have magic. Ever since the only other Wizarding family in their village had moved away when she was six, Era had been the only young witch. Muggles were perfectly good company in most ways, but there was still that one part of her life that she simply couldn't share with any of her neighbors at home. Even her own grandparents... she could tell her father's parents most anything she wanted, even if they wouldn't necessarily understand it all, but her mother's parents were so firmly convinced that there was no such thing as magic that she couldn't talk to them about it at all. Here, though, magic was normal; it was part of everyone else's lives just as much as it was hers. Although she wasn't exactly Muggle-born by the strictest definition, Era felt the relief of finding a place where she wasn't the only one just as keenly as her classmates who were, and it was odd and fascinating to meet classmates who had only ever lived within the magical world.

Girls who talked back as enthusiastically as Era did were fairly rare in her home region as well, but she had met Amelia when the two of them had gotten into an argument with a teacher together: a delightful start to what had since turned into a beautiful friendship. They shared that odd independent streak that made them push back against efforts to control them, though they weren't bad kids by most reasonable definitions, and they even did homework together sometimes.

Era was starting her OWL year, so homework was going to be plentiful, and her ambitions to become an Animagus didn't exactly lighten her burden, but there still had to be time for other things in life, didn't there? She didn't want to fall behind, but she also didn't want to work herself into the hospital wing. So, having met her friend in the Gryffindor common room, she grinned when Amelia proposed Exploding Snap. "I should probably get some work in today, but I'm sure there's time for a game first," she agreed.

And then Amelia apparently noticed something behind her. Era turned to see what the other girl was looking at, and saw a beautiful young woman, who she thought was probably a year ahead of herself, walking past. Amelia made an appreciative comment about the upperclassman's looks, and Era nodded reflexively. "She really is," she agreed without particularly thinking about it.

And then she caught herself. "Wait, did I just say that aloud?" she asked quietly, a tinge of nervousness creeping into her voice. She had admitted to herself over the past few years that she liked girls in a way that she just didn't like boys, but she was never quite sure if it was safe to admit that to anyone else; she had been raised in a world where it was expected that girls either liked boys or didn't like anybody. Her eyes landed on Amelia's face, though, and something else occurred to her at the sight of that defiant look. "Did you just say that, or did I imagine...?"

[Amelia Fitzgerald]

At least Amelia didn't have to worry about her OWLs for another year..because she would worry about them, no matter what she would tell anyone otherwise. She would of course play it cool, but OWLs determined what classes you could take at your NEWT level, and what classes you took at NEWT level determined what you could do in the future. Her grades didn't seem all that important now, but her OWL grades were determine her future. She had one last year of freedom before she would have to hit the deck and try to do her best just so that she had the fewest doors close on her possible..and crap, she was already starting to stress out about it and she wasn't even in her fifth year yet. Good thing Era indicated that she was up for a game of Exploding Snap..then admitted that the same girl was cute?

Wait. Hold on a sec. She was happy to see that Era didn't judge her, she just hadn't expected that result. She wore a dumbfounded expression on her face for a moment or so..before a huge grin swept across her face. "I did say it. Based on what you're saying it sounds like you said what I thought you said too." She at least had the sense to keep her voice down for once, given the subject matter that they were talking about. Amelia might not care whether people knew that she liked girls as much as boys, but she had no idea where Era stood on the subject. Thus it was probably a good idea to get a better idea of that before she went blurting things out too loudly.

Nevertheless, she was excited. This opened up a whole new world of conversations that Amelia and Era could have. She had to admit that she was also curious as to whether Era was bisexual like she was or a lesbian, but even Amelia realized that might be just a tad too awkward to ask right away when she and her good friend just accidentally came out to one another. "So you like girls too? I didn't think I was the only one, but.." But it also wasn't something that she felt like just blurting out loud in case someone decided to be an ass.

This was an unexpectedly pleasant turn of events. She even felt a tad guilty for automatically assuming that Era might judge her for what she blurted out, though one could hardly blame her when people didn't always react in the kindest of ways toward such confessions, whether accidental or not. She pulled out her Exploding Snap set and began to set up the game as she waited for Era's input to continue the conversation at hand

[Era Kastrati]

Era smiled rather uncertainly, seeing how Amelia reacted to her accidental admission. A part of her shared her friend's delight, but she didn't quite dare express it that openly. "I've never really told anybody about it before," she said quietly, knowing as she did that it was a confession, a deliberate confirmation of what she had said unthinkingly. "I never knew..."

What had she never known? Well, when she thought about it... a lot. Like how common people like her were, even on the level of basic things like whether or not she was likely to ever meet another. She supposed that the most important aspect of the answer to that question had just dropped into her lap, since apparently she had already met another girl who liked girls.

She had known for a long time that she was different. Just based on the unspoken assumptions that surrounded her -- the ones that ran so deep that they didn't even need to be spoken -- she knew that she wasn't quite what she was expected to be. Other girls fell for boys, and with few exceptions, sooner or later they became women and married men. Era had never been sure how safe it was to admit that not only did she have no interest in that, she wanted something else. She had never had any idea how anyone would react. So she simply hadn't told anyone... until now.

As far as having someone find out about it went, of course, this was about as good an outcome as she could ever have possibly hoped for. For the first person to know that she liked girls to be happy about it was, she cautiously decided, a good omen.

Amelia started setting up the Exploding Snap game, and Era noted in the back of her mind that the decidedly noisy game would make a good cover for a conversation that was probably better not overheard. She reached out to pick up the cards that she would play with, and finished her thought: "I always wondered if there were... others like me out there, but I never knew how many, or how to find them."

[Amelia Fitzgerald]

Honestly? As open as Amelia was about most things, she was fairly certain that she had not confided in anyone else either. Not even her sister, which felt a tad strange. She liked Era, and Era was a good friend, but she could not help but feel guilty for telling someone else before she told her twin sister and best friend. She would have to remedy that as soon as she could. But..what if Maddie..no. She wouldn't allow herself to think like that. It wasn't that she worried whether Maddie would accept her. Maddie was such a wonderful, open-minded person that she had no doubt her sister would accept her bisexuality. No, what she worried about was her parents..but why did she worry about her parents? Why should she care what her father thought?

She would not acknowledge, even to herself, her fear that he would abandon her too, if she turned out to be a disappointment in his eyes. Especially as part of her wanted to be a disappointment, to alleviate the guilt she felt over how Alfred and Matthew were treated. "You're the first person I told too, come to think of it. It's great to know I'm not alone though!" While on one hand she knew she wasn't alone, strictly speaking, she hadn't imagined that someone so close to her would be able to relate.

She smiled as she heard Era voicing some of the same questions that she'd asked herself on occasion. As loud and boisterous as Amelia was, there were certain things that she felt uncomfortable voicing to others. No longer would that be the case with this subject with Era, at least, and it felt as though a weight was lifted off her chest. "You should have just asked! But really..I guess it's not like we can do that." Amelia's smile faded abruptly.

The world was a lot more accepting now than it was in the past, and Amelia wanted to defiantly tell anyone who had a problem with she or Era liking girls what they could go do to themselves, but that was easier said than done, especially about something so personal. If the subject came up it was one thing, but actually breaching the subject itself was something entirely different. And that honestly made quite a bit of difference