Year 1: A New Generation
Chapter 9: May 2012
Victoire,
How are you?
Yesterday, Louis was building a fort, and I accidentally tripped over one of the blanket and now he's mad at me. To get back at me, he snuck into my room and stole one of my dolls, but when maman found out, she made him give it back.
Papa has been working late a lot. He misses dinner sometimes, but maman says it's because he's working on this big project and he can't be distracted. Does that happen to you at school sometimes with your homework? Do they teachers sometimes assign a lot all at once and then you don't have time to play with your friends?
Me and Louis are supposed to go play with Molly and Lucy later. Maman has to do some errands and she asked Aunt Audrey to watch us. I wanted to go shopping with maman, but she says I would just slow her down. I think she has me confused with Louis. It's not that I don't like playing at Aunt Audrey's house, because she always has really good snacks to eat. But Molly's just going to boss me around all afternoon.
I hope you're having fun at school. Just don't have too much fun because I'm not there. I miss you. Do you miss me too? I can't wait for summer, because then you'll be home and I'll have someone to play with besides Louis. Good luck with school.
Dominique
"Is that another letter from your sister?" Brianna asked.
"Yeah," Victoire replied, grabbing a clean parchment to pen out a reply. "I think the separation is starting to get to her."
"I wish I had siblings," Kara sighed. "You guys are so lucky."
"Trust me," Victoire said. "Having siblings is most definitely not always the best. Sometimes I wish I was an only child like you."
"Yeah, but if you were an only child, you'd realize how special it really is to have brothers and sisters," Kara said. "Growing up, I only ever had myself to play with. Can you imagine how lonely that was?"
"Yeah, but siblings will mess up your stuff and steal your things," Victoire said.
"One time, my sister found some paint in the basement and decided she was going to surprise me and paint my room. She got it all over everything and completely destroyed my bedspread," Brianna said.
Kara shrugged. "I still think it would have been a lot more fun to grow up with a brother or a sister."
At that moment, the door to the dorm opened and Caitlin came in, pulling her robes off and tossing them onto the floor. She grabbed a textbook off her bed and then turned around and disappeared back down to the common room.
"Ugh, she didn't even put it in her trunk or anything," Brianna complained. "She is such a slob!"
"I know, right?" Victoire agreed. "I mean would it kill her to put her dirty clothes down the laundry chute and keep her things in her trunk or on her side table?"
"I literally can't even walk through the room without almost tripping over her stuff," Kara added. "And my bed isn't anywhere near hers'!"
"This is what it would be like," Brianna said. "If you had a sibling, it would be like living with Caitlin all the time."
"I'm not entirely sure I believe you," Kara said. "This is pretty extreme after all…"
"No, it really isn't," Victoire assured her. "Younger siblings do not clean up after themselves. In fact, most of the time, it's even worse than this."
"Huh," Kara said. "Well I still think it'd have been nice."
Victoire smiled as Kara returned her attention to her nails and Brianna continued to read her magazine. Grabbing a textbook so that she would have a surface to write on, Victoire began her letter to her sister.
Dominique,
I'm doing well. With only a month left before end-of-year exams, we're all starting to get a little nervous. All the older students keep saying that first-year exams are terrible, and the Professors keep telling us we have nothing to worry about, so I don't really know what to expect.
My roommate Caitlin is really starting to get on my nerves. She's so messy, always leaving her things lying around on the floor and in other people's spaces. Also, she never puts her dirty clothes down the laundry chute and now the room is starting to smell like dirty clothes. I might just gather them all up and toss them down myself if I get mad enough.
I miss you too. I'm glad to hear that you're spending time with your cousins. Don't let Molly boss you around too much – you know you're older than her, right? Even though it's only by a few months, you'll still get to start Hogwarts before her which sort of makes you a whole year older. I know you can't wait until you finally get to come to Hogwarts, but trust me, you should enjoy the time you have left at home with maman and papa and Louis. Once you get here, you'll be missing the days when you could play on the beach and swim in the ocean without worrying about your Herbology assignment or your Astronomy homework.
I'll see you very soon. The term is almost over and then I'll be home for two whole months!
Victoire
VvVvVvVvVvV
"Ugh," Brianna cried a few days later as she, Kara, and Victoire attempted to revise for their Potions final. "All these ingredients! Do we really have to know all their properties and uses?"
"Well Professor Abbott-Longbottom did emphasizes that that was going to be a key feature of the exam," Kara pointed out. "It's not like it's a practical final, like the O.W.L.s or the N.E.W.T.s have."
"That doesn't mean we don't have to know the practical stuff though," Victoire said. "I've heard that sometimes, the potions exam will have questions that simulate a practical situation."
"Like what?" Brianna asked.
"Oh, you know," Victoire said. "Stuff like; you're brewing a babbling beverage and you've just added the final ingredients. You begin to stir counter-clockwise and suddenly, your potion begins to thicken and become sludge-like. What have you done wrong and what can you do to set your potion right?"
"Oh, I hate those kinds of questions!" Kara exclaimed. "Why can't it just be really straightforward questions, like what kind of stirring rod to use for a certain potion, or which potions require a high heat and which ones need to be cooked on a low heat?"
"Well then it wouldn't be a challenge," Teddy said, appearing out of the blue and taking a seat. "They aren't going to send you onto second year if you can't handle a simple sludge-i-fying babbling beverage. What are you going to do when your simple sleeping draught is bubbling it's way up and out of your cauldron, or when your confusing concoction starts turning unhealthy shades of pink?"
"I wish the exams could just be over and done with," Brianna sighed. "Then we could just forget about all this stuff for the summer."
"Yeah, and then when you come back in September, you'll be utterly behind because you didn't revise at all over the holiday," Teddy shot back.
"When did you become such a nerd?" Victoire asked jokingly.
"Hey, my father was top of his class," Teddy said, rounding on Victoire. "It's in my genes."
"Sorry," Victoire held up her hands, sensing it was a touchy subject.
"Do you think your father might have some old notes he could lend us?" Kara asked. "If he was top of his class, they must have been pretty good."
"Oh, Kara, I don't think – "
"It's fine," Teddy said, interrupting Victoire. "Sorry Kara, but I don't have access to any of my dad's old school notes. And actually, I've got to be somewhere."
He pushed his chair back and made a hasty exit. Kara frowned.
"Did I say something?" she asked.
"It's not your fault," Victoire assured her. "You couldn't have known, but Teddy's parents both died in the Battle of Hogwarts."
"Oh my gosh I feel like a complete Flob!" Kara said. "I can't believe I asked that!"
"Like I said, you couldn't have known," Victoire repeated.
"Does he talk about it much?" Kara asked.
"Not too much," Victoire said. "I mean, it happened when he was a baby, so he doesn't really remember them. So he doesn't have that feeling of having known them and lost them. They're just… missing," she used a term Teddy had used in the past.
"I wonder if it would have been worse, if he'd had the chance to know them first?" Kara wondered.
"It would have been worse," Brianna said quietly. "Knowing your father, and not being able to see him; it's the worst."
"Oh, Bri, I'm sorry," Kara said, reaching out a hand to comfort their friend. "I wasn't thinking. Merlin, I need to stop opening my big mouth!"
"No, really, it's fine," Brianna assured her. "I don't want you guys tiptoeing around me all the time. And it's not like my dad's dead or anything. In three years, he'll be back and home and everything will go back to normal."
"Yeah, but I bet it sucks right now," Victoire sympathized.
"Yeah," Brianna said. "It does."
VvVvVvVvVvV
As the days continued to pass, the end of May began to arrive and the June exams began to loom.
"I'm never going to remember all this," Kara cried, throwing her textbook across the dorm. "I mean, come on! Emeric the Evil, Elfric the Eager, Egbert the Egregious…? Why does everybody's names have to start with the letter 'E'?"
"And who cares about the Soap Blizzard of 1378?" Victoire added. "How does a Soap Blizzard even cause an economic crash anyway?"
"We've been studying so much for the past for weeks that I haven't even touched a bottle of nail polish in almost five days," Brianna cried. "Look at my toes, I'm ashamed to walk around barefoot at all with these disasters."
"I think we should take a study break," Kara suggested. "We deserve it. We have been revising almost all day. Plus, I feel like nothing I read now is going to go into my brain. I have to let the information in there settle before I can try stuffing in more."
"I agree," Victoire said, slamming her textbook shut and tossing it to the end of the bed. "Bring out the nail polish remover!"
Pushing aside their study materials as well, Kara and Brianna joined Victoire on her bed and the girls began to remove their nail polish, eager to put on some fresh polish that would actually look nice, hopefully for at least a few days.
"Oh my gosh, seriously?" Caitlin asked, walking in. "You guys are always painting your nails!" she cried. "Why do you have to be such stereotypical girls? Be interesting for once in your life!" She pulled her sweater off and dumped it on the floor, grabbing a t-shirt from the pile of dirty clothes littering the ground and sniffing it once before throwing it over her head. "Merlin, it's like all you care about is your appearance! Don't you know we have exams coming up? You know you should really be studying?"
"For your information, we were studying about thirty seconds ago, but we thought we'd take a little break," Brianna informed the girl. "And speaking of living with terrible roommates, did you know that the dorm was a shared space? Because it seems to me that you're under the impression the dorm is one giant hamper, which it isn't. I mean, did you seriously just pick that shirt out of your dirty laundry and throw it on?"
"What does it matter to you whether I wear clothes more than once before having them cleaned?" Caitlin demanded. "I'll have you know, it's actually better for the clothes not to be washed so many times, because every time they are washed, they lose a bit of their composition."
"I'd rather clothes with a bit less composition than smelling like a troll," Brianna yelled back, getting to her feet.
"I'd rather smell like a troll than have everyone thinking I'm just some dumb pretty girl who's never going to amount to anything," Caitlin countered. "At least I have brains."
"I'll have you know, I have both brains and beauty," Brianna cried. "And I also have the good sense to shower every morning, something I know you don't do, because we share a bathroom."
"Normal people don't need to shower every day," Caitlin defended herself. "Maybe you need to because you're just a naturally dirty person, but most people only have to shower every other day."
"Newsflash," Brianna roared. "You are the kind of person that needs to shower everyday. I don't know if you know this, but running around the castle five times every day makes a person sweat, and sweat makes a person smell."
"Well excuse me for trying to keep in shape," Caitlin cried. "I happen to be trying to make the Quidditch team next year, and that's certainly not going to happen if I lie around all day playing dress up and putting on makeup!"
"Well if you didn't eat so much at meals, you might not have so many carbs to burn off," Brianna countered.
"Well if you knew anything about athletes, we need to eat more because we're going to burn it off," Caitlin yelled.
"Well if you knew anything at all, you'd know that athletes are people with teams, and right now, you're just a first year who doesn't have a prayer of making the team next year," Brianna shouted.
"I can't believe I got stuck rooming with you!" Caitlin cried. "I'm going to go talk to Professor Longbottom right now and get you traded to another house!"
"Oh you can try, but it's not going to work," Brianna told her.
"We'll see about that!" Caitlin screeched, slamming the door behind her as she left.
"Well that was interesting," Kara commented after she left, breaking the silence that followed.
"She had it coming," Brianna muttered, flopping back down on Victoire's bed. "Hand me the nail polish remover, I still have to finish my other foot."
VvVvVvVvVvV
"So it seems we have a bit of a problem here girls," Professor Longbottom said later in his office. True to her word, Caitlin had gone straight to their Head of House and requested not only for Brianna to be transferred to another house, but for Kara and Victoire to be transferred too. As a result, all five first year Gryffindor girls had been summoned to Professor Longbottom's office to talk out their problems.
"We wouldn't if you would just reassign their houses," Caitlin grumbled.
"Wouldn't it be easier if you just left?" Brianna countered.
"I'm not the problem," Caitlin threw back. "You three are."
"Alright, let's back up here," Professor Longbottom said, holding up his hand. "Caitlin, what specifically do you find is annoying about your dorm mates that makes you want them transferred?"
Caitlin crossed her arms in front of her chest. "Well for one thing, they're always stinking up the room with the stench of their nail polish," she said.
"Okay, if we're going to talk about smelling up the dorm – "
"Brianna, please give Caitlin the chance to finish," Professor Longbottom insisted.
Brianna sat back sullenly as Caitlin continued.
"Also, they're always complaining about things that are so silly and unimportant. It's like, come on! Wake up and join the real world where people are dealing with real problems!" she cried.
"Anything else?" Professor Longbottom asked.
"They're always making it seem like me and Raina are the bad room mates," Caitlin said. "We don't do anything and they're always yelling at us for something or other, or else they're whispering about us in the bathroom. I'm tired of it!"
"Alright, Brianna, what about you?" Professor Longbottom asked when Caitlin had finished. "How do you feel about your room mates?"
"Well for one thing, Caitlin treats the dorm like a hamper and a garbage can all in one," Brianna said.
"I do n – "
"Let Brianna speak," Professor Longbottom said. "She was kind enough to do the same for you."
Caitlin made a face, but kept her mouth shut.
"She leaves her stuff all over the floor. I can barely walk in there without tripping over her stuff. And she never sends her clothes down to the laundry, so the room smells like dirty laundry all the time," Brianna said.
"Kara? Victoire? You feel the same way as Brianna?" Professor Longbottom asked. The girls nodded, backing their friend up. "And what about you Raina? How do you feel about all this?"
Raina shook her head. "I don't want to upset anybody," she said.
"This is a safe space," Professor Longbottom said. "You can say anything here and nobody will judge you for it."
Raina took a deep breath. "I just wish we could all get along," she said. "But ever since our first night, it was like Kara and Brianna and Victoire were against me."
"Yeah, well the fertilizer was a big factor in that," Brianna muttered.
"Even since Professor Longbottom confiscated my fertilizer though, you're always whispering behind our backs and never including us in anything," Raina shrugged. "I guess I just hoped we would all be friends."
"Caitlin, do you think you share some of Raina's feelings?" Professor Longbottom asked.
"No way!" Caitlin cried. "I don't want to be friends with those stuck-up prissy girls! If they can't handle a tiny pile of laundry that I simply haven't had time to carry over to the laundry chute, then I have no use for them."
"The laundry chute is literally right inside the bathroom," Brianna said. "It's like, all of fifteen steps. Is that really so hard?"
"When you're training as hard as I am, not to mention trying to keep your grades up, I guess it means there's a lot less time for things like that," Caitlin countered, her voice rising.
"All right girls, calm down," Professor Longbottom intervened. "Clearly there are a lot of issues at play here, so I'm going to make a few suggestions. "Caitlin, put your dirty clothes in the laundry instead of leaving them all around the dorm."
"This isn't all my fault," Caitlin cried. "You can't just – "
"I know it's not your fault, but this is the part you can play to try and create a better atmosphere," Professor Longbottom said. "Raina, as for you… well just make sure you keep the fertilizer out of the dorm."
"But I have been doing that," Raina said. "Ever since you confiscated it and made me keep my plants in the greenhouse."
"Great, well you just keep that up," Professor Longbottom said. "As for you three," he said, rounding on Victoire, Kara, and Brianna, "I think it's safe to say that in befriending each other, you've managed to isolate everyone else around you. Now I know what it's like to be the friend on the outside – always wanting to be a part of the group, but never fully joining. Now I'm not going to force the five of you to be friends, but I am asking that you at least try to include Caitlin and Raina in things sometimes. Don't shut them out, let them be a part of the things you do. And maybe they'll surprise you and you'll discover that there really was a great friend to be had there."
Professor Longbottom talked for a while more about friendship and outsiders and insiders and then sent the girls on their way. As soon as they were out in the hall and the door to Professor Longbottom's office was shut, Caitlin turned to face her roommates, hands on her hips.
"I'll pick up my laundry," she said. "But don't expect me to jump on Victoire's bed and paint my toenails with you all, because I'm not going to that," she said, turning on her heel and disappearing down the hall.
Raina looked after her with a sad look on her face.
"So do you want to come study with us?" Victoire asked her, feeling bad for their other roommate.
Raina's face lit up. "I'd love to!" she said eagerly. "I have to get my books from the dorm first though."
"So do we," Kara said with a smile. "We can go together."
VvVvVvVvVvV
Over the next few days, the girls continued to study with Raina and quickly discovered that she was an extremely good asset to have when studying. Unbeknownst to them, Raina was actually a secret genius, especially in Herbology, and her notes were phenomenal. Even Teddy, in sneaking a peek at some of the notes, claimed that he had never understood the purpose of certain planting techniques, but could now see why they were important.
Dominique,
To answer your previous letter, yes, I miss you terribly and cannot wait until end-of-year exams are over and can come home and relax. Don't worry, I promise I'll be sure to play with you this summer and not just sit in my room penning notes to my new friends (of course, I will write to them sometimes, just as I take time away from them to write to you).
Remember my dorm mate Raina? Well turns out she's quite smart. She's been studying with us, and I finally feel confident enough to write my exams, which incidentally start week after next. Despite feeling ready, I am very nervous, so please send me some luck during the two weeks we'll be writing them. If I feel this nervous for regular exams, imagine how I'm going to feel when it's time for my O.W.L.s? I'm sure to be a disaster. Luckily you and Louis will both be here to calm me down.
I was surprised to find out that there would still be a week of classes after exams were over. I don't know what they expect to teach us, as nobody will be listening, but I guess they don't want us simply roaming the grounds aimlessly for a week before the Hogwarts Express departs. I suppose they also have to assign us our summer work, though I've been hoping that they forget this year and let us enjoy our summers in peace. Teddy says that will never happen, but a girl can dream.
Say hello to maman and papa for me, I haven't had the chance to write them this week with all the studying. And tell Louis that no, he may not use my art supplies to paint a giant goblin on his wall. He'll only make a mess and ruin all my paintbrushes.
See you soon,
Victoire