Still keeping her widened eyes on Lacey, Mariel nodded solemnly at the older girls words. She still didn't completely understand the situation, but something about how Lacey was speaking told the Ravenclaw that she wasn't comfortable in divulging any more. And the girl was fifteen by Mariel's calculation, a little over a year older than the third year who would turn fourteen in a week. Too young to be thinking of marriage in Mariel's opinion, but she didn't voice her thoughts so as not to appear judgemental. Besides, that was three years away, which seemed like forever. And, the girl was trusting her with a big secret. How cool was that? Mariel was really good at that sort of thing and would never tell as long as she wasn't meant to.

Turning back to Dani, Mariel nodded with a smile. "Well, then you should try out to be a Chaser, if that's what you want to do." Really, everyone with any inkling to play at all should be encouraged to try out, and certainly not discouraged. Nodding once again as the younger girl talked about the sorting, Mariel said, "Really, all the Houses have something great about them... although I think Ravenclaw is the best." Grinning she added, "I may be biased there." Frowning slightly at the mention of the green and silver house, she wanted to clear up any bad reputation the girl might have heard they had. "Actually Slytherin's a pretty cool House," she said. "Most of my family was sorted into Slytherin, and if I couldn't be in Ravenclaw, I'd want to be there." Noticing a wink that Dani gave to Nate, the third year glanced over at the boy. Was he in Slytherin? Is that what the wink was about or was it the pranking thing as Lasca mentioned? Shrugging to herself, she decide not to overanalyze it because it wasn't at all important.

At Lasca's words, Mariel nodded in agreement. "She's right. There are people like that in every House." At least she thought. She didn't really remember many pranks - other than the incident in Potions class - during her short tenure at the school, but maybe she hadn't been paying attention. At any rate, she had bought a few - innocent - things at WWW that she was dying to try out. She had to surpress a laugh thinking about it.

Noticing Lasca looking out the window, Mariel's attention drifted out there as well, when the sounds of the opening door and a familiar voice snapped her out of her thoughts. "Sarah! Of course we're not avoiding you... sit," she exclaimed with a wide grin as the Hufflepuff girl stepped inside and sat down next to her. "Where have you been?" she asked. They were nearly there and it had taken here that long to catch up with Lasca and she had barely seen anyone else that she knew.

She waited until Sarah introduced herself then happily took a few of the offered sweets. "Boiled sweets?" she asked tentatively. Mariel had never heard of such a thing, but they were candy, so they had to be good. Right? And even though she had just visited the lunch trolley and still had a couple chocolate frogs in her pocket, Mariel was never one to turn down an offer of sugar. "Thanks," she told Sarah with a grin.

The nearly fourteen year old merely shrugged when Sarah asked what she had missed for she had asked that question herself not ten minutes ago. "I actually just got here myself," she answered, which was why she did not feel it appropriate to introduce Sarah to everyone having only met them moments before. She was sure Lasca would do the honors or they would introduce themselves. "I was in a different compartment, then I... um, was at the lunch trolley for a little while," she tried to explain. "We started talking a little bit about Quidditch," she offered, not mentioning Lacey's secret. "And then you showed up..."