"McGonagall's gonna kill me." Derrick looked mournfully at the fork in his hand, which they were supposed to be turning into knives. "This is a mutant fork with extra-sharp tines. If she doesn't kill me, the fork might."
"I don't think we should be taking silverware from the great hall and transfiguring it." said Jeanie Riggins. "I don't think the kitchen staff likes it very much."
"Well, the unit test is in three days. I've got to practice."
Christina looked up from her potions essay. "He's got to practice, Jeanie." The great hall was empty on this cloudy Saturday afternoon, save for a pod of first-years frantically practicing transfiguration.
"Christina's right, I need to get this." said Derrick. "House-elves have their own magic; they can definitely fix these later." He waved his wand again. "A spork? Aww c'mon!"
"Maybe we should take a break." Paolo groaned. He'd accidentally sent his fork ricocheting off the table in a shower of sparks and then spent the last half hour eating chocolate eclairs.
"You're right." Derrick groaned. "Anyone for pick-up quidditch on the pitch?"
Everyone immediately began packing up their books and notes and sprinted for the quidditch pitch. As it turned out, they'd scraped up 14 first-years, enough for two teams. Christina, Paolo, Andy, Jeanie, Abigail, Derrick, and Nora lined faced off against a team of Ravenclaws and Slytherins.
"I wanna be chaser." said Paolo, who had assumed the role of captain. "Andy and Nora, you in? Derrick, you can be seeker. Abigail, you should try keeper. Christina and Jeanie, you two up for some beating?"
Christina nodded, clutching a clunky school broom and the heavy beater's bat. She hadn't really played enough quidditch to have any kind of specialty position yet. Andy threw the quaffle up and they all took to the air. Christina quickly realized she didn't know what she was doing and decided to tail the chasers, watching for bludgers. Jeanie, who'd been playing little league quidditch since she was eight, was doing the same so it must be correct.
Gretchen, a rude Slytherin girl who was playing beater for the other team, wheeled toward Andy with her bat at the ready. Christina gasped and leaned forward, trying to get between them. A bludger swooped in and both girls swung and missed, Andy shooting forward as Christina and Gretchen collided and spun in circles.
"Are you ok?" Paolo, who had witnessed the crash, flew toward them.
"We're fine!" said Christina. "I think. You ok, Gretchen?"
Gretchen frowned. "Look at you! Typical Gryffindors, always trying to hurt Slytherins!"
"I wasn't trying to hurt you, I was trying to stop you from clobbering Andy! If you did get hurt when we crashed I'm sorry."
Gretchen was now weeping big crocodile tears. "You've hurt me! It's always everyone having it out for us Slytherins!"
"Are you hurt or not?" Andy shouted, flying up with the quaffle under his arm. The match had essentially stopped, except for the two seekers still looking for the snitch.
The keeper for the other team, a Ravenclaw named Nick, flew up. "She's always like this." He mutterd in an undertone. "Us Ravenclaws have herbology with Slytherin and she's always complaining and making herself out to be some kind of victim. Just ignore her." A light rain had started falling over the pitch now and most of them agreed to just end the match there.
Christina and the other Gryffindors hurried back up to Gryffindor tower to change into dry clothes and then probably keep studying for McGonagall's class, since they'd wasted time playing quidditch. The common room, however, was packed with people crowding around Harry Potter and exclaiming about something.
"What's going on?" Nora asked, trying to push two bulky sixth-years aside.
"Harry's got his firebolt back!" said Colin Creevey, who was so excited he looked like he was about to wet himself.
"I knew there wasn't any kind of curse on it!" Paolo crowed. "Someone out there really just wants to see Gryffindor win!"
Christina watched the crowd—mostly boys—surrounding Harry and pestering him with questions before drifting away to start her homework. But before she could sit down her attention was caught by a flier tacked to the wall:
Attention: were you raised by muggles? Participate in an interview project!
We're Sienna Markey (Ravenclaw) and Vivian Olvera (Gryffindor) and we're doing a project for Muggle Studies class about the experiences of young witches and wizards who were raised in the muggle world! Come find us in the library three tables down from the restricted section every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon. Compensation will be in the form of your favorite snack from Honeydukes.
Christina read the whole flier excitedly. This might be a really neat way for her to talk about her background a little more. Sure, she knew other muggleborns, but nobody talked about coming from a muggle background very much. She turned and grabbed Abigail, who was still staring at the firebolt. "Abigail!"
"What?"
"Look at this flier!"
Abigail took the flier and read it. "I didn't know Hogwarts even offered Muggle Studies."
"I think it's not one you can take until third year."
"Well, more people ought to take it. Then maybe there wouldn't be so many purebloods running around calling us mudbloods."
"Is that a yes to doing this project?" Christina asked.
"Yes, of course it is."
At that moment Ron Weasley came running down the stairs, holding a bedsheet and screaming about how Crookshanks had eaten his pet rat Scabbers. Hermione had started shouting back and from the looks of things it was going to be a bad fight. Christina rolled her eyes at Abigail and the two left the common room in search of a quieter area to work.
That Tuesday they both went up to the library, scanning for anyone who could be Sienna and Vivian.
"There." Abigail pointed to two older girls, one in Gryffindor robes and one in Ravenclaw robes, who were sitting at a table near the restricted section eating chocolate frogs next to a large basket of sweets. Before she could lose her nerve, Christian grabbed Abigail's hand and dragged her over.
"Hello!" The blonde girl in Ravenclaw robes called through a mouthful of chocolate. "Here to participate in the project?"
Christina and Abigail nodded.
"Great! Every year N.E.W.T. students in Muggle Studies have to do a research project of some kind exploring how the magical and muggle worlds interact, and since Vivian and I are both muggleborn we decided to do ours about how muggleborn students adjust to life at Hogwarts. Are you two both first-years?"
Abigail and Christina nodded.
"Wonderful. Always good to get a fresh perspective. Does one of you want to go first?"
Abigail and Christina looked at each other for a moment. "I can go." Christina said.
"Excellent." Sienna took out a fresh quill and touched the tip to a piece of parchment. "Don't mind the Quick-Quotes-Quill; it'll record what you say as you talk so I don't have to spend time writing. Question one: just tell me a little bit about your family and how you grew up."
"Well . . . I grew up with just my mum. I don't know who my father is, and she doesn't know either. She had an accident when I was a baby, you see, and now she has memory problems. She was unconscious for two whole days after the accident. So I don't know what her life was like before the accident. We've lived in London my whole life."
"Thank you." said Sienna. "Question number two is, who was most helpful for you in your transition to the wizarding world? Was it McGonagall's home visit in the summer? A friend? A different professor?"
Christina shook her head. "I didn't get a home visit from Professor McGonagall, no one in our year did. I think she was ill the week she was supposed to be visiting people. We got Professor Vector instead, and she was nice but not all that helpful. The most helpful person was Colin Creevey, who's in Gryffindor a year above me and also muggleborn. He keeps telling me how everything works. He's kind of weird, but he's nice."
"Colin's one of the kids who got petrified last year." Vivian said. "Glad to hear he's doing better."
Sienna nodded. "Question three is, how did your parents—or in this case your mum—feel about you being a witch?"
"It's the weirdest thing. When we went to the platform to put me on the train, my mum thought it jogged her memory and now she thinks she might have been a student here too. Which is so weird, because now I don't even know if I'm a muggleborn or not, or if my family has history at this school. I don't even know where to start."
Vivian and Sienna both peered at her with odd looks on their faces. "I don't think I've talked to anyone else in a situation like yours. Do you know when your mother might have gone here?"
Christina shook her head. "I know she's in her thirties, if that helps. She was pretty young when she had me."
Sienna nodded. "You can look for the old yearbooks in the library. It might take some trial and error, but you can look around in old yearbooks . . . probably from the 70s."
"I've been meaning to do that!" Said Christina. "Where are they?"
"Five shelves down." Said Vivian. "I know because I once had to look up former prefects for history of magic class."
"You could go now if you want, while I interview Abigail." Sienna put in. "Take a piece of candy, too, but don't let Madame Pince catch you eating in the library."
Christina took a large sugar quill and tucked it in her bag, then went to find the yearbooks. No one checked out old yearbooks very often, so all the ones from the 1970s were sitting placidly on the shelf. Christina looked around, then grabbed all ten yearbooks from that decade and crammed them in her bag. She was going to get answers—as soon as that transfiguration exam was finished.
A/N: wow, it's been a while for this story! Much like whack-a-mole, inspiration for the fics I have in progress strikes at random and inopportune moments.