The Gryffindor Girl
By Anne Davies
Breakfast is always eaten alone in
the Great Hall, before everyone
else comes in, because she's different.
Breakfast is always eaten over neatly
outlined notes, still drying from her quill.
She always feels dirty during breakfast,
her bushy hair sometimes in her way,
like waking up at five and studying
for two hours and filling two rolls of
parchment with Charms notes breaks a sweat.
At home, she would have been
mucking out stalls.
She always showers at eight-thirty,
sometimes arguing with the other girls
in her year over who had used
all the hot water,
and for God's sake, Parvati, hurry up,
would you? I've got class at nine!
She always takes ten pages of notes
for every class meeting,
always reads the assigned chapters,
always just barely scrapes through
tests and papers with an average
score for her—A minus.
Lunch and dinner are always
eaten alone, and she's always
nervous around the other
girls in her year. It's always as
though they think she's queer.
She always listens to the whisperings
of the other first years, of the queer
one in the Gryffindor first years,
and Lavender, aren't you in her year?
Because I hear she's gay.
It's always whispered though, always
as though they're afraid that she,
in her neat Hogwarts uniform
with the fifty pounds of books
in her arms, will hear. But always
accompanied by giggles.
But I heard she was raped a couple
years back in her Muggle school!
And the whispers and giggles start again.
She's always quiet and shy and homesick
as she copies her notes at night,
when the whisperings are the worst,
sometimes staying up until dawn.
She's always hungry, always
avoids the richer foods because
they make her feel sick, but she never lets
Lavender and Parvati know.
Always, whenever there's a new rumor,
the girls avoid her or openly stare
for Ron, isn't that that queer
one in your year?—
That know-it-all Gryffindor first year?
The one you saved from
the mountain troll on Halloween
night?
Yes, that's she, Ron replies,
and she's not all that she seems.