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Alice smiled over at Aina and signed, "Yeah, we can definitely check out the train." When Sebby appeared, Alice blinked and took a second to be confused by the height change since she'd seen him at the beginning of the summer. He greeted her, starting to call her by her old name before switching to her new name. Alice didn't react to the old name at all, instead smiling at her best friend. "Jeez Sebby, you got really tall so quick! I'm gonna be so tiny next to you." She playfully pouted, then glanced between Seb and her cousin as Seb struggled to pronounce her name. Aina frantically signed, "Why did he say my name like that?" The blonde frowned for a moment, then said, "He didn't mean anything by it, Ai." Then to Seb, Alice said, "Sebby, her name is pronounced Eye-nuh. It's... Norwegian, right?" she asked, looking back to Aina. The younger girl signed, "Yeah, Mamma is from Norway." Aina shifted uncomfortably as she engaged in the conversation. This wasn't really her thing and she wanted to just fade into the background. Thankfully Alice's friend's mother started speaking to her and Aina could disengage.

Alice smiled at Momma Kinzlie and hugged her back when the blonde was wrapped into a hug. She asked Alice to hold onto a spare pair of earbuds for Sebby and Alice nodded, tucking them into her purse. "Oh, Seb, here," she said, pulling the boy's wand out of her purse and handing it to him. "I don't know how this wound up in my purse, but you'll probably need it at school." Alice smiled, a little blush coloring her cheeks. She didn't remember putting his wand into her purse at the beginning of the summer, but she'd managed to do so and it stayed there all summer. Thankfully they weren't old enough to do magic outside of school yet, so Seb hadn't missed his wand. Alice also seemed to be ignoring the fact that Seb was very good at wandless magic, which was something that she still couldn't manage to do. Glancing back at the train, she said, "Aina wanted to go look at the train before we got on board. Sebby, did you want to come with us?" It was a subtle way to give mother and son a moment to say goodbye before they had to rush to board the train.

Of course the first thing Alice commented on was his new height. According to their research, it probably wasn't done. "Yea... it makes all my bones hurt somehow." He ran a hand through his messy blue hair, then looked over at Aina when she signed. Oh right, she was deaf. Good thing Alice seemed to know how to sign better than him. He knew a little bit, but without someone to practice with, he simply wasn't very good. He flushed when Alice seemed to make sure the younger girl knew he didn't mean anything bad, then she pronounced the name in question. "Oh! Right, sorry. I just had to go on spelling, and that's not my best." All he could say with reasonable certainty was that her name was really short, but the letters always jumbled in the worst sorts of ways.

After handing Alice Seb's spare earbuds, Kinzlie and Seb were both startled when the blonde pulled Seb's wand out of her purse. Kinzlie sent him over a look, though there was a hint of a smile on her lips. "Aww, 'Liss, what would I do without you? Probably left my wand at home, that's what." He grinned, evidence of his normal good humor returning. "I guess probably just practiced in Wandless like... real hard." He noticed his Mama's look, offering a sheepish grin.

Both sets of green eyes looked over at Alice when she mentioned her cousin wanted to go look at the train before time to go. The Moons then looked at each other. One silently begging not to go and the other realizing they needed to gently push. "You should go with Alice, bub. You've been missing your friends all summer. And we'll see each other again soon enough. I know you didn't forget your mirror either. It's in your trunk on top of your books." That, Kinzlie had personally packed. It was way too important to both of them for him to potentially forget it. Plus she didn't know if there was another he could use over the school year.

"Yea, of course, Mama. I love you to the moon and around." He pulled her into a hug, which the young woman happily reciprocated. "I love you too, Sebby. Through all the planets and the stars. Remember, this year is going to be amazing." Their hug lingered for a moment before she broke it, stepping back a bit. "And I love you too, Alice. You have a great year too. We'll try to get you for a day or two over winter." Kinzlie pulled the blonde into a hug. "And it's nice to meet you, Aina. Have a lovely first year." She didn't move to hug the youngest, instead just sending her a small smile. And now the hard part. Kinzlie waved them off as she walked away a bit, finding herself standing near Nora and Nani and their family.

Seb watched his mama walk away for a second, then sighed before looking over at Alice. He pushed a smile up onto his cheeks. "You said you wanted to look at the train, right? I think that's... this sign?" He tried to mimic the sign, thankfully getting it pretty close on. "C'mon, maybe we can go look up in the engine bit at the front. The conductor seems nice." Maybe for someone interested in trains he'd be cool. Then again, Seb wasn't sure if Aina actually liked trains or if she just wanted to check it out. Either was a fair enough point.

Aina watched the exchange between Alice and Sebastian, then when he apologized and said that spelling wasn't his best, Aina nodded. She didn't really see how her name's pronunciation was difficult, but she wasn't going to engage further. She might ask Alice about it later, just to get some clarification. When they began to say their goodbyes, Aina shifted uncomfortably and made a motion to turn off her cochlear implants to give them some privacy. Alice caught the motion and gently tugged on the hem of Aina's shirt, a tactic taught to her by Quinn. It let Aina know that she didn't have to turn off her ears here. Alice then hugged Momma Kinzlie and said, "I'll certainly try too!" Aina wondered for a moment if the woman was going to hug her as well, but she settled for some words of encouragement for her instead. Aina nodded and signed her thanks, which Alice translated for her. When she walked away, Seb asked if she wanted to go look at the train and made the sign for train. Aina nodded and smiled. "Yeah, that's train," she signed, with Alice translating.

As they walked over to the train engine, Aina signed some facts she knew about steam engines, with Alice doing her best to translate. Because the girl was excited, she was signing a little faster than Alice could keep up with and occasionally Aina would tug on Alice's shirt and sign something, which Alice would then correct. The entire time they walked over to the train though, Alice had slipped her hand into Seb's. They'd been holding hands just about everywhere they went since first year, but now it always felt different. The blonde stole small glances at Seb, wondering if he was feeling the change between them too, or if it was just her. She really needed to talk to him about this, but she was scared that she was the only one feeling like this. Maybe she should bring it up to Ms Marni. Her mentor would know more about the way she was feeling towards Seb, right? Alice unconsciously began to chew on her lip as they talked about the trains, her mind churning over her feelings for her best friend.

Hesperia had had an amazing summer and while she was sad that it was over, she was more than overjoyed to be going back to school. Her family had gone to Greece for two weeks to visit family and spend some time in the home land. They had visited Thessaloniki where her family was from, but also traveled to Santorini, Athens, and Rhodes. She had had fun with her cousins and even managed to get a tan, despite being semi-allergic to the sun. Hes had bought a lot of gifts for her friends, but she had specially selected a gift for one person specifically. That gift was wrapped and stored in her trunk because it was a little heavier than the others. She would give it to him when they got to the school, and she already had an idea about how and when she was going to present it. Thinking about Kasamir always made her cheeks a little redder and she figured she might need to brooch the subject with him at some point as well. After their "date" at the Carnivale last year, she couldn't stop thinking about him. It started with him defending her a lot in Quidditch, but the more she got to talking to him, the more she found they had in common. She even felt comfortable showing her fangs around him, which was another big step for her.

Speaking of Quidditch, she was also quite excited for this year. Through their letters over the summer, Csuri had asked her to be the Vice Captain and naturally, she had accepted. She had been practicing whenever she could over the summer and was determined that this year, she was going to get a goal. Hesperia had been studying all the information that Csuri had sent her over the summer and was looking forward to seeing her "playbook" in person. During her shopping trip in Diagon, Hesperia had convinced her grandparents to purchase her all new gear so she could appropriately tackle this season. She was confident that Slytherin was going to do well this year.

Arriving at the platform with her grandparents, Hesperia took the cart with her trunk on it from her grandfather. They exchanged some words in Greek, with both her grandparents expressing how proud of her they were. Then they bid farewell, each kissing her atop her head. Hes pushed her trunk over to where they were loading them into the train for the trip to school. Over the summer, she'd grown a few inches and, wearing slightly larger than normal heels, she was a bit taller than most of the other kids in their year. She looked around the platform, wondering if Kasamir had arrived yet. She wanted to ride the train with him if possible. Idly, she chewed on her lip as she glanced around. That motion caused one of her fangs to stick out a little, but she didn't seem to care too much. Her fear about being identified as a half-vampire had mostly evaporated as it became clear that her grandparents' fear had been misplaced. The conductor hadn't called for them to board the train yet, so Hes was going to stay on the platform and see if she could spot Kasamir.