Okay, so here's my second story for the Snakes and Ladders challenge! Read, review, and enjoy please!
Character: Pomona Sprout
"Are you having fun playing with your little flowers, Pomona?"
"No wonder your last name's Sprout, you must be the shortest kid in school!"
They were doing it again. Those mean upperclassmen Slytherins just loved to pick on poor Pomona. It wasn't her fault she was a bit smaller than the other girls. What gave them the right to be so rude? Pomona bit her cheek and blinked at the seedling was tending to, trying not to let her embarrassment show.
"Oh, did we hurt your feelings, Little Sprout?" The lead girl gasped, feigning concern. "You're crying, poor dear! Maybe you should go back to your room and cry with your lame little Hufflepuff friends. Oh, wait! Your only friends are plants!"
The Syltherins burst out laughing, but stopped when they heard a voice behind them.
"What are you girls doing, picking on that poor girl? Whatever could she have done to make you act treat her so maliciously?" The voice said sternly.
The leader of the girls sighed.
" We were just having a bit of fun, Minerva. No need to be a killjoy."
Pomona suddenly looked up. Minerva? They couldn't possibly mean Minerva McGonagall! Minerva was the kindest Prefect in the 5th year, if not the whole school!
" Well," Minerva continued, "You had better find somewhere else to have a 'bit of fun', or I'll take five points from Slytherin for each one of you."
The girls rolled their eyes and walked away, leaving a satisfied Minerva and a dumbstruck Pomona behind them.
"I'm sorry the were picking on you. Those girls are harmless, they're just looking for attention," Minerva said, turning to little Pomona with a good natured smile. She stuck out her hand for the shorter girl to shake.
" My name is Minerva McGonagall. And you?"
Pomona quickly stuck out her hand to Minerva. " Pomona Sprout, 3rd year. Thank you for saving me," she said excitedly.
Minerva let out a short, tinkling laugh. " Oh, it's no problem. They shouldn't have been so rude to you."
As the little third year picked up her potted plant and began to walk away, Minerva walked alongside her.
" Pomona is a very beautiful name, by the way. The ancient greeks believed Pomona to be the goddess of the garden. Very fitting, wouldn't you say?"
Pomona glanced over at her with a grin. "Well, I do love herbology. Unfortunately, I'm a bit to short to be compared to a goddess. I'm so small. A little Sprout." Pomona felt her smile drift away as she said the painfully true words. However she was shocked to find that Minerva's beam had only widened.
"But that's the beauty of sprouts, is it not? They start off small and unappreciated, but you get to watch them slowly become the beautiful flowers that everyone can learn to love."
As they finally approached the Hufflepuff Common Room, and they bid each other good night.
Before she turned to leave, Minerva said," Even though you feel like less then a sapling right now, I know you will become the most fantastic bloom of all. And I can't wait to watch!"
With that, she headed back to her house, leaving Pomona with the bus of friendship, the most precious flower of all.
So, that was meh. Whatever. I originally planned to have Neville in this story as opposed to Professor McGonagall, but he was in the last one, and I don't want this to become too Neville-Centric. Not to say I don't totally adore him, because I do. But, yeah. Plus, I think it's cute how the professors have besties since school. Friends are fun.
See ya later :)
