You Mess With Me, I Mess Back
Elena's first night was spent perusing over her schedule and trying to make sense of it. Some of the classes were obvious: transfiguration was transfiguración, potions was las pocións, and astronomy was obviously astronomía. It took the other girls in her dormitory to explain herbology, charms, and what the word 'defense' meant. More than anything, Elena was quite surprised that foreign language courses were not offered at Hogwarts; at her old school, German, English, Portuguese, French, and Mandarin Chinese.
Must be because we don't need to be bilingual to move up in the world, scoffed Bonnie Green, who Sam had warned was very much against Hogwarts allowing students outside of Western Europe into the school. Elena wanted to snap at her and tell her how stupid she was for thinking that being bilingual was a bad thing but held her tongue and went back to examining and annotating her schedule. Monday was all core classes, she wouldn't start her electives until Tuesday and frankly, those are the classes that she is most excited about: Arithmancy, the closest thing to mathematics that Hogwarts had to offer, Muggle Music, which Professor Dumbledore mentioned might help her improve her English, Study of Ancient Runes, because she'd already completed an advanced class at Del Sur and wanted an easy passing grade, and Muggle Studies for various reasons.
Breakfast passed by with little occasion, except for the owl from her father giving her some spiel about how proud he was that his daughter was studying at an institute as prestigious as Hogwarts. She folded the letter up and stuffed it into her pocket and followed Sam to potions.
"Potions is quite fun," Sam explained. "Professor Slughorn is a nice man. Sure he has his favorites- calls them the Slug Club- but Lily, dare I say it Bonnie, and I are some of them so stick with us you'll be- run, run! Two empty seats!"
Elena laughed as Sam grabbed her hand and ran toward the middle-front of the room behind Lily and in front of the four loud boys from the train station- Gryffindors, all four of them. Her gaze lingers on the group a half second longer than she intended and the one with the shaggy black hair and glasses caught her.
He leaned forward and placed his hand on the back of her chair. "Oi, Padfoot, Moony. I think the new girl was checking one of you out."
"Or both," the black-haired by beside him smirked.
"Prongs why can't the girls be checking out me for once?" a short boy asked.
"Wormtail you aren't in her line of sight, she simply can't be checking you out."
Elena had already averted her gaze, it being replaced by Sam's glare at the only of the four not to speak. He smiled apologetically and shrugged while his friends carried on.
The boy with the grey-blue eyes leaned over his desk and smirked. "So which one of us were you ogling at- Remus, James, or myself?"
"O-ogling, what is ogling?"
"Interesting accent," commented the boy. "Eh, Prongs?"
"Would you two cut it out?" snapped Sam, still keeping her glare on the quiet boy as if he could do something about the situation.
"Viking relax," he said. "James and I are just trying to welcome the new student."
"Then do it without being obnoxious prats," Sam said. "Ignore them, I do."
Elena turned her head and smiled politely and absently leafed through her potions book while she thought about the Gryffindors behind her. Elena had dealt with her fair share of teenage boys in the forms of siblings, friends, and classmates and James and his pals were certainly not the worst of them. Quite possibly they win the title as most obnoxious, but five minutes of knowing them isn't enough time to judge.
Professor Slughorn entered the room and the class fell silent. "Welcome, welcome to your fifth year at Hogwarts! This is perhaps your toughest year yet, the year of your O.W.L.S. and for some- hopefully not many- of you this is your last first day of potions-"
The boy in the glasses tapped Elena on the shoulder and sniggered, "Always had a flair for the dramatic, Professor Slughorn."
She didn't understand what 'a flair for the dramatic' meant, but smiled anyway.
"-bring me great joy to have every last one of you pass your potions exam but in order for that to happen me must take this year very seriously. Unlike in previous years I will be assigning potions partners-"
Students began to grumble, Bonnie Green shot Elena a sideward glare, and Sam frowned. Elena was the only student in the room not bothered by assigned partners being as she only knew the names of three Gryffindors and six other Ravenclaws and did not yet consider anybody as her friend.
"Based off of observing you for the past four years, I know who you would all pick as partners. I put plenty of thought into my assignment and tried to put you with people with whom you would be able to along. If there are any terrible issues with your partner, I will see what I can do. There is an odd number of students, so there will be one group of three and that group is Sarka Mikkelsplass, Lily Evans, and Remus Lupin."
James mutters a swear from behind Elena. He must have been infatuated with Sam or Lily- probably Lily- and wanted to be partnered with her.
"When I call your names, raise your hands until you find each other and find a cauldron- run along you three," Slughorn said, waving Lily, Sam, and the quiet boy next to James out of their seats.
The room fell graveyard silent for the duration of the partner assignments. Bonnie Green, thankfully, was placed with a Gryffindor boy named Peter. Mary Macdonald was put with Cerys Jones of Ravenclaw, and the last two of Elena's dorm mates were placed together. The Ravenclaw boys were all put with Gryffindors and once they were all paired off, Elena knew who her partner would be before Slughorn even said it.
"Last but not least we have Mr. Black and Ms. Torres Vela- no, I'm sorry dear. You only want to be called by one of your surnames, don't you Ms. Torres? Allow me to write that down…pair off you two, pair off!"
Elena sheepishly smiled at her partner, Mr. Insert-name-here Black, and followed him to a cauldron. She sat down and listened intently to Professor Slughorn, gathering and comprehending as much as she could: Open books…something about page 28…calming draught…get ingredients.
"I'll get the ingredients," Sirius said and stood there as if expecting a response that never came. Elena didn't want to talk to him more than she had to, at least not until she had a good gauge of his personality. She was slightly bothered by the events of earlier, but not enough to actually be angry, just confused.
If only she could think of how to ask them to just stop, or better yet, mess with them right back. Only, Elena never was good at messing with people…then again, everyone in Chile spoke Spanish…nobody at Hogwarts did.
"Here," he said, laying them out. He may as well have said nothing because she kept her nose in the potions book. "I have the stuff."
Elena waved her hand at him and whispered, "¡Cállate! Estoy ocupada."
"I only know English."
"¡Pobrecillo! Lloro a lágrima viva."
"What language are you even-?"
"Hablando español, estupido."
"I'm pretty sure you just insulted me," Sirius frowned, starting on the potion. "You obviously understand English but can you speak it?"
"No," she lied. "No sabe hablar inglés pero lo entiendo."
"Great," he sighed with irritation but lacking menace. "I get the one that doesn't speak English."
She smirked to herself as she watched him start the brewing process. Potions had been one of her strong suits; she could afford to take this day slowly. Besides, now that she is sure that Sirius Black doesn't understand Spanish, she can start saying nonsensical phrases like 'el pene de mi gato es muy pequeño y verde,' or 'los pingüinos bailan el foxtrot en el Parlamento Escocés.'
Elena threw the dragonfly wings into the brew, grinned, and gestured to the next step so that he would know that she had done it.
"Ah, thank you No-English," he then sighed. "What is your name?"
She pretended to be confused. "Name?"
"You know, a thing you are called."
She pointed to herself and said, "Elena."
"Sirius," he nodded, adding in the ginger roots and stirring clockwise.
"De niña, me gustaba correr tras de mis hermanos con los cuchillos," Elena said cheerily. "Pero ahora, uso el dragón."
"I really hope you aren't insulting me."
Elena shrugged and smirked. "Lagarta, podría ser," she made a mental note to tell Sam, Lily, and perhaps a few other Ravenclaws about this later. She wondered how far she could take it until her potions partner discovered the truth.
Sirius didn't seem like a bad person: full of himself, obnoxious, and definitely privileged, but not a bad person. He was just in for an interesting first week or two, that was all.
Short chapter, I know, but this is quite possibly the only one that will be this short. I wanted to get through the 'meeting Sirius' bit and law the groundwork for how things will go for a while- she'll pretend not to speak English around him but he'll soon learn that he's being tricked. He isn't falling for her, he's still a bit- a bit? psh, I mean 'very much'- of a player. Besides, I have plans...detailed ones.
¡Cállate! Estoy ocupada- Hush, I'm busy
¡Pobrecillo! Lloro a lágrima viva- Poor thing! I'm crying my heart out
Hablando español, estúpido- I'm speaking Spanish, stupid
No sabe hablar inglés pero lo entiendo- I don't speak English but I understand it
el pene de mi gato es muy pequeño y verde- my cat's penis is very small and Green
los pingüinos bailan el foxtrot en el Parlamento Escocés- the penguins foxtrot on the Scottish Parliament
De niña, me gustaba correr tras de mis hermanos con los cuchillos, pero ahora, uso el dragón- when I was Little I chased after my siblings with knives but now I use a dragon
Lagarta, podría ser- kind of like 'bitch, I might be!'