Bagsy didn't pay much attention during the remainder of the sorting ceremony, only half listening as the hat sang about unity and hard-working attitudes and finding herself glancing over at the Slytherin table often. She had taken note of where Mezrielda was sitting and her eyes kept finding her. She looked as uninterested as Bagsy, but in a bored way, rather than the I'm-terrified-of-all-these-people flavour Bagsy was experiencing.
Whilst the head of the school was walking up to the podium Bagsy glanced over her shoulder at the Slytherin table again, her eyes meeting Mezrielda's, who was looking straight at her. Bagsy snapped her head in the opposite direction, flushing in embarrassment at being caught spying. Now Mezrielda must think she was a phony and weird.
An elbow nudged her in the ribs and Bagsy jumped.
The girl to her left, dark skinned with wild hair, thick eyebrows and perfectly pressed robes, nodded at the podium. 'Pay attention,' she instructed in a not unfriendly manner. Bagsy mumbled her apologies and turned to listen to the head master.
Or mistress…
Actually, Bagsy wasn't sure which of the two the head was. They were average height, and wore unassuming white and brown robes, with a tall, and crooked, pointed cap. Round, bug like glasses sat on their small nose, enlarging their dark eyes that scanned the hall lazily.
Bagsy couldn't place the gender of this person, whose faced seemed a mix of feminine and masculine, and whose hair was cut short to the ear and curled in impossible ways at the end. Neither could Bagsy tell how old they were – they had an aura of wisdom that only age could bring, but a youth in those large eyes that indicated trust only found in young adults. Whatever they were, they spread their hands out wide, finishing a speech that Bagsy had not been paying attention to.
'May we find the year filled with friendship, with learning from mistakes, and with trust. But all that aside – dig in!' With a grand raising of their arms a mountain of food appeared on the four long tables of the great hall.
Bagsy saw freshly baked pies, large jugs of bubbling hot chocolate, roast vegetables that she recognised, and what she thought were vegetables but in colours she'd never seen before. Bagsy hesitated as the students around her piled food on to their plates.
'I know some of it looks odd, but it's all delicious,' the girl with wild hair who'd elbowed her before murmured kindly, raising her thick eyebrows at her. 'Go on, try the roast pokey, it's amazing.' She indicated a blue round shaped vegetable with a cream coloured dressing. Bagsy forced a smile and helped herself to one.
She took a bite and felt her tongue freeze as if she'd licked an icicle. At first it was unpleasant, but then the coolness began to sizzle with a delicious flavour like roast nuts and syrup and a smile of amazement spread across her face.
'Right?' The other girl smiled encouragingly. 'Good, isn't it?'
'Yes,' Bagsy murmured politely once she'd finished her mouthful. 'Thank you,' she added, feeling a warmth of gratefulness join the flavour of the food.
'I'm Gren Particularis, but you can call me Greenda,' Greenda introduced herself with a wink. Bagsy looked at her quietly, wondering why Greenda's nickname was longer than her original. She supposed it didn't matter, Greenda was a really nice name after all. 'And your name?' Greenda prompted.
'Oh! Uh… Bagsy, it's Bagsy,' she said.
'Not Bagsyllia?' Greenda teased, spearing a small potato stuffed with spring onions and popping it into her mouth.
'No, never Bagsyllia.' Bagsy shuddered.
Greenda chuckled. 'Sure, sure.'
'What's, um…' Bagsy began to ask a question but awkwardly trailed off, looking over at the head professor.
'That's Professor Fitzsimmons,' Greenda said, following her gaze. 'They're the head professor of Hogwarts. They seem distant, but it's difficult to slip misbehaviour past them in their classes. Not that I would ever misbehave, of course.'
By the end of the meal Bagsy had learnt Greenda was a fourth year, enamoured with potions, a decent Quidditch player and a prefect. Greenda was particularly proud of this last achievement as she was the third fourth year in all of Hogwarts' history to have been chosen for the position.
'It's almost unheard of for someone below their fifth year to be a prefect,' Greenda explained, for what was the seventh time, but still felt interesting to hear. Bagsy nodded along, not saying much in return. She was enjoying simply listening – Greenda had a lot of interesting things to say. She was welcoming and enthusiastic and didn't seem to care if Bagsy stayed quiet. It was nice to be around her and Bagsy found she was already quite fond of the older girl.
'Oh, do shut up, Greenda,' a girl shot from across the table. She was short and pretty, with pale skin, blonde curls and a small, pointed nose, and Bagsy instantly disliked her for being rude to Greenda. 'You're boring the poor first year to death.'
A second girl sitting next to the first, who had a brown bob and an American accent, smirked and hummed in a low voice. 'Greenda, Greenda, what shall we do? You're boring us, which is nothing new.'
The blonde girl joined in with the second girl, as did a few other students sitting by them. 'Greenda, Greenda, what do we say? Whenever you're there you spoil the day!'
The mocking became suddenly hushed. The blonde girl and her friend with a bob shrank down in their seats, focusing heavily on their food.
'Just a friendly joke, Professor,' the girl with the brown bob and American accent
said politely. Bagsy felt a shadow fall over her back. With a sinking feeling she slowly turned to look behind her.
The ugliest man she'd ever seen stood there. His face had an uneven, stubbly beard, one of his eyes was bigger than the other and a nasty scar stretched from one corner of his face to his jaw. He was a large, rotund man garbed in baggy, black robes and his grey hair had receded so far Bagsy nearly missed it altogether.
'Good. Keep it that way.' His voice was scratchy and low. He looked down at Greenda. 'Being a prefect is hard, Ms Particularis, I hope you can handle it.'
Greenda smiled. She hadn't shown an inch of reaction to the mean-spirited teasing of her housemates. 'Of course, I can, Professor Blythurst.' The rotund man nodded and, with an uneven and slow walk, moved away from their section of the table. Greenda turned her eyes to those sitting opposite her. 'Remember what Professor Fitzsimmons said about learning from mistakes? Please keep that in mind – let's use this year to forget our differences, okay?' There was no hint of aggression in her voice. The other fourth years sat in uncomfortable silence. 'Emmeline?' Greenda prompted.
The girl with blonde curls glanced at Greenda, pursed her lips, but eventually nodded. 'Why not,' Emmeline shrugged, picking her fork up. Bagsy simply gaped at Greenda, impressed by how she'd dealt with the situation so gracefully.
Bagsy ate far too much. By the end of her meal she'd had three helpings, her stomach had never felt fuller.
Professor Blythurst stood at the end of the Hufflepuff table, his croaky voice carrying down to them. 'Prefects lead your housemates to their rooms,' he instructed. Greenda and a few other students rose to their feet up and down the table as they began organizing the exodus from the Great Hall. Bagsy stuck close to Greenda, checking the Slytherin table every few minutes as the students lined up.
'Are you sure you're alright?' Greenda asked once she started moving towards the exit, the first years following her like baby ducklings. Greenda had a friendly quality about her even Bagsy couldn't deny.
Bagsy realized she'd been instinctually holding on to Greenda's robe and let go with a shy cough. 'Y-yes, just tired,' she lied.
Greenda smiled. 'Don't worry, you'll be in your soft bed before you know it.'
Greenda wasn't wrong. Hogwarts was a mess of a castle, with corridors leading every which way, and steps that moved or turned to slides without warning, doors that refused to open without a polite asking, or walls that grew and closed off corridors, but Greenda had a sixth sense for the place and confidently led them through the maze.
They passed the only still life painting Bagsy had seen since setting foot in Hogwarts, that Greenda explained led to the kitchens, before they were stopping in a shadowy corner of a corridor, in front of a large stack of barrels.
'Now, listen closely,' Greenda explained to her group of first-years. 'You must tap this barrel,' she placed her hand on the barrel two from the bottom and in the middle of the second row, 'not any other, and must tap it to the rhythm of the name Helga Hufflepuff.' Greenda smiled teasingly at Bagsy. 'Tap the wrong one and you'll get a sour surprise of vinegar.' With that she tapped out the rhythm on the lid of the barrel which Bagsy could tell was hollow from how it sounded. The barrel's lid fell forward on its hinge, forming a small set of stairs leading towards a dim hole. Greenda, unfazed, climbed through and disappeared into the darkness.
Bagsy delayed until she was unwillingly pushed forward by other eager students towards the passage way before forcing herself through the small entrance, hunching over. The earthy passage travelled upwards for a little until it opened out onto a room, Bagsy now able to stand up straight again.
Students eagerly moved about the place. The round room was filled with plants reaching up and hanging down, and with amber wood tables, chairs and benches cosied in warm fur blankets and knitted pillows. The room itself was decorated in the yellow and black colours of Hufflepuff and circular, wooden shelves housed old books, cacti, antique telescopes and cameras. On second glance Bagsy saw the cacti were dancing, and the hanging tendrils of ivy and ferns were brushing people's hair as they walked beneath them. Students eagerly gathered below, taking turns to get plaits or mohawks and laughing at the different results. The plants magically returned the students hair to normal on request, though one boy decided he liked his mohawk a lot, thank you very much.
Large, circular windows looked out over the grounds of Hogwarts. It was dark now but Bagsy heard some older students explaining that they overlooked a meadow, and that sometimes you could see student's shoes as they walked by.
Bagsy's first port of call was the round doors leading out of the main room, and away from the noisy crowd. She was about to reach one when a large hand landed on her shoulder and she turned and found herself looking at the dark black robes of Professor Blythurst. When he had arrived, she had no clue.
'Read this.' Blythurst handed Bagsy a piece of paper, written on it the words; Bagsy can use the room behind the armchair and ferns in the Hufflepuff common room. 'I think, Ms Beetlehorn, you'll find that door more useful than the others,' Blythurst said once Bagsy had finished reading, nodding at a small wooden door nestled behind a large, yellow armchair and hidden behind hanging ferns. Bagsy wouldn't have noticed it if he hadn't off pointed it out. Blythurst took the paper back from Bagsy.
'Oh,' was all she could say. Blythurst led her over, and away from the other students. In a low voice, he said, 'Your family requested you have a private room, and such arrangements were, very unusually, successful.' He let go of her shoulder and gestured at the circular door, whilst Bagsy puzzled at the idea that her parents had made any sort of request for her own wellbeing. She hadn't realised her parents were capable of it. 'Go on, I expect you'll want to get away from the noise and start unpacking.'
'Thank you, Mr Blithust.' Bagsy attempted his name poorly, feeling very small in the large man's presence.
Blythurst smiled an unsettling smile, his teeth uneven and yellow. 'It's Professor, and it's Blythurst, Ms Beetlehorn. You'll do well to remember that.' Without another word he turned and left.
Bagsy looked at the circular wooden door, that had iron decorations in the shape of badgers, and then turned to see how on earth a man Blythurst's size would manage the small passageway. Instead, Bagsy found he'd already disappeared, and she narrowed her eyes, curious as to how he'd vanished.
Tired of the noise and eager to see her room, she ducked behind the armchair and ferns and into her own private room. Bagsy could tell the room was a converted storage space; no wall was free of shelves, drawers or cupboards. The hexagonal, hardwood floor was large and furnished with a double bed, a spacious work bench and an old, creaky cupboard. Three round windows cut through the shelves high above Bagsy's head with soft, yellow curtains drawn over them. Bagsy's belongings had been neatly placed on her bed and she set straight to unpacking, taking extra care with her potions set.
Once she was done, she sat down on her bed in silence, alone, and thought miserably that she'd rather be in Slytherin.
