A Taste of Honey
by ~ Princess Rosamunde
Chapter One: I Lost My Little Girl
My name's Kit. It's short for a kind of strange name, although it's not hard to pronounce: Kitlana. I don't know how I ended up with that name. Whenever I've asked, my da would tell me to ask my mother. Mum would sigh and say it was a long story. I never pushed her, because a little part of me liked having a unique name. My older sisters got away with pretty normal names. Kiara and Selina. Kiara is the outdoorsy one. Selina's the perfect one. Except that she isn't, at least not always. More on that later.
What do I look like? Well, I'll describe myself for you. I have average shaped eyes, not almond shaped like my Housemate Lily, not slightly slanted like my half-Chinese roommate Kira, just your standard English Anglo-Saxon face and eyes. My eyes are somewhere in between blue and grey, which unfortunately makes me appear to be perpetually about to cry. I have a standard English peaches-and-cream complexion, like Selina, but unlike Kiara, which unfortunately means I burn really easily and really fast in the sun. And let me tell you, it's not a pretty sight. I'm a little short for my age, which is just seventeen, but the French have a nice word for it: petite. It sounds so much better like that, don't you think? I'm a little chestier than is usual for my height and weight. I'm really slim. My mum teases me because I eat a lot, but still keep my figure. The truth is that I don't know how I stay in shape. Lastly, my hair. I don't have my sister Selina's perfect, glossy, golden, flyaway curls, but I do like my hair. It's my favorite of all my features. It's jet black with gentle curls, mostly wavy.
What am I like? Everyone says that I'm very sweet and kind. I'm not, at least, not anymore than anyone else is. I'm dreadfully shy. It means that I have trouble making friends and raising my hand in class. I stammer a lot, and blush, which amuses my roommates a lot, and frustrates the teachers.
Where do I go to school? I'm in my seventh and last year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I was Sorted into Gryffindor in my first year, which I'm sure must have been a mistake on the part of the Sorting Hat as I'm not brave at all.
Who are my roommates? I room with three other girls: Charlotte, Rose, and Kira. Charlotte is pure English, like me. She has a sort-of stuck up air about her and she's very bossy. She's always fancying this boy or that. Merlin help you if you get between her and her boy. Charlotte has glossy brown hair that stretches nearly all the way down her back. Charlotte is really proud of her hair, but she hates that it's pin straight, so she curls it every night. If I hadn't shared a room with her for the past six years, I would have thought that her hair actually was curly. Her eyes are hazel, edged with very long lashes, because Charlotte is always using mascara. Charlotte isn't stupid but she doesn't put a lot of effort into her schoolwork, so her grades are always mediocre. I mentioned Kira before. Kira is half-English and half-Chinese. Her mother is Chinese and her father's English. Kira has watered down Asian features. She has slightly slanted eyes, and silky black hair that's even straighter than Charlotte's. Her eyes are blue like the sky in summer. Kira gets better grades than Charlotte but her grades are still closer to mediocre than good. She's a bit mean. That is she makes fun of other people and laughs when they're in trouble. But she is loyal to Charlotte and Rose, so I guess she's a true Gryffindor. Rose is the nicest of the three. She has reddish-blonde hair and big, green eyes like limes. Rose will sometimes talk to me, seriously, about books or schoolwork, but only when Charlotte and Kira aren't around. She's very serious, and gets pretty good grades.
Who are my Housemates? My Housemates are all the other Gryffindors, years one through seven.
Who are my Gryffindor Yearmates? Oh, well, there are eighteen Gryffindors this year. That sounds like a large number, but last year there were twenty. My Gryffindor Yearmates are: James Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin (our Prefect), Peter Pettigrew, Rose Andrews, Kira Foster, Charlotte Graham, Lily Evans (our other Prefect), Marlene McKinnon, Dorcas Meadowes, Emmeline Vance, Mary Macdonald, Benjamin Fenwick, Roger Abercrombie, Joseph Carmichael, Hari Patil, and Gregory Vane. And me.
What's my favorite subject? That's difficult. Potions is the easiest, because it's just like cooking with Mum. Defense Against the Dark Arts, or as we usually call it - Defense, is the most useful considering what is going on in the world around us today. Charms is really fun, and Professor Flitwick is one of the nicest professors we have. But I think that my favorite subject of all is probably Transfiguration. It definitely isn't the easiest class or the most fun, seeing as Professor McGonagall, who is also Gryffindor's Head of House, is quite strict. I never quite got over the excitement and that feeling of control when I changed a match into a needle in my first Transfiguration class. I was the first to get it right.
What kind of grades do I get? I have the third highest overall grade in the Year. That doesn't sound all that amazing but it's actually quite good because there are seventy-two students in our Year. I'm always in the top five grades in every class I take. I have the second highest grade in the Year in Charms, I have the first highest grade in the Year in Transfiguration, I have the third highest grade in the Year in Potions, I have the fourth highest grade in the Year in Defense, I have the fifth highest grade in the Year in Astronomy, and I have the third highest grade in Herbology. Yikes, I didn't mean to sound like I'm bragging.
Where am I now? I'm upstairs in the bathroom, brushing my teeth after breakfast. Mum and Da are waiting downstairs to take me to the station - King's Cross, that is. I have my apparition license already, since I was old enough when we had lessons last year. I think it is a sentimental thing.
I peered into the bathroom mirror. I looked pretty much the same as usual, not overly groomed but neat and presentable, which was nice since I only woke up twenty minutes ago. Luckily, I was all packed last night, so all I had had to do was get dressed and have breakfast. My alarm hadn't gone off, so Mum had to rush in and wake me up, which meant I took forever to get up, which meant I had just finished breakfast.
And right now, I was brushing my teeth. My teeth are pretty white and healthy, so you might think that I didn't need to brush them this much. But brushing my teeth for fifteen minutes every morning after breakfast and another fifteen after dinner was how my teeth got to be this shiny and white.
"Kit! KITLANA!" Mum called, exasperated. "Hurry! Your teeth are fine. We're going to be late." See? Did I not just predict that she would say that?
"Nearly done, Mum." I called back, taking the toothbrush out of my mouth and rinsing it in cold water. I put my toothbrush, which was blue with white spots, into the toothbrush tree. It looked very happy there next to my mum's sparkly silver toothbrush and my da's olive green toothbrush. Okay, maybe it didn't really look happy. It's just a toothbrush. Who knows if it has feelings? But I kind of liked to pretend. I spit the toothpaste out of my mouth, inhaled a gulp of cold water, and spit it back out into the bathroom sink. I straightened my sweater. I was dressed in a cream colored sweater, over a short sleeved white button down, with a dark purple velvet skirt, which stopped just past my knees, and black leather boots, which had a slight heel. I smoothed my skirt, then flicked off the light switch, and raced out of the bathroom and down the stairs.
"Finally." Mum said, but she had a smile on her face. She grabbed her purse, and tossed Da the house keys.
Da caught the keys Mum tossed him, without looking. I wished I could do that. "Kit, I can't believe you're seventeen already. You're old enough to get a job, to drink, to live alone." He teared up a little. "I feel like I lost my little girl. My little girl's all grown-up."
"Oh, Da." I said, and rushed over to hug him. "Don't be silly. I haven't taken my N.E.W.T.s yet, I can't get a job. And I'm not ready to live alone." Da's a lot more sentimental than Mum. Kiara, Selina, and I all take after Mum a bit more than Da in the sentimental department.
"Alright, alright, you two." Mum said. She was holding the front door open. I untangled myself from Da, and walked out the front door. Da came out last, levitating my trunk for me. Once the three of us were out of the house, Mum turned around and locked up the house.
"Colloportus." She said firmly. The latches of the windows locked themselves and the locks on the front door snapped themselves into place.
Da set the trunk down onto the lawn. "Kit, would you prefer to Side-Along with your Mum, or with me?"
I scuffed at the grass with one of my boots. "I'll go with Mum, I guess."
Mum smiled and offered me her arm. "That works for me." She said. I gripped her arm, only to feel it twist away, so I redoubled my grip. Everything went black, and I felt like I was being pressed very hard in all different directions. I felt that brief feeling of being unable to breathe, almost like iron bands were fastening around my chest. My eyeballs tried to force themselves into the back of my head and my ear-drums were being shoved into the back of my skull. And we were there. That's Side-Along Apparition for you. Standard Apparition is a lot less painful.
I rubbed at my eyes, which always felt rather sore after Side-Along. We stood in back of King's Cross station. Obviously, we couldn't Apparate directly in front of the station because then all the Muggles would see us.
I yawned, covering my mouth, and followed Mum around to the front of the station. Da brought up the rear, carrying my trunk. I knew better than to offer to help. He'd take it as a personal offense.
We walked into the terminal, and began to walk in the direction of Platforms 9 and 10. In the middle, though most people don't know, lies Platform 9 and 3/4. Mum and Da found me a trolley, and we loaded my trunk onto it.
This would be my last time boarding the Hogwarts Express for the beginning of a term. I was really excited. Seventh year was supposed to be the hardest, but also the most fun. Honestly, a bit of hard work didn't frighten me.
Mum and Da agreed that I should go first. I didn't argue. I pushed the trolley through the brick wall in between the two platforms. I flinched, and as usual, instead of hitting myself in the face with a wall of bricks, I was greeted by an airy sunlit platform. A sign hanging above my head read Platform 9 and 3/4.
I beamed. I may sound like a loser for wanting to go back to school, but at school no one told me when to go to bed or what to eat for dinner and Mum and Da weren't there to treat me like a baby. I was just like everyone else.
Mum and Da made their way over to me. Mum adjusted my collar. Da gave me money for the ride. "Here." He said. "Five galleons, twenty sickles, and fifty knuts." Da is notoriously bad at getting rid of change.
I took the coins and stored them away in my wallet. "Thanks, Da." I said, as I stuffed the wallet back into one of the pockets of my skirt.
Mum hugged me, whispering reminders of my promise to write her at least once a week. Da hugged me, telling me to owl him if I had any kind of trouble at school at all. I promised them both that I would, and then levitating my trunk, because I was seventeen which meant I could do magic outside school!, I mounted the train steps waving goodbyes.