3 September 1991 Tuesday
I woke up early this morning or, early compared to the others anyway, and I realized I missed Luna, and I kind of wanted to know how Shack was doing, and I haven't seen Percy in forever, so I sat and wrote a long letter to Luna and a medium letter to Shack and notes to Percy and Ced and took the up to the owlry. I ran into Percy on the way, which surprised me. Seems a couple of years ago there had been a DADA professor who also offered a fitness extracurricular (Professor Tate is doing that too, but I think I'm full up right now) and he found he really liked running, so now he gets up and runs a couple of miles (miles? Yeah, wizards never went metric) almost every morning. It's nice and quiet and he can use up nervous energy and clear his head. I said I hadn't realized I'd be running into him but here, I could save Hedwig a trip, and handed him his note. He read it quickly and said really? Really what? You really miss hanging around me? And I said of course, you're really smart and you tell good stories and you're funny in a quiet way that I realize and laugh about an hour later when I go over the conversation in my head, and you don't talk to me like a dumb kid even though you're so much older and know so much. Percy said I shouldn't sell myself short, I'm surprisingly well-informed for my age, and then I probably blushed and I asked him if I could sit with him during the Ravenclaw/Hufflepuff game, if I wouldn't be in the way or anything, because he was really good at explaining the game. He asked me if I wouldn't rather sit with my friends, and I said that he is one of my friends, and so is Neville, and I'm becoming friends with the other three Griffindor boys because of football. Which you started, he said. Only kinda, I said. All I did was tell Dean and Seamus that I had brought a football and then some other people heard and now we all get together to play football in the evening. He smiled and shook his head and ruffled my hair and said unless, and this was very unlikely, he had a new girlfriend by the time that game rolled around, I was welcome to sit by him.
Hmm. Girlfriend. Right. Percy's nearly grown up. The idea of being naked with a girl his age probably isn't something he finds disgusting, and I do have sense enough not to ask him that. I did ask him if there was anyone in particular he fancied, though, and I know Prefect Jones is single. I could check the family trees to see who's the right families. He said no, no, really, please, that's quite all right, he'd handle that on his own, but I don't know. Percy's kind of shy and he admits himself that he isn't good at making friends. I'm not supposed to think about who I'm going to marry, I promised Remus, but Percy's old enough to start thinking about that. I bet I could find some possible girls for him. Of course, Susan and Hannah might kill me, but I think Percy might not feel like waiting until they get old enough. Cedric obviously doesn't need my help, but ... This is going to be fun! But I'm not going to tell anyone I'm doing it. This will be my secret project. I figure, I've got two years, no three, Fifth Year, Sixth Year, Seventh Year, and it's not going to get really important until seventh year.
So anyway, he went for his run and I gave the notes to various owls and went and hung out in the great hall waiting for it to be breakfast time and looking over family trees. And breakfast was breakfast, and we went to DADA. I do not like Professor Quirrel. He stutters and stammers and reeks of garlic and wrongness and something about him gives me blinding headaches. DADA is an arena class that the whole first year takes together, so I sat with Neville and Hannah and Susan and Millie and Theo sat kind of near us but back a few rows, and by the end of class all of them were insisting I go see Madame Pomfrey, and all we have after DADA is library time until lunch, so everyone walked me down, even Theo (so while we were walking I introduced him to everyone, and I presented everyone to him even though Neville outranks him, which both he and Neville knew, and also you're supposed to present boys to girls, not the other way around, but everyone was nice about it, and they also told me that I shouldn't be talking with a headache like that).
The weird thing was, the headache went away, just like that, as soon as I got out of the DADA room. I figured it was worth seeing Madame Pomfrey anyway, though. She checked me over and while she couldn't find anything headache causing, she did find a few minor things wrong that we could deal with now and put me on a potions regimen to be taken with meals. Theo decided to stay and get looked at too, but Madame Pomfrey shooed the others out.
Theo asked if I could wait for him, so I did. He's got a sprained wrist and some bruises and I didn't watch his checkup, but I could tell where she had put the bruise balm, and I asked him when it happened. He said just before he left for the train. I said oh and we dropped it, but someone in his house grabbed him by the wrist and threw him into a wall, and he'd been drawing with that hand. That happened to me a couple of times before I learned to duck or when to shut up, I know what it looks like, and I can't think of anything else that could have caused that. I did ask if it hadn't hurt to draw and he said yeah, but he was pretty clumsy, so he did this a lot and he was used to it.
Now I have to decide what I'm going to do. I wonder if AP and UV would let me invite him home for part of Christmas hols?
We got to the library and we had notes from Madame Pomfrey, so Madame Pince let us in without any trouble and Theo and I sat down with Blaise and Tracey and Daphne, who are our official study group, and apologized for being late. They said it was all right since we didn't have that much to study right now, so we all got out our potions books and previewed a bit. I told them when PSS took me book shopping that he told me I should read the first three chapters, so we all quizzed each other on that. They thought the highlighting I had done was really neat, and I told them that PSS told me to buy the highlighters, too, that they're a muggle invention that hasn't caught on here yet, so now I am going to owl Remus and ask me if he can pick me up a dozen or so sets (cos I bet the Ravens and Percy would like them too).
Lunch was sandwiches again, but with all the things they have for making sandwiches, I don't think it would be possible to get bored with it.
After lunch was dance class, with our entire year. It was fun. All of us who had been at the party paired with someone who hadn't, except for Pansy and Draco. I danced with Hermione, who I think might have two left feet. She's smart, though, so I'm sure she'll get it. Hannah and Theo looked nice together, and so did Susan and Ron (who had been at the party, but hadn't actually danced that much). Neville danced with Su Li, who is even shorter than he is.
After that was another extracurricular block. Magical Art and Muggle Art were an hour each, and then I went to Astrology, which was all sorts of fun. Professor Vector runs it, and the only ones signed up for it were, me, Padma, Su, and Ernie. We spent the session on moon signs, cos there's a spell you can cast on someone to find out exactly when and where they were born, so we all worked out each other's and then we discussed what we could surmise from moon signs alone. Thursday we are going to work on rising signs and discuss the pros and cons of different ways of measuring the various houses. (As beginners we are going to be working with the equal houses system, but she wants us to know a little about the others anyway.) [AN: This is definitely information Harry would include, but I am not in the mood to do the math right now, so it's going to have to wait.]
After that was dinner. Roast beef and mash and glazed carrots and garlic broccoli and apple tart. I was running a little late because we had gotten caught up in talking, so I walked past the Griffindor table when it was full and I got to see what a stressed-out Percy looks like and it made me want to go over there and knock every single Griffindor lower year's heads together. Instead I walked over and asked Percy if it was always like this, and he said no, so far this a pretty quiet and uneventful meal. So I hugged him.
Everyone stopped talking and stared at me, so I stared right back at them and said What? Ron asked what'd I go and hug Percy for, as if Percy was a bug or something, and I said it was because he was clearly stressed out and had a headache building and he looked like he could use one and I I was in charge of you rowdy lot I'd've killed half of you by now, so they really should appreciate how kind and patient Percy was. Ron snorted, and I kind of lost my temper and pushed his face into his mashed potatoes.
Then I got scolded rather severely by PMM and PSS and I got detention from both of them and PSS said he would speak to me in greater depth later and I had to apologize to Ron, and by then I really was sorry. And Ron said that it was OK and pretty funny actually, and he was glad there was someone who likes his prat of an older brother, and PSS grabbed my shoulder very firmly before I could even move, and Ron lost five points for being rude. And I apologized to Percy too, for making a fuss and making things worse, and he smiled at me and said it was OK and that no one had ever shoved one of his brothers' faces into mashed potatoes for him before, and it was a memory he would treasure forever. PMM glared at him, but didn't take points.
PSS marched me over to the Slytherin tale and told me to sit down, eat my dinner, cause no more trouble, and be in his office at 19:00 sharp. I said, but it's 18:30 now, and he said that it would behoove me then to eat quickly.
As soon as he left, everyone told me that I should not have argued, and he must like me (although Draco suggested it's just that he's fond of roast beef) or he'd have marched me off to his office right now. So I ate quickly and made it to his office with a minute to spare.
Ouch. "Behavior I would expect from a Griffindor." I tried not to argue, but I finally said that they were picking on Percy and they shouldn't do that, it wasn't fair. Professor Snape pointed out that Percy is the Griffindor prefect and these were people under his authority, so he ought not to need protecting from them and had I considered that by jumping in like that, I made Percy look weak and implied that he couldn't handle his responsibilities? And no, that idea had never crossed my mind, and I never meant to undermine Percy's authority like that. PSS said that I really need to work on curbing these Griffindorish impulses of mine, and that I would have detention with him after dinner tomorrow night, scrubbing cauldrons, without magic. I nodded and left when I was excused and got undressed and went to bed. Even after writing all this it's still not curfew yet and nobody's come up to the dorm, but I am going to sleep anyway.