The rest of the day swept by in a blur. For herbology, luckily I could just follow the other Ravenclaws. Also, finding the class's location wasn't too difficult as if you looked out any window facing the eastern part of the grounds, you could easily see the slanted glass roofs of the greenhouses. The teacher, a short plump witch with dirt smeared on her face, lead us into the first greenhouse and lectured us about safety before introducing us to the many exotic plants that inhabited the greenhouse and giving us a short tour and an overview of what the class would be like. It didn't seem too hard; it would mostly be wild, imported, magical plants that needed to be cared for. It seemed that we would be transplanting, pruning, watering and learning about the many plants and their uses.
After herbology, we had only a few minutes in which we trooped back to the castle and set off to find our charms class. I tried to remember a few landmarks so that the next time I had charms I would find it easier, but I kept forgetting whether I was supposed to pass the rusting suit of armor or the tapestry of a witch in a pink cloak playing a flute first.
When we arrived at his class, Professor Flitwick, who was apparently the head of Ravenclaw, started out by taking the attendance.
He stood, balanced on a pile of books behind his desk, reading off the names, slowly trying to match them with faces.
"Gordon Beron?" he called. A short black boy with glasses who I'd seen being sorted raised his hand.
"Kevin Douglas?" A pale boy from Hufflepuff nodded. "Ben Elmont?" A boy who I remembered had been sorted immediately after the hat touched his head answered.
"Josh Grenson?" A boy in my house with plain brown hair smiled and called loudly, "Here!"
"Kayla Hanson?" A chubby, friendly looking girl with short, curly, black hair raised her hand.
Slowly Professor Flitwick made his way down the list, calling Sean O'Leary, one of the boys I'd followed earlier and Hao Linn, another boy in my house. He then called Sandy's name. I looked up and saw her bright blond ringlets bouncing as she raised her hand. She and Fiona sat together and Megan and Victoria were with them. Across the isle were the other Hufflepuff girls, Kayla Hanson, Harper Travers, and Tajel Zarri, all chatting quietly while they waited for Professor Flitwick to finish taking the attendance. I felt left out and lonely. I resolutely made up my mind to join Fiona, Sandy, Megan, and Victoria during the free period I had next.
Professor Flitwick spent the next few minutes going over the material we'd be covering throughout the year. Charms sounded like a difficult class, but everyone was excited when they saw Professor Flitwick make his quill and attendance sheet tango across his desk. Charms, he explained, was a very important class as we would be using simple charms all our lives. Finally he set us to practicing some elementary wand movements and learning some basic prefixes and suffixes we would be using a lot in charms. I was rather relieved he wasn't asking us to do magic just yet. I couldn't imagine what might happen if I tried to make my book bag tap dance or something, and I wasn't sure I wanted to find out.
At last, Professor Flitwick assigned several words we had to learn and some more wand movements to practice and dismissed us. I hurried to pack my book and parchment away; I wasn't going to let Victoria and the others leave without me again. I walked with them to the library, trying to stay with the group. I didn't want to push myself on them, but I wanted to have company.
"Homework, on our first day?" Fiona was saying, "It's outrageous!"
"I know! What have you got, Tory?" Sandy asked, apparently addressing Victoria.
"McGonagall gave us a whole essay!" Victoria replied indignantly.
"It's not that bad. She said a short essay, and besides the first chapter had loads to write about in it," Megan said. Personally, I agreed with her. I'd actually been rather excited about starting to learn magic and doing my very first bit of homework at Hogwarts. I wasn't about to voice this opinion, however, because from what I could see of Victoria's face, it wasn't a very popular one.
"Well, I for one think it's ridiculous that we should get any work at all on our very first day. I mean, if that's how it is on day one, what's it going to be like the rest of the year? We'll probably get massive amounts of homework!" Victoria exclaimed.
"Oh, look, it's Sarah!" Sandy squealed, imitating my accent. She giggled in a teasing way, as though she were only joking, but there was a hint of mockery in her voice.
"Oh, hello," said Victoria, rather coldly.
"What did you think of the classes?" Megan asked.
"They were alright," I said, trying to read everyone's faces, to see what they thought of the classes so I could make sure I gave the right answer.
"Sarah blew up her match during transfiguration," Victoria said to Sandy, almost as though I wasn't there.
"Really, how did you manage that?" she asked.
"I don't know, I just kind of… messed up, I guess,"
"Oh," Sandy said, raising her eyebrows at Fiona in a superior way.
"Look, I'll just be going then, o.k.?" I said, tired of them making fun of me, and acting like I wouldn't notice. I wanted to get along with the people in my house. I wanted to get along with everyone! But they were making it so difficult, what was their problem!
"No!" Victoria said, suddenly, "Listen, I'm sorry. We weren't being mean on purpose or anything," I was so surprised that I didn't think to point out the fact that it was rather difficult in this circumstance to be mean by accident.
"Come on, we're going to the library to start this essay. You can come and help us out," she said. I wasn't sure I liked the sound of 'help us out', but I shrugged and followed them to the school library.
Sorry for the incredibly short chapter. I'll update soon, though... I hope, lol. Anyway, thanks to all my reviewers! Btw, Evenstar, I'll answer your questions here instead of replying, just in case anyone else wants to know the answers. All of the spells mean things in Latin and the password to Ravenclaw is 'Knowledge is Power' in Latin. And as to Slytherins all being purebloods, in book5, the sorting hat is talking about the founders and it says "Slytherin took only pureblood wizards of great cunning just like him". Since then, i'm sure he's probably been forced to take half-bloods or else there'd be no one in his house, but in the story, Victoria, like me, just assumes that all Slytherins must be pureblood.